I had the distinct pleasure to speak to Mr. Neal Whitten, one of my great Project Management teachers.
Few years ago, I attended Neal’s popular and outstanding seminar “Neal Whitten’s No-Nonsense Advice for Successful Projects” and read his two popular books: Neal Whitten’s No-Nonsense Advice for Successful Projects and Neal Whitten’s Let’s Talk! More No-Nonsense Advice [...]
Category Archives: Mindset
No-Nonsense Advice for Successful Projects – The Neal Whitten Interview
It takes a village to fail a project
In my previous 2 posts, I wrote that failure is in the eye of the beholder and there is no failure, only feedback.
In this post, I propose that we need to take responsibility for our part when our project fails, but only for our own contributions to the outcome.
We should never shoulder the responsibilities of [...]
There is really no such thing as failure, only feedback
In my last post, I wrote that failure is in the eye of the beholder.
When a project ends, talking about whether it was a success or a failure is sometimes like talking about religion or politics. For the most part people will have their own opinions and there is nothing you can do to change [...]
Failure is in the eye of the beholder
Success for one person can still be seen as failure in the eyes of another. Show me a successful project and I will show you at least one stakeholder who thinks the project failed to meet their expectation.
Over the course of a project, stakeholders change their mind about what is important to them, re-evaluate their [...]
Sorry seems to be the hardest word
Sometimes, to break an impasse on your project you may need to say you are sorry, whether you are right or not and whether the other person is right or not.
This is hard.
Saying “I’m sorry” is hard because it challenges our natural need to protect ourselves. Our ego has been engineered to protect us. Its [...]
What I know for sure
A project manager asked this question on askaboutprojects.com:
“I am a new project manager working on my first project as project manager. Can someone please share the examples of challenges they faced in projects”
I gave the following advice before and I think it is appropriate for this question:
The biggest challenge you will face in transitioning to [...]
How to become an All-Terrain Project Manager
The more successful projects you deliver, the more likely it is that your management or clients will call upon you to lead more complex projects that are outside your repertoire of skills and even beyond your domain of technical expertise. When you deliver the goods on these projects, success will strengthen your self-confidence and enhance [...]
Compassion is the “Killer App”
Derek Huether, at The Critical Path, wrote a fun blog post about his take on Dr. Seuss Green Eggs and Ham story.
If you don’t know the story, here is a quote from Derek’s post:
Sam offers Green Eggs and Ham to an unnamed character. This character adamantly states he does not like them. Sam looks for [...]
Interview with Geoff Crane, author of PaperCutPM.com
Listen to the interview now:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
In this edition of the Guerrilla Project Management podcast, I interview Geoff Crane author of the popular blog PaperCut Edge. Geoff is the popular and beloved twitter known as @PapercutPM.
Geoff is the owner of Papercut Project Monitoring, a consulting company with experience in global multi-million [...]
Turning “Pro” and redefining the meaning of success
In project management, turning “Pro” to me means reaching the point in your career when you can still feel successful, even when we end up delivering a failed project.
I believe this requires 3 things:
Unlearning what we have been taught, since the beginning of our careers, as the definition of a successful project manager.
Separating the definition [...]
