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Depending on if the neighbor kids are watching and cheering him on, a boy might feel differently about how safe it is to jump off the roof and into a swimming pool. Being able to keep a clear head in these situations is kind of vital. In a post for Voices on Project Management, Mario Trentim provides a quick reminder to keep your objectivity when it comes to risk. The Deep End of Risk Objective ...

A combination of imagination and good intuition can help predict the future without consulting tarot cards or a DeLorean. This can be a pretty great thing when measures like lag indicators are not cutting it. In a post for the Project Risk Coach, Harry Hall discusses how to use key risk indicators (KRIs) to get a better hold on the future. Glimpses of the Future Hall begins by explaining what a key risk indicator is ...

CEOs do not have enough time to know everything about the business, but they need to make time to learn a little of everything. This is especially true where technology is concerned in today’s society. In an article for CIO UK, Pat Brans highlights three essentials CEOs should learn from their CIO: A basic understanding of IT Business transformation and change management Cost-cutting and supplier management Chief of Information Indeed As the common refrains goes, ...

When you delegate work to those beneath you, you are still in a sense responsible for the outcome. The same can be said of the person to whom you report. In this way, a chain of responsibility is created—a chain of nervous people worried about results. In an article for Harvard Business Review, Niko Canner and Ethan Bernstein explain how technology is exacerbating this issue, and how micromanagement can be avoided. The Disease of Control ...

Job security is important. Nobody ever wants to worry about where their next bank deposit will come from. One of the most direct ways you might seek to ensure your job security is through making your boss happy. But no matter how this decision is viewed, the underlying logic is fundamentally flawed. If you treat making your boss happy as an end goal in itself, you are jeopardizing your career. The Motivation to Please Getting ...

NFL games are expensive, nobody is happy about their concussions-ruining-lives issue, and TVs are super high-quality now. These are high barriers for the NFL to overcome in keeping people physically attending games, yet they are doing it. In an article for ZDNet, Jason Hiner extracts three lessons from the NFL’s digital transformation practices that we can be mindful of in our own situations: Stay out in front of demographic changes. Empower your customers with data. ...

IT leaders’ free time is stretched thin like cookie dough, except not in a delicious way. It can be tempting to cast aside meetings with individual subordinates in order to focus on other things. In an article for TechRepublic, Ant Pruitt lists three reasons why not to avoid these meetings: They help leaders understand what staff members regularly handle. The meeting environment is loose. Meetings are intimate. An A-B Conversation To get specific, the sorts ...

Recently, “value proposition” has burst on the scene as a hot new buzzword topic of articles, speeches, and webinars. Ones I’ve seen seem to present pretty similar messages, with some good advice points yet ultimately still not getting it right. Despite saying value propositions should focus on the customer, the approaches I’ve seen pay lip service to but actually miss the customer view. They fail to realize that value propositions should reflect true customer value ...

During a recent service management simulation activity, I was reminded of the value of perspective on roles that we do not participate in on a daily basis. It was the next morning then that a manager had complained about some roadblocks she was experiencing. When I asked her what they were, she said it was someone else’s concern. I always like to operate under the guise that if you are not part of the solution, ...

Self-service is great when the end-users of the thing actually like what IT delivers them. Achieving this requires more thought that one might expect. In a post at his blog, Joe the IT Guy shares eight tips for IT to get started with self-service: Learn from the mistakes of failed self-service initiatives. Understand what self-service is. Think of self-service as a capability rather than a technology. Get meticulous about self-service project scope. Don’t do self-service ...

Are you the greatest project manager who ever lived? Are they currently erecting a statue of you in the break room? Then consider passing that genius on through mentoring. In a post for the Association for Project Management, Matthew Channell shares five tips for establishing a system of mentoring project professionals: Have a clear purpose. Mentors should be willing and properly trained. Mentees should be properly briefed. Mentors and mentees must match. A defined exit ...

Project reviews are like customs agents, except that project reviews will not take away your contraband wheel of cheese. In a post for the PM Perspectives Blog, Elizabeth Harrin discusses the merits of five types of review. Then she examines the feasibility of implanting them into your immediate project. Reviews in Review First up are standard, informal peer reviews. These are not reviews of peers, but rather reviews by peers of the current state of ...

Seasoned project managers guide their teams deftly to success. Developing the ability to manage people higher up the food chain might require some extra seasoning though. In a post at his blog, management mentor Doug Thorpe shares four basic tips to rein in the people who do not answer to the project manager, particularly the boss: Never have a problem without a solution. Do for them what you would want done to you. Drive better ...

Jonathan Long writes for Entrepreneur with time-saving tips for proactive souls. For instance, he says to maintain a to-do list, and if any tasks on it sound especially unappealing, you should do them first. Otherwise, you will dwell on those awful tasks and it will distract from the other work you are doing. Bite the bullet and get it out of the way early. Adopt that same attitude with any problems that arise—when you spot ...

Some part of you instinctively knows when you are wasting time or procrastinating. In an article for NBC Today, Stuart Levine believes you can do better. He says in short-term and long-term scales that you should drive persistently toward your goals with focus. Whatever the task is, whether it is daunting or trivial, just get started on it. Beyond that, one particularly good tip he has is to make effective use of “Got it”: When ...