MPD

Books, MPD, writing

Strengthening Writing

  During the past few week, while editing Successful Project Management, I had an opportunity learned to discover other ways I weaken my writing. I already knew about “get” and “put” and “do”–any words you can command a computer–are weak verbs. It’s ok to use them to start writing, but my writing is stronger when […]

conference, MPD

About the 2007 AYE Conference

  From time to time, I refer to AYE. It’s a conference several other consultants and I created back in 2000. We were tired of feeling forced into short sessions where it was too hard to convey how our topics felt to people. (There’s just so much you can do with PowerPoint.) At AYE, all

MPD

Book Status

Successful Project Management is off for copyediting. While reviewing, Esther and Daniel found some of my take-space words: So and Now. I just did a find-in-project (thank goodness for TextMate) and excised most of them. We’ll see if the copyeditor leaves the few I left, or if she has a better idea. If I can

MPD, personal

Greetings from New Zealand

After the US-based Software Development conference last week, I flew to Wellington, NZ. I’m speaking at the Wellington/Auckland/Sydney Softed conferences this week. I have slept almost enough, so if you’re in any of these places and you would like to get together for dinner, let me know. (The last time I was here, I did

MPD, requirements

Beyond Bold

  I’m an assertive, bold, blunt, and direct person. I try to live within the bureaucracies I encounter, but I don’t always succeed. I’m at SD West this week, where I did a half-day tutorial Monday and am presenting two classes (really talks) today. Before I speak/teach/consult, I like to eat a real breakfast, so

MPD

Multitasking is Conflict Avoidance

  There’s a great quote over at The pernicious thinking behind multi-tasking. Note the admission that required multi-tasking is an implicit means to avoid conflicts around setting priorities. I’ve been doing a bunch of multitasking talks this year (and suggesting ways for people to say no), and have written about it in Successful Project Management.

MPD, writing

Writing Status Report

I’m in what I hope is final editing for Successful Project Management. (I”m still doing gross editing, final copyediting is one more stage. But I’m not supposed to change ideas in that stage 🙂 If you want to know how to write a book, read PragDave’s series of So You Want to Write a Book.

measurement, MPD

There is No Such Thing as Percent Complete

  Jason Yip’s Hail Mary software development talks about what happens when you defer all the finishing to the end of the project. In the dashboard chapter of the book, I have a sidebar called “How Can We Have No Completed Work?” which talks about exactly the same thing. The more serial your lifecycle, or

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