By Dougals R. Teany When president Gerald Ford appointed Donald Rumsfeld as his Secretary of Defense in 1975, Rumsfeld became the youngest defense secretary in U.S. history.
By W. Scott Cameron Project managers are rarely described as being funny. Moreover, a good sense of humor rarely seems to be one of the deciding factors in choosing someone to be a project manager, or something that pops up as a major discussion point at an annual performance review.
By Terry Little In our business we have all kinds of reviews: financial reviews, strategy reviews, technical reviews, test reviews, design reviews, baseline reviews, etc., etc. I hate them all — every last one.
By Allan Frandsen To lead a project effectively, one has to establish and maintain the flexibility to take appropriate actions when needed.
By Christian Zazzali The client was taking a huge risk opening a new store in Washington, D.C. One of the most successful retail mail order businesses in the U.S. had contracted with my company to build the first flagship store outside of New England.
By Kimberly R. Jenkins As the new team lead, I came in from outside the group. Rather than just assuming that I knew what was needed, I decided to ask them. Who should know better, right?
By Harvey Schabes It was early in my career at NASA, and I was a relatively junior engineer. I hadn’t interfaced much with teams from NASA centers other than my own, Lewis, or what is now called the Glenn Research Center.
By Susan Motil The Concept Review had not gone well, and my entire team was in the dumps. It took months for them to stop feeling lousy about their work and themselves.
By Dr. Alexander Laufer When should one make decisions during project planning: early or late? Well, as the following two stories illustrate, the answer is simple: It depends.
