There are many resources on the web for Project Management. Some from offical organizations. PMI's Project Management Journal is one. Some from government organizaitons, The Defense Acquisition University's site is a wealth of materials. PMI's College of Performance Management. Cross Talk is a journal of the Software Technology Support Center. Of course there is PM Forum, where guest authors provide materials of interest. Max Wideman's site is always there for credible informaiton.
With all this though, I still find myself draw to Pat Weaver and Lynda Bourne's Mosaic site. They have written and collected a wealth of PM materials. I'm not always in agreement with their approaches. That's because I have a built in bias from my aerospace and defense point of view. But that is irrelavent, their materials are MUST READ for anyone claiming to be a project manager.
Why amy I writing about this. It's simple, there is a trend in the PM world these days to claim all kinds of simple and simple minded solutions to complex problems. Solutions that have not stood the test of time. not been applied to hard problems, solutions that rely on some "magic beans" to providethe desired outcome.
We're in the throws of "resetting" a Performance Measurement Baselime for a moderate sized program ($80M, is moderate in our domain). The root casue analayis of the "over targer baselime" situation, is simple. The team was searching for simple solutions to complex problems.
Such solutions are simply not there. Anyone telling you they have a simple solution is either confused, in experienced, and or simply unqualified to speak about the topic. When such a solution is presented, ask a simple question:
Can you show me where you suggested approach has been successful in the past, on programs or projects similar to the one I'm working, and with tangible evidence that the problem was corrected or at least the situation improved?
No, thanks for the free advice. If you paid for the advice, ask for you money back.
