The core business skills adaptive Project Managers need

The success of an Adaptive Project Manager (APM) rests on their ability to maintain focus on how their project fits within an organization’s Value Delivery System.   For those who are new to the term, “Value Delivery System” (VDS) is how a couple of McKinsey consultants in 1988 (M. J. Lanning and…
Click here

The Adaptive Project Manager Skills Series: Working iteratively – Part 2

In Part 1 of “Working Iteratively” we established that “iteration” when used as a verb means the act of repeating, and when used as a noun, it means version. We also explored the premise that adaptive leaders understand achieving solutions or change is rarely a “one shot” activity. And that…
Click here

The Adaptive Project Manager Skills Series: Working iteratively – Part 1

It’s hard to argue that humankind’s progress is not the direct result of continuous iterative activity. “Iteration” when used as a verb means the act of repeating, like flipping through social media posts. When used as a noun, it means version, as in the latest iteration of a software application…
Click here

The Adaptive Project Manager Skills Series: The Mindset

Project management is a practice that begins and ends with the perception of the environment and goals affecting the initiative being worked on. That perception is formed by the set of assumptions, methods, or notions the project manager and influential stakeholders believe to be true: their…
Click here

What does it mean to be an adaptive project manager?

While project managers represent a wide spectrum of geographies, industry segments, purposes, and organisational structures and cultures, they all share one common activity: dealing with change. From the inception of a project to its close, project managers face constant streams of change from…
Click here

The Fallibility of Heroes

Why heroic leadership is not suited to a VUCA world.      The great leader speaks little.   He never speaks carelessly.   He works without self-interest  and leaves no trace.   When all is finished, the people say  “We did it ourselves. "  — Lao-tzu     What is effective leadership?  Is it:  A…
Click here

What does the seventh edition of the PMBOK® mean for project managers?

The latest edition of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) can be broadly described as a transition from a process-based perspective to a principle-based approach. This shift reflects a recognition that there are multiple ways to successfully manage projects, with no single method or…
Click here

The Dangerous World of Psychological Safety, part 1

“Psychological safety is not the same as a safe space. It is not a space where you will always feel comfortable and not have your views challenged. It is almost the opposite. It’s a brave space…” — Amy Edmondson.      The father of employee engagement, William Khan, defined psychological safety…
Click here

Exploring the stages of team development

Dr Bruce Tuckman’s research into group dynamics is still a widely used model that maps out the stages a team goes through to get to high performance. Tuckman suggested that the stages a team goes through (forming, storming, norming, and performing) are the critical pathway for teams to…
Click here

The hero of this (user) story is accountability

A few years ago, I coached an agile video production team. It was a highly collaborative, tight-knit team with super specialised skill sets. The team churned through the work and delivered lots of high-value outcomes for the organisation.   However, what the team and I noticed was that there seemed…
Click here

Raising the intelligence of teams

"Cooperation for mutual benefit, a survival strategy very common in natural systems, is one that humanity needs to emulate. " — Eugene Odum  "We are constantly fragmenting our limited attentional focus with both internal and external distractions and multiple tasks, and there is a cost for this…
Click here

Fitness Landscapes for Product Management

How evolutionary theory can be applied to business  “ … the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to and to adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself ” ― Leon C. Megginson (often incorrectly attributed to Darwin)  In nature, species either adapt to their…
Click here
Previous 1 ... 4 5 6 ... 31 Next

Thank you!

Your details have been submitted and we will be in touch.

CHAT
CALL