No matter the industry or size of the project, every project manager is tasked with juggling multiple day-to-day operations. Even small-scale projects can be complex, comprised of hundreds of cross-functional activities that need to be executed under tight timelines with budgets at stake. As a project manager, you’re a change agent working with your team….

With many forms and faces and with a variety of roles, stakeholders are a valuable part of any project. Based on a recent article by Robert Youlker, stakeholders comprise people both inside and outside of an organization who have an interest in a problem and its solution. Fractured relationships with stakeholders can create a fragmented…

Dear Elizabeth: I work on a remote team that’s spread all over the world practically! Both coasts of the U.S., Europe and Asia. Even though we have a cloud-based project management system that anyone can access from anywhere, there’s still a lot lost in translation. Sometimes I feel like we spend more time trying to…

If you’re like most project managers, in addition to the administration of your project, you likely have a multitude of daily activities that distract you from essential tasks. These distractions can impact the overall success of your project. Dr. Gloria Mark, an associate professor at Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the…

Dear Elizabeth: I’m project managing 100 projects (seriously), and struggling. The main thing is deadlines – we have a fixed project deadline, but it’s largely in the control of our customers as we require information/feedback from them during the project. How can I set a deadline so that I can see the original due date…

Dear Elizabeth: I’m in a bit of a pickle. The project I’m currently managing is not going to make the delivery date because a handful of developers got moved to another project. But my boss has told me not to say anything to the client—yet. Well a week has gone by, and the client keeps…

As part of MPUG’s 2018 Community Survey, we asked the question, “Are you getting the feedback you need from program sponsors?” The results came in, and we learned that over 50% of you thought this area needed improvement. Another 18% of you said an affirmative “NO” in answer to this question, which led us to…

In my previous post on MPUG, I shared a way to include Planner boards in Teams. Some of you might have wondered, what exactly is Teams? I would like to narrow that question down and address Teams from a Project Manager’s perspective. In this article I’ll try to answer that by briefly walking you through…

Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDUs in the Leadership category of the Talent Triangle. Event Description: Think managing up is just brown-nosing in disguise? Think again. Managing up in projects done well will bring clarity, commitment, ownership, and support your project needs to meet time…

Over the past decade or so, the concept of ‘cloud’ has become synonymous with a place where we store all things work-related (such as documents and data). In many cases, a ‘cloud’ represents the place where we work (i.e. within a digital workspace like SharePoint or Wrike). For project managers, we often speak in fluffy…