Max Wideman's PM Wisdom
Max Wideman has over half a century of practicing a variety of Project Management (PM). This site brings together a permanent record of the accumulated learning and experience which Max has gained in Project Management throughout this time.
It is for those with an interest in PM, have questions, or just want "how to" answers from our Issacons. This site has serious Papers by Max as well as knowledgeable Guest authors. The Musings often raise issues, with a little English humor for lighter reading. Just click on the title links and start from the bottom of the page!
If you:
• have to learn PM in a hurry — go to our cartoon series PM 101;
• want help with a lot of typical daily PM tasks — go to Issacons;
• like reading serious ideas on how to conduct PM — go to Papers;
• seek to know what other PM masters think — go to Guests;
• need a good place to start — try the paper PM 1st Principles.
• are interested in a book on PM — take a look at PM Framework;
• require the meaning of different PM terms — go to the PM Glossary;
• wish to see the whole scope of this site — go to the Site Map;
• are looking for something specific — then use our search page.
New This Month — September 2020
Papers: Terry Williams and his colleagues provide a thorough study of The Front-End of Projects: A Systematic Literature Review and Structuring of the span of work and effort involved in the "front-end" of the project life span based on a careful study of PM publications published between January 2006 and September 2017.
Papers:
Through Todd Williams's many years of corporate management experience, he has uncovered six areas of typical shortcomings or failure in communication.
He describes these in Filling Execution Gaps - How Executives and Project Managers turn Corporate Strategy into Successful Projects.
Guests:
Applying for a PM position? Or just updating your resume? Make sure there are no negative entries. Donald Fomby points to his recommended
Top 8 Things to Leave Off the Resume as a Project Manager.
Musings: Max reports excellent advice from the past-president of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers in a letter describing Why Energy Is the Key to Personal Time Management.
Project
management tip of the month
The segregation principle:
There are those who wonder what happened,
those who let things happen,
and those who make things happen. |
Recent
Musings: In this brief article: 10 Best Information Technology Tips & Apps for Successful Project Managers in 2020, expert James Dorian offers Five project management tips that work for everyone and Five apps for successful project management to go with them.
Guests: Team manager, Michael Dehoyos, presents five compelling "core benefits" for adopting Agile Project Management for your business projects.
Papers: Last month we found that (Canadian) tax authorities were quite prepared to include certain "front-end" costs as a part of a project's capitalisation cost, so why shouldn't project management pundits do likewise in recognition of the project life span? Doing so, it appears, could significantly improve the chances of project success. Max makes a compelling case for changing our understanding of the project life span (cycle) in When Does a Project Actually Start - Part 2.
Papers: Max points to a serious gap at the beginning of our typical project management delivery structure. No wonder we have so many project failures. The issue is: When Does a Project Actually Start - Part 1
Special paper: Policies, Principles, Practices, Procedures and Core Concepts, a position paper developed for the International Standards Organization (ISO) to identify a set of universal Core Concepts for the Governance of all project work. ISO's world-wide task force is charged with updating ISO 21500 (2012) Project Management Guide.
Go to Papers index (04/19) and Download your PDF copy from there !
Classic: The original and only Project Management Body of Knowledge (dubbed "PMBOK") published by the Project Management Institute in 1987, is now available as a PDF document. Want a copy? See PMBOK-1987 Reborn under Other Areas and Interests. Contains valuable advice even today.
At-A-Glance Issacons
(Issues and Considerations) are sets of slides providing summary information
for specific questions associated with particular PM topics. Designed to save
hours of searching yet more detailed than a plain bulleted list.
PM
Glossary version 5.5 is free on this site. The glossary shows how many project management terms
mean different things to different people. However, for the latest version 6.1 see PM Glossary v6.1 choices.
Papers & Books
are thought-provoking and valuable insights into project management and include
numerous book reviews. You will also find information about books that I have
written or co-authored from time to time.
Max's
Musings are brief thoughts on various project management topics.
Guest
Articles contain articles on particular PM topics contributed to this site by
a wide range of other authors.
Click on the links above to see the most recent additions.
About
Max is a brief biography outlining my professional
career, some personal history, and even a little
trivia about me. 
P.Eng.
FCSCE, FEIC, FICE, FPMI, FCMI*
*What do these letters mean? See Recognition on this page.
Copyright
— The contents of this site are protected by copyright and may not be used
by commercial or non‑commercial organizations without written permission.
Disclaimer
— The views expressed are those of the contributors and no responsibility
is accepted for the accuracy or reliability of the content or the results of its
application.
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