Entries by Bonnie Biafore

Less Well-known Benefits of Schedule Management

Besides bringing control to your project schedule, schedule management delivers additional benefits. Here are a few rarely-discussed benefits of schedule management.  Defines elephant bites. The adage about eating an elephant one bite at a time works with projects, too. However, the phrase doesn’t mean much unless those bites are defined and are seen as reasonable. […]

How to Recover From a Mistake

Even the most experienced project manager will occasionally make a mistake – a flaw in the project plan, misinterpreting business directions, or overlooking an issue or risk. Here are a few tips on how to recover when you make a mistake in a project: Take ownership. The quicker you take ownership of what happened, the […]

You Don’t Have to Feel So Alone

As a project manager, you have to make decisions, resolve conflicts, manage aggressive timeframes and make the most of small budgets. It can feel like you have to deal with these responsibilities all alone. Yes, your responsibilities are monumental. You won’t feel so alone if you follow these tips: Work with your team members. Take […]

The Fine Art of Documenting Lessons Learned

Crafting lessons learned can be tricky. Lessons learned should help future projects without criticizing anyone publicly. Here are a few guidelines for achieving those lessons learned goals.  Identify recurring issues. Issues that are likely to re-occur if they aren’t addressed are significant lessons learned because they will help many future projects. Conversely, issues related to […]

Must-have Hard Skills for Project Managers

A solid team can contribute to the broad range of skills needed to complete projects successfully. However, project managers must possess several skills to ensure project success: Construct risk response plans. Although team members can identify risks, the project manager handles building and managing sound risk responses. Because the PM is the project liaison to […]

Tips for Launching Projects Successfully

The fate of most projects is determined by how they’re launched. With a proper launch, the project has a good chance of succeeding. Botch it and the chance of delivering value is almost zero. Here are my top tips for nailing the project launch: Develop a shared understanding of the project. You and your project […]

Improve Your Leadership Skills with Emotional intelligence

As project managers, we don’t simply manage work, deliverables, and documentation – we lead and support the people on our project teams. Emotional intelligence (also known as Emotional Quotient or EQ) helps us do that. Here’s how enhancing your EQ can help: Relate to people working from home. Working with others is challenging even when […]

Tips to Reduce Project Chaos

People problems, business pressures, and creating unique results come with unexpected challenges. Dealing with chaos is one more thing project managers must do. Here are a few tips for reducing project chaos. Research past lessons learned. Capturing lessons learned is often like wishful thinking. People talk about doing it, but rarely get around to it. […]

When You Need to Justify Your Project Manager Role

Project management is often viewed as overhead, which is a typical target when cost cutting is in the air. As a result, you might find yourself in the uncomfortable position of justifying your role as project manager. Here are several approaches you can use to educate leaders about the value of project management and skilled […]