Shifting The Burden And Fixes That Backfire – Archetypes Part 1

This is the third post in my series about using systems thinking for analyzing problems in projects. I recommend you read the previous posts before diving head first into this post. After extensive research Peter Senge, author of the book The Fifth Discipline, found patterns that were common among the situations he studied; a couple …

Systems Thinking: Looking For Causal Loops

Yesterday I talked about how systems thinking can be used to find patterns and cause-effect-chains that help you find solutions to problems in projects. All these patterns, links and loops are fine and dandy, but you are probably wondering right now how this is going to help you running your project? Check Out This Example …

Systems Thinking: A Technique To Find Project Problems

Finding the real cause of a project problem can be a difficult task. You have to look for patterns … “These patterns are dynamic systems in action, a human system seen over a time period. Patterns are trends over time and involve dependencies with other systems. To spot such trends in projects we use metrics …

Great Virtual Teams: Rule 2: Use Technology to Simulate Reality

How to use social media successfully in projects, is described in the Harvard Business Review article by Ann Majchrzak, Arvind Malhotra, Jeffrey Stamps and Jessica Lipnack: “Can Absence Make A Team Grow Stronger”. The article is from 2004, and they are not mentioning “social media”, they discuss “virtual workspaces”. But the two concepts are strikingly …

The Partial Project Manager

In this posting I am going to tell you what the main theme of my blog is… wow. Do I really have an answer? Six weeks ago I released the first draft of my ebook “Project Shrink: Linear Edition“. The reason for publishing unfinished work is to get early feedback. I am very happy to …