A huge amount has been written about the role of project managers in, uh, project management – makes sense, right? A lot less has been written about the vitally important role of the project sponsor. That’s a trifle odd, seeing as in theory they are the most important person in the project – they are … Read more
Why do we still have project managers? Hasn’t their time been and gone? That’s not to say that project management isn’t important, but do we really need a specific role for it anymore? Projects are Business As Usual For many organisations, continual projects are the new normal. Often the same team will carry on from … Read more
Project management is all about making sure we have better projects. Sometimes a better project is one that delivers what is needed on time and on budget. (Or earlier and cheaper.) Sometimes the only thing that could make a project better is to stop it, so the business doesn’t waste any more money on something … Read more
As I mentioned last time, the company that looks after PRINCE2 for the UK Government, the APM Group, has announced it will launch a new PRINCE2 qualification on 30th January (next Monday). This new qualification will be called PRINCE2 Professional. I’ve written before about my mixed feelings about the attempts to professionalise project management (using … Read more
A quick word on why networking (the people kind, not the computer kind…) is important to project managers. Building a team With every project, you will have new team members and stakeholders to talk to, to bring onboard, and to keep involved. In essence, you need to build a new network for every project. This … Read more
It’s the people we work with who get projects done, but sometimes we don’t act like it. When people talk about project management, a lot of the time they only seem to focus on the easy bits – the processes, procedures and methodologies. I don’t mean that these are simple to do, but they can … Read more
Project management is about creating change. All projects invole some sort of change, a change that will be beneficial to the organisation running the project. That’s why we have to be comfortable with change. Embracing change is one of the ways that project management is different from other sorts of management. In a business as … Read more
Recently, I wrote about a preliminary study that had been done attempting to compare the value of various project management qualifications. I pointed out that, at least in part, it seemed to comparing apples with oranges, in that one qualification considered (PRINCE2) doesn’t try to sell itself as a general project management qualification, but specifically … Read more
Last time, I talked about my hardest project, the production of Understanding Project Management. The work was hard, but so far feedback on the sneak preview has been good. The whole process has also given me a new insight into the difficulties faced by our team members. If they are too personally invested into what … Read more
