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 […]

Here are five powerful principles that will help you make the right decisions in your business and your personal life as you navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic. They’re a framework, not a formula, for leading with ethical intelligence. I’ll include questions to reflect upon so that you may put these principles into practice immediately. Principle […]

The Coronavirus pandemic has completely changed the work culture dynamic as many of us know it. Social distancing and quarantines have forced countless employees to uproot from their office environments and create a new normal for the foreseeable future — if not permanently. And those are just the lucky ones who get to keep their […]

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 […]

The truth is, conflict is a natural, and unavoidable, part of the workplace environment. So much so that you likely will experience some level of conflict many times a week if you find yourself in constant contact with people. According to the report “Workplace conflict and How Businesses Can Harness It to Thrive,” 385 million […]

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 […]

With the end of a year (sorry, D-E-C-A-D-E!! How did that feel?) quickly approaching, it’s that time when millions of people stop to reflect on the past, and surrounded by the hype, find motivation to set goals for the future. Unfortunately, these resolutions are often made without thorough planning, resulting in resolution burnout and ultimately […]

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 […]