From the category archives:

Stakeholder management

Why you should assume positive intent

October 19, 2011

Students coming to study in London for the new university term will quickly realise that in the capital you generally do not assume positive intent. In fact, Not Assuming Positive Intent is the default. You assume that other commuters will fight you for the last tube seat. You assume that your pockets will get picked [...]

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BAs and PMs working together (part 4)

December 7, 2009

In this final instalment of the ‘working together’ series, I’ll be looking at how to improve the working relationships between project managers and business analysts. Changing working relationships is often more about culture than concrete tasks, but there are some things you can do to smooth any blips in the way that project managers and [...]

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BAs and PMs working together (part 3)

November 30, 2009

Last week I wrote about what project managers value when working with business analysts.  This week I want to focus on what we don’t. Don’t worry: it’s not that bad! The differences in the ways that project managers work and the ways that business analysts work means that it’s not always easy to work together. [...]

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BAs and PMs working together (part 2)

November 23, 2009

Last week I wrote about the way that project managers work, and how this relates to OTOBOS.  This week I want to explain what project managers value in our working relationships with business analysts. Project managers see BAs as architects.  They are detailed, they decide on and build solutions, they work in a methodical way.  [...]

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BAs and PMs working together (part 1)

November 16, 2009

About a month ago I spoke at the Business Analysis Conference about how project managers work, and how business analysts and project managers can work together more successfully.  As you can imagine, telling a room full of BAs that project managers don’t want to hear all that detail and analysis paralysis was received with a [...]

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Carnival of Project Management #29

November 5, 2009

Welcome to the October/November 2009 edition of the Carnival of Project Management.  Lots of good links for your entertainment, including one from Anticlue.  Yey, healthcare IT! Josh Nankivel presents How Do You Define Project Management To Your Friends? posted at pmStudent.com, saying, “This one generated a lot of comments and discussion.”  I’m not surprised.  Got [...]

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Book review: The Pirate Inside

February 9, 2009

Adam Morgan’s book The Pirate Inside is about building a challenger brand culture within yourself and your organisation.  And if that doesn’t make any sense, it’s because it’s aimed at brand professionals and marketers. So why did I read it?  A project team is like a brand team: we normally have one vocal champion who [...]

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Training your project sponsor

August 4, 2008

Unfortunately you might not be able to choose someone as your project sponsor who meets all the criteria that I mentioned last Monday – that is, if you have the luxury of being able to choose at all. Most likely you’ll just get lumped with someone and you’ll have to do your best to work [...]

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What makes a good project sponsor?

July 28, 2008

Having a good, active project sponsor is one of the ways you can ward off project failure. So if you are in the enviable situation of being able to choose who you have as your project sponsor, you need to look for someone who will do a good job. And what sort of person is [...]

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Project Sponsor FAQ

July 21, 2008

Craig Brown has been writing about the job description of a project sponsor over at Better Projects. I have pulled together an FAQ for project sponsors, which you can use if you’re having difficulty explaining to someone what a project sponsor actually does. Why does a project need a sponsor? To support the project team [...]

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