Project Hero Blog - Weekly Best Practices and Tips

Project management can be stressful at times.  Meeting the competing demands of sponsors, stakeholders, and teams can be challenging.  Many mistakes are caused by spending too little time on a task, being distracted, or lacking full attention.

Many project management mistakes are caused by one or more of these issues, which are very common.  So let's make 2022 the year that we...

What are the differences between waterfall and agile projects? We can use both methods to manage projects, but both follow different processes.

With waterfall, a project is initiated, then planned.  Requirements are developed in full before proceeding with the project work.  Finally, project execution begins, and the project manager monitors and controls project progress. Once...

What is the minimum passing score for the PMP® Exam?  This is a trick question because there isn't one!  The scoring of the PMP exam is dynamic.  As stated in the PMI Certifications Handbook:

"The passing score for all PMI exams is determined by sound psychometric analysis. PMI uses subject matter experts – project professionals from around the world and many different...

What is the difference between a project manager and a product manager? As far as jobs go, in some small organizations they may be fulfilled by one person.  In reality, however, they are two distinct roles.

A product manager is responsible for a product life cycle.  The product life cycle may go on for years as products gain new features, are sold in more variations, and are...

Last month was Global Diversity Month, so let's take a look at how accessibility and project management are related.  Accessibility is concerned about whether all users will have an equal experience with an product or service - in other words, the output of a project. Anything that makes it difficult or impossible for a person with a temporary or permanent disability to equally use your...

Stop throwing away lessons learned or putting them in obscure IT folders!  Lessons learned have tremendous value for projects - don't waste them.  Let's look at four reasons why project management lessons learned are essential:

Don't make the same mistake twice:  Spanish philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”...

I noticed that my most recent project management classes have had an unexpected number of women.  In fact, one class is 2/3 women and 1/3 men, which is exactly the opposite of what recent surveys have shown exists in most workplaces. It is good to see this diversity gap may be closing.

Last month, October, was Global Diversity Awareness Month, and last Thursday was International Project...

Are you an aspiring, new, or accidental project manager?  The tips in this blog are generally focused on you, however some are more important than others for those just starting out. These 5 tips are things that I learned early as a new project manager and hope they will benefit your careers as well!

• Get in GEAR - be an active listener:  Active listening is especially important for a...

As project managers, we have a great responsibility to organize and manage the work of projects for our project sponsors and clients. The effort we put into this sometimes makes it difficult or impossible for us to be as personally organized as we might want or need. Unfortunately this might reflect poorly on our project management efforts, so we need to be as efficient and effective as...

I recently volunteered to coach and mentor adult learners in an organization which is putting some of their staff through a project management training program.  When wrapping up a session a couple of weeks ago, I got a surprising question.  "Should I get my PMP certificate?  What about all the other certifications?  My boss is very pro Lean Six Sigma."

To start with, the...