Here’s a selection of project management articles I’ve been reading over the last week. Hope you find them useful!

• I Just Want Everyone To Be Happy! – PM Hut
  

  It may seen at times that the success of the project is measured by the percentage of “smiley faces” among the project participants. However, project managers know that there are often unpopular decisions that must be made for the overall good of the project. While no project manager lasts long if everyone is always unhappy, there are times when s/he may have to make some people temporarily unhappy.

• Finding the Reasons for a Project – Herding Cats
  

  If anyone is looking for one killer answer to why we need Project Managers in IT or software development, this is it. Who manages the demand? Who manages the capacity?

• An Approach For Wording Risks – Better Projects
  

  Sometimes a risk is expressed as just a couple of words, which although may speak volumes to its author, don’t always give enough information to all relevant project stakeholders – for example, ‘content migration’ or ‘server load’ or ‘key resources unavailable’ are some risks I have seen recently documented. The ambiguous language can become a problem when it comes time to rate the risk and to devise mitigation strategies.

• The Need for Definition in Ethical Project Management – The Art Of Project Management
  

  Is it possible that company leaders are causing ethical dilemmas by not really understanding philosophical aspects of ethics? The importance of ethical business practices are being stressed, as are the findings that ethical leaders tend to be more successful. However, leaders don’t seem to be spending enough time stressing the simple truth that what is ethical to one stakeholder may not be ethical to the next.