Project Shrink

Sometimes problems in our teams occur. Sometimes our natural tendency is to increase our grip, be more present, making sure everyone is there and knows what to do. Communicate to the max, even if it is just through the “two cans with the string” of virtual communication. We’ll talk to people, again and again.

This is a difficult one. I seem to have two conflicting opinions. Yesterday Derek Huether explained in a great post how he relates agile approaches in terms of the PMBOK to get acceptance from stakeholders: “I would propose that you make sure you can communicate with stakeholders in a language they understand. If you start [...]

In case you’re really, really wondering where the quote “Don’t look at me …” is coming from … I’m shy. You got to love Tom Peters. This management Uber-Guru is passionate when it comes to the topic of leadership, organizations and, of course, management. The co-author of the 80s-classic “In Search Of Excellence” published a [...]

The only way I know to get such a complex task done in a short period of time under these circumstances is by means of culture.

Is this the first in a series? Don’t know. But it is the first 30-minute session. Date: April 12 2010 Time: Eastern: 2pm, Pacific: 11am, GMT: 7pm, CET: 8pm Location: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-project-shrink The number one argument I hear why professionals are not engaging in social media: “I have nothing to say.” or it’s twin “I don’t [...]

Darren Rowse is an Internet celebrity. He is a full time blogger. He is making a good living from his blog ProBlogger.net. This Australian new media role model is writing about “how to make money from a blog”. He is talking about a dream some people have. Not necessarily a vision of spending your days [...]

Why do you think a certain person is more “trustworthiness” over another person? This is a relevant question. Not only when dealing with television doctors but also when operating on the Internet, or working with people you have never met.

You learn a lot when you are trying to combine methods and approaches. Yes, we talked about it before: mashups. That is why I like this presentation by Lasse Koskela performed at Oredev a little over a month ago. “… teams are dropping Scrum to go Kanban. We see good ideas in all of these [...]

Don’t you hate a 3000 page method description with in the footnote: “Oh yeah, by the way, you need to tailor this to the situation. You don’t need everything. Sort of. Kinda. We guess.” Hate it. Hate it. People put labels on methods. They give it a name. We need to categorize everything just to [...]

A project has its own culture. This culture can be very different from the organization it is operating in. How do you make sure the project culture isn’t crushed by the larger organizations’ culture? And how do you make sure that project team members are still welcome in the organization when the project is done? [...]