Today’s post offers a bit of levity for the holiday… . Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Let’s eat until we pop. Let’s watch some football all day long. From noon to night non-stop. . . . We’ll gorge ourselves on turkey, and fill ourselves with pie. So much the TSA won’t dare to touch us when we [...]
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the States. It’s a time to appreciate all of the great things we have and the wonderful people who surround us. Today’s post is about appreciating the people we work with. I let the music randomly shuffle on my iPod as I went for a run the other day… and [...]
I encourage Change Leaders to use Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) as a great way to pass along concise, accurate answers to their stakeholders’ most common questions. As I’ve shared over the past few days, FAQ’s have some great advantages: they’re inexpensive, easy to distribute and easy to target in the direction of potential resistance to [...]
Frequently Asked Questions or “FAQ’s” can be a staple of communication during change. In yesterday’s post, I introduced a list of six common questions you can expect people to ask about almost any type of change. I also shared several questions you can ask your team and your stakeholders to generate solid material for even [...]
There’s a classic line from the old television police drama Dragnet where Detective Sergeant Joe Friday (as played by Producer/Actor Jack Webb) tries to keep an eyewitness focused during the process of questioning. He exhorts her to provide: “Just the facts Ma’am…” instead of rambling on or locking up in response to his questions. Joe [...]
People, People, People! Project Management would be so much easier if it were not for the challenge of managing people, right? Today’s article will focus on the human side as we wrap up a list of project management best practices I’ve learned from the kitchen. Context: The 1933 cookbook “All About Home Baking” suggested 6 [...]
Today I’ll continue walking through a list of six project management rules that I started a couple days ago. These maxims are based on a collection of “rules for baking” which I discovered in my batter-&-splatter-stained copy of the 1933 General Foods Cookbook called “All About Home Baking“. Wednesday’s rule was “Be Orderly“. PM’s can [...]
Yesterday I introduced the first of six project management tips drawn from a list of baking advice I found in one of my favorite old references: a 1933 General Foods Cookbook called “All About Home Baking“. I use this list when teaching a series of workshops I call PM-101 to illustrate how effective project management [...]
As a part of rolling out big changes, I sometimes teach a series of workshops called Project Management-101. In the workshops, I help change teams understand and apply the most basic techniques of project management to reach their goals. One of the most refreshing things about helping people who are new to this field is [...]
Many Brits cheered new British Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent ban on cell phone use during cabinet meetings. Cameron, who is an avid technophile himself, (his favorite cell phone game is reportedly Angry Birds) reasoned that the entire group would be more focused and would conduct the people’s business more quickly by paying full attention. [...]
Fans of American Major League Baseball tuned in last Monday night to watch the San Francisco Giants win the World Series over the Texas Rangers. I like both teams and didn’t have a particular favorite in the contest, but I did grow to appreciate the Giants for how they got into the championship series and [...]
Today I’ll share the final four items on my list of Big Rocks that those in charge of making change happen should consider. These ideas were inspired by the answers I received from members of a LinkedIn discussion forum when I asked this question: “What should you plan for when you’re in charge of making [...]
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