“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Mark Twain “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” Maya Angelo Prediction 3 – High school and college education will adopt a lower cost online model. With notable exceptions! My thesis for this prediction was that colleges need the constant inflow of tuition payments, and all but the top tier schools would adopt remote learning as they realized the profit potential. With constant

“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

“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

“Our words reveal our thoughts; our manners mirror our self-esteem; our actions reflect our character; our habits predict the future.” William Arthur Ward “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” Niels Bohr In early 2020 as the pandemic was just beginning to sweep across the United States, I recognized that we were witnessing a profound event that would dramatically alter the lifestyles and habits of large segments of our population. Through March, Apri

“Who are you going to believe? Leading authorities on medical science, or 800 memes on your cousin’s Facebook page?” Samantha Bee “Covid-19 vaccine is the new baptism.” Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu “I am alive, well and fully vaccinated, despite pledging allegiance to no authority. Listening to experts is not complacency, it's just an act of common sense humanity.” Abhijit Naskar Those three quotes capture the dilemma that we all faced when making the vaccination decision. Early in

“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

“Always plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.” Richard Cushing “A good plan is like a road map: it shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there.” H. Stanley Judd The product roadmap is a recurring source of confusion for students aspiring to the Project Management Institute Project Management Professional (PMP®) certification. I believe it is because we describe the roadmap as a document that describes the vision and strategy, helps align

“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

“Agile is to continue delivering, with quality; ASAP and AEAP; as soon as possible; as easily as possible.” Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma, Agile Able: Project Management Simplified “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” Stephen Hawking Agile uses the iterative approach of repeating a series of structured development cycles where knowledge is gained about the final product, and an incremental approach by providing working software to the customer after each development cy

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near one.” J.R.R. Tolkien “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Abraham Lincoln A predictive approach is used when you know how to deliver the stated business benefits of the project. This is “traditional” project management. A charter establishes high level scope, cost and schedule and the project manager (with the project team) develops a detail

"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

“To think or not to think? That is the new question.” Nadina Boun, The Thinking Man, Paralysis by Analysis “The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step outside the frame.” Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet A project has a start, a finish, and a unique outcome. The project manager normally helps to write the Charter, and that document sanctions the project and allows the organization to expend resources. The project manager then develops and exec

“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

“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

“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

“Listen to those under your supervision. Really listen. Don’t act as if you’re listening and let it go in one ear and out the other. Faking it is worse than not doing it at all.” Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst “Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.” Kin Hubbard Did you know that many pineapple farmers “core” the pineapples they sell? They drill out the middle of the crown so you can’t grow one from the fruit

“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

You don't know what “good” looks like until you have seen it. This applies to almost every field!

Providing honest feedback is a crucial habit to pick up as a manager.

We all accept "defects" in our personal and private lives!