Project Management for Professional Service Firms

January 27th, 2007 by Hal

The vast majority of projects involve a few people and take a few months. PMI and Prince seem to ignore that majority…but not Ron Rosenhead. Ron offers project management consulting and advice for accountants, attorney, librarians, and other professionals. He offers an approach based on a stripped-down version of Prince. Still, it may be more than these people need.

"Soft" is what makes projects successful.

Ron makes it easy for the motivated service professional to be successful with projects. He offers introductory material, a course-by-email, and an eBook, Deliver that Project. I've just finished reviewing the eBook. Attorneys and accountants will find it to be comprehensive. Most projects don't need more than Ron is advising.

I found one thing missing. Projects of all sizes and complexity depend on successful conversations for coordination. We act like conversations are the soft stuff of projects. For some reason "soft" is not important. Too bad. In my experience, "soft" is what makes projects successful. For those of you who are open to exploring the "soft" side of projects, have a look at these project meeting protocols. And, subscribe to Ron's email course while you're at it.

Be Careful What You Wish For…

Watch Out for the Toolheads

Multi-Task Your Way to Un-Profitability

A Focus on Survival Keeps Firms from Innovating

Take Note

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 27th, 2007 at 9:49 pm and is tagged: PM practice, books, Language Action Perspective, PMBoK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Convert this post to a PDF document.

Social Bookmarking

Comment On This

If you haven't left a comment here before, you will need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.

On the Side

Comparing Lean and Agile
06/29/2008
Scott Reynolds writing at Tales from the SharpSide, "Lean forces you into a culture of quality. Agile is about interactions and people, and Lean is very much concerned with tools and processes." Read more about Lean vs. Agile...

Glen Alleman's Models of PM Success
06/24/2008

Glen makes two big claims:

If you don't have a credible plan and schedule, with a handle on the cost all the "soft" skills won't get you back on track
If you don't have a definitive description of what "done" looks like, so the "soft skills" class won't make those appear

Have a look at his comprehensive stand on organizing and managing projects.

Read Robert Sutton's Blog
05/16/2008

Learn from a Stanford d.School prof. Robert Sutton has a great weblog Work Matters and he's the author of The Knowing-Doing Gap and The No Assholes Rule.

Humility Makes Toyota Different
02/20/2008

From the Lean Insider: Speaking to Toyota employees at the Detroit Auto Show President Watanabe asked that they take responsibility for recent quality problems.

"I do not regard the problem as something that suppliers are responsible for. We must work together so that we are fully aware of where suppliers are."

Bernstein closes saying, "At Toyota, they know that doing the best job of serving the customer is what makes the company profitable."

Lean Project Management
02/19/2008

Brad Appleton reviewed Lean Project Management, by L Leach concluding, "I found Lean Project Management to be a fairly quick read providing a good overview of some TOC and CCPM fundamentals and how they align with Lean thinking."

Claude Emond, Guest Blogger
01/11/2008

I'm glad to have Claude posting at RPM. It was Claude who gave name to these wonder filled times -- the project age. Please welcome him with your comments.

Toyota Bests Ford in 2007
01/07/2008

WSJ reported, "Ford and GM reported lower December sales, capping off annual declines of 12% and 6%, respectively. Toyota's 2007 sales (in US) rose 3.1% even amid tough competition and signs that the U.S. consumer is beginning to labor in a slowing economy."

Brush-Up on Lean Thinking
01/07/2008

Re-familiarize yourself with the principles and practices of lean with Lean for Dummies. Do it to put yourself in new action!

Increase Reliability Saying No
10/14/2007

Make every "Yes" count, Learn to Say, "No".

White Mountains in Autumn
10/04/2007
Eat your heart out! Beauteous!