Managing The Gray Areas With Jerry Manas

In this episode of “The Project Shrink” I am talking to Jerry Manas. Jerry is an organizational architect and author of two books: “Napoleon on Project Management” and “Managing The Gray Areas”. We are talking about the “gray areas”. Managing projects is all about finding balances, finding the right touch for the right occasion. Jerry …

Why You Need A Project Management Dictionary

When I got a PR notice last week telling me that the “Dictionary of Project Management Terms” currently is in its third edition, I went blank… Why do I need a dictionary? Why not just use “simple” language? So, I asked the author, J. LeRoy Ward … [Project Shrink]: “Why should one learn the specific …

Black Swan: The Link Between Mind, Complexity And Resilience

For me, THE most influential book of the first half of 2008 is definitely “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Craig Janet reminded my with his post yesterday of this book, and the fact that it was due time to give it also some blog time on Project …

Communicate The Bigger Picture

Photography: Sylt August by knudsburg With large groups and a lot of time pressure you don’t always spend enough effort in communicating the overall perspective of the project. Too bad, because emphasizing the “bigger picture” helps stakeholders to keep in line and, if done properly, enhance motivation among the team (they wanna be part of …