Project Management, initiative, leadership

What do you know about company politics? Did you ever had the chance to stumble on them? I am very naive person, and I used to think that I could develop and progress in any company, provided the good performance is there, and there is some good reasoning on why some things are the way they are. And that I cannot change everything, like it or not. What I discover - and I say "discover", not know, because I keep discovering this in many organisations - is that there are always some backstage games that take place, with many different purposes: career advance, getting the easy project, lower targets, more power etc. It often doesn't matter who is wrong and who is right in these discussions, but how a situation is handled. And you might not agree with the politics, but they are there to stay - and in any organisation, be it small or big. What should you know about politics so that you can properly prepare and navigate in the troubled seas of office politics? Well, the...

As the Getting PMP certified article got so much positive feedback, I though I should also share some of the providers of free tests. I have also used them during my certification prep period as well, and I've found them really useful. You should simulate your exam at least 3 times before stating that you are ready for the BIG TEST, so the links below should help you a lot. Still, one word of caution: not all the questions seem to have the right response, and not all explanations are really in line with PMBoK - but if you have a good knowledge of the practice part of Project Management, and if you've read the books I've recommended, you can already discover them. Don't go for the real PMP exam if you don't score 80% in these simulations - they seemed to me a little bit easier than the real exam. http://www.pmhub.net/ PMSuccess offers via PMHub.net 400 questions to play with. Not an exam simulation per-se, but you can always try to do 200 questions in a row t...

I am still very surprised about the huge amount of focus that is put on general project management skills, and processes, and tools, and the limited attention that people management skills get. What happens when the PM has no people management skills? quite a lot actually: - attracting people to the project becomes very hard, as the line managers say no to letting their people handle other stuff - keeping the people on the project remains as well as challenge - conflicts inside the team grow unseen until they become uncontrollable - project meetings become wars - deadlines slip - people blame each other A climate of distrust is thus created, and instead of a productive environment for already difficult customers, the PM will also have to firefight each and every conflict. As I was mentioning in a prior post, while the PMP certification will not bring as a guarantee that the PM knows how to manage people, it does force every candidate to read through the Human Resource...

I am passionate about self-development and ways to improve yourself. Up until now, I can say that I have mastered one critical aspect: continuous learning. Let me explain. Business today requires us to always deliver great results, by providing decreasing resources to increase profit margin. Or, shortly put: MORE with LESS. I don't think this is actually possible if we continue to do the things the same way we did it in the past - what worked then, might continue to work today as well, or not... So you have to be prepared to adjust to the new requirements, to change based on how the world around us change, always dapt and discover new ways of doing things. My key learning was that I have to never stop learning, never stop reading about how others are doing things, how others achieve great results, and see how this might give me ideas on how to change. I might not apply it today, or not even tomorrow, but it does build a different way of thinking, it does open up your mind to ...