#portfolio

Bill Holmes

Dec 22, 2022
2 min

How Much Should We Trust Experts?

“Having the data is not the same as having the expertise to look through the data - if it were, everybody with a smartphone would be a doctor or a scientist.” Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Insan: When The World is Family “Without the opinion of an expert there's no such thing as certainty.” Joanna Ruocco I intentionally picked these quotes because they show two common misperceptions about experts: Expertise in a domain isn't the same as expertise in data analysis. Experts seldom b

The Process Groups Practice Guide replaces the predictive portion of the PMBOK® 6th Edition

Bill Holmes

Nov 25, 2022
2 min

The Process Groups Practice Guide replaces the predictive portion of the PMBOK® 6th Edition

“There are only two options: make progress or make excuses.” Tony Robbins “Progress is man’s ability to complicate simplicity.” Thor Heyerdahl PMI retired the 6th Edition of the PMBOK in March 2022, however the current version of the Project Management Professional® (PMP) exam preparation course material extensively references that retired document. I pointed that out in a post on October 19. You can link to that post here: https://www.projectmanagementforum.net/post/time-fo

Time for a "Master Project Manager" Certification?

Bill Holmes

Oct 19, 2022
3 min

Time for a "Master Project Manager" Certification?

“No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.” Peter Drucker “No man ever reached to excellence in any one art or profession without having passed through the slow and painful process of study and preparation.” Horatius What is current state of PMI® credentials? Let’s start with Agile. PMI has had the PMI-ACP® since 2011, and it is currently the third most popular certification. In 2017 they published the Agile Practice Guide, but it wasn’t unt

What will PMI® do with the 6th Edition of the PMBOK®?

Bill Holmes

Oct 4, 2022
2 min

What will PMI® do with the 6th Edition of the PMBOK®?

“The sales department isn’t the whole company, but the whole company better be the sales department.” Philip Kotler “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” Stephen Covey What will become of the 6th Edition of the PMBOK®? What will PMI use as a reference for future iterations of the PMP® Exam? Prior to the latest exam change, the PMP certification was heavily weighted toward a predictive approach to project management. It was based primarily

Bill Holmes

Sep 3, 2022
3 min

How I Overcame Writer’s Block

“Don’t waste time waiting for inspiration. Begin, and inspiration will find you.” H. Jackson Brown Jr. “Writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all” Charles Bukowski I enjoy writing, and my blog provides an opportunity to hone my skills and get feedback from a wider audience. It is a labor of love. I don’t get paid for it and anyone who is interested can subscribe for free. I have posted a minimum of twice a month for years, and have covered topics rang

Scoring my COVID Predictions Part 2 – Remote Medicine

Bill Holmes

May 1, 2022
3 min

Scoring my COVID Predictions Part 2 – Remote Medicine

“Doctors are great–as long as you don’t need them.” Edward E. Rosenbaum “Don’t misinform your doctor nor your lawyer.” Unknown As I reviewed this prediction, I realized this was one of my best researched posts. There were multiple examples of how technology was positively impacting healthcare delivery, and all of the data led to the logical conclusion that both experience and technology were driving us to more efficient and cost-effective delivery of healthcare services. M

Scoring my COVID Predictions Part 1 – The Rise of the Remote Worker

Bill Holmes

Apr 10, 2022
3 min

Scoring my COVID Predictions Part 1 – The Rise of the Remote Worker

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” Michael Jordan “We like to give people the freedom to work where they want, safe in the knowledge that they have the drive and expertise to perform excellently, whether they are at their desk or in their kitchen. Yours truly has never worked out of an office, and never will.” Richard Branson The COVID-19 pandemic taught us that for the right type of work, working remotely can be incredibly ef

Bill Holmes

Jan 16, 2022
3 min

My Experience with COVID-19

“I'm just a little bit sicker than the average individual I think.” Eminem “The wolf was sick, he vowed a monk to be - But when he got well, a wolf once more was he.” Walter Bower Disclaimer! This is not medical advice! You should never take advice from someone you only know over the internet. I am just sharing our experience. My wife and I just recovered from COVID-19. We have three daughters still living in our home and my wife is a nurse, so we both knew that we woul

Bill Holmes

Jan 6, 2022
3 min

The Science of the Trashcan Fire

“He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.” Saint Francis of Assisi “If any man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar. If any man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool.” Abraham Lincoln My mother and father were forged in hard times. My father lived through the Great Depression and joined the US Army when he

Project Management Basics – Chapter 15 – Agile Rituals – Shu Ha Ri

Bill Holmes

Jul 2, 2021
3 min

Project Management Basics – Chapter 15 – Agile Rituals – Shu Ha Ri

“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.” Bruce Lee “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle I first heard of Shu Ha Ri in an Aikido Dojo. I was taking Taekwondo under Master Choi in a small school in Augusta, GA. My friends and I were consumed by the sport for several years, training constantly and regularly competing in local tournaments. I was attending a tournament in Columbia, SC, where I m

Project Management Basics – Chapter 14 – Agile Rituals – The Daily Scrum

Bill Holmes

Jun 19, 2021
3 min

Project Management Basics – Chapter 14 – Agile Rituals – The Daily Scrum

“The human soul can always use a new tradition. Sometimes we require them.” Pat Conroy, The Lords of Discipline “We are our culture and tradition; if there is no culture or tradition we are no one.” Tamerlan A Kuzgov The rituals of agile matter. Several weeks ago there was a survey posted on LinkedIn that asked about the daily scrum. It specifically asked if the daily scrum was necessary for agile development. I can’t recall the survey results, but one my colleagues commented

Project Management Basics – Chapter 8 – Predictive, Iterative, Incremental, Adaptive

Bill Holmes

Mar 28, 2021
3 min

Project Management Basics – Chapter 8 – Predictive, Iterative, Incremental, Adaptive

"Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning." Winston Churchill "Plans are worthless. Planning is essential." Dwight D. Eisenhower I think this is one of the topics that the PMBOK® makes unnecessarily complicated. Here is a quote from page 19 of the PMBOK, 6th Edition: “Project life cycles can be predictive or adaptive. Within a project life cycle, there are generally one or more phases that are associated with the development of the product, service, or r

Project Management Basics – Chapter 6 – The Benefits Management Plan

Bill Holmes

Feb 28, 2021
3 min

Project Management Basics – Chapter 6 – The Benefits Management Plan

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” Sun Tzu “Strategy is a commodity; execution is an art.” Peter Drucker Organizations should have a strategic planning process and use that to identify threats and opportunities. The threats and opportunities are used to develop a “to be” state, and a gap analysis should be conducted to identify the delta between that and the current state. Projects are then initiate

Project Management Basics – Chapter 4 – Product Metrics

Bill Holmes

Feb 7, 2021
2 min

Project Management Basics – Chapter 4 – Product Metrics

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts” Albert Einstein “What gets measured, gets managed.” Peter Drucker Last week I asked the question “Can I have a well-run project that delivers an unwanted product?” Sadly, the answer is “yes”. It happens all the time because organizations either don’t know project management basics or because management intentionally rejects good practices. Project should be initiated because someone has

Bill Holmes

Jul 31, 2020
2 min

Chaos isn’t a pit, it’s a ladder

“Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is the ladder, and the climb is all there is.” Petyr Baelish, Game of Thrones “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” Sun Tzu How many of you have people in your lives that thrive on chaos? I know that I do! They seem to create disruption and turmoil everywhere they go, and they seem completely unaware of what they are doing. But they are aware. Why do they create chaos? As a project manager, I love predictability! In fact, predictability

The Importance of “framing” Part 5 – Getting it Wrong – The Challenger

Bill Holmes

Feb 21, 2020
3 min

The Importance of “framing” Part 5 – Getting it Wrong – The Challenger

“After the Challenger accident, NASA put in a lot of time to improve the safety of the space shuttle to fix the things that had gone wrong.” Sally Ride “In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded and crashed down to Earth less than two minutes after takeoff. The cause of that crash, it turned out, was an inexpensive rubber O-ring in the booster rocket that had frozen on the launchpad the night before and failed catastrophically moments after takeoff.” David Autor I can

The importance of proper “framing” Part 1- What is framing?

Bill Holmes

Jan 21, 2020
3 min

The importance of proper “framing” Part 1- What is framing?

The proper framing of an issue is more important than the facts!

Bill Holmes

Dec 10, 2019
2 min

Friction changes things

“Friction changes everything” Scott Adams periscope broadcast “It's not the work which kills people, it's the worry. It's not the revolution that destroys machinery it's the friction.” Henry Ward Beecher The other day a friend of mine called to complain about how things were going in his organization. He works in a completely different organization and normally the conversation turns to tales of bureaucratic ineptness. On this particular call he told me that “leadership” iss

Management Lessons from Movies, Chapter 7: Resident Evil

Bill Holmes

Aug 14, 2019
4 min

Management Lessons from Movies, Chapter 7: Resident Evil

“You’re all going to die down here!” Red Queen “I'm not sure I want to remember what went on down here.” Alice Resident Evil is a 2002 movie based on a wildly popular first shooter video game of the same name. The plot begins by informing us that the Umbrella Corporation is a huge multinational corporation that has the public image as a consumer goods manufacturer, but really makes most of its profits on weapons, including biological warfare. Espionage occurs in an undergroun

Project Communications Part 2 – Assessing Key Stakeholders Temperament

Bill Holmes

Jan 25, 2019
4 min

Project Communications Part 2 – Assessing Key Stakeholders Temperament

“Invariably, micromanaging results in four problems: deceit, disloyalty, conflict, and communication problems.” John Rosemond “Team members need to feel trusted and valued, and micromanaging communicates the opposite. Founders who are prone to manage every detail of their businesses will ultimately kill themselves as well as lose the support of team members. Learn to delegate key tasks and give credit.” Martin Zwilling In my last post I began a series on project communication

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