Insights for Software  Delivery PMs

You can only give what you have. If you have six slices of bread and you need one to feed yourself, you have five to give. That is simple enough when we are talking about bread.

It gets a lot less simple when we are talking about energy, presence, patience, emotional capacity. You cannot see how many slices you have left. You cannot see when you are handing over the one you needed for yourself. And because you cannot see it, you keep giving. Until one day there is nothing left, and you have no ...

There is a part of us that needs to be fed. That needs to hear it did well. That pulls for recognition before it has even checked whether the moment calls for it.

If you are a vendor PM reading this, I suspect you recognize that. Not because you are flawed. Because you are human.

The way I perceive it, ego is not a character flaw. It is something more structural. A survival mechanism that learned a lesson that is not serving, you somewhere along the way. Instead of keeping you safe, it keeps y...

Most project managers know critical path management. You have used your Gantt chart, possibly built a work breakdown structure, kept an eye on float for the tasks that matter. And then gone back to managing your project the way you always have.

That might sound like a criticism. It is not. In my experience, it is simply what happens when a concept stays on paper. Critical path management, the way it is typically taught, is a calculation. Something you do in a planning tool at the start of a pro...

Reading through this content you might get the impression that at PM Guidance we don't see value in the science of project management and are just about the people side. It is quite the contrary. The science is important for creation of project clarity and a project foundation. Without a proper project fundament the application of people skills becomes a counterproductive exercise. To make that very simple: to cooperate with people on a delivery without having clarity of what that delivery shoul...

 The art of project management is the people side of software project management. It is the tailored application of human skills—influencing, negotiation, creating clarity, applying care, and building project-appropriate relationships—within the reality of delivering projects through people.

The lack of clarity is a fundamental issue causing lack of project success. This is on many levels: steering committees operating without clarity of what exactly success is, fuzziness around the exact defin...

 As shared in the introduction article, when we refer to the science of project management we mean the different techniques and methodologies taught in formal project management education. There are quite some different programs out there, all with their pros and cons. The main differentiator is between those that originated from an Agile mindset and those that originated from a more waterfall approach, which later incorporated Agile principles as well.

The way I perceive the science of project...