Project Strategy

Monday, 31 January 2011 00:00

Stress, It Adds Opportunity to the Job

Banging head on keyboard

It was a classical interview in all respects, except they kept asking, "Can you handle stress?" After while, I replied that on my last project gas mask training was a first-day requisite, meetings were routinely held in bomb shelters, there were written emergency evacuation plans, and uniformed men and women with M-16s were common sights on the city streets. That was stress. I should have known better. Stress comes from the unknown, the events in life for which we have no plans.

Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers

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Author: Geoffrey A. Moore
Publisher: HarperBusiness
Released: August 2006
Type: Softcover
Pages: 227
ISBN:978-0201835953

To be a great project manager, you need to understand business. Your job is applying change to improve an organization, you had better understand why some changes and some leaders can create a metric differ to a company.

Sunday, 10 October 2010 00:00

It Is All About Alignment, Not Expectations

Picture of mise en place

I have always enjoyed cooking and rarely thought of it as a chore, let alone a project; however, when my wife became ill, I became the household chef and had to learn a new way to cook. Every evening was a project with varying degrees of success. Eventually making multi-course meals from scratch became easier. I used to joke that cooking Chinese food was two hours of chopping fresh vegetables and ten minutes with three blazing woks.

Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive

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Author:Noah J. Goldstein Ph.D., Steve J. Martin, Robert B. Cialdini Ph.D.
Publisher: Free Press
Released: December 2009
Type: Softcover
Pages: 272
ISBN:978-0201835953

Project managers spend 90% of their time trying to persuade people to do something be it stakeholders, executives, end users, or the project team. They spend very little time learning how to do it better. Yes! gives you fifty ways to change your message and help you persuade anyone to do anything (well, almost). You can also get our excel spreadsheet that helps you focus on the right tools for what ever you are trying to do.

New York Times bestselling introduction of fifty scientifically proven techniques for increasing your persuasive powers in business and life.

Small changes can make a big difference in your powers of persuasion.

Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes

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Author:Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Released: February 2004
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 454
ISBN:978-0201835953

Projects build capabilities to meet corporate goals. If you are a CEO, you need to make sure your employees and vendors know what those goals are and how they fit in to the plan. If you are a project manager, you need to know the bounds of you project. If you are anywhere in between, you need to understand how all the pieces fit together and keep it all aligned.

The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals

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Author:Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, Jim Huling
Publisher: Free Press
Released: April 24, 2012
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 352
ISBN:978-0201835953

This is a non-project management book that discusses how to achieve results in the execution of a plan. The four disciplines are great change management tools that get results and keep people focused. Where it is valuable to a project manager is in its education on how to keep people focused on a goal. It can you used to help your team on short term progress or on driving your project's customer to focus on what they need to achieve success. If you plan to make the move from project management to any other operational mode--even to the PMO--this book gives a number of good tools.

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

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Author:Roger Fisher, William L. Ury
Publisher: Penguin Books
Released: May 2011
Type: Softcover
Pages: 240
ISBN:978-0201835953

One of the primary tasks of a project manager is to negotiate—negotiate scope, negotiate for resources, negotiate for money, negotiate end dates, etc.—there is almost nothing that a project manager has as a give. Even in your personal life, negotiation skills are essential for dealing with everything from your kids' bedtime, to the price of your next car. Understanding the art and science of negotiation is critical. This book, especially in conjunction with one of our classes, is a great way to get you down the road to improving you negotiation skills. Don't be fooled though, negotiation takes practice.

The Seven Arts of Change: Leading Business Transformation That Lasts

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Author:David Shaner
Publisher: Union Square Press
Released: November 2010
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 184
ISBN:978-0201835953

This book is currently under review, more details will be added when available

In my opinion, as a project manager, you cannot read too many books on handling change. Each gives you a different perspective on how to effectively deliver a project whose product is valuable. This is a lesser known book, but has a great perspective.

Many businesses try to change, but few succeed. At best, a few buzzwords and new reports become part of the company's structure. At worst, programs crash and burn, and the members of the organization become irreparably disillusioned with the revolving door of new-mission statements. According to David Shaner-a business consultant with a 100% success rate of change at companies including Duracell, Frito-Lay, Caesars Palace and Gillette-the problem is that those changes don't address either individuals or the corporate culture. They're only on the surface.

Tuesday, 14 July 2015 10:52

Lean Six Sigma For Service

Lean Six Sigma For Service

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Author:Michael George
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
Released: July 2003
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 300
ISBN:978-0201835953

If you are trying to implement a lean philosophy in a service industry (or just your projects), this book is a great resource. It describes what is needs and how to implement it. As a "desk resource" it at times repeats itself; however, that is great for reading sections at a time. There are a lot of tools that can be used by project managers to lean out their methodology.

Bring the advantages of Lean Six Sigma improvement out of manufacturing and into your services organization.

Thursday, 24 September 2015 12:16

Your CRM Implementation Is Going To Fail

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) implementations fail at an alarming rate. For the last fourteen years, numerous independent parties have come up with the same dismal statistics. In fact, your implementation probably will not meet your goals either. The graphic above does not bode well for anyone heading out on that journey. To be sure, configuring the software is significantly more difficult that it appears at first glance. As much as one wants to blame Salesforce, Microsoft, or some other software vendor, though, the trouble lies much closer to home.

For the astute onlookers it is easy to tell when the implementation is going the awry. It is the argument over who is going to drive the project—IT or Sales and Marketing. Unfortunately, these are the wrong people to have in the discussion.

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