The Art of Project Management: Expert advice from experienced project managers in Silicon Valley, and around the world
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What makes a “good” company?

What makes a

My theme for 2012 is to simultaneously raise corporate and individual social consciousness. A few weeks ago I, together with Greg Balestrero, spoke at DigitalNow, a conference for executives of associations, on the topic of “The Rise of Corporate Consciousness: Integrating Environmental and Social Principles into Organizational Strategies”. There are a lot of companies providing [...]

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How New Product Leaders Optimize Development Teams

How New Product Leaders Optimize Development Teams

Global commoditization and complexity make innovation an urgent priority for firms of all sizes. And to promote innovation in a meaningful way, individual development teams must be the focal point of your strategy. Culture and vision are extremely important components, and developing them properly takes time and effort, but innovation improvement is mainly an organic, [...]

The Essence of Entrepreneurship

The Essence of Entrepreneurship

I’m sure you know that in 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave a very memorable commencement address at Stanford University. He told three stories about his life. The first was a lesson about “connecting the dots.” He said that you can connect dots looking backwards, but you can’t connect them looking forwards. For that, he [...]

Finding Customers: A Deceptively Simple Lesson from Sony

Finding Customers: A Deceptively Simple Lesson from Sony

What’s the definition of a healthy company? One of the most important metrics to consider is how much revenue is coming from new products. Category leaders often have significantly higher new product revenue compared to their less successful peers. New products are the lifeblood of healthy companies, and it follows then, that finding new customers [...]

What Kind of Place is This?

What Kind of Place is This?

When he does not get the results he desires, the singer of a classic song asks the question, “What kind of fool am I?”  Or when entering an unfamiliar structure or organization, a person may ask, “What kind of place is this?”  Both questions move the questioner into a new stage of learning or development. [...]

How To Land A Project Management Job

How To Land A Project Management Job

A great discussion about pursuing a project management role on the LinkedIn group recently spurred me to put together some more in-depth information for you today. Sometimes it’s easy for me to forget that many of you may not know about the many routes available to you for landing a project management job. Believe it [...]

Power Your Projects with Decision Calendars

Power Your Projects with Decision Calendars

A decision calendar? You’re already drowning in calendars, I know. You maintain your project milestones calendar, your team’s meeting calendar, product launch calendars, the meeting and milestones calendar for every project you support, your own Outlook or Gmail calendar, and that’s just for work. Yet, projects still feel chaotic, and you wonder whether your team [...]

When It’s Time To Talk Performance…

When It’s Time To Talk Performance…

Animals have an ingrained system to warn them of dangers. These instincts have been honed for each species over centuries by natural selection. Same goes for the project species that are roaming your halls and conference rooms. Neuroscience research shows that we can sense that something is wrong long before our conscious mind picks up [...]

What Are You Talking About?

What Are You Talking About?

Ever go to the grocery store for ONE THING (so of course you don’t grab the handy basket), but end up juggling an arm load of items by the time you get to the cashier? Our performance conversations often suffer from the same distraction disorder. We start to talk about one aspect of the project [...]

Talking About Team Performance

Talking About Team Performance

Addressing sensitive subjects like someone’s weight, political affiliations or religion are topics that most of us treed delicately around. Cautious to not offend, apprehensive about what direction the resulting conversation may go and anxious about how much we’re comfortable sharing are usually enough red flags for your brain to seal your lips shut. Just talking [...]

PMP and LSS for Students in Colleges and High Schools - Part III – Predictive Modelling for Collegiate Academic Excellence – An ongoing case study

PMP and LSS for Students in Colleges and High Schools – Part III – Predictive Modelling for Collegiate Academic Excellence – An ongoing case study

Part III – Predictive Modelling for Collegiate Academic Excellence – An Ongoing Case Study! Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Co-Author and Project Lead Contributor, Ms. Reethika S. Iyer*   Background: In Parts I and II, we touched upon the value proposition in understanding the impact of high school on final examination performance.  We concluded with results [...]

PMP and LSS for Students in Colleges and High Schools  Part II – Effect of High School on Final Board Examination –The Analytical Treatise

PMP and LSS for Students in Colleges and High Schools Part II – Effect of High School on Final Board Examination –The Analytical Treatise

Part II – Effect of High School on Final Board Examination –The Analytical Treatise Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Co-Author-Project Lead Contributor, Ms. Reethika S. Iyer*     Background: In Part I, we shared our experience on how parents make decisions to selecting high schools. Once the students graduate they are then again faced with the [...]

PMP and LSS for Students in Colleges and High Schools:  Part I – Impact of High School Choice on Student Final Year Performance

PMP and LSS for Students in Colleges and High Schools: Part I – Impact of High School Choice on Student Final Year Performance

Part I – Impact of High School Choice on Student Final Year Performance Dr. Shree R. Nanguneri and Project Lead Contributor, Ms. Reethika S. Iyer* Background: In an earlier publication on this forum we focused our discussions on the relevance, meaning and value of LSS and PMP professionals in the industry. In Part I of [...]

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence - Part III Viable Lean Six Sigma Solutions

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence – Part III Viable Lean Six Sigma Solutions

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence Part III (Final Part of Series) Viable Lean Six Sigma Solutions to Validate Project Timelines and Increase KPI Linkage for PMP leaders Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Mr. Gustav Toppenberg   Meandering in a World Swayed by Certification: In Part I, we addressed the vitality of the linkage of a [...]

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence - Part II Validating Project Timeline Against Changing Customer Requirements

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence – Part II Validating Project Timeline Against Changing Customer Requirements

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence Part II (of an III Part Series) Validating Project Timelines against Expected Changes in Customer Requirements Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Mr. Gustav Toppenberg Background for “Changes in Customer Requirement:” In Part I we initiated discussions on how the KPI needs to link with the business goals and objectives.  In [...]

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence - Part I Success with Key Performance Indicators

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence – Part I Success with Key Performance Indicators

Linking PMP Leaders’ KPI with Customers’ Success Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Mr. Gustav Toppenberg click to hear music Brief Introduction of the current PMP and LSS status quo: Whether we refer the PMP or LSS leadership success there is a clear process that is transparent as shown below: With the PMP space we are looking [...]

Time is money in products, too!

Time is money in products, too!

On a closely related topic to my last post, I would like to relate a recent experience I had with a consumer product that illustrates one very important aspect of consumer products that is often not given enough importance in the product development priority list: User Interface Speed. We have been satisfied owners of a [...]

Time is money in product development

Time is money in product development

You have all heard the old saying, “Time is money”. Well, obviously, this one is very true. Especially in our modern, fast-paced world of rapid product development cycles and short time-to-market windows, every second lost in a product development cycle means lost customers, lost sales, or even business failure. So, what are you as a [...]

Creativity in Business - It's Going to Get Weird!

Creativity in Business – It’s Going to Get Weird!

Originally published on ProjectConnections.com in Nov. 2011. Lately I’ve been fascinated by a book, Creativity in Business, based on the famous course in the Stanford University MBA program by that name. In fact, I’ve been carrying it with me non-stop for the past couple of months and practicing the numerous creativity exercises recommended at every opportunity. [...]

Leadership Lessons From a Kindergarten Play

Leadership Lessons From a Kindergarten Play

This week was my youngest son’s first school play. He was Pig #2 in a version of The Three Little Pigs. As I stood on a chair in the back of the room aiming my video recorder it dawned on me that there were a few useful leadership lessons unfolding before me. Try these on: [...]

The Horrors of Email Abuse

The Horrors of Email Abuse

I teach and preach leadership to one audience or another 365 days each year. The biggest slice of the leadership pie is probably communication. One of the most interesting topics within the area of communication is email use. Excuse me… what I meant is email abuse! Technology is fascinating but it must be used with [...]