Project Hero Blog - Weekly Best Practices and Tips

[Project managers take note!  Starting a business from scratch and without capital is something you may do if you want to start a private practice.  Plus starting a project from scratch without capital is very similar.]

When you have little to no startup capital, founding a business can feel like climbing a mountain. Fortunately, the digital revolution has made starting up easier and...

This week, I was asked by someone to define leadership.  In addition, they asked if leadership was something that could be taught.  So let's look at each of these questions, one at a time.

There are three essential elements to leadership:

1. A leader is someone who guides, influences, and manages people by influence, not authority or power.  Therefore, leadership has nothing to do...

[NOTE: Want to find out more about project cost management?  You're invited to the launch of PPC Group's new publication, Project Cost Management: Principles, Tools, Techniques, and Best Practices for Project Finance, by Ray Frohnhoefer and Inham Hassen, in June 2022. For more information and to register for the event, click here: ...

Projects fail for a lot of reasons, so it's a good idea for the project manager to be aware of what is happening on the project.   Things may even be perfect - no variance and all goals met - but management may decide to kill the project or there may be other hidden problems.  Here are four signs that your project may be failing or left to fail.

The project sponsor(s) are nowhere...

I frequently receive questions such as how do I get started as a project manager and how do I learn more about project management.  It takes time to learn.  You will also need to learn not just best practices but the practices your organization already employs.

This post is not about training or competency studies but relationships. Building the right relationships ensures you get the...

With the move to more remote work, this is a good time to think about improving virtual team communication.  Fortunately, I've been working with remote teams since the 1970s, so have learned a few important lessons along the way.  Communication, for some, is difficult face-to-face and even harder when working remotely.

Here's a perfect example of how not to act with remote...

A project charter is a document that initiates a project.  While some project management standards suggest specific formats and topics, real projects often use other documents in place of a project charter.  These may be contracts, statements of work, memoranda of understanding, or other similar documents.

The best project charters provide the most salient details, allowing the...

To start this week's topic, let's look at a definition of change management. According to the PMBOK Guide - 7th Edition, "Change management, or enablement, is a comprehensive, cyclic, and structured approach for transitioning individuals, groups, and organizations from a current state to a future state in which they realize benefits."

Note that the critical elements of this definition are about...

Working from home comes with some fantastic benefits. One is the ability to customize your office so it best fits your needs. Studies suggest that by 2028 at least 73% of departments will have remote positions. Everyone from project managers to consultants like the PPC Group can work from home or elsewhere. Because of this, home office design is more critical than ever....

Last week we looked at tips for construction project managers.  While project management remains the same across industries (with the exception of some terminology), project managers in different industries will face different issues and challenges.  This week, let's examine 5 tips focused on IT project managers.

Develop strong interpersonal skills. There are many strong and diverse...