Risk Management – Leading Answers

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 […]

January 16, 2021October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Estimating, Games, Metrics, Risk Management, Teams, Visual Learning

Creating a Risk-Adjusted Backlog

This article explains what a risk-adjusted backlog is, why they are useful, how to create one and how teams work with them. What is a Risk-Adjusted Backlog? A risk-adjusted backlog is a backlog that contains activities relating to managing risk in addition to the usual features associated with delivering value. Agile projects typically prioritize the backlog based on business value or perceived needs. The Product Owner or business representative prioritizes the backlog elevating the highest value features to the top, so they get delivered first. Taking an Economic View of Decision Making Prioritizing based on business value is an example of the lean concept of ‘Taking an Economic View of Decision Making.’ In deciding which feature to develop first, those […]

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 […]

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:

June 19, 2019Agile Project Management, Books, Certification, Events, Leadership, Lean, NoProjects, Personal Agility, Planning, PMI-ACP, Remote Work, Risk Management, Tailoring Approaches, Teams, Weblogs

Let’s Rewrite the PMBOK

Phew, the wait is over! I have been wanting to talk about this for what seems like ages and now the official announcement is out! If you have ever been frustrated by the PMBOK Guide now here’s your chance to fix it. We are looking for volunteers to write and review the next edition of the PMBOK Guide. However, this will not be just an update, instead a radical departure from all previous editions aligned with PMI’s new digital transformation strategy. That’s all I can explain for now, but more details will be announced when I can say more. Meanwhile, we would like people with knowledge of the full value delivery spectrum (waterfall, hybrid, agile, lean, etc.) to participate.

March 14, 2019October 13, 2026Agile Project Management, Estimating, Planning, Risk Management

New PM – The What?, Why?, and How? of Project Charters

Creating a great project charter is an art and a science. Anyone new to the profession of project management needs to learn how to create a project charter. It is not only an important early project deliverable, but it also sets the tone and lays out the foundation for the rest of the project. While we can spend our careers improving our ability to craft effective project charters, we can get to a 70% good-enough state by addressing some basic topics. This article explains those basics.

March 7, 2019October 27, 2025Agile Project Management, Estimating, Planning, Risk Management, Tailoring Approaches

New PM, New Choices

(Over at ProjectManagement.com January’s theme was “New PMs”. I wrote this article about the choices of approach we have and ways for new PMs to navigate them.) These days, new project managers are exposed to conflicting guidance. On the one hand, there is a plethora of traditional “Plan the work, work the plan” literature. On the other, media is full of light-touch, self-organizing team advice. These sets of recommendations often appear to be at odds, so what is the new PM to do? Consultants will say, “Oh, it depends…” and start a lengthy (aka expensive) conversation. I say let’s examine the basics so we can make an informed decision ourselves. The goals of planning, scheduling, and tracking are universal. We need to understand what […]

November 27, 2018October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Metrics, Risk Management, Tailoring Approaches

What’s in your Backlog?

Let’s explore what you do and do not put in a backlog. How do these sound? Features and non-functional requirements – Absolutely Bug fixes and change requests – Yes, probably Risk avoidance and risk reduction activities – Sure, maybe Opportunity exploitation activities and marketing ideas – Now you’re just getting weird! Team building and social events – Erm, no! Yet, if it’s all just stuff for the team to do, then why not put it in the backlog? Maybe because the customer has not asked for it and the product owner has to own and order it, but let’s look further. If we used a backlog metaphor for prioritizing backlog work items. It may look like this. I am not […]

July 3, 2018Agile Project Management, Leadership, Risk Management, Teams

Webinar – Solving Wicked Problems: What is Old is New Again

My PMXPO webinar has now been watched by > 11,000 people and received lots of positive feedback. It is hosted at ProjectManagement.com here. (For people collecting Professional Development Units (PDUs), it also auto-records 1.25 credits for you.) The webinar reviews problem-solving through the ages and shows how agile is the rediscovery of many old approaches. Wicked problems are those that cannot be solved with traditional methods or ways of thinking. They are the unique challenges never seen before in your organization, region or industry. As companies race to innovate and compete in a global market, we are seeing wicked problems more and more often. While the solution may be new, some common steps repeat in the stories of novel problem-solving successes […]

June 29, 2018Agile Project Management, Leadership, Lean, NoProjects, Risk Management, Tailoring Approaches, Teams, Theory of Constraints, Travel, Warning Signs

Agile 2018 Conference – Unraveling Team Dependencies

I am excited to be presenting on the Enterprise Agile track at the Agile 2018 conference in San Diego, August 7. I have worked with several organizations this year that had issues with work dependencies between teams. My session called “Two-Pizza Team Heartburn Relief: Solutions to Team Dependencies” highlights the shift to global rather than local optimization. We will investigate dependency problems through animations and simulations and then explore some candidate solutions. Each brings their own issues – if these problems were solvable they would have been already, but the suggestions do help considerably. Here is the description from the conference program: Small teams are great – until they cause bigger problems than they solve. Small teams can communicate more […]