Projects: It’s About People And Interactions
There is a central theme running through my Project Leadership Thoughts: it is impossible to look at a project as an isolated entity. It’s about people and interactions. And interactions happen throughout the entire social network. Every interaction effects another one. What does this mean for you, as a professional? You have to work on your own stuff and you have to master skills before you can help your team. You have to master three Spaces of the network: you, your professional network and your project. Mastering Your Personal Space If y

Project Management Office
What do Sisyphus, Attila the Hun, the Quakers, and early cartographers have in common with creating a project office? They all represent metaphors that guide modern managers to implement a project office for organizational change.  You may decide to become a POO–a Project Office of One, or your organization may need a SPO–a Strategic Project Office. Find out how these metaphors and practices can guide you as a change agent to lead the quest towards a projectized organization…or at le

What I Learned About Personal Branding: Weird Is Good
Yelling “Self promotion, Baby” is a little over the top, isn’t it? I love rhetoric. I enjoy Big Stories. Without Too Much Detail. As Too Much Detail ruins a Good Big Story. Although I sometimes say things excited and full of passion (”you need to…”), it’s always an invitation to look at the information and consider it for your own use. If you like it, great! If you have no use for it, that’s cool too. Using Big Stories Without Too Much Detail And Meaning It In An Inviting Way is a personal branding thing for me. I didn’t plan th

Dear Project Manager: Why Should Anyone Want To Work For You?
Why should people want to work on your project? You know about globalization, you know this makes employees competing with people from all over the world. Have you considered The Other Consequence? That you have to compete with other GLOBAL companies and Project Managers to get good people to staff your projects? If developers, testers and other talented individuals can work for any project all over the world, why should they work for you? Let me start with the answer: Because you have a project that is life changing, that is

Marketing: You Hate It. But You Need It.
If your are into software project management, you are into “marketing”. If you are planning to keep on working in (software) projects in the years to come, you better get good at it. It seems to be a dirty word among technical people: “marketing”. But it’s not about selling your soul to the devil. It’s not about tricking people into buying stuff they don’t want. Being a (software) project manager you need to negotiate win-win conditions between the stakeholders. This not only means listening to both parties, but this also means putting certain aspects in the spot light, promote a certain point of view to close the gap between stakeholders. You