The Daily PM Blog
3 Ways to Not Succumb to Corporate Mob Mentality
April 12, 2013
Being near an angry mob is terrifying. You’re never sure what direction they will take nor what harm they could inflict. Did you know there are angry mobs that roam the halls of many of our companies? Find out what gets these angry mobs worked up and the steps you can take to quiet them down.
Do you remember the old movies with Dr. Frankenstein’s monster? He was the cobbled-together experiment that went terribly wrong. Things went so wrong that the whole town felt as if they needed to get involved. So, they assembled themselves and stormed Dr. Frankenstein’s abode!
Put yourself in Dr. Fr...
Do you Really Catch More Flies with Honey?
April 11, 2013
There are two extremes in the continuum of project management styles. One is to be merciless, so that resources don’t run all over you. The other is to be permissive, giving in to demands and allowing yourself to be taken advantage of. Neither approach is very good. There are pros and cons for each, as well as right and wrong times to use them. Let’s look at what they are.
There’s an old saying that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. I don’t know if that’s true or not. As a matter of fact, after spending way too much time Googling this aphorism, it seems people ar...
The Remote Control Project Manager
April 10, 2013
They days of the 9-5 office job are largely fading in the rear view mirror for the project management professional. We all work on different schedules and even locations. In spite of this huge shift, those who find themselves working remotely often are not prepared to be separated from the rest of the team. The following article will give you some insight into what you should, and should NOT do when you find yourself in this position.
In a recent article I asked the question, “Are you Present as a Project Manager Even When You’re Gone?” The gist of it was that a project manager’s prese...
First Steps as a Project Manager
April 9, 2013
Learn how to kick off your project and make sure that it will succeed with this brief project management training video about first steps as a project manager.
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Are You Present as a Project Manager Even When You’re Gone?
April 8, 2013
Do you sometimes feel that if you missed just one meeting with your team the entire project would derail? It may feel good that the team can’t get along without you, but that’s not healthy for the project. The following are some ways you can influence your team even if you’re not there in person.
Dirk was larger than life. He was a helicopter pilot in Kuwait during Desert Storm and helped evacuate a number of troops from life and death situations. He was 6 feet 4 inches tall and built like a rock. When you sat with him in his office, he would pull a set of weights out from under his desk...
Make the First Job Interview a 3-Dimensional Experience
April 5, 2013
It’s hard to convey an entire career on just a couple of pages of a resume. That’s why you need to bring your experience to life in the interview. The following eight tips will help you accomplish that and set yourself apart from other candidates.
A paper resume is about as two dimensional as it gets. Sure, it may be 8 ½ inches wide and 11 inches long, but it’s only 0.0038 inches thick. That’s a really thin platform on which to apply a bit of ink and expect to tell your story. You need to convey not only what you have done over the entire length of your career, but your potential goin...
The Worst Project Team Meeting Ever
April 4, 2013
Heave a big sigh – it’s time for the project team meeting. This weekly event is met with groans from the team members. No one likes sitting in a room for an hour with this project manager and everyone thinks that the time could be far better spend doing something else. Like working on the project, for example.
Team meetings don’t have to be awful, but many of them are! Here are some of the reasons why your project team meeting could be the worst ever – and what to do about it.
The Meeting Doesn’t Start on Time
You turn up as per the scheduled start time, and find that you are the onl...
Why you Should Baseline Your Plan
April 3, 2013
Looking through recipe books gives me great ideas about the kind of dinners I will cook during the following week. But when I try to make the recipes, they never turn out just like the picture in the book. That’s probably because I rarely have the right ingredients, so I make changes to the recipe as I go along! The end result tastes fine, but it doesn’t look like the picture of the food made by the professional chef.
The professional chef’s starting point – the recipe and the photo – is the baseline. That’s what you think you will achieve when you start to cook. What you get at th...
Managing Project Contractors
April 2, 2013
Watch this project management training video to learn about managing project contractors more effectively.
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How to Set Your Project Priorities
April 1, 2013
What are you working on today? I hope it is the stuff that is the highest priority for your company. If not, why not? It can be difficult to set project priorities, especially when you have lots of different projects across the organization delivering different things. Comparing them can be tricky. Equally, if you are working on several different projects and have some degree of flexibility with where you spend your time, have you thought about how you prioritize which one to do first?
It is normally the Project Management Office’s job to prioritize projects for the company overall. They wil...
