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Project management as a whole has paralleled somewhat the changes we have witnessed in photography. Project management also has been a skill for the few, with the barrier to entry being quite high. However, the barriers are being reduced and the chance for abandoning “point and shoot” project management is here! Read more »

I invite all project management students, professionals, and educators who have a passion for project management to write on pmStudent. Just click “Register” on the right side, and you will automatically be able to start submitting posts! Read more »

Kimberly Wiefling had an article today on Projects@Work (www.projectsatwork.com) giving us a taste of some hard-learned lessons when dealing with project sponsors.
I’ve always loved Kimberly’s sense of humor and highly recommend just about anything she’s written. This is a great example of education a la entertainment. Check out her book too, you can [...] Read more »

Today I was trying to think of ways to integrate some of the methods and benefits of Critical Chain project management into the traditional PM methodology most companies use. I wanted to pick out one element of CC that would potentially yield the most benefit without much, if any, additional overhead to the project [...] Read more »

I came across this interesting video presentation today and wanted to share. It’s only about 2 minutes long, and is methodcorp.com’s identification of key milestones on the road to a successful project management career.
I especially like milestone 5, which is the silver lining side of when most fairly experienced project managers start complaining that [...] Read more »

This point consists of two elements as I see it. (1) Walk the talk, and (2) hold systems accountable.
Walk the Talk
Slogans are phony. The word slogan has a connotation of something that is not real. It sounds like an advertisement, and not something you can really trust in. In a project management organization, it [...] Read more »

In Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence, Evans and Lindsay point to 5 distinct perspectives when defining quality. They are transcendent, product-based, user-based, value-based, and manufacturing-based. The authors discuss the topic in terms of defining quality within organizations and products. I see parallels to defining quality when running projects.

Transcendent Quality
This perspective makes a judgment as [...] Read more »

I wanted to have a great new article ready for today’s post, but I am applying for scholarships through PMI and so had to put some effort into the required essays.
So, today will be a lazy post on my part. Here is an interesting video I found that Bas put out back in 2004. [...] Read more »

Have you ever let someone down even though you had tried your best and thought you were doing what they wanted? Few things are frustrating as putting forth tons of effort only to find out you were working on the wrong things.
Expectations are such an essential and common component of human relationships and communication [...] Read more »

Just wanted to let everyone know that there will be a short posting hiatus due to the birth of my second child today. His name is Draven Alexander Nankivel, and it will probably close or into March before normal posting continues.
Thanks!
Josh Nankivel Read more »

I posted the response below to a post about project management podcasts on this project blog, and wanted to share. I especially want to give a shout out to Dina and Cornelius, and any other experienced project managers that have been contemplating a podcast or even a new blog. I think it [...] Read more »

I responded to a question on the PMI member forums that I wanted to share:
Subject: Critical Chain Project Management
Does anyone have experience with this PM approach/toolset. I have run across some people proclaiming it as the savior of project management (unfortunately, the biggest proponent I met seemed to think that a Project Plan is [...] Read more »

I had a discussion tonight with my great friend Chad that got my brain spinning again about Critical Chain and EVM. My notes are not available right now for me to reference, but I wanted to throw out some of the major concepts and challenges I’ve run into thus far.
First, the question is why [...] Read more »