Entries by Bonnie Biafore

How projects fail and what to do about it

You don’t have to look far to find project failures. While many circumstances contribute to project failure, a few common circumstances often are the culprits that make good projects go bad. Here are the most prevalent management failures that lead to failed projects: A lack of proper management. Projects without professionally trained —and supported— project […]

Top 5 team building tips for PMs

Project managers set the tone for their project teams. The best team building occurs when you take advantage of everyday opportunities to boost your team’s morale. Here are some project management team building tips: Use your kickoff meeting to shape your project team. Anytime you get your team together is an opportunity to build team […]

The Top 5 Skills of Senior Project Managers

Senior level project management is more than competence. The myriad responsibilities that come with this role require broader skills. Razor-sharp business focus. Senior PMs understand and manage their project priority against other active initiatives in the portfolio. Senior PMs clearly articulate this information to negotiate with stakeholders. They also keenly leverage their sponsor’s strengths to […]

Stakeholder Management: 5 Ways to Resolve Conflict

This week’s article comes from my fellow LinkedIn Learning author Natasha Kasimtseva. Projects are the vehicle of change, and a key project manager competency is leading the team through rough waters of learning and evolving. Resource constraints, competing priorities and requirements, differences of opinion – these are a few examples of the sources of conflict […]

5 Ways to Increase Project Quality

A big part of project success is meeting business objectives. Project quality is the degree to which a project meets its objectives. Here are five tips to ensure the quality of your project outcomes. Don’t jump to the solution too quickly. The foundation of delivering quality is ensuring that your project solves the problem or […]

Project sponsor and project customer: what’s the difference?

In a recent LinkedIn Live session, someone asked, “What exactly is the difference between a project sponsor and a project customer? Sometimes, the sponsor is also the customer, but the roles have notable differences:  Authorizing or terminating the project. The project comes about because the project customer has a problem to solve or opportunity to […]

Managing change in agile projects

A learner in my LinkedIn Learning online project management course asked, “Is it true that agile methodologies don’t require change management to handle new requests?” Actually, change management is baked into the Agile approach. Here is how Agile manages change using the terminology of traditional project methodologies.  There is a Change Control Board. In Agile, […]

The Project Manager’s Relationship with Risk

In a recent LinkedIn Live session, a viewer asked, “How did you learn to embrace risk-taking?” A project manager isn’t the risk-taker in a project—risk is inherent in every project. However, it’s true that project managers must embrace risk. Project managers need to understand the risks within their projects as well as what risk management […]

Managing Project Contingency Funds

Contingency funds come in handy for mitigating project risk and handling unexpected issues. How much contingency funding do you need? And how do you manage it?  Here are some tips: Consider the cost of risk responses. After creating your risk management plan, estimate how much money you need to address the project’s high-probability risks. If […]

Managing Unacceptable Project Variances

Projects never run exactly according to plan, so project variances are inevitable. To keep your projects on track, you need to take action when variances are about to become – or already are — unacceptable. Here are some tips for managing variances. Respond quickly. Small variances in your schedule or costs can grow large before […]