My preferred, simple way to track and manage projects

I have been managing projects in one way or another for 20 years, but have only found my best methodologies in the last 5 to 7. I've used Excel sheets, Trello, Asana, Jira, Confluence, MS Project, Azure, MS Teams and even Sharepoint and email to run and track projects. While you can make any tool … Continue reading My preferred, simple way to track and manage projects →

Learn from the experts: Intro to Agile and Scrum

This post is part of a series of learning topics presented by technology experts. Today’s post comes courtesy of Tony Keller, Head of Technology at Powerwrap Limited and architect of the Powerwrap Delivery Framework. This content comes from a recent training session delivered by Tony in our workplace. What is Agile? In the 1990s, many software development … Continue reading Learn from the experts: Intro to Agile and Scrum →

How not to be (too) annoying as a remote project manager

Annoying your colleagues is something of a hazard for project managers, made even harder during a global pandemic where everyone is working from home and juggling work and home responsibilities. I am a bit of an over-thinker, so one thing I can find challenging right now is knowing whether I am checking in with people … Continue reading How not to be (too) annoying as a remote project manager →

How I learned that ‘building shared understanding is hard’

How many times have you experienced this? The project is underway. You're past 'discovery' and are well into 'build' or 'execution' (or whatever your team calls these). Your team started together. You did inception workshops, or kick-off meetings (or whatever your team calls these). You talked through the problem to be solved, worked up the … Continue reading How I learned that ‘building shared understanding is hard’ →

Thoughts on the #FyreFestival fiasco

First, if you are not familiar, read this. Then, watch the Netflix documentary (I haven't seen the other one yet). Thoughts: ONE: An excellent example of product vs project. The Fyre app was built as a product - and by the sounds of it that part was working fairly well - whereas the Fyre Festival … Continue reading Thoughts on the #FyreFestival fiasco →

Projects and non-projects

The traditional definition of a 'project' is an initiative that achieves an agreed objective and is temporary, with an identifiable beginning and end. The term 'project' also conjures up for many people the dreaded 'waterfall' with gates, milestones, dependencies, Gantt charts, resource allocations, work breakdown schedules, and the rest. But 'projects' don't have to work … Continue reading Projects and non-projects →