Communication is one of the biggest challenges in project management.
Its bad enough when a project manager has trouble communicating with the team that will be doing the project. But it can be down-right dangerous for a manager when there is a lack of clear communication with the project sponsor the person who navigated corporate politics to get the project approved.
The problem stems from not understanding what each person is looking for or unrealistically expecting the other party to speak your language. This can be aggravated by the project manager’s insistence on using only the project management tools which suite their needs, regardless of whether the project management solutions generate the kind of information the political sponsors of the project are looking for.
Read the rest of this post »
Hiro Nakamura from NBC’s show Heroes has done the truly remarkable. The man from Yamagato Industries has broken all rules in project management and set new boundaries. Sure he can move time with his mind, bend the space time continuum and teleport. But yesterday he did something even more remarkable.
He executed a project using a comic book as the project plan.
Most project managers plan projects using some form of project management software or a Microsoft Project like tool. Even those that don’t use any project management software will, at least, use a spreadsheet like MS Excel to list all their tasks and keep note of their status. (These can get pretty complicated -as complicated as some project management software, with a variety of Excel Macros and built-in MS Excel functions set to automatically track and calculate the overall health of their projects.)
Read the rest of this post »
Here is a rough translation of an internal memo to Hiro Nakamura (from NBC’s new television show Heroes). It is from the project management office of Yamagoto Industries.
While the PMO has been enthusiastically trying to recruit Hiro for a project management job, the memo points out two areas where Hiro needs to improve his project management skills.
These are lessons all project managers face.
Read the rest of this post »
