New project management articles published on the web during the week of April 7 – 13. We read all of this stuff so you don’t have to! Recommended:

If It Heartbleeds, It Leads

Rusty Foster explains the HeartBleed clearly enough for just about anyone to understand.

Brian Leach adds his thoughts to the stream of news on Heartbleed.

Mashable has compiled the Heartbleed Hit List: those major sites affected and not impacted. My recommendation: change your passwords, anyway. Just wait until those sites who admit to a problem have announced a solution, before you change that password. Meantime, don’t log in!

PM Best Practices

Chad Baker recounts a recent lessons learned session where the team explored what went well, and found a useful recommendation for future projects.

Bart Gerardi continues his series on “watermelon projects” with an ounce of prevention.

Elizabeth Harrin reviews “Trust in Virtual Teams,” by Thomas P. Wise.

Scott Berkun enumerates the ways in which remote work improves diversity.

Lynda Bourne reveals the potential impact of differing cultural perceptions of the relative importance of past, present, and future.

Roberto Toledo explains how to reduce the time required to plan a project, with a Project Planning Acceleration Project.

Ireti Oke-Pollard reminds us to give the operations folks “a seat at the table” during our project, so we don’t deliver something that they can economically support.

Zach Watson gives the elevator pitch for five Open Source project management alternatives.

Mike Clayton sings the praises of spreadsheets, and recommends a great resource for creative solutions using Excel.

Bruce McGraw gets back to the basics with project communication.

Joe Crumpler has found a gap in his skill set – call it business storytelling.

Agile Methods

Johanna Rothman continues her series on designing your Agile project, with a look at how the team will interact with management.

Pawel Brodzinski makes the case for unscaling Agile. That’s right: think smaller!

Nick Pisano refutes Neil Killick’s assertion that “traditional software development contracts” are the problem.

Strategy and Governance

Cornelius Fichtner interviews John Donahoe, SPMO Director at the Star Alliance, on the nature and value provided by the Strategic PMO. Just 24 minutes, safe for work.

Kevin Kern on PMO success: “The ultimate [PMO] is a model of defined and aligned processes, with results tracking and transparency to match.”

Allen Ruddock observes that a PMO has to be close to the action in order to be effective. Not off-shored, or shared services, but an actual participant!

Glen Alleman applies an IT governance and decision rights mindset to the #NoEstimates movement, referencing a book by Peter Weill and Jeanne Ross.

John Goodpasture notes the difference between a cost and an investment, and between maturity and decline.

Rich Maltzman and Dave Shirley trot out statistics that demonstrate strategic alignment has a significant impact on the probability of a successful project.

Podcasts and Videos

Cesar Abeid interviews Patrick Snow on growing a passion into business, while keeping your day job. Just 36 minutes, safe for work.

Michel Dion adds his comments to that new slice-of-death video, “The Expert.” Less than seven minutes, safe for work, and more depressing than a week’s worth of Dilbert.

Enjoy!

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