Signs your Project is Failing

One of the traits of the best project managers is a seemingly innate ability to spot the signs of a troubled project. Sometimes the signs are obvious, but at that point it’s often too late to save a project without a major intervention. Here are some tricks to use to spot trouble early: Check your work One of the best tests of a project’s true status is performing a demonstration of the end product. Some of the most nefarious failed projects looked perfectly fine from a management perspective: deliverables were getting delivered, stakeholders were happy, teams were buzzing with activity—but the core objectives of the project were not being delivered. Staging regular demonstrations provides a great way to check the status of the final output, and nearly anyone can readily identify whether the prototype is where it should be or miles away from the final objective. It’s difficult to fake progress, and...

The painful truth about today’s economic system

“To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to leave the world a better place, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded”. (Ralph Waldo Emerson). A close friend of mine sent me this quote and I felt I wanted to share it with everyone. Why is it that, although we know that this is what makes us happy and creates satisfaction, we still search for short-term monetary success that just creates the opposite? Why is it that, most of the day, I’m working to create growth for our shareholders who already have more money in the bank than they need? Market conditions have become extremely tough; competition is fierce and growth pressure is ever increasing. Can infinite growth be achieved? If growth is the measure of success, does it mean that we have...

Contextual Task Management

Some of the best project managers seem to have an uncanny sense of what needs to be completed by whom. If you sit in a meeting with these types, they instantly recall what activities those in the room are performing, what questions need answering, and what next steps are required. Whether interacting with individuals or teams, they’re always aware of what needs to be done in that particular environment. While project planning is second nature to most PMs, many miss out on a critical element of consideration for each task: its context. Context is occasionally the same as the person assigned a particular task, but more often it’s the environment where a task must be completed. By organizing tasks and project elements in this manner, you can quickly reflect on your current environment, and gather the tasks relevant to that environment. If you’re having a meeting with a particular team, you can...

The end of the western middle class?

The western countries have lately experienced a tougher economic climate where we’ve among other things seen increasing differences in wages. You can find high paid jobs which require a lot of qualifications and experience and very low paid jobs that people in the west are not interested in!? There are less and less jobs in the middle. Another interesting trend is that we haven’t seen any creation of new jobs even after economical crisis. According to economical theories the increase and recovery of GNP will also lead to new jobs. This has not been the case in the west. These two factors have lead to an intense debate in the Anglo-Saxon countries where the question up for debate is if we in the west will see the same development for our service jobs as we have seen for our industry jobs. Our industry jobs have moved to other parts of...

Projectplace – The Next Generation