John Godfrey Saxe, an American poet, introduced the Indian parable “The Blind Men and the Elephant” to a Western audience. In this tale, six blind men touch the same elephant, but each perceives something different about the animal. “And so these men of Indostan disputed loud and long, each in his own opinion exceeding stiffRead… Read more »
Eventually everything connects – people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality, per se. – Charles Eames A new paradigm – the shared economy – has emerged and reshaped business practices, governments and our private lives. This shared economy has affected society in dozens of ways: We share bikes, cars,Read… Read more »
Are you in the process of studying for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam? Have you read through what the A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) says about the Project Management Plan? Confused? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you are in the right place. InRead… Read more »
Imagine your manager gives you a new project to manage and you are required to develop a strategy for the next year. A few other requirements are identified and you are sailing along great until it happens. You realize that the program requirements have now put you in a “box” where all the parameters areRead… Read more »
This series began discussing fostering relationships through contracting. This idea underpins all discussions about contracting because if you keep the relationship in mind while conducting contract negotiations, where both sides are heard and concerns are addressed, then there is a greater likelihood that the outcome will be beneficial to both parties. In the previous post,Read… Read more »
Quad charts…ugh. Stakeholder mapping…blah. Precedence Diagramming …don’t even get me started. If you work anywhere near the field of Project Management you have most likely heard of and probably executed these traditional “proven methodologies.” And if you’re like me and the majority of project management professionals I know, you probably groan/sigh/roll your eyes/{insert any otherRead… Read more »
Shortly before I left my previous job in April, I was sitting in a meeting when the host explained “this is the meeting before the meeting before the meeting,” and I couldn’t help but make a wise crack about it… after all, I had one foot out the door. I had spent the past threeRead… Read more »
By Latesha Goodman, Acquisition Analyst Imagine you’re an analyst who has recently joined a project team. Your job duties include generating large, complex program documents on tight deadlines. Producing poor quality deliverables will put your stakeholder’s schedule and budget at risk. You know accomplishing this task will require the input of various team members, manyRead… Read more »
There’s a lot of excitement this fall in Washington, DC. This time of year, it’s usually football that has everyone around here talking, but this year, baseball and the Washington Nationals are all the buzz, as the playoffs begin and the Nationals strive to reach the World Series. What’s that have to do with talentRead… Read more »
The Office of Federal Student Aid put in place the first formalized risk management framework in the federal government, starting its efforts in 2004. What does it look like? How did they do it? One former federal leader, Todd Grams, observes that agencies that ignore risk are actually creating risk. Not surprisingly, there has beenRead… Read more »