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One of my favorite hobbies is to build custom longboards in unique shapes and designs. Though Im not what one would consider a rider, I have a passion for building them. Ive made roses, dragons, keyboards, to name a few. Once, a friend requested a board from me in the shape of a flying-V guitar.
Having built plenty of boards before, I figured I could just whip something up when the time called for it. Despite having months in advance, I put the project off, starting just a few days...
Executive Information System: Think Infrastructure, Not Software
In any company, it can be difficult to feed relevant information up to the executive level. In large enterprises, it is especially difficult to do this. The infrastructure in which an executive receives this information is called, fittingly, an executive information system (EIS). Below I will discuss several implications of building an EIS.
First and foremost, it is important to note that a variety of tools are available that assist in the management of this infrastructure, but a successful...
Risk Management and the Charging Moose
While I was at my cabin a few weeks ago, every time I walked out the door there was a moose looking at me. One time, I wasnt paying attention and I walked directly into a patch of grass where a mother moose and her calf were sitting. She charged, and luckily I was close enough to the cabin to run back inside.
Just like this experience, when project management gets too casual, I think it's easy to stop paying attention to risk. Sometimes, in the monotony of menial tasks and processes, one...
Project Spending: Investment and Insanity
For anyone who has worked in retail, you know that customers have a variety of ideas as to what expensive means. Terms like sale, deal, and cheap are all a matter of perspective. When I worked in retail, out of all the people who know what they wanted, there were three general ways to make a purchase:
1) spend whatever amount of money for the best product
2) spend a medium amount of money for a decent product
3) spend as little money possible for a minimum quality product
Though...
The Back Lawn Project Vs. The Everest Project
Once, I worked for an outdoor retailer, and I found that there were many different customers with different commitment levels to any one outdoor activity. For example, there were people that went on a hike once a summer and people that hiked every day. Because of this, people were often unaware of the varying costs of gear. Once, a woman who wanted a back lawn folding hut for her five-year-old looked at our tent supply in disbelief; she could not comprehend why anyone would spend a thousand...
Project Management Templates and the Apple Cutter
In my research on the benefits of project management and work management, I have thought a lot about the power of collaboration not only on projects, but on project processes, methodologies, and frameworks. While it is obvious that there is power in collaboration to get work done, I would like to consider the power of collaboration on "how" that work gets done. After all the "how" is ultimately what carries projects through their life cycle.
To bring this discussion to a very focused level,...
Finding the Spring Waters of Project Management
In previous articles, I wrote about a swamp I had to drain and how it relates to project management. I discussed the process of keeping the stream that runs through the swamp flowing as to give the water enough momentum to naturally carry debris downstream. I explained how this was like project cycle management (PCM), where the project life cycle is optimized to more efficiently carry out the full project management process.
This was successful for a while, but there were still problems....
The Flow of Project Management: Consistent Optimization and Progression
One of my projects this summer has been a grueling process of stopping a swamp from flooding the cabin. I wrote an article of how I gained control of the flood. What was once a boggy marsh is now a moist meadow with a stream running through. Three moose have even found a safe haven in a grassy area just twenty feet from my back door.
However, because I can only manage this area with a simple shovel, the flooding is still a problem. I can't seem to keep up. Getting machinery up the steep,...
Trusting the Expertise of Project Managers
Trusting others to know how to do their job is an important part of project management. This applies to both project manager and team member. I find it strange how even the slightest mistrust can lead to miscommunication, anger, and even unethical decisions. There are viable reasons for trust to break, of course, but sometimes, the problems in a project just arise from small moments of mistrust. In this article I wish to discuss the error of mistrusting the legitimacy of another persons job...
Project Management Systems and Scope Creep
I received a book once with a cover so ugly that I didn't read it until I was more or less forced. I had been too preoccupied with my other books, covers that had grand mountain scenery or close-up images of time-weathered faces. When I finally read it, though, I couldn't put the book down. It now sits on the shelf where I put all of my favorites. Since then, I have always kept to the common phrase, You can't judge a book by its cover.
Some projects are shown in a way that makes them look...
Project Management Fuel: Avoid Burning Out
When I was a child, my grandfather taught me how to build just about any type of fire in any environment - fires in the rain, desert, seacoast - fires for cooking food, for signaling rescue teams, or for the pure spectacle of having flames twenty feet high. In all my life, strictly following some basic rules set by my grandfather has kept my fire-building skills top-notch, and has kept me out of trouble. To me, project management can relate to fire-building. There are different management...
Project Decisions: Saving a Fawn or Diverting a River
On the fourth of July this year, I spent the weekend at my cabin hoping to accomplish a large list of projects. As I was hiking into the forest to gather firewood, I found a fawn lying only twenty feet from my front door. Based on the blood still on the deer, I gathered that he must have been born only hours before I arrived.
I wasnt quite sure what to do. If the mother was near, staying there could scare her away; plus, I had a lot of work to do. High snow levels from the winter had caused...
Three Steps Toward Project Phantasmagoria
When a project goes wrong, it can often be traced back to some form of miscommunication. Whatever the mistake may be, a project that fails does so because it exists in a state of what I call project phantasmagoria.
As this is not a common term, let me supply a definition. Phantasmagoria is "a shifting series of phantasms, illusions, or deceptive appearances, as in a dream or as created by the imagination." While there may be some argument about the usage of this word, it is generally agreed...
The Snowy Project Management Terrain
Some like to think of project management as a nicely groomed trail with a few ups and downs and a few twists and turns. They say something like, you wont get lost if you just stay on the trail.
But most project managers know that a project hardly ever goes as planned. In my opinion, a projects trail is buried neck-deep in snow, and the only way to reach the end is not simply a matter of persistence its about having the right experience and equipment. When the manager is sinking to...
Multitasking Projects: Quantity vs. Quality
To some, project management means multitasking. It means handling a dozen aspects of a project all at once with the assumption that everything will click in the end. Maybe it's the feeling of mass tasks completed all at the same moment that makes this so appealing, in contrast to a linear method, where there's always something that isn't being accomplished. However, depending on the project or person, multitasking can be either good or bad.
Every day, you see those that shouldn't be...
Project Pack It and Strap It
I often apply the basics of my outdoor experience to project management. When Im in the backcountry, as one example, I like to feel at ease, free of stress, yet still accomplished. The same goes with work. As I maintain efficiency, I ought to enjoy my job yet not be engaged in unhealthy stressors.
When someone gets lost, seriously injured, or even dies in the outdoors, it is (in most cases) due to human error. People lose the trail when they fail to have navigation devices, get dehydrated...
Work Management Today: Eliminating Geography and Hierarchy
With every major technology, the social world is disrupted in some way, whether it be good or bad. New technology can create jobs, for example. Or it can take them away. Technology can stop wars. Or it can create them.
One of the technologies to bring the most profound change to civilization has been the internet. Because access to information is limitless, and communication is instantaneous, the web has fundamentally changed what modern businesses must do to be successful in today's...
Web-based Project Management and Communication
The use of web-based project management has been trending upward over the last few years among small businesses and large corporations alike. Although the business world is having to redefine its efforts in many ways, those using this technology have accelerated the efficiency of their work drastically.
When web-based project management (and cloud computing in general) was first introduced several years ago, it received a lot of negative reviews, and even today, many find it problematic....
Web-based Project Management
For a web-based retailer to be without the web is a huge problem, but for that retailer to deliberately choose to have no access to the web is unthinkable. I worked for a company that made this decision. The business was an online store that depended on the inventory of three physical locations which did not have the internet. The employees at these locations had no sense of the overall dealings of the company, not only in terms of inventory but also in terms of project management. For...
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