How to Avoid Being Stalked By Scope Creep: The Project Charter
Scope Creep. Sometimes it’s politically motivated. Sometimes it’s intentional. Sometimes it’s a misunderstanding. But it’s always painful.
Category: Team Performance
Stop Padding Your Estimates! There’s A Better Way…
When you pad an estimate, you typically increase your estimated effort/cost due to fear. I call this estimating from a place of weakness. You are afraid of the unexpected event, so hopefully padding it will cover it. When asked why you think something might take 50% longer or cost more than expectations, it leads to […]
March 17, 2017 | 0 comments | View Post
What Projects and Airplane Flights Have In Common: Turbulence
I love this metaphor to help leadership, management and project teams all see the forest for the trees. Here are the key points I share: Nobody will remember the turbulence, if the plane arrives on time and in the right city! I used to fly quite often. One of my frequent destinations was New York. Depending […]
March 7, 2017 | 0 comments | View Post
Stay Inside the Lines to Manage Projects Effectively
Throughout the Getting Predictable blog, I talk about alignment. For many, the word “alignment” is a bit vague. Does it mean we agree? Does it mean I actively support you? If I don’t actively support you, but I don’t block you either, am I “aligned” with you? As it relates to projects, doesn’t alignment simply […]
December 9, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post
Silence is not agreement; Don’t let others hold their breath
It’s not often, but I believe we have all experienced the meeting that goes too smoothly. There’s anywhere from four to eight people, trapped with each other for an hour, around our favorite conference table.
July 9, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post
The 3 Great Interrupters: Meetings, Management and Drive-Bys
Recently, we’ve introduced Commitment Based Estimation to a couple of our software teams. Typically, this helps a team provide highly-accurate estimates. These teams go on to deliver successfully by meeting these estimates.
June 20, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post
Delivering Successfully is like the Matrix: It’s All In Your Head
In this blog I usually write about best practices that help set teams up for success. That is really what Getting Predictable is about.
June 17, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post
Project Retrospectives: When looking forward makes more sense than looking backward
Recently a consultant asked me if I encourage teams to do a project postmortem or retrospective once a project is done. The goal is to review what worked well and what didn’t.
January 7, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post
Make Meetings More Effective: Stop Chasing Squirrels
Learn how to be more effective in meetings and stop “chasing squirrels”.
October 29, 2012 | 2 comments | View Post
Winning with “Project SD”
Every team needs a process they can embrace because they know that process will get them to the desired result.
October 11, 2012 | 0 comments | View Post