Planning – Leading Answers

April 26, 2025September 30, 2025Agile Project Management, Planning, Tailoring Approaches, Warning Signs

Hold Your Horses: PREPARE for Responsible AI Use in Project Management

Artificial intelligence promises to revolutionize project management; it can assist with data analysis, automate routine tasks, and predict project trends. However, as a veteran project manager (read “slightly skeptical older person”), I am concerned AI will cause a tsunami of project failures before improving the state of the practice. People tend to be lazy, and a fool with a tool is still a fool. Worse yet, a fool with a tool that produces well-written, convincing project deliverables is a very dangerous fool. Attempting to Solve the Wrong ProblemProducing project charters faster (or communications plans, risk management plans, etc.) is not the right goal. Project management does not have a typing speed problem. Unfortunately, AI vendors and people looking to implement […]

August 9, 2023October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Books, Planning, Tailoring Approaches, Teams, Visual Learning

Suitability Filters – Team Discussion Tools

Suitability filters are models that offer simplified views of a decision-making process. They help people identify and discuss the variables at play and make a recommendation. The British statistician George Box said it best “All models are wrong, but some models are useful.” A good model provides insights, usually a basic view of how something works or the interactions between variables. From this perspective, models are interesting and can speed up our comprehension of something. However, the greatest benefit of models is as a group alignment tool. Visual Models Create Group Consensus Much of today’s work is knowledge work. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) contribute their expertise and collaborate to solve problems or build new products and services. This work […]

April 14, 2023September 27, 2025Agile Project Management, Books, Exceptions, Leadership, Planning, Risk Management, Tailoring Approaches, Theory of Constraints, Warning Signs

Definition of Broken (DoB): A Tool for Improving Communications and Outcomes

Communicating project issues is challenging. Exactly when should we escalate? Who to, and how much of a chance to correct things should be given first? This is why some projects create control limits around critical parameters and develop escalation plans to communicate exceptions and agree on the next steps. However, on most small to medium size projects, these escalation plans are often missing or left to the project manager's discretion. This creates further problems if the response is too late, not far-reaching enough, or not aligned with sponsor expectations. Also, what are the expectations for communicating delays, risks and issues at the team level? Do we want to hear when something takes a couple of hours longer than planned (probably […]

November 1, 2020Agile Project Management, Leadership, Planning, Teams, Visual Learning

Agile Communications Plans

Dolphins are easier to track than submarines. They surface more often and are usually within view of where you last saw them. Subs, on the other hand, can disappear for months or years at a time, and it is difficult to tell where they have gone. What does this have to do with project communications? Has Mike finally gone mad? These are valid questions, so let me explain. Many traditional project management deliverables have agile alternatives. For instance, a product backlog is somewhat analogous to a work breakdown structure. A release roadmap contains many of the elements of a Gantt chart. Yet we rarely see agile communications management plans. Why is this?

August 25, 2020Agile Project Management, Estimating, Metrics, Planning, Teams

Estimating Agile Projects…Or Not

Project managers generally like plans and estimates so we can forecast when things should be done and how much they may cost. It helps manage client expectations and answer the type of questions they ask, such as "When will it be done?" and "How much will it cost?" So, when project managers hear about ideas such as "let's stop estimating," it can trigger a knee-jerk reaction. It sounds lazy and avoiding the hard work of having to estimate. It can seem like people want to shirk their responsibility and accountability. First, those lazy agilists wanted to stop doing documentation; now they want to stop estimating too! There has been a debate raging since 2012 about the use and value of […]

July 10, 2020October 27, 2025Agile Project Management, Leadership, Planning, Remote Work, Tailoring Approaches, Teams, Theory of Constraints

Can We Still be Agile?

How does work from home impact our use of agile approaches? If co-location is no longer possible, can we still be agile? Yes, of course we can, and in many ways, now we need to be more agile than ever as we try new approaches, learn and adapt how we work. However, let’s address the co-location question and look at agile practices in remote work situations. The Agile Manifesto and Agile Principles do not mention co-location. They do not say teams have to work together to be agile or effective. Instead, they say, “The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation” and “Business people and developers must work together daily […]

June 5, 2020Agile Project Management, Events, Exceptions, Leadership, Personal Agility, Planning, Remote Work, Risk Management, Teams

Reset, Refocus: 2 Concepts and 8 Tips for Making Progress During the Pandemic

It is a dilemma. We need to move forward. Not just to make progress on projects, but also to give people something else to focus on beyond the tragedy and fear filling the news. At the same time, we need to be sensitive to how people have been impacted. We need to demonstrate support and empathy. We need to be available to listen and help wherever we can. We need to step up and be professionals. ContextMore than ever, context is king. How to respond and lead in your environment will depend on how your project and stakeholders have been impacted. There is no universal best response. All I can do is offer some tips for consideration. You can then […]

March 30, 2020Agile Project Management, Leadership, Planning, Teams, Visual Learning

Problem Solving: Using Visualization

Some people say we cannot manage what we cannot measure. I say we cannot solve what we cannot see, or at least visualize somehow. Projects are problem-solving exercises. The entire project is one big problem. We might be building a new product; that's a problem to solve. Or we might be trying to create something well understood but within a challenging amount of time, to a tight budget, and demanding specification. Or we could be moving our organization forward through a change initiative. These are familiar project environments that are puzzles or problems to solve. Then within this large problem environments, we have hundreds of everyday challenges to answer, too. "How are we going to manage without the installer today?" […]

March 3, 2020October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Planning, Visual Learning

WBS and Product Backlog: Siblings or Distant Cousins?

It’s easy to believe that work breakdown structures (WBS) have been around since the pyramids were built in Egypt, and that product backlogs are new inventions by youngsters in too much of a hurry to plan correctly. However, like most things, the truth is more complicated. In 1957, the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) approach was created by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and described organizing tasks into product-oriented categories. However, they did not use the term “work breakdown structure” or WBS until 1962 when DoD, NASA and the aerospace industry published a document about PERT that described the WBS approach. Meanwhile, in 1960, Tom Gilb described his Evolutionary Value Delivery approach (or Evo for short) that […]

December 6, 2019Agile Project Management, Certification, Events, Planning, Risk Management, Teams

5 Major Changes Coming to the PMP Exam

Some fundamental changes are coming to the PMP® exam. Currently slated for January 2021, the content and composition of the exam will be completely revamped. As described in the new PMP Exam Content Outline, PMI commissioned a research study into trends in the project management profession. This study, called the Global Practice Analysis, investigated which job tasks and approaches people frequently use. The job task analysis identified the knowledge and skills required to function as a project management practitioner. Now the PMP is changing to better reflect these practices; here are some of the major changes: