PMP certification exam update

Sorry, I know it's been a while since my last update. Between consulting, training and speaking engagements, work has kept me busy.

Anyway, here's the latest info regarding the PMP exam. The new version of the PMBOK (4th edition) will be released before the end of 2008. The new exam that will be updated to map to the new PMBOK will likely be June 2009.

I don't have an exact date yet but even if you haven't started studying yet, that's still plenty of time to get this thing done without having to restudy for the next iteration.

Aspiring PMP's, get your tests in soon!

Some of us have known this for a while, especially those of us who reviewed the PMBOK Guide, Fourth Edition, but a new test will be released at some point! That new version of the book is slated to be released later this year and the new exam to reflect those changes will likely follow a few months later.

If I was a betting man, I'd say the new test will be late Q1, 2009. However, why chance it? Even if you haven't even begun studying yet, it's still not too late to study and pass by year's end.

For some people like myself, a freshened up test using slightly updated material isn't a big deal. However, if you're not a PMP yet, the changes could be drastic enough to make the difference between passing on your first try and failing three times in a row.

My heart is not fonder

It's been two weeks since my first night due to Memorial Day and I must be honest, I do miss these folks (and I've only spent a few short hours with them so far). Do I remember everyone's names? Probably. Do I enjoy teaching? Undoubtedly yes. Am I looking forward to tonight? Uhm...not really.

My night classes remind me of when I was 10 and it was time to take a shower. I never really looked forward to it, but once I got in there, it wasn't all that bad -- even enjoyable. And better yet, when I was done, I felt great!

So right now, I'm sitting at work looking outside at a sunny 80 degree day knowing that I won't be home to enjoy it. But, in another 11 hours, I will have a smile on my face.

How motivated are you?

A former student reached out to me recently because she wanted to talk about her PMP application. When we first met a few months ago, she was excited and motivated about completing the application. Of course, after several short weeks, she said she lost some motivation after learning more about the long process and felt that she needed some guidance to get back on track.

We chatted for about 45 minutes or so with topics such as application tips, what to expect if she's audited, and what her next steps are. We also briefly talked about my speaking engagements and what I told her was that although it's really easy to just show up and disseminate information, my goal is to "kick people in the butt". I want to see people pumped up about whatever the topic is and I want them to feel empowered.

When we finished our conversation, she said that's exactly how she feels about her PMP application after our chat. The lesson? Never hesitate to ask someone for help if you need it. It could be the little nudge you need to accomplish your task.

Another semester starts tonight!

Tonight, I begin classes with a new group. It's always exciting to see who's in there. Sometimes I get students who were prior students from a course that I did for their company; other times I get students who have seen me speak at an event. But most of these folks will be people who I have never met before.

I'm actually in a training session all week so was I looking forward to this 16 hour day? Not exactly. However, I believe what sets some trainers apart is that fact that they can treat their one hundredth class with the same level of enthusiasm as their first. So when 6:00 PM hits, I will be 'on'. The show begins and undoubtedly, the time will fly by.

The only real down side is that I won't get to see my 10 month old on days like this. It's really causing me to reconsider whether or not I want to continue teaching these certification courses at night.

The PMP prep book to get

Quite often, I get asked about whether or not a PMP prep book would be helpful and the answer is an absolute yes! However, there are so many out there, how does one go about choosing?

I have reviewed many PMP prep books and have used several different ones for my classes. Rather than write one on my own, which many of my students are still trying to encourage me to do so (hard to do with a 10 month old at home!), I ended up choosing a new one for my PMP prep classes a few months ago.

Here it is, my choice may surprise you:

PMP Project Management Professional Study Guide, Second Edition (Paperback)
by Joseph Phillips

http://www.amazon.com/Project-Management-Professional-Study-Second/dp/0072262907

I do not get royalties nor do I know Mr. Phillips. What I do know is that it has all the things that I look for in a prep book:

• Chapters in order of knowledge area, not process group
  
• Easy to comprehend
• Enough depth to understand without having to memorize
• Practice test simulator CD included (not just written at the end of each chapter)
  

You'll find that many books meet one or more of the above but not all. Even the most popular authors like Rita Mulcahy (e.g. no CD) or Kim Heldman (e.g. order of process group) miss the mark in my opinion. Although they do a great job of marketing, don't they?

So if you're going to buy only one book, and I recommend you buy only one prep book, this is the one to get!

MS Portfolio Server in a nutshell

Microsoft Portfolio Server 2007 is a powerful, somewhat complex portfolio management tool so when I state ‘nutshell’, I really mean it.

Portfolio Server allows senior management to meet their organization’s strategic objectives by providing insight on their projects. This allows them to make sound decisions on the choosing the right project mix.

The tool is broken down into three major sections:

• Builder: Users enter information about details for each project
• Optimizer: Users define what’s important to them from a strategic level
• Dashboard: Users view the results of their choices

So there you have it. Enjoy your nut!

Wait, QA and QC are not the same?

Some of my students already know that QA and QC are not exactly the same. However, a very small percentage can actually tell me the difference between the two.

For many of us, we refer to quality under one breath, even going as far as having roles in our organizations such as Director of QA/QC. This only further confuses the masses. In short, QA (Quality Assurance) is setting the standard and QC (Quality Control) is testing to ensure that standard has been met.

One of my clients operates a convenience store chain. The person who determined that milk must always be between 38 degrees and 42 degrees at all times is in QA. The inspector who samples the milk to ensure that requirement is met is in QC.

Now imagine if the QA and QC people both report to the same person. What happens when the milk is consistently over 42 degrees? Does she change the standard or does she find a solution to the problem? You can see how she may faced with a dilemma. That’s why QA and QC should typically not be managed by the same person.

MS Project: The difference between Standard and Professional

What’s the difference between MS Project Standard and MS Project Professional? I get this question a lot when I teach MS Project classes.

Here’s Microsoft’s explanation:

Office Project Standard 2007 is the latest version of the desktop project management program. As a stand-alone product, Office Project Standard 2007 helps project managers, business managers, and planners to manage and plan projects independently with familiar, easy-to-use tools. Office Project Standard 2007 is not designed to exchange data with Office Project Server 2007.

Office Project Professional 2007 is the desktop client that is also used to connect with Office Project Server 2007 as part of the Office EPM Solution. Office Project Professional 2007 offers all the tools found in Office Project Standard 2007, and when used with Office Project Server 2007, it also provides powerful EPM capabilities such as collaboration, management of shared resources, portfolio management, and reporting across projects and programs run by different project managers.

So what does that mean? Standard and Professional are the same unless you are going to use Project Server. Professional is required for Project Server and will cost nearly double. Otherwise, save your organization money and get Standard (retail $599/$349 upgrade vs. $999/599 upgrade).

Of course, please bear in mind that you may have future needs for Project Server so if that’s the case, Project Professional should also be considered for your organization’s growth, even if you don’t need it today.

Skipping questions on your PMP exam

A commonly asked question when I teach my PMP exam prep course is “When I’m taking the PMP exam, can I skip the questions that I don’t know?”

Let’s take some of the guesswork out of that. You should never skip any question on the exam! That’s because you are not penalized for wrong answers (unlike the SAT exam you took way back in high school).

In the current version of the PMP exam, you have four choices for each of the 200 questions. If you know the answer for a question, choose an answer and move on. If you don’t know the answer, or at least not totally confident of the answer, choose an answer anyway and mark the question before moving on, which can be done by simply clicking the little checkbox in the corner of your screen.

You’ll have an opportunity to come back to all your marked questions later to review your choice. Throughout the rest of the exam, other questions may trigger your memory for the marked questions.

Just remember to choose what you feel is the best answer before moving on, just in case you don’t have time to get back to that question. You definitely don’t want to submit the exam with blank answers. Afterall, a 25% chance of getting a question correct is better than 0%, right?

Baseline best practices using MS Project

Many new users to MS Project, or any other project management tool for that matter, do not set baselines for their project files. Without a baseline, however, a you can never really accurately gauge performance on the project. For instance, you won’t see variances or earned value data.

A baseline is what I call an original snapshot of your project. When you set a baseline (MS Project 2007 calls it ‘Set baseline’; all previous versions refer to it as ‘Save baseline’), you are essentially saving Start, Finish, Duration, Work, and Cost data for the entire project, each subproject, and each subtask.

Although you may have multiple baselines for each project (up to 11 baselines in MS Project), nearly all of my clients and students only have a need for one. I usually recommend only using one anyway since there is no quick way to extract those other baselines without additional configuration. Anyway, I’ll save that topic for another day.

In the meantime, here are some general best practices for setting baselines:

• Set your baseline when you are ready to begin the project. That means when it has been approved, the day before, the morning of, etc…
• Only clear baselines when you don’t want to see baseline data in your tables and views. Otherwise, simply set the baseline again and MS Project will overwrite the previous baseline.
• If you have new tasks during the project, you can save a baseline on only those tasks so you don’t have to save the baseline for the entire project.
• Interim plans are similar to baselines but MS Project only saves Start and Finish data.

New Microsoft Project Exams

Microsoft has released their new MS Project certifications and they are on par with their other serious certs.

70-632 Microsoft Project 2007 Desktop, Managing Projects

70-633 Microsoft Project 2007 Server, Managing Projects

70-634 Microsoft Project 2007 Server, Managing Projects and Programs

The first two are MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist) exams, while the last is a MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional). The MCITP also requires achieving the two MCTS credentials first.

I took the 70-632 exam last Fall when it became available and although I passed easily, I was surprised at the difficulty of the exam. Almost all questions were scenario based and I really had to not only understand MS Project inside and out, but also have project management knowledge.

In February, I took the 70-633 exam and passed. It was a very similar format and again, I was impressed with the number of scenarios that required me to really think. That said, I took these exams without the help of practice exams, which I’m sure would have made the process a tad easier.

PM Fundamentals -- worth the time?

Next week, I'll be teaching a Project Management Fundamentals class. This is a one-day class that we run at our facility and at our clients' sites.

The question is, can you teach project management in a single day? I have taught many project management courses and programs, including a 28-week program I currently run at major university. However, many of those students are there to either (1) learn how to manage a project or (2) get some formalized training.

Most of the students who take the one-day course are typically team members. They work with project managers and need to understand what they go through in order to properly manage a project. Ironically, many project managers fly by the seat of their pants and actually know less from a formal standpoint. Although these project managers may be very good, they could be much, much better.

So is a one-day PM course worthwhile? For team members who want a high-level snapshot -- YES! For actual project managers -- it would be ideal to pass and take a longer program.

Selling on the fly

I just returned from the training that I wrote about yesterday. Play along and ask me how it went.

It went well, as usual. Did I get to teach what I believe in? You betcha. I arrived early and was determined to spend part of the time discussing my rationale for covering certain topics. I also said that I would de-emphasize some of those areas but I need to spend a minimum amount time because it was all integrated. To make a long story short, he nodded in agreement and the show was on!

By the time I completed our first day of training, the sponsor said it was nice to have someone who really knows what he's talking about to steer the class toward the right direction.

The lesson? Try to do what's right, even it you have to use your sales training to do so.

Let the SME do what you are paying him to do

Tomorrow, I'll be heading to a client site to deliver IT Project Management training. This will be conducted over 3 days at their facility and I'm really dreading it. Why? Because it's not the training that I believe in. What I mean by that is that the client dictated what topics to cover and what not to cover.

I understand that the client pays and we do what they want. However, when you ask for a subject matter expert (SME) to come in to do what they do best and then handcuff them, what do you think the result will be? Probably not good, right? And if the end result is terrible, who does it reflect on? You get my point.

To make it worse, the guy who asked for this training for his team attended a speaking engagement that I was at last year. Trying hard not to be immodest but most people who meet me learn to trust me. They take my words to heart because every word that comes out of my mouth has truth behind it and is filled with my passion. Yet from time to time, I meet people who are as green as a Pebble Beach fairway in August who think they know more than someone who does this every day.

So you must be curious at this point, what are they asking me to do? I'll just give you a single example and you'll see the picture. The request is to not discuss network diagramming but spend as much time as possible in MS Project. For those of you who still do not fully understand, it's the equivalent of teaching a first grader how to use a calculator before they know why they have to add in the first place. It'll be easy to teach them how to push the buttons but will they really understand why they need it?

More speaking...

Tonight and tomorrow night, my PSU classes will be delivering their project presentations to me. This is the pinnacle for the course for them.

Unlike some instructors, I will be spending a good deal of time providing feedback. I also expect them to apply that feedback to their presentation for their next course.

Why? Because presentation skills are one of the more underrated, yet valuable skills to have as a PM. The top PMs (we can assume in prestige and salary) give presentations regularly. They present changes to boards, updates to executives, design info to teams, etc... Any time they have to stand in front of a room, they're presenting!

Have you ever left a meeting where the presenter was dull? That's probably all you remember. How about a meeting where the presenter was dynamic? That meeting is probably still very vivid in your head. Remember what I stated in one of my previous posts, content can easily get lost if not delivered well.

So tonight will be fun -- for me, that is. It will be fun for the students too but they don't know it yet.

Speaker in the House

I just got back from the Baltimore area where I was the keynote speaker at a PMO forum. At this forum, there were several speakers but I was last to present. I was there representing Microsoft and the topic was Microsoft Enterprise Project Management -- How It Can Help You Manage Expectations.

Anyway, as each speaker presented his or her topic, I quickly realized how nearly all of them were inexperienced at it. Some where clearly better than others but certainly there weren't any superstars. As I waited for my turn, I knew that I would just do my "thing" and get the audience pumped up about the topic.

When I was done, I had a nice applause and a real sense that the audience really enjoyed my presentation. People came up to me afterwards and asked for me to personally train them in either the tools or to become a PMP.

So what did I do differently from everyone else? Here's a quick list:

• I opened with a hook: Ask a question to get the audience involved early. For instance, "So how many of you really like project management? C'mon, tell the truth and don't be shy, we're all nerds in here."
  
• I kept my points high-level: There's no need to "teach" anyone anything at an event. Just keep your slides light and tell your story.
• I used other presenters' names in my stories: This makes it appear as though everyone is in agreement of my presentation.
• I walked around: Don't stay behind a podium! Move about and simply talk.
• I didn't bring notes: If you know your topic (and want to look like you do), know your topics and simply talk.
• I smiled: Do you know how many speakers don't smile? That's right, nearly all of them!
• I kept it funny: If you're not naturally funny, be prepared to write something up prior. People will remember the funniest presentation and if you can't get through to them, they will tune you out, even if you have the meaning of life.
  

So who exactly trains PMI employees?

Everyone needs training, even PMI. When PMI has a need to train their employees in project management, who do you think they call? That's right, yours truly.

I'm not telling you this to boast, nor am I telling you this to sell you something. Rather, the message I'm trying to convey is that project management is project management. Good trainers and consultants are as good as the message they can deliver.

The message itself can actually be delivered by anyone but there's a big difference between someone who can be dynamic versus someone who just, well ... delivers it. Even if I am the most knowledgeable person on the subject matter, no one would really choose me solely because of that. I am chosen because of my presence in front of an audience.

For the record, I do not claim to be the most knowledgeable but I will continually get speaking engagements (sometimes for PMI) and additional training opportunities because I can drive a message home. The lesson for today? Go get some practice speaking in front of others.

PMP passing score?

This is a question I get a lot…”What is the passing score for the PMP?”

The reason why there’s confusion is that different materials may have different answers Let me make it easy for you.

PMBOK 2000 (old version of exam) = 69%

PMBOK 3rd ed. (new version of exam) = 81%

PMBOK 3rd ed. (new version of exam after the first few months of release) = 61%

I remember telling my students a few years ago that they better apply for the PMP soon since you never know what you’re going to get in the new version. When the new version finally came out, 81% was the passing score. However, based on the candidates’ scores, PMI realized that people who should be passing weren’t passing! Rather than updating the entire exam, they lowered the passing score. The 61% was determined the appropriate passing score after reviewing several months of data.

However, prep books and other materials that were printed obviously were not updated. That’s why you may see varying passing scores.

In short (until PMI changes it again), you need 61% to pass.

When should I use LEAD in MS Project?

Last week, I answered the question of when to use lag. Now I’m going to describe its counterpart – lead.

Lead is the amount of time a successor task can overlap its predecessor. In other words, how soon can a task begin before its predecessor completely finishes? My two-word definition for lead is overlapped tasks. Please note that I’m referring only to tasks that have a relationship between each other.

For instance, let’s say that I am a programmer and one my tasks is Develop code. I also have a task for unit testing my own work, Test code. Would you agree that I can’t actually test the code unless I develop the code? Therefore, I should use a finish-to-start relationship. However, I am asked to shorten the duration of my project. One of my options is to simply start testing before I am completely done developing. Maybe I will start testing two days before I am scheduled to finish developing. If that’s the case, I will apply two days of lead on that link.

By the way, if you’re looking for the lead field in MS Project, you won’t find it. You have to put a negative number in the lag field.

And lastly, just as I stated for lag, the same applies here — no dependencies, no lead.

When should I use LAG in MS Project?

The definition of lag is the amount of time a successor task must be delayed. If you’ve attended any of my classes where I walk my students through activity sequencing, you’d already know that I like using two-word definitions and that I simply refer to lag as a forced wait.

Let’s walk through an example of when lag makes sense. I am redecorating a room and part of this project includes painting the room and hanging up pictures. Therefore, Paint walls is a predecessor of Hang up pictures. If I intend to “force” a waiting time between the tasks (I should probably let the paint dry a bit!), I place lag right on that finish-to-start dependency. If I want to let the paint dry for a day, then I’d add 1 day lag. The start of the successor task will now begin after a one day waiting period once the predecessor has finished. Lag is dynamic so if it takes more or less time for me to paint, the lag will still remain as a fixed 1 day wait prior to hanging up pictures.

An alternative to adding lag is creating a new task, such as Wait for paint to dry. The reason why lag is usually the preferred method is because there is no effort for paint drying. Unless you need to exhibit these types of tasks on the Gantt Chart, then just use lag and save yourself the trouble. In general, using lag will reduce the number of tasks you need to view on your project schedules.

Of course, if you’re not using dependencies at all, then you can’t actually apply lag!

If I'm going to be the gatekeeper at my meeting, how do I take notes?

As I stated one of my posts last week, your main job at your meetings is to be the gatekeeper. So how do you take notes when you're controlling the flow of communications? You don't!

For example, when I teach my courses, I know my material inside and out. However, from time to time, I play a game with my students and just because I have to keep score, it detracts from my control. I either miss part of the discussion or make a scoring mistake (which the students would quickly correct!). It's nearly impossible to do both of those things at once.

So who takes notes? The note taker's official role is Recorder or Scribe. The PM must be the gatekeeper but the recorder can be anyone. Find an administrative assistant, project coordinator, business analyst, or intern. Just make sure it's not you. If you must, ask someone who's going to be the meeting anyway and kindly ask him to take notes for the team so you can focus running the meeting.

I'm the PM -- So what's my role in this meeting?

Of all the “roles” project managers can play during a meeting, there’s only one that is crucial — that’s the gatekeeper. Sure, it may sound bad (partially because of Sigourney Weaver’s role in the movie Ghostbusters!), but it simply means that you control the flow of the communications.

In my opinion, there’s nothing worse than sitting in a meeting and watching the project manager have little or no control of the discussion. Not only can the meeting become chaotic, but it also poorly reflects on the perceived competency of the project manager. When there are disruptions, sidebar conversations, topics totally off on a tangent, or someone else “running the show”, team members undoubtedly lose confidence in the project manager’s ability to lead.

This does not mean you are to boss people around. Just use your own style and control who says what and when. It may be advantageous to have an agenda so when someone pulls you off it, just refer back to the agenda to reel the discussion back on track. Jot down these off-topics and address them offline.

Project 2007 does some of the things you’ve been waiting for

Microsoft Office Project 2007 has been released for almost a year now and in case you haven’t had the chance to take a peek, some of the features that users have been waiting for made it to this version (finally)!

Among the new items, Project 2007 includes:

• Multiple undo’s - Yes, it’s true, you can undo and undo and undo… As all current users know, all previous versions of Project have only one undo.
• Highlight changes - When you make a change in one thing, Project 2007 highlights other items you have affected, right on the table! So go ahead, make change a task’s duration from 2 days to 4 days, you’ll see exactly how it affected your other tasks.
• Visual reports - Gone are the days of using the view/print only reports. OK, they’re not gone but now you have new and improved reports as well. They are more dynamic and will drop your data right into Excel and Visio.

Fixed duration task type - When should you use it?

The default task type in MS Project is fixed units. However, this isn’t always the best choice, especially if your organization is in a functional structure (meaning your project team reports to their respective functional managers and not to the project manager).

For example, you assigned a 2 day task to Michael. Michael does not report to you and your primary concern is that he does his work within those 2 days. Since you are not managing his full workload, you really don’t need to track how much time he is spending on that particular task; it could be 2 hours of effort or 16 hours of effort. If that looks like your situation, then you want fixed duration, not fixed units.

Many project managers already know that they can change each task’s task type to ‘Fixed Duration’ by accessing its Task Information. But did you know that you can also set MS Project to use fixed duration as the task type every time in the future?

Simply go to Tools > Options > Schedule tab and change the Default task type to ‘Fixed Duration’. This task type will apply to all new tasks for every project moving forward.

Contingency reserve vs. management reserve

Many of my clients use contingency reserve and management reserve interchangeably. Although they both refer to money used to account for a risk that has triggered, there is a difference.

• Contingency reserve - This is your fund for “known-unknowns“. That means you’ve already identified the risk; you just don’t know how much it will impact your project. This can be estimated based on the sum of all of your risks’ expected values.
• Management reserve - This is for the “unknown-unknowns“. Basically, you didn’t even identify the risk until it has occurred. This may be derived from using percentage of the overall project budget.

Not so obvious benefits of a PMI membership

Aside from the benefits that you’d already expect from joining PMI as a member (e.g. access to publications, discounts to resources), have you thought about:

• The cost of a one-year PMI membership ($129) and the PMP exam as a member ($405) is actually less than the cost of the PMP exam as a non-member ($555).
• You could (and probably should) add ‘PMI member‘ as one of your professional affiliations on your resume.
• If you also join a local chapter, you can:
  • Network with other PMPs and aspiring PMPs at chapter events.
  • Find others in your area to form a study group for your PMP/CAPM.
  • Attend meetings and volunteer for activities, which can earn PDUs after you have attained your PMP/CAPM credential.

By the way, if you are a student or a retiree, you can apply for membership at a greatly reduced rate at $30/yr. and $60/yr. respectively.

Printing usable Gantt charts as handouts

How many times have you or someone you know plastered a Gantt Chart on an entire wall? From time to time, that may serve a purpose but what happens when you want to distribute it at a meeting? For instance, certainly you don’t want to take your 6×6 (or more!) page grid and staple them. That would leave your audience with a packet that includes blank pages and pages with bars with no tables.

Here’s how to solve that problem. Your goal is to create print outs that are one page in width. In other words, you can have as many pages as you want vertically but you only want one page horizontally. That way, you will have print outs with both the table and the Gantt Chart on the same pages.

Remember WYSIWYG? It’s not a term used much today but it stands for What You See Is What You Get. What does that mean to you? Essentially, what you see on your screen is what you will get as your print out. Right before you print, look at your screen and do these two things:

1. Modify your table to show only the fields that are necessary. You may hide some columns, scroll the table side so some columns are no longer visible, or reposition your split bar.
2. Adjust your Gantt Chart and ensure that you can see both your start milestone and your finish milestone without scrolling horizontally. You can do this quickly by clicking the Zoom In or Zoom Out buttons on the Formatting toolbar.

Take a look at your print preview. Rather than having a 6×6 grid, you should now have a 1×6 grid. Just staple and distribute!

Project Managers: Remember these two words!

Every class I teach, I write my name, a welcome message with the course title, and the following two words on the board:

Manage Expectations

Take a moment and think of every good project manager you ever have worked with. I guarantee these folks communicated to you what is occurring, when things were changing, and what is going to happen; in other words, they managed your expectations. They may not be the ones with the prettiest Gantt charts or the best dressed or the most entertaining (though I must admit those things could help). Rather, they are simply excellent at telling accurate stories — verbally and nonverbally.

As long as you’re wearing a PM hat, if you’re not managing expectations, with very few exceptions, I’m not really sure what you’re doing then. Perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate your daily priorities. Every meeting you run, every requirement you capture, every email you send, and every report you create, you better be managing expectations.

If you can remember those two words, your job will be much, much easier. Trust me on this tip: paste those two words on top of your monitor so you can see them all day long. It will provide you with a constant reminder of what your job is all about. Everything else is gravy. And you know, gravy without the turkey is not all that tasty.

On the road and too lazy to get my own food

So, here I am on business this week at a client that is 1500 miles from my home. When I first learned that I was headed to Denver, I figured my client would put me up at a half decent hotel. Instead, I end up here at an extended stay facility and guess what -- there's no room service and no restaurant on-site!

I'm no diva but I'd just like to eat and therefore I want easy access to food. Some people enjoy painting the town red but if you're anything like me, you may prefer to just head straight to your room after a long day and just be a vegetable.

Rather than looking through the stack of phone books in my room (really, they're still in publication?) I recall studying internet delivery services back in 2000 when I was going through my MBA program. I know many of them didn't make it through the dot com implosion but I wondered if I could find one that could go to a local establishment and get my food for me.

A quick google and I found Foodler.com. I briefly scanned the restaurants that the service would deliver to my zip, picked a few things on the menu, and charged the entire order on my card. In a few moments, I received an email confirmation and about 45 minutes after that, there's a knock on my door.

Last night, I had a gourmet pizza from California Pizza, tonight, I had a steak from Bennigan's, and tomorrow, I'm eying a few items from the Thai Pot Cafe. I mean sure, they're not exactly five star dinners but I can tell you that I really enjoyed ordering from a variety of menus and paying for it in one spot.

Bon Appetit!

Welcome to all the PM infoseekers

First, let me thank you for coming. I am certain that you will find the much needed project management insight that you're looking for.

Over the years, as a project manager consultant and trainer, I have come across many people from whom I have had the pleasure of not only providing solutions, but also learning a great deal from. It's the everyday interactions that I have with my clients and students that provide me with new experiences on a regular basis.

I have been documenting my project management tips in the form of white papers and blogs for other sites but decided it was time to manage my own site. I simply have so much to say! My "secrets" have impacted many of my readers in one way or another. They may not agree with everything that I have to offer but the goal is to generate purposeful thinking, not to sway people with my own professional beliefs.

Anyway, mark this blog and come back often. I'm sure you will enjoy my observations and advice as much as I will enjoy writing them!


-Gabe