I needed to do a quick ten-minute presentation recently about the factors needed for successful projects. This is what I came up with – let me know what you think! What are your ideas?

This is a very quick (3 minutes) TED video from Terry Moore, which just goes to show you should never dismiss the possibility of learning a better way to do something you think you already know everything about!

A timely talk from Nigel Marsh for Valentine’s Day?

This is a great talk from Jason Fried about the problems with working in an office, with all the distractions that implies. It is interesting and provocative, and well worth a watch.

An important lesson from this, for me, is to remember what a project manager is for. The people who are actually doing the work in your project are the most important resource you have, and you as a project manager should be guarding their time jealously.

Now, most of us are pretty good at this when it comes to resisting attempts from outside the project to take away our team members’ time, but how do we perform in making sure we aren’t destroying their ability to work?

If nothing else, I can certainly get behind the idea of reducing meetings – maybe we can’t get rid of them altogether, but we can certainly improve on them – check out my post on 10 tips for better meetings.