“…when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.”  Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow In the midst of the pandemic, we have and will continue to face numerous complex decisions where there are many unknowns and no clear choices.  Organizations and individuals are grappling with challenging issues.  […]

Feedback is a critical and valuable management tool.  For managers, it is the engine of continuous improvement.   For employees, it is the gift of valuable insight.  Unfortunately, many managers feel uncomfortable giving regular feedback, which deprives them of the ability to affect change.  And, many employees mistake feedback as criticism and miss the message.  The […]

Productivity is defined as our ability to create value.  Traditionally manufacturers and farmers became more productive by adding resources—people and machines—to the process.  Knowledge workers can generate more value by working smarter, rather than harder.  The massive shift to remote work caused by the pandemic has exposed complexities and inefficiencies in how we work.  Through […]

The coronavirus pandemic is the most frightening, disruptive, and widespread crisis of our lifetime.  As managers and leaders, none of us have faced challenges of such a magnitude or scale.  Over the next several weeks and probably months, our teams will look to us for guidance, support, and leadership.  In this article, I draw from […]

Many organizations struggle with project governance, oversight, and control.  The truth is that most projects are not successful.   Over the past 25-years, only 30% of all projects are delivered on-time, on-budget, and with the desired scope.  Traditional waterfall projects have phase gates that theoretically establish defined control and governance points.  The project must complete the […]

Disciplined Agile (DA) has the potential to become a leading agile framework because it creates harmony in this congested thought-space.  DA recognizes practices from across the spectrum and offers a pragmatic and context-driven approach to agility. Currently, DA is not widely used.  In the State of Agile Report,  it does not make the list of […]

Agile teams using the Scrum framework commit to delivering value in each development sprint.  Sprints are generally 2-weeks long, and the goal is to create working software that can be deployed into production.  While commitment is one of Scrum’s core values,  in reality, teams do not always complete the work.  This is commonly known as […]

Managers and project managers are often told that “engaging stakeholders” is critical to success.  However, they rarely receive guidance on what it means or how to “engage your stakeholders.”  It is similar to when I started practicing yoga, the teacher told us to “release our sacrum.”  I had no idea that I had a sacrum, […]

Stakeholder management is one of the most critical project management functions.  Stakeholders are our customers, organizational leaders, members of our project teams, and people we may not even know.  The project manager’s ability to effectively identify, understand, and engage stakeholders is a key determinant of success.    According to the Project Management Institute’s (PMI), 2018 Pulse […]

Many organizations try to catapult into agility.  Striving to instantaneously transform their traditional practices and culture.   Unfortunately, this strategy is usually painful and often fails. The Scrum Guide states, “Scrum is easy to understand, but difficult to master.”  Basic training can be quickly and easily accomplished in just a few days.  However, being Agile is […]