PMThink! Project Management Thought Leadership: PMThink Contest: Help Other PMs and Win a Prize!

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

PMThink Contest: Help Other PMs and Win a Prize!

Here's an opportunity for PMThink readers to help the project management profession and win something in the process.

Here's what we invite you to do. It's simple:

Post a comment to this message stating, in a single sentence, what the best project management advice you've ever received was.

That's it.

PS: I admit, I came up with this question after posting a link to a YouTube video that showed other people's answers to this question. I thought it would be nice to also leverage the collective intelligence of PMThink readers.

In a week or two, we'll pick one of the comments at random (we'll number the comments and drop the numbers into a hat). The winner will receive a free subscription ($39.99 value) to The Project Management PrepCast™, courtesy of Cornelius Fichtner, who was kind enough to donate the subscription to the cause.

Here's information about the PrepCast™ from PMPrepcast.com:

The Project Management PrepCast™ is the first true and "pod-ready" PMP® podcast. Students are able to instantly download all 77 episodes and intensify their studies. The average episode lasts 22 minutes giving the students a total of 30 hours of quality PMP audio material. The podcast covers concepts, tools and techniques in preparation for the PMP® or CAPM® certification exam. We cover material in the PMBOK® Guide, and we include the necessary models, theories and formulas not covered in the Guide.

Of course, if you're already PMP-Certified, you can donate the subscription to a friend, or to the PMI chapter or SIG of your choice. They'll love you for it. Either way, we hope to collect a nice list of PM "best practice" tips for our readers.

PS: When we announce the winner, we'll give you instructions for how to claim your prize.

Labels: advice, best-practices, project-manager-tips

13 Comments:

At 11:20 PM, Garry B said...: I'm disqualified from the competition, but I'd like to get things started. Here's some great advice: "Great organizations, especially those that do well over the long haul, are masters of the obvious and the mundane." Bob Sutton, Harvard Business Online, May 4, 2007. (In project work, getting to "done" is the obvious and the mundane.)
/Garry
At 2:37 AM, John Rusk said...: "Always remember, there is only us"

Alistair Cockburn, on collaboration instead of "us vs them", in Agile Software Development 2nd Ed.
At 6:19 AM, Eric Brown said...: I received this piece of advice in my first job from an old-timer who had 40+ years of PM experience:

It's about the people...not the processes or tasks. You treat your people right, they'll make sure the project is right.
At 7:47 AM, Jason Bates said...: I Love Eric Brown's comment above. My whole blog / consultancy / quest in life is just taking that 1 piece of advice out to project managers who believe that success lies in better Gantt charts and MORE CONTROL!!!

My best piece of advice ever, was from one of the most insightful and successful consultants I ever met.

"When people don't care about a project they can find a 100 good ways to make it not work that aren't their fault"
At 10:00 AM, Isaac Garcia said...: "Make sure you really need a collaboration/project management tool before you try to use one."

Many times a PM or collab tool is overkill for something that you could have accomplished in a phone call, a single email or a single document.
At 1:12 PM, Laurie said...: Although the PMBOK puts the statistic a little lower, experience shows that -- "100% of SUCCESSFUL project management is communication"
(whether it is used for team building, coordination of activities, collection/ dissemination of data/metrics and status)
At 11:09 PM, Randy, PMP said...: I can't remember who gave me this advise but it went like this :

I always try to balance the interest of the people. Always find out how you can make person A agree on an idea that contradicts his own idea.
At 8:00 AM, Jason Bates said...: Can I double dip on this one. I saw a quote yesterday that I thought would fit perfectly here..

"Your success is driven in large part by your ability to leverage the community you build around you."

-Scott Allen and David Teten , authors, 'The Virtual Handshake'

JB - Project Leadership Blogger
At 6:32 PM, Jerry Manas said...: These are all amazing! I'm sensing a theme here - people, communication, and simplicity! I couldn't agree more.

Keep 'em coming!

(and yes, you can post more than once)
At 1:40 AM, Frederic Casagrande said...: "Never take anything for granted, never assume that something is happening, check"
At 1:34 PM, Lucas Rodriguez Cervera said...: "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it"
At 7:16 PM, Jerry Manas said...: Well, time to pick a winner! Thanks to all for your participation.

There were 9 qualifying comments (skipping Garry's and mine), so I put numbers 1 - 9 on little pieces of paper into a box, shook it, and picked one.

And the winner is...

Frederic Casagrande! Frederic, you win the PMPrepcast subscription. Congratulations!

You can contact Cornelius via his contact info at:

http://www.pmprepcast.com/index.php?option=com_contact&Itemid=3

I'll let him know to expect your email. If you prefer to donate it to a PMI chapter or SIG, just let Cornelius know.

By the way, I clicked on your profile and checked out your blog. I see you have an entry for top 10 project management lessons. Great list! I'll post a blog linking to it.
At 7:59 AM, Frederic Casagrande said...: Jerry, thanks a lot, I'm very pleased :)
I'll contact Cornelius later today about that !