07/02/2014 by Brad Egeland Tags: missing leadership, project leadership, project leadership tips, signs that leadership is missing
Leadership, not just project management, is critical on all projects. Whether it comes just from the project manager – where it must be prevalent – or from others on the project team … leadership is very important. And by leadership, of course, I mean true leadership. Not somebody to lead meetings, produce status reports, update […]
06/25/2014 by Brad Egeland Tags: managing project conflicts, project conflict resolution, project management conflict types, project management conflicts
Conflict. A word we usually all try to avoid. Our regular project management work keeps us busy enough without trying to manage the various kinds of conflict that can arise on our projects. Conflicts between team members. Conflicts between our organization and a third party vendor. Conflicts between our organization and our customer. The list […]
06/10/2014 by Brad Egeland Tags: PM infrastructure, PM practice, project management benefits, project management strategic pluses
Most of us know – especially those of us in the project management world – that a solid PM practice that is truly running smoothly in an organization can bring great benefits to the company, the employees and, of course, the project customers. However, not everyone sees it and sometimes executives want to deny that […]
06/03/2014 by Brad Egeland Tags: learning moments in project management, project leadership, project lessons learned, project requirements
Turning it all around is what project management is all about right? The excitement, the adrenaline rush of jumping in and saving the day. Or saving your own project from near disaster and ending up with a favorable outcome. Well, most of us would rather not have all that excitement if we can avoid it. […]
05/27/2014 by Brad Egeland Tags: project deliverables, project requirements document, project sow, project statement of work, sow
Can one document make or break a project engagement? Seriously…we do lots of planning and lots of prep work, but no two projects are the same and some projects have certain documents and some don’t. What makes one document that much more important than another? For one thing, requirements are extremely important. I always say […]
05/21/2014 by Brad Egeland Tags: outside consultants for projects, project outsource, project outsourcing, should you outsource
Usually we want to do things on our own. It is the easiest thing to do, produces the least paperwork, requires the least amount of planning, and the least amount of legal interference (which most of us wish to avoid like the plague). It’s what we’re used to, it’s where our product and project expertise […]
05/14/2014 by Brad Egeland Tags: project authority problem, project authority responsibility, project manager problem
Sooner or later you’re going to run into this issue yourself if it hasn’t already presented itself as a problem on one of your engagements. You have a project, you have a team. You are ultimately responsible for the success of project and you are ultimately responsible for the work of the project team. You […]
05/07/2014 by Brad Egeland Tags: managing project resources, project resources, selecting the best resources for projects, top resources for projects
I’ve always been of the mindset that my project is the most important project, and I want the best resources I can get for each skill set. The best of the best to offer my project client…that should keep them satisfied. That should work, right? Wrong! And let me tell you why…at least why I […]
05/02/2014 by Brad Egeland Tags: project management best practices, project manager education, project manager roles
Project management isn’t all about just leading projects. I like to think that if I’m not leading different types of projects along the way and using those different experiences to become a better project manager and share those experiences with other PMs then I’m not really growing in this role. Nor am I increasing my […]
04/23/2014 by Brad Egeland Tags: contractor abandons project, how to handle a bad contractor, legal action against contractor, problems with contractors
In Part 1 of this rather unfortunate discussion concerning project contractors or consultants that bail on our engagements, I discussed my own unfortunate recent situation and began to look at ways we try to combat, mitigate, or avoid such situations. Certainly open and frequent communication can help pave the way to less eventful project manager-team […]