The Papercut Archives

The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is the world's leading certificati ...

The Project Management Institute (PMI) released the highly anticipated PMBOK 6th edition! ...

Before there was Agile Manifesto, software development was a slow, tedious process. Compan ...

Yes, you heard me right. It’s been a long time since I gave this site an update but so muc ...

Last night I had the pleasure of speaking at PMI Durham Highlands monthly meeting. The tal ...

ARE YOU A PORTFOLIO MANAGER? Don't you wish you could put your project portfo ...

Project Leadership -- Lessons from 40 PPM Experts on Making the Transition from Projec ...

DON'T YOU WISH YOU COULD JUST PUT YOUR PROJECT PORTFOLIO ON RAILS? Managing resource ca ...

In 2007 I had a shattering - I mean shattering - nervous breakdown. Now, there were lots o ...

There seems to be a lot of confusion about a WBS and how to put one together. This is true ...

Today we have a guest post from Sylvie Edwards (a fellow teacher at my college), who h ...

I find there's a lot of confusion on the difference between scope and requirements. This i ...

Way back in 2010, Lindsay Scott of Arras People in the U.K. approached me to write a c ...

Communications just fascinates me. Given that it's something that all of us do every day, ...

OTOBOS is one of the fundamental tenets of project management. A project manager should st ...

"What's that, Geoff? 4500 years of World History AND Risk Management in one paper? OMG t ...

I received a lot of great feedback both on and offline about my last article regarding the ...

Late last night, at three in the morning, I heard the familiar *bing* of the iPad on my ni ...

As you move through your life and career, there will be no shortage of issues that cause y ...

Hi guys! As you know, I've been swallowed up by university. Who knew it was so much work? ...

So I want to introduce you today to a groovy new book by Harvard Professor Teresa Amabile ...

So what does a project manager have in common with a terrorist negotiator? Well, if they'r ...

This post picks up from my previous one on negotiations, and adds some more of my thoughts ...

Okay, so yesterday I got a bit snarky and went on a terrible rant about poor Prince Humphr ...

This is the story of Prince Humphrey. Once upon a time in the fair Kingdom of Avonblech ...

Before the knowledge I inhaled over the weekend evaporates forever and I'm left a shell of ...

Well butter a cowpie and upchuck your beer, I just passed my PMP exam! And so my weeken ...

This post is for my regular readers who've been following my tribulations over the last fe ...

This is the sixth entry in the PM Visionary Series. I recently received an e-mail from ...

The other day I wrote a response to Elizabeth Harrin's post about measuring the success of ...

So, I was just over on Elizabeth Harrin's blog, rabidly trying to catch up on her posts (s ...

Over the last few years I've become quite involved with social media. That's great and all ...

This is the fifth entry in the PM Visionary Series. And here I thought my series was do ...

Okay, so as many of you know, recent challenges in my life caused me to say, "the hell wit ...

Many of you have been asking me behind-the-scenes, "dude, what's going on?!" It's true, I ...

This is the fourth and final(?) entry in the PM Visionary Series. Some time ago I met M ...

This is the third entry in the PM Visionary Series. Building this blog has been a wonde ...

This is the second entry in the PM Visionary Series. I've spent well over a year gettin ...

This is the first entry in the PM Visionary Series. I'm quite thrilled to be able to in ...

Last week I published a fun article entitled What Do PMs Want From Software in 2011? I rec ...

About a year ago, I wrote an article called "Is the PMP Losing Its Value". To date, that a ...

(A guest post by Kristen Riley, of Villanova University) So, about a week ago, I wrote ...

I enjoy working on my resume about as much as I enjoy sticking my hand down the garburator ...

We all have things we're known for. In my case, you give me a team that's completely demor ...

With the rise of social media, the last few years has produced a glut of project managemen ...

Okay, this post is for my regular readers who might think this was kind of nifty. As you k ...

I warn you now. Despite the fact I'm a 42 year old banking vet, I still have fanboy issues ...

(A guest post by Rick Valerga, author of The Cure for the Common Project) About a week ...

Seeing as I'm currently looking for work and have some extra time on my hands, I thought i ...

So I've been looking rather unsuccessfully for work lately and one of the things that's be ...

I attended a funeral this weekend. It was for my father's cousin at whose house I spent so ...

You know, every once in awhile you stop and reflect on formative moments that helped to sh ...

Unless you missed the 70s because of too many chemicals or not being born yet, you remembe ...

I just found out that one of my favourite bloggers, Derek Huether, is releasing his book, ...

(A guest post by Peter Taylor, The Lazy Project Manager) So, the other day I shouted ou ...

Every once in awhile you stumble across someone who's done so fabulously well for themselv ...

So as I'm diving into research for this workshop on developing empathy in project managers ...

So, presenting at the PM Telesummit was a fabulous experience, and I've made a lot of real ...

I wanted to thank Samad Aidane and Shawna Dodge for a fabulous job putting together the Pr ...

People have been asking why I haven't been posting much lately. Well, it's because I've be ...

So last week I got to talk with Ty Kiisel and Raechel Logan of AtTask software on their Ta ...

In 2000, a the height of the dot com craze, I was contracted to build an e-commerce site. ...

A few years ago I was managing a complex enterprise program where we had a status review m ...

Further to my post from the other day, CEO Creating Problems, Try This, @rorykilkenny sent ...

I found a great question on LinkedIn the other day, and I thought I'd share my thoughts on ...

So last night I sat down in front of the TV I rarely watch and saw an unopened copy of Mr. ...

One of the things I've always espoused is, for a manager to be effective, they have to ...

I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Ty Kiisel and Raechel Logan on their fabulous ne ...

"I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you." --Fri ...

I'm going to have another rant today. Over the last few years, I've been surrounded by gen ...

A reader recently wrote in asking me for just the risk analysis portion of my "Big Grandad ...

Okay so I'm going to go in a weird direction today. I just left comments over at Derek Hue ...

Happy New Year everyone! After an extended break I'm coming back online. I'm going to be p ...

To those joining, I've begun a series on video game rules and mechanics and how they can a ...

As I began yesterday, I've started a series on the gamification of the workplace. I think ...

Over the last year (really even before that), an interesting trend has arisen, towards bri ...

I received a mail the other day from a reader who had a project "fail" and was concerned h ...

(A guest post by Robert Kelly, PMP) How well do you know the details of your project? If a ...

In a much earlier post, I mentioned I'd had the unique opportunity to work on outsourcing ...

I recently came across this RSA talk by political activist Barbara Ehrenreich, in which sh ...

On August 11th I told you about some of the efforts I had underway to increase my presence ...

I have a question. I've written about the future of Facebook in project environments be ...

How many times have you heard those words? (Or how many times have you spoken them?) It ...

The summer months are a slow time for many businesses, and mine's no exception this year. ...

(A guest post by Robert Kelly, PMP) We all face change on a regular basis in our organi ...

Okay, I'm going to preface this article by saying that some ladies and gentlemen may not w ...

It's the first week of August, and all of my clients are on vacation, so I've decided to t ...

It's been an interesting go with this blog. I've been thrilled with the participation and ...

Once again, folks around the web have referred to this site, and I want to thank them here ...

So you've kicked off your project, and things are well underway. You followed all the best ...

I came across a couple pieces, one by Kareem Shaker and another by Derek Huether. They ech ...

One of my favourite project management bloggers, Derek Huether, wrote a piece last week ab ...

On April 5, 2010, I wrote an article "Team Building Makes Me Feel Dead Inside" where I tal ...

I want to give a big thanks to two people who have written about Papercut this week. On ...

Requirements. It's a word familiar to project managers everywhere. It should also be a wor ...

In recent years I've had the pleasure of working with clients on some corporate video proj ...

I'd like you to meet my most important stakeholder. His name is Harold. Okay, mainly this ...

...

Dear Mr. Harper: I'm not your number one fan. Okay, I'm not really a fan at all. Okay, let ...

BIG hairy hugs to Derek Huether! When I finished my series on destructive behaviours of ...

I recently came across an opinion piece by Liza Lowery Massey called Poor Project Manageme ...

A webmaster's work is never done. In my quest to constantly improve Papercut Edge, and mak ...

I'm a member of a truly wonderful community of bloggers who push each other to improve the ...

On behalf of our clients, we work extra hard at developing creative solutions that would p ...

Other Articles in This Series 1. The Sack. 2. The Magpie. 3. The Deer in Headlights. 4 ...

Other Articles in This Series 1. The Sack. 2. The Magpie. 3. The Deer in Headlights. 4 ...

Late at night last Thursday I was outside having a cigarette (okay, and a drink too), and ...

Other Articles in This Series 1. The Sack. 2. The Magpie. 3. The Deer in Headlights. 4 ...

So, people keep telling me that multitasking is an effective management technique, and I k ...

Other Articles in This Series 1. The Sack. 2. The Magpie. 3. The Deer in Headlights. 4 ...

Warning: *BIG* patented geoff crane rant incoming(and an f-bomb even! duck and cover!) ...

Other Articles in This Series 1. The Sack. 2. The Magpie. 3. The Deer in Headlights. 4 ...

About two weeks ago, the editor at Projects@Work magazine, approached me to write featured ...

Other Articles in This Series 1. The Sack. 2. The Magpie. 3. The Deer in Headlights. 4 ...

Sometimes I think people knowingly set failure up as a likely option. And sometimes, I swe ...

Who says nobody ever notices accomplishments? Video courtesy of GhostLink999 on YouTube ...

Time for another Mentor Room recommendation. Today I'm offering a very important book for ...

Other Articles in This Series 1. The Sack. 2. The Magpie. 3. The Deer in Headlights. 4 ...

I had the biggest thrill when Ron Holohan called me up and interviewed me for his long-run ...

So I opened The Mentor Room in the sidebar over the weekend. Since one of my goals with th ...

Other Articles in This Series 1. The Sack. 2. The Magpie. 3. The Deer in Headlights. 4 ...

I love my blog, and I hope it shows. When you come here, I want to make sure you find usef ...

I was just over at Patrick Richard aka The Hard-Nosed Project Manager's blog. He's got qui ...

Other Articles in This Series 1. The Sack. 2. The Magpie. 3. The Deer in Headlights. 4 ...

To save you the trouble of listening, this is an audio recording of a woman whose televisi ...

Hi guys. You know who you are. I've been building relationships with you for several month ...

Today I want to talk a little bit about communication. I came across a piece in the new ...

Well. Since I started blogging, I've made acquaintances with many companies who make proje ...

Over the last couple days, I've been taking a look at the annual costs of IT projects, how ...

Yesterday I posted about my findings reviewing IT project failure reports, how they compar ...

I was reading up on project failure statistics this weekend as I often need to remind my c ...

What happens when you don't make requirements crystal clear? They're wide open to misinter ...

Change control. Project managers everywhere know the term. When a stakeholder requests a c ...

Awhile back I griped about what I hated about irrelevant team building efforts. So today I ...

I'm always prattling on about trust. It's the key ingredient in any aspect of business. T ...

So I visited my home town (Peterborough, Ontario, Canada) for the weekend. While I was the ...

So I read a great post from Mark Phillips over at Vertabase about the importance of making ...

I just wanted to say a big thank you to Ty Kiisel of @Task Software who mentioned Papercut ...

In my recent post, Team Building Makes Me Feel Dead Inside, Derek Huether mentioned "stret ...

Trust. It's one of the fundamental ingredients of any successful relationship. Without tru ...

So I'm going to go off the deep end a little bit today, and talk about something that real ...

Okay. I'm going to ask you to bear with me as I kick the can around a little. On March ...

So, I'm grouchy today. Since I've been out on my own I've made a real effort to learn more ...

Okay, so I feel the need to take my views on PM2.0 further. On Friday I posted a piece abo ...

I am absolutely honored this week to have the Project Shrink himself, Bas de Baar, permit ...

So there seems to be much controversy over this PM2.0 thing. I'm going to state my opinion ...

I'd like to let readers know about a fantastic new resource for project managers. It's the ...

You know what I love about social media? An old fogie like me can get attention from enthu ...

I just finished watching Lady Gaga and Beyonce's elaborate new music video "Telephone". Fi ...

This is a little off-topic for my usual posts, but today I thought I'd try to encourage so ...

On Sunday, March 7th at 3:00pm I had the most fun "Twitterview" with Jhaymee Wilson aka @T ...

Recently I had the absolute thrill of being a guest on Samad Aidane's Guerrilla Project Ma ...

YouTube is one of my favourite places on the web because of all the fabulous gems you can ...

About two years ago I had the experience of working on the vendor side of an outsourcing e ...

Many years ago I had the pleasure of working for a brilliant man. One of many, actually, b ...

I just discovered that a very bright lady I once worked with has published a book, "It's ...

Well, it's been a long, long wait, but overwhelmingly worth it. All the Papercut sites are ...

I've been talking in my last few posts about my approach to social media, as a marketing v ...

For two posts now, I've been talking about my "social media strategy" which hasn't been mu ...

In this series of posts, I'm talking about how I got my company started with social media, ...

Since I started embracing social media in November 2009, I've been amazed at the amount of ...

After Jason Martin's excellent post, I took the question over to Ask About Projects to see ...

I absolutely had to share this with you. PM411 (you'll find a link to his blog in my blogr ...

Jason Martin wrote an excellent article about a debate I had with MyPMExpert on Twitter (m ...

In the forums I've been participating on recently, I've seen an awful lot of questions reg ...

I know my company sells project tracking services, but I'm the first to admit that some pr ...

People who have been following me know that my position on being a PM is simple. A project ...

I’ve been surprised to find that there’s still much ambiguity about the difference bet ...

You Had Me at "The Project's Gone To Hell"! from Papercut Project Monitoring on Vimeo. ...

It’s important for all project resources to have a tool that lets them see what other team ...

A few years back I got caught on an extremely complex project with a resource shortage. It ...

A few years back I got caught on an extremely complex project with a resource shortage. It ...

...

Leaders of all shapes and sizes know how difficult it is to keep their part of an organiza ...

You're wrong. It's about ME. from Papercut Project Monitoring on Vimeo. Why aren’t clie ...

So I’m feeling generous today and giving away free stuff. Before I broke off to start my o ...

Okay, let’s say you have a bunch of projects on the go, your portfolio management system i ...

If you find yourself with staff who perform high volumes of routine tasks, you may find th ...

Hi everybody! I recently came across a post by David Spinks over at @Mashable, where he ta ...

#pmot: I got to be part of a Twitter conversation today that was so much fun I wanted to ...

Why I'd rather you go play in the traffic. from Papercut Project Monitoring on Vimeo. ...

ARE YOU A PORTFOLIO MANAGER? Don't you wish you could put your project portfolio on ...

Experienced project managers are very familiar with the concept of stakeholders and the ne ...

I wanted to take a moment today and tell a story about a fellow I worked with a few years ...

Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Video courtesy of 0a1ss on YouTube. Okay, okay, the vide ...

Hi, my name is Geoff, and I’m sad. I’m sad because I heard the term “authentic communicati ...

Further to my post yesterday about communications paths, I thought I’d reuse my crappy dia ...

Okay, rant time. Something that has bugged me on just about every project I’ve ever been o ...

Further to my rambling yesterday about project communications, I mentioned that as a proje ...

Tech Republic’s great diagram sets the stage for a solid communications plan. It shows y ...

In her article http://bit.ly/7aHl0I, @commsabilities talks of the importance of communic ...

I know this photo has been around for a long time but I can’t help but think of this pic ...

Those who know me know I talk a lot about people who find themselves in a project manager ...