The new reboot  Fantastic Four  movie is just out, and running parallel to the release is the controversy with Josh Trank, the director stepping back from the final product due to issues with Fox studios interference in the project. As a director of the movie, Josh Trank plays the same role a any project manager. He is responsible for the final product and steers the project in the right direction. A movie is a major project that has all the moving parts that needs a firm leadership to ensure it's final product is a major success. Some interesting point can be gleaned from this as a guidance for any project success. 1. Agree upfront on the requirements and scope of the project Each project should start with the list of requirements that all the stakeholders want to be present in the final product. These should be agreed upon upfront and be specifically called out. In this case, for example, 3 major action scenes were specified. 2. Key stakeholders should have ...

As we saw in Part 1, knowledge is power. So we should really examine what does proactive and reactive mean ? Proactive is when you action on an issue before the issue becomes an issue. Reactive is when the issue occurs and you are playing catch up. So I think you would agree that Proactive will be the better option for a successful project. Knowledge does not necessary to be from yourself only. A good project manager knows how to form his team so that he has the appropriate knowledge at hand to consult if you require. It is easier to leverage on the knowledge gained by others then to try to obtain all the knowledge yourself. So the second skill or power the Project Manager will need is to be able to build a good balance team with the appropriate balance of skills and knowledge as all as the personality to be able to work together.  

To be a project manager there are 2 paths you can take. The proactive path or the reactive path. Just as you do in your personal life, the path you wish to take is individual to each person and is depends on several factors. To be proactive means that you need information. The lack of information will normally cause a project manager to be reactive. To have the knowledge for example the amount of development time required to resolve the issue, what resource is available, what viable alternative options are available etc will enable a project manager to be more proactive rather then reactive. Knowledge is the key. The more knowledge you have, the more proactive you can be as you will be able to join all the pieces together to get the bigger picture to see the big picture. The less knowledge you have, the more reactive you become, since you will not know what you do not know until something happens.

To be a project manager there are 2 paths you can take. The proactive path or the reactive path. Just as you do in your personal life, the path you wish to take is individual to each person and is depends on several factors. To be proactive means that you need information. The lack of information will normally cause a project manager to be reactive. To have the knowledge for example the amount of development time required to resolve the issue, what resource is available, what viable alternative options are available etc will enable a project manager to be more proactive rather then reactive. Knowledge is the key. The more knowledge you have, the more proactive you can be as you will be able to join all the pieces together to get the bigger picture to see the big picture. The less knowledge you have, the more reactive you become, since you will not know what you do not know until something happens.

Every PM will have this nightmare of things that can go wrong in a project. Just like Robert Green in England's opening match with the USA in this year's World Cup finals in South Africa. At a crucial point, when everything was looking good for the England team, Robert Green made a tragic error and allowed an equalizer for the US which turned out to cost the England team their 3 points for the match. In every project, there will come a time when someone will drop the ball. What happens next is the crucial part. Rather then focusing on the event that caused the ball to be dropped, the PM will need to rally the team and help them to move on to complete the project, no matter how critical that event was. This is something that should be learnt from this match as this happened relatively early in the match and there was still plenty of time to rectify the situation. As a project manager or captain of the team Steve Gerrard should have rallied his troops and step up a gear to ...

The proverbial question. It may be surprising that many people do not really know what is a project manager or really understand the role this position undertakes. Many would associate this role only with the construction industry. Now project managers fulfill an essential role in many industries outside of construction and provide one of the many essential elements to make project run successfully. This blog is dedicated to the many project managers who help to run projects in all aspects of industry and are often very much misunderstood. A definition provided in Wikipedia : A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers can have the responsibility of the planning, execution, and closing of any project, typically relating to construction industry, architecture, computer networking, telecommunications or software development. Seems over simplified but does bare out the role which project managers or PMs provide. This blog is named...