TheBlueShirt

• What is the most common (unsolved) problem in IT project management? | LinkedIn Answers | LinkedIn
  Interesting discussion by project managers. "As the saying goes, you can't improve what you can't measure."
  "Poor up-front planning
  If you're going to be good at project management, you have to understand that the UP-FRONT PLANNING process has value. You need to know that if you plan the project well (in other words, if you know what you're doing before you start), you'll be able to manage the work more effectively. I have seen organizations that say they want to apply good project management, but then are UNWILLING TO INVEST IN TIME REQUIRED. No one wants to take the time to plan. Instead, everyone wants to start executing immediately and then redo all the work later to get it right."

• Product Managers in Startups: What's their Role?
  Some insight to the role of the product manager. In some organizations the product manager can be in the business unit, they can also be in the IT/IS unit.
  (tags: productmanagement)

You know who they are.  They’re the guys in your IT department that everyone looks to when there’s a fire; the go-to guys who get the job done, no questions asked.  Every IT department has it’s Supermen or Wonderwomen, as the case may be.  As the PM, your project will live and die with how you leverage their expertise and dedication.  Finding the right balance between project coordinator and project leader can be a fine art, but its essential to gaining the trust and admiration of the citizens of Geekdom. 
read more »

As a project manager your job entails talking to people, they might be clients, developers, executives, all with different communication approaches. There’s one behavior that’s hard to deal with; when people don’t let you talk. Well, maybe that should be re-phrased as: when people love to hear themselves talk. read more »

As the project manager, you know that the only chance you have of responding to risk is if you are made aware of the risks inherent in your project by your team. Too often, the PM is left to brainstorm the risks themselves and maintain the risk log as a personal document or a formality.  That practice is just as dangerous as leaving risk completely out of the methodology because it creates the illusion that risk is being managed.  read more »

Many of us have heard the pitch, “This software product will improve productivity by fostering collaboration and communication on your IT teams!”  The buzz in the industry is all about architecting a better way to get things done.  Seems with all the email we’re getting, we’ve forgotten how to actually accomplish tangible work in our day.  Remember, email was supposed to improve our productivity too…and now we’re drowning in inboxes with thousands of unread messages, scrolling frantically through our blackberries trying to find that one email from so and so that explains the issue.
read more »