#64 – RISK AND ORGANIZATIONAL MINDSET: LEARN TO THINK LIKE A COMMODITIES TRADER – GEARY W. SIKICH

Posted on October 22, 2014 by greg

INTRODUCTION
Our concept of risk management needs to change. I’m not saying that the current practice is wrong; it just provides us with too much static risk assessment and the creation of many false positives in risk reports. One may ask why I chose the use the example of commodities traders for a new risk mindset. The answer is rather simple; commodities traders view risk as a rapid change agent. That is to say, risk changes in likelihood, velocity, impact and exposure over time. Continue reading →

#60 – EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES SYNDROME – MALCOLM PEART

Posted on September 21, 2014 by greg

Definition – a situation in which people are afraid to criticize something because everyone else seems to think, or gives the impression of thinking, that it is good or important.

We all know the fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson and the proud Emperor, opportunist swindlers, frightened people and childish innocence. Unfortunately many of us have also experienced it, to a greater or lesser extent, when it comes to what has really been specified or required under a contract and what the Client wants, or is prepared to pay for. Continue reading →

#59 – LEVERAGING DIVERSITY ON EVERY PROJECT – KIRON BONDALE AND MARK MOORE

Posted on September 17, 2014 by

My cyber colleague Kiron Bondale posted his original article on his blog, Easy in Theory, Difficult in Practice. I encourage you to read it as it’s good advice on its own. With his permission, I’ve created a fusion of his thoughts and my own (a non-Vulcan mind meld, if you will) to challenge the way we think about viewing our project teams for the best chance at success. I wrote something similar on this site a while back. You may want to refer to that as well. Continue reading →

#56 – FORGET ABOUT THE MULE – LOAD THE WAGON – MARK MOORE

Posted on August 28, 2014 by

I have a colleague who uses the title as one of his social media tag lines. It always made me laugh – but it also causes me to let out a heavy sigh. I’ve seen it far more as reality in running projects than I have as just an amusing tagline.

Projects usually take one of two tracks. If they are planned well and managed closely, they generally run well and, while there are surprises, the project manager and the project sponsor/leadership get the results they wanted and are reasonably happy with them. Then, of course, there are projects on the opposite end of the spectrum – the ones that make every project manager cringe when the e-mail or IM comes in from the sponsor. These are the projects that were overloaded from the start in one way or another. If you haven’t seen one as a PM, you probably haven’t been managing long enough yet. Continue reading →

#53 – 5 PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS I LEARNED WHILE WAITING TABLES – HEATHER THORNTON

Posted on July 4, 2014 by

I ran across the following recently and the title made me click and read. Then I shared it with some peers. In thinking about it, I realized it needed to be re-posted here on our forum to get it even more exposure. The five points the author makes are critical in thinking about how much risk we introduce when we fail to do the most basic tasks on our projects. I could go on, but I’d much rather you read what Heather Thornton, Digital Project Manager at Covario wrote. And please visit Covario’s thought leadership page for more articles like this one. Thanks to the Covario team for permission to re-post. Continue reading →

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Category Archives: Projects@Risk™ – Malcolm Peart

#64 – RISK AND ORGANIZATIONAL MINDSET: LEARN TO THINK LIKE A COMMODITIES TRADER – GEARY W. SIKICH

#60 – EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES SYNDROME – MALCOLM PEART

#59 – LEVERAGING DIVERSITY ON EVERY PROJECT – KIRON BONDALE AND MARK MOORE

#56 – FORGET ABOUT THE MULE – LOAD THE WAGON – MARK MOORE

#53 – 5 PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS I LEARNED WHILE WAITING TABLES – HEATHER THORNTON