Project Management Methods & Ideologies

Most Recent

• PM Thinking Traps: "Because" Justification
  The skill of persuasion is a key tool in a project manager’s tool belt. Learn a counterintuitive trick – uncomfortable to put into practice and yet proven and very powerful!
• PM Thinking Traps: The Paradox of Choice
  Having choices is both good and bad – and therein we find the challenge for a PM to differentiate between the two sides of choice and guide things forward accordingly. So how is it that a PM can manage the plethora of choices on a project and deal with the paradox of choice?
• PM Thinking Traps: Reversion to Mean
  People rely on project managers to fix problems and keep things on track. As a result, they are action oriented, anticipating problems and acting proactively. This is admirable, responsible and accountable behavior, but there is a risk.
• PM Thinking Trap: Obeying and Respecting Authority
  There is a flipside to respecting authority. If ignored, it can provide a perilous blind spot in our thinking and lead to potentially harmful decisions. We need to temper the goodness of respecting authority with the perils of putting our projects at risk by overreliance on authority.
• How to Motivate and Avoid Motivation Crowding
  Many things motivate people, but we often think of financial motivators first. However, the opportunity to do something that matters, to help people and to grow as a person motivates people. Indeed, there is a whole spectrum of motivators for every situation.
• Experience Bias - Leverage (Don’t Misuse) Your Experience
  Experience bias involves overextending the lessons learned from our experiences.This article focuses on how to most effectively apply and how to avoid misapplying our experience-based knowledge.
• How to Limit the Social Loafing Effect
  Working in teams has become part of the daily fabric of work in professional environments today. Does the effect of social loafing mean that we are doomed to decreasing efficiency, or is there a better way to manage teams with due respect to the social loafing effect?
• How to Tame Availability Bias
  In a world awash with information, it is a challenge to distinguish between the useful and useless, the relevant and irrelevant, the complete picture and the incomplete picture. Learn how to best avoid negative effects and make sure you have good data to make a sound decision.
• Four Styles of Leadership
  What is your leadership style? This is a personal question – and not one that has a right or wrong answer. Learn about the four top leadership styles and how you can leverage the best – and avoid the worst - from each.