Most projects operate in some kind of matrixed environment. Project managers rarely have direct line management responsibility for all, if any, of the people on the project team. So how can we best get things done when we don’t control the team? In this article, I’ll explain what matrix management is and why it creates…
Dr Eliyahu Goldratt, the management expert who developed Critical Chain project management, has passed away. Dr Goldratt was the author of The Goal, which has sold over 13 million copies since publication in 1984. He also wrote Critical Chain. His theories are still influential – he’s quoted in The Project Management Answer Book by Jeff…
I’m delighted to announce that the APM’s youngest ever female fellow has been appointed and her name is… Elizabeth Harrin. – Penny Pullan, CoChair, WiPM SIG I have had the results from my application for Fellowship of the Association for Project Management – and I’m now a Fellow! (Thanks to Brendan for the title of…
Jovia Nierenberg is Chief Operating Officer at Experience in Software. That’s the company behind the new project management tool Webplanner. She’s only 23. I asked her about her life as a COO, what’s next for Webplanner and her advice for young women wanting to work in project management. Jovia, how did you end up being…
Imagine working in a company with 10,000 people. You’re working on a secret project. You don’t know your colleagues from the next room. You don’t know what the overall project objectives are. You don’t know who else is on the project team and you can’t tell anyone what you’re working on. All you know is…
Last week I wrote about what the PMI Educational Foundation does. One of the missions of PMIEF is to build project management skills in young people and teachers, better equipping students for the future. How exactly does it do that? At PMI’s EMEA Leadership Institute Meeting in Dublin in 2011, two volunteers spoke about their…
If you’ve been around projects for any length of time you have probably come across the Project Management Institute. You might even have heard of PMIEF: the PMI Educational Foundation. But what does it actually do? I thought it mainly sponsored research, but it turns out I was wrong. PMIEF’s Chair, John Rickards, gave a…
In case you’ve been living under a rock, today’s the day that Prince William of Wales marries Catherine Middleton, and it feels like London has been turned into one big Union Jack. I planned my wedding in Microsoft Project, and I’m not the only project manager who considered their big day worthy of proper planning….
Over 75% of you feel that social media tools provide the opportunity to improve the way you manage projects, according to this year’s Social Media in a Project Environment survey. The 2011 results show how project managers around the world are using Collaboration Tools to manage projects and lead teams. There was lots of interest…
This is a guest post by Kathlika Thomas, head writer for the IT Project Blog. Impromptu project meetings are easy enough to schedule and can be useful, especially for getting quick responses from a client or from a technical resource when needed. However, ad hoc sessions can be time wasters, too. More often than not, the wrong people…
In 2011 I went to Paris to speak at PMI’s Ile de France chapter. The other speaker that evening was Christophe Campana, one of the founders of consulting company Campana & Schott. He told me how his company was changing its recruitment adverts in an effort to attract more female applicants. Currently only about 10%…
None of my projects have a quality plan, but my teams still deliver quality projects. You don’t need them either when you follow this advice.