PMcrunch

Deciding takes some muscle. Developing those muscles takes practice – and the right kind of practice. Making decisions is tough, and when I think about it, a couple of things stand out as all important to me – and one is PRIORITIZATION.

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One of the most profound and ubiquitous management concepts over the past 30 years is “systems thinking”. Systems thinking is all around us. One example is that project management has in essence been “systematized” by the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Guide!

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Often it is hard to decide to what to do first, or what to do next. In fact, in my experience, it is often easier to make such decisions on large projects than smaller projects. The Theory of Constraints is a neat concept that can help.

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I just heard a discussion led by a Duke University economics professor (sorry, I didn’t get his name) who had some interesting points to make about things being for free or being for money. He draws some very interesting conclusions that might be helpful to many of us on our projects.

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I recently read a foreign post where somebody asked if project management was good preparation for the job of CEO. There were a variety of comments most of which I find somewhat discouraging saying that, [tag-tec]project management[/tag-tec] was inadequate preparation for a CEO position and that CEO positions involve a lot of different skills. While arguably these things are true, I think that we can take a positive take on that question and ask “What would differentiate a project manager who might on the CEO track from one who is not?”

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As a program or project manager, one must keep an eye on both the near term and long term.  Today, under tough economic conditions, we typically turn to more near-term thinking because the focus needs to be first on survival before considering future plans.  We need to be careful however to not take this near-term thinking too [...]

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Both technology and the environment have always fascinated me.  Together they make quite an interesting combination.  Add financial viability to this cocktail and you have a real winner!  That is what clean technology is all about!

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In these challenging times, so many of our projects and programs are more challenging than usual. We are called upon to make tough decisions to solve difficult problems and to squeeze more out of every resource we have. How we face these challenges has more to do with our approach and attitude than anything else.

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Many project management positions are just that — positions managing projects. However, many other positions seemingly in project management are much more positions in programmatics. They involve tracking, reporting, working with metrics, and passing information on to decision makers. While, often, there is a need for these functions, there, often, also is not.

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In today’s economy, managers of all kinds are under pressure to right-size their businesses or business units. With the contraction of the economy, sales decreases trigger the need for rethinking, resizing, and reshaping throughout any organization. Projects and programs are no different. Let’s take a look.

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