You have heard the comments from others, especially senior management. “Project management (PM) is simple blocking and tackling.” “All a PM has to do is work the plan.” Wow!! If it was that simple, the failure rate would not be…
Tag: BCNJ Member Blog Feed
Making a Good Presentation
Many people are troubled when they have to give a presentation in front of a large audience. It’s important to know that it’s normal to experience stage fright.Some presentations feel like magic and grab our attention. While enormous credit goes to…
The Interview Focus Is on Future, Not Past
Until about 1990, the conventional thinking was that if you did your job satisfactorily, you would keep it for many years to come. Several of my friends were AT&T employees in those days, and many of them had had seniority…
Developing the Plan
During a discussion with a colleague, the topic of the project schedule vs. the project plan came up. The first thing I did was thank my colleague for correctly stating that the tool we Project Managers (PM) use–MS Project–is the…
Do You Need to Backup Your Cloud-Stored Data?
Some organizations assume that because their enterprise data is already stored in “the cloud” that they do not need a separate backup solution for that data. That assumption is wrong. Cloud based solutions for data and application storage require the…
Are You Nervous before the Job Interview?
Most people are nervous before a job interview. And that’s normal. A job interview is nothing less than an oral exam. In most cases, it is very important because the outcome could change a person’s future, milieu, income, and so…
Is the Employer Always Right?
In this new, chaotic, and uncertain century, with its more and more minutely specialized occupations and skill sets and with nothing to do with the faltering economy, it’s not only human resources employees who might not be familiar with certain…
Lean Tools for Managers
“Lean” is a practice that considers the effort & cost of resources for any task, other than those that create value for the customer, to be wasteful. Those tasks are targets for elimination. While Lean principles originated in the manufacturing…
Are You Really Good at Job Interviewing?
Job interviewing is an act. Yes, you are the actor, and both sides know the rules: You, who are one of the candidates for the position, are doing your best to convince the interviewer you are the ideal candidate. The…
Getting project members motivated
One of the questions I hear the most from other Project Managers (PM) is how to get their project team members motivated to do the work they have been assigned. A PM usually works in a matrix organization, and that…