Project Shrink

Photography by Kyknoord. Wild Success in 2008 through Optimism and High Self-esteem “Unrealistic optimism and high self-esteem are key factors in individual and team success. However the project management environment isnt exactly brimming with unbridled optimism and positive reinforcement. Quite the opposite. Many projects are highly challenging, some are carried out in unsupportive environments, and [...]

In the previous post I used a picture of myself leaving the medina of Fes, Morocco through the gate. For me, this old city is a great illustration of human complexity. When discussing abstract concepts like networks of humans, complex adaptive systems and their fractal nature (a society is a large organization, an organization is [...]

Click here for an explanation of this image (entrance of the medina of Fes, Morocco). We are currently in the era of agile methodologies. Before that we had our plan driven approaches. Software development had its structured design and its object oriented design. I am not suggesting that they are all the identical, this is [...]

How are people coordinating work when there is no central control? You might read about all this self-organizing, no-command, treehugging teams, but you just keep on wondering how this can work? Ted.com brings us again a great presentation that provides us with the answer to how ants do exactly this. Watch it, and watch it [...]

Photography: Sylt August by knudsburg With large groups and a lot of time pressure you don’t always spend enough effort in communicating the overall perspective of the project. Too bad, because emphasizing the “bigger picture” helps stakeholders to keep in line and, if done properly, enhance motivation among the team (they wanna be part of [...]

Earlier this month Ted.com published a presentation by Howard Rheingold called “Way-New Collaboration“. He talks about how the old paradigm of command-control is being replaced by Way-New Collaboration. He connects his story with social dilemma’s like Prisoners Dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons. This is the best presentation I’ve seen that is telling the story [...]

You really have to check this out: LiquidPlanner.com. If there is a playground for project management software, this is the cool kid to hang out with. It is Web 2.0, it is cool, it is innovative and it is just what our profession is looking for. Look at their site to see what I am [...]

Tiger Teams vs. Agile Project Management Practices “Often times when introducing some of the basic agile project management practices to new teams (for example, the daily standup) some of the more experienced (ok, older) team members comment on the fact that these techniques look a lot like the techniques they used in the past when [...]

By Ali Anani and Bas de Baar The fish pond represents a complex ecosystem. Being confined in space, a fish pond allows for the observation of what goes inside it. The fish is disturbed if predators are present in the pond or if they are stressed by the presence of parasites, lack of Oxygen or [...]

People are talking about it. I have said myself in my monthly column: “Personally I am very thrilled to have tools available that can express uncertainties in planning (e.g. LiquidPlanner.com). The trick is to provide range estimations, for example. Instead of stating that something is finished on date A, you provide a range, between date [...]