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What Not to Do if You Want Satisfied Customers You may think that overperforming would ingratiate you to your customers. But customers don't always want you to go above and beyond—often, they just want what they asked for. Don't fall for this common misconception. The trick to customer satisfaction is delivering just what they want—and good communication. |
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Effective Project Communication: Not Just What, but Why The requirements for communicating project status to executives are often paradoxical: Be brief but thorough; don’t go into the weeds, but make sure I know all the important details. Responding to these constraints can be challenging, but you still need to clearly convey your work's significance and risks. |
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Are You Problem Solving When You Should Try Problem Managing? Usually in our projects, our goal is problem-solving. We find the root cause of a problem and experiment until we eradicate it. But is solving always the right path? Sometimes, our problems are temporary and only require a patch. In those cases, problem managing is probably the better choice. |
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Apply Design Thinking and Agile Principles to Your Life Changes The challenges people face when trying to make changes in their lives are similar to those faced by engineers and designers when developing novel products. Using design thinking, you can learn to work within limits, see how the choices you make affect your situation, and iterate until you find your direction. |
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It’s Time to Evaluate Your Annual Performance Reviews While annual performance reviews can add value when done right, they are often done in a way that does more harm than good. A helpful alternative to an annual review is more frequent feedback that focuses on successes in addition to areas for improvement. Reviews should be motivational and constructive. |
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Tips for Writing a First (or Second or Third) Draft Whether you’re writing for personal or professional purposes, a one-pager or an entire book, it's important to write several drafts. The initial draft doesn't have to be brilliant. It's simply raw data, and you’ll progress faster if you write it quickly so that you get out your ideas. Read on for more tips. |
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5 Questions to Ask in a Project Review Project managers often dread doing reviews, but they're necessary to make sure the project is on the right track. Progress can be affected by unclear definitions, risk, schedules, and cost, so it's important to evaluate whether the project manager, sponsors, and team members are all on the same page. |
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Know the “Why” behind Your Projects Every project has its own unique reason for existence. We often work on projects to deliver some kind of return for our organizations. When you start a project, do you know what that return is? When we know the reasons behind our work, we can be more successful—knowing why can create success. |
