Portfolio Management: Lamborghini Body on a Plymouth Horizon Chassis

Having attempted rolling out project portfolio management at several organizations I can state with confidence that the portfolio management process fails to deliver on its promise to streamline an organization’s project pipeline and provide high value. However, it is not the fault of the portfolio management process. Rather, I have found that the fault resides primarily with how organizations are structured (refer to a prior blog post titled Portfolio Management: Is Modern Management Practice Compatible?). Another major issue is a lack of education and understanding of portfolio, program, and project management at the upper management level (think C-suite). It’s easy... Read More»

Project Safety

HSSE - What’s That? HSSE stands for Health, Safety, Security, and Environment. In the old days, it was one of the issues that people had a tendency to let slide. The safety was a concern but health, security and environment were passing interests. Nowadays these are all important issues. They have to be addressed on your projects and you need to have funding to cover them. Companies vary on how serious they treat HSSE so you should be prepared for every eventually. I have worked across several industries and it seems as the liability and risk of death or injury... Read More»

7 Things a Project Manager Should NOT Be Doing

There is no shortage of information on the activity, processes, and tasks that project managers should be performing. It is more difficult to find information on those activities project managers should not be doing. Add value by NOT doing these 7 things. Read More»

Was This Project A Success or Not?

Working The Markets In this article I want to tell you about a project I managed that, depending on your viewpoint, was either a success or a failure. The project was to build a medium density fiberboard (MDF) plant using scrap lumber. If you think of building a house, there all manner of small waste pieces of 2 x 4's etc, that go to landfill or some other use. This is the scrap we were looking for. This meant the plant had to be near a large population area. The background of the owners of the plant was all financial.... Read More»

Returning to the Blogosphere

Good day out there to everyone in the blogiverse. I've been away far too long but I've had some very hectic and busy months working with a few organizations to transform their project, program and portfolio management operations. I've been doing this for quite a few years now and first started while I was working for the IBM Corporation from 1991 to 1993, then again at IBM from 1998 to 2004. My recent engagements have focused on program management in the federal government and several large private sector companies. The parallels these days are amazing. Now I have enough free... Read More»

Project Profitability & Cash Flow

In this article I want to talk about project profitability and financial cash flow. This is not the monthly cash flow number you have to report to management, but the overall project financial cash flow and how it fits in with the capital budget and project profitability. The capital budget is a corporate plan outlining the planned expenditures for fixed assets. Capital budgeting is the process used by a plant to analyze projects and decide whether or not they should be in the capital budget. In the capital budgeting process, the cost of a project must be developed. The project... Read More»

The Criticality of Common, Concrete Language

I have recently joined a company that is in its Project Management infancy, and I have come on board to assist in creating a PMO with all of the bells and whistles that will work for the organization. The company works in providing online software programs, and has been experiencing explosive growth over the last few years, which has opened up the need for structured Project Management within the organization. Putting in this structure offers a huge opportunity for improvement, but realistically is an uphill battle climbing a very steep mountain. I am always glad to see when an organization... Read More»

Hiring Better Than You

The current environment levies huge taxes on any leader. The economy is forcing business model changes. Technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, at once increasing and confusing options. Digital marketing and social media are changing the way you create an image and how it is perceived by customers, suppliers and competitors. No leader can stay in front of all that by him/herself. Skilled employees can help you to navigate the turbulence without losing momentum. I had been out of the mainstream of systems management for a few years when I joined a major OEM to lead their systems management... Read More»

"Manage That Pipeline!"

OK, so for those of you that manage the Project pipeline, I'm sure that many if not most of you have experienced those Charters that don't get approved, or die. The documentation gets completed, it goes to the powers that be, but somehow even though it doesn't get an OK2GO, it doesn't die either. It seems to perpetually stay on hold, but it keeps on getting brought up during the Steering Committee meetings, and six months or a year after its initial pitch, it is decided that the documentation should be reviewed, updated and reviewed again by the team for... Read More»

Empathic Project Management

Empathy is the ability to put one's self in the shoes of another and to identify with what the other person is feeling. Meaningful human relationships are based on empathy, which is built through demonstrating vulnerability. By empathizing with another individual you are demonstrating your willingness to connect with someone on a basic human level. Perhaps more than any other, the act of showing empathy for another person in the workplace has the power to transform interpersonal relationships and increase understanding. The reality of today's workplace does not necessarily make it easy for managers to practice empathy. A significant amount... Read More»