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Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Project Ethics

An ethical Project Manager is a successful Project Manager. The PMI has established a Professional Code of Ethics that all Project Management Professionals (PMP) must adhere to. These ethics are meant to ensure that all PMPs abide by a set of values, and they live up to those values in pursuit of their careers.

Project Ethics won't ensure you are a successful project manager, however not behaving ethically will almost always ensure your project will fail. As stated in the PMI Code of conduct, which in my opinion is the most important ethical behavior, a project manager must accept responsibility for his or her actions. This means admitting to all your stakeholders when you are wrong, learning from your mistakes, and putting actions into place that will help you to avoid making the same mistake twice.

A project manager is responsible for all activities that occur or fail to occur on their project. It is unethical for a project manager to blame others for mistakes that were clearly the fault of the project manager.

Do you have the ethics to accept and take responsibility for your mistakes? Are you willing to do this in the face of your harshest critics? If not, you need to leave the project management profession because you aren’t a mature, responsible professional, and as such you are hurting the profession of Project Management.


Tuesday, December 28, 2004

2005 Resolutions

2004 is almost over and it is time to make some Project Management resolutions/goals for the New Year. In looking back over the past year I can see where I have made some mistakes, and I see these mistakes as learning opportunities. Now is the time to resolve to make changes in how I manage my projects.

My 2005 resolutions are:

Be a better listener

Apply the principles of Earned Value to more of my projects

Begin each project with the end (deliverables) in mind

Rely less on e-mail and more on face-to-face conversations

Be a better Project Leader

Accept the fact that criticism from others is part of the project life cycle

Be willing to accept failures and use them as learning experiences

Believe that most people on your project team are doing the best they can do

Be positive, enthusiastic, and supportive of others

Sunday, December 19, 2004

ProjectSteps

ProjectSteps has been updated with a bright white font so the site is more readable. I have vacation this week so I will be busy working around the house and enjoying the Christmas holiday.

Have a very Merry Christmas