Great Blog!

I just read an interesting point of view on a blog I am going to keep an eye on from now on, Stephen Seay's projectsteps - very nice.

This entry talks about "believing that project failure is always the Project Manager's fault. I have to agree with this. This is along the same lines as an approach I like to take with any project teams I'm involved with. If something goes wrong, it's our fault. If the users want changes that they didn't initially tell us about, we didn't look hard enough or ask the right questions

If bugs get through to production, it's not just the developers fault - requirements may not have been clear, testers missed something etc. The process that allows bugs through (and that's all processes) wasn't rigorous enough - there are millions of things that went wrong. This should help defuse any sort of "blame culture" and hopefully, contribute to bringing the team together with a common cause - building a good system. If a team member is heading down that "blame culture" track, as PM, take responsibility (or take the blame) yourself. It is liberating for you, and it can be humbling for the "blamer"!

Anyway, I digress, check out Steve's site.

Project Management Perspective

Frank Winters provides an interesting perspective on issues being experienced in a tunnell building project in Boston - from a project manager.

Frank makes the following, simple but very relvant points:

• Hiding problems makes them worse
• You can't drive a project by the schedule (not without altering the product
• Commincation with stakeholders is vital
• You need bad news as soon as you can
• Be clear about practical limitations
• When things go wrong, weak partnerships tend to fall appart

Check out his article