Max's Musings
Short articles I have written from time to time.
- The Curse of Knowledge and Making Decisions
- How many buttons do you have on your TV remote and how many of them
do you understand? See how this relates to quality decision-making and your current project! - July 2008
- The Value of Project Management
- We didn't exactly write this one. Instead, Tom Mochal allowed us to quote
a very simple and lucid description he wrote a few months earlier. We just added
our comments - June 2008
- Identifying a Client's Project Sponsor
- I try to answer a visitor's question: "How do you identify a Client’s Sponsor,
whether internal or external, when one is not identified, is reluctant to come
forward, or is unwilling to take responsibility?" - May 2008
- A Little Bit of PMI History
- In a serious attempt at "decluttering", we came across our own forecast
for PMI, exactly two decades ago. Were we right? You be the judge - April 2008
- Change in Project Method Sparks Litigation
- New public transit line causes uninvited hardship to shopkeepers - March 2008
- Old Wine in New Bottles?
- A PRE-mortem before a post-mortem? Sounds like project risk management to
us - February 2008
- Oil Industry Leadership and the Price of Gas
- Oil industry chiefs may be on the defensive, but the problem is not that the
price of oil is too high, but rather that it is too low - January 2008
- Should Project Managers Retire?
- The place of elders in our community, respect for their knowledge and wisdom
and the data to wisdom hierarchy - December 2007
- Supercharged Brainstorming
- Five-step brainstorming may be the default approach, but now you can supercharge
your sessions with the Kishore Dharmarajan's Eight-step INNOVATE approach - November
2007
- Scope Changes, Good or Bad?
- How constructive opportunities switch to destructive interventions - October
2007
- The Duties of a Project Secretary
- A missing job description is explained - September 2007
- Managing Project Metrics
- A popular word these days, but what does it really mean and which are most
important? - August 2007
- Formatting Project Templates
- Why I provide "Issacons" and not Word templates for standard forms
(because I want you to think!) Instead, I offer some helpful tips
on formatting your own templates - July 2007
- Am I a Good Project Manager?
- A good question for any project manager to ask. This writer obviously is -
June 2007
- The Role of a Leader
- A recent email criticizing "leaders" generally, prompted my thoughts
about the project manager - May 2007
- Is the Project Manager's Job Really Any Different?
- A site visitor asks us whether the project manager's job is really any different
from a line manager. We think it is - April 2007
- Estimating Task Durations
- Harvey Levine thinks it's like catching fish. It's anybody's guess, but that's
not good enough - March 2007
- Project Start Date
- When does a project really start? Well apparently, it all depends . . . -
February 2007
- Career Change Decision: To Be or Not To Be a Project
Manger?
- Our thoughts on this tantalizing question - January 2007
- Planning and Construction - Dam Case Study
- A light-hearted case study from the environment somewhere in Ontario - December
2006
- Projects to Green Vancouver
- Bicycles versus cars in greening Vancouver, BC - November 2006
- Is Sustainable Development an Oxymoron?
- A tongue-in-cheek look at the implications of sustainable development in our
local area of Vancouver, BC, and the real problem facing the world's environment
- October 2006
- Taking Over an Existing Project: Things You Can Do
- Some useful tips - September 2006
- A Lesson in Simplicity - Case Study
- It's fun to poke fun at management but these examples are not so far from
reality, just not all on the same project as this is - August 2006
- PMBOK® Guide 2004 and PRINCE2™ 2005 Compared
- This month's Guest paper by Colin Bentley comparing PRINCE2™ (UK) and
the PMBOK® Guide (US) is a major contribution to this web site. We couldn't
help adding our own comments on the merits and shortcomings of both documents
- July 2006
- Contract Selection for Infrastructure versus
Software/Hardware
- We try to answer two more questions raised by readers: How do you outsource
management of multiple contracts? and How do you create a contract template for
software/hardware installation and training services? - June 2006
- Virtual Management and Cost or Time to Projects
- We try to answer two questions raised by readers: Can a project manager manage
a project remotely? and How much time should a project manager be allocating to
a project? - May 2006
- What is the Answer When You Don't Know the Question? (aka
Fiscal Budgeting for Project Portfolios)
- Each fiscal year organizations involved in IT project portfolios face a conundrum:
how many projects can they undertake and how much will each cost for budgeting
purposes when all they have is need statements. We present some ideas - April 2006
- "Groupthink", Good or Bad?
- A reader expresses his difficulty over dealing with groupthink and seeks our
opinion - March 2006
- The Way to Get Ahead
- We reflect on how a thirteen-year-old prediction by Dr. Martin Barnes has
come true that project management would explode into the corporate business world
- February 2006
- Project Vision: Yes or No?
- Does your project have a vision? A vision that everyone in your team is familiar
with, inspired by, and focused on? What is a "vision" anyway? - January 2006
- Process Groups and the Profession ö Part II
- In spite of people's claims, this article explains why project management
is a long way from being recognized as a true profession - December 2005
- Process Groups and the Profession ö Part I
- A persuasive argument for changing the labels of the so-called project management
process groups, a plea to stop perpetuating further confusion! - November 2005
- Project Management: An Ever-Changing Flux of Messy Situations?
- My observations on serious research by two authors who compare "hard"
and "soft" systems perspectives of project management - October 2005
- Best Practice: The Holy Grail of Project Management,
or Fallacious Argument?
- "Best Practice" is touted as the benchmark by which your project
should be judged, but how reliable is it really? - September 2005
- Methodologies: A Metaphor
- Just another word for design of project life span? Much more important than
that! Jason Charvat writes a whole book on Project Management Methodologies
- August 2005
- Project Management as a Professional Career
- Is project management really for you? Some helpful suggestions on this all-important
question in response to an email inquiry - July 2005
- Fixing Bad Projects
- Four main causes of failure and six practices designed to fix the underlying
causes for large projects in deep trouble - June 2005
- Do Trade Show Exhibits Count as Projects?
- My views prompted by one of a steady stream of inquiries. Some projects are
only projects if you decide to make them so and manage them as such - May 2005
- Value Proposition: Real Value or Muddled Math?
- Some time ago we received a beguiling sales pitch that did not bear close
examination. Nevertheless, it did raise important issues about the asset values
of the products we produce from our projects - April 2005
- Jellyfish and Tadpoles
- A somewhat irreverent look at two serious PM diagrams, and a short lesson
on the metamorphic life of a tadpole - March 2005
- Micro Managing and Two Cans of Beer
- A fun object lesson in project management - February 2005
- PMBoK, Order and Six-Sigma
- The Project Management Institute's Body of Knowledge has eight management
specialist areas. Have you ever considered their logical sequence? Todd Just raises
the issue together with the merits of six-sigma - January 2005
- A Question on Real-Life Contract Closure
- Barbara White and Dr. David Frame exchange thoughts on problems associated
with closing a contract - December 2004
- Where Do Projects Come From?
- Kevin Lines of Queensland, Australia, asks about problem solving and decision-making
particularly associated with project selection — and we try to answer it!
- November 2004
- An Interesting Exchange on Managing Software Development
Projects
- Joe Marasco and Max Wideman discuss Key Success Indicators as a vehicle for
control of technically challenging projects such as software development - September
2004
- An Exciting New Model of Project Management
- Who says project management never makes any progress? Joe Marasco picks up
on an article we wrote and publishes a ground-breaking paper about modeling project
management in IBM's premier software magazine. This musing provides a brief overview
- June 2004
- Projects, Politics and Process: Lesson Learned?
Large Projects and the 2010 Olympics
- A practical example of the importance of designing a sound project life span
and how not to start off a big project - May 2004
- Project Risk Management and Unexpected Outcomes
- Much has been written about project risks, yet relatively little seems to
have been written about unexpected outcomes. Here is an actual example - April
2004
- Those Sexy Triangles Again
- A revisit to Triangles, Sex and Simplicity.
This time I demonstrate the problem with graphics and, at last, have found the
perfect solution! - March 2004
- The Voyage of Discovery Project
- A personal example of why a traditional project management approach doesn't
work - February 2004
- The Top 10 Ways Software Projects are Different
- James Bullock's thoughtful comments arose out of a question posed to the NewGrange
discussion list; Max responds - January 2004
- Triangles, Sex and Simplicity
- Quality should be the reason to bury that wretched triangle once and for all
in favor of a square, but we rather doubt it will - December 2003
- Learning from NASA
- Every project should have adequate contingency or risk management funds in
its budget but this is the antithesis of general management practice - November
2003
- A Question of Attitude
- Given the aggressive competition between project management consultants, "inventing"
new project management techniques should not come as a surprise - October 2003
- Project Lessons Learned?
- Twelve years after Desert Storm it seems pertinent to ask: Was it really such
a success? And what lessons have we really learned from it? - September 2003
- Project Management as a Profession: Lost Vision, Take-over
or New Direction?
- A decade has passed since "The O&M Study" was presented to the Project Management
Institute. Much has changed since then. The question is: Is it for the better?
You decide. - August 2003
- Two into One Won't Go
- Fresh water supply is a problem, and so are big water supply projects - December
2002
- The Case for a Software Architect's Profession
- The number of software projects outstrips those in construction, yet results
are disappointing. Is it the fault of project management or of technology management?
- January 2003
- Defining Requirements
- Maybe we should start rethinking our systems approach to project management
and begin presenting a better methodology - October 2002
- Satisfying Requirements (software project managers
beware!)
- Three short anecdotes to give software leaders pause for thought - November
2002
- Consensus versus Consent
- How does a team reach agreement on contentious issues? - September 2002
- What does a PM do?
- You would think that by now the answer is well established, but apparently
not - August 2002
- What's in a Name?
- Considering the vital part that projects play in our modern society today,
you would have thought that by now a clear definition would have emerged - June
2002 (updated)
- Project Management, PMBoK and Order
- It seems that the thoughtful observations of Philip Nunn some fifteen years
ago constitute a concept too erudite to be given serious consideration - even
today - February 2002 (updated)
- A New Project Management Standard?
- Rumor has it that work has started on an update of PMBoK to be published in
2005 - December 2001 (updated)
- Why we added a Site Map - and why it is the way it is
- Our web site now contains a considerable amount of useful reference material.
The time had come for some sort of indexing, but on what basis? - October 2002
- September Eleven: All else pales by comparison
- After all the pontification is over we must ask ourselves the serious question
of what to do? - August 2002
- When is a project not a project?
- How many projects are there that, for the team members, are not projects at
all, but just regular operational routine? - July 2002
- Will They Never Learn?
- Not that we have anything against five phases but we believe the most fundamental
principle behind project management is two periods - October 2001
- Is Project Teamwork Overblown?
- By all means develop a project plan but the object of the exercise is not
to hold a tea party but to get an item of work delivered! - September 2001
- Licensing Project Managers: Good or Bad Idea?
- The subject of licensing or certification of project managers warrants much
discussion - August 2001
- Ethics and Sustainable Development Initiatives in Construction
- What can we do given our current "political-correctness" constraints
- June 2001
- The Biggest Project of All
- Now that the short-lived dust has settled over the demise of the Kyoto Accord
we can say that it should have come as no surprise to anyone - June 2001
- A Case for Risk Management
- A gaping hole suddenly appeared and continued to enlarge for several days;
arguably the worst civil engineering disaster in the UK in the last quarter century
- May 2001
- Standards for Very Large Projects
- IPMA and PMI have adopted different standards; which do you use? - April 2001
- Real Progress
- Our title could be referring to progress in any field, but we are focusing
here on real progress in the understanding of the PM discipline - March 2001
- Is the WBS war about to break out again?
- Should a Work Breakdown Structure decomposition be in terms of the activities
of the project or of its deliverables? - December 2000
- Is the Approach to Scientific Development Appropriate
for Project Management?
- A position paper that I presented to the Education Track of the Project Management
Institute - 1994
- Project Life Cycle – One Size Fits All
- What PLC is appropriate? Can they be standardized? And is there one that fits
all projects? - October 2000
- People, Work and Projects around the World
- For those of us who enjoy a 'western' life style wherever we may live, we
should be thankful - and mindful of the excessive waste we create - September
2000
- Practice versus Theory
- What is the origin of project management and where is its theoretical foundation?
- July 2000
- Getting Top Management on Side
- Project management is found in almost all industries, but this expansion has
not come without its difficulties - June 2000
- Communication: The Project Life Blood
- Without people nothing gets done and without communication nobody knows what
to do - May 2000
- What Price Professionalism?
- Apparently, a well-known project management association has seen fit to sue
some of its own most productive members - February 2000
- Major PM Associations contemplate Licensing of Project
Managers
- Exactly thirty years ago I wrote this article but upon reviewing its content
recently I might just as well have been writing today.
- Critical Questions from an Overseas Web-site Visitor
- Q&A with an overseas visitor to our web site - January 2000
- Professional Associations and the Balance of Power
- There is strength in numbers. Associations and not-for-profit associations
are formed by groups seeking to gain support for their particular practices by
collective action - August 2000
- Project Management Globalization – Two Points
of View?
- Only freedom of intellectual thought and expression will benefit professional
advancement and enable technical progress to be made - March 2000
- On Project Success and Failure
- Lessons learned, starting as a small boy - February 2001
- Project Management for the New Millennium
- Project management is a discipline. There is a lot of work to be done before
we can call ourselves a profession - January 2000
- Risk: Failure or Opportunity?
- A classic project failure that became a huge success, lasting for centuries
- December 1999
- Lacking in Principles?
- Disagreement and disarray in project management. What is needed is a set of
basic project management principles providing a universal reference baseline -
November 1999
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