By Shawn P. Quigley Needs According to McClelland We have discussed several different motivational theories and today we will continue that discussion with McClelland’s Needs theory of motivation. The reason we are discussing McClelland’s theory now is that it provides some insight why an employee may become disenchanted with not improving a process that they […]

What is the meaning of conflict and problem? Let us start our discussion today with a few definitions of the words “Conflict” and “Problem”. There are so many definitions and we needed a common starting point to allow for an informative discourse. Conflict is defined by Merriam-Webster as: “A struggle for power, property, etc., strong […]

By Shawn Quigley This blog is inspired by The Fifth Discipline Field Book, published by Double Day – New York, Peter M. Senge copyright 1994 The Learn Organization The five disciplines of a Learning Organization are Team Learning, Personal Mastery, Mental Models, System Thinking, and Shared Vision. With that, let’s look at the items that […]

Recently, on Twitter, I had to express my discontent with the word Pragmatic.  My spontaneous outburst so amazed me that I decided to explore this further.  The definition on dictionary.com[1] is: Of or about a practical point of view or practical considerations Philosophy of or about pragmatism Of or about pragmatics Treating historical phenomena with […]

Cell phones and Laptops, Tools – or the Distraction to Success Ever think your not getting the most out of your team due to distraction.  The greatest invention perhaps is the smart phone.  Now it is easy to check all of our email accounts, text message our friends, post on Facebook, blurt on Twitter, connect […]

Sources of Conflict There are challenges aplenty awaiting project managers when it comes to gathering a collection of individuals assigned to eventually become a team and produce the organization’s objective as defined by the project.  The business mantra of doing more with less – often less time and certainly less resources (and available talent) do […]

A discussion of risk would not be completed without a discussion of probability and severity.  When we are looking at risky event, we are in essence establishing or assessing the probability of some undesired event coming to fruition.  However, even our desired events, for example the completion of a task on the critical path at […]

Check lists are a time honored way of keeping track of breaking down an objective and monitoring progress.  There are a number of benefits to using check lists.  Check lists should not be confused with a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).  A WBS is a form of a check list of all of the tasks required […]

What are we trying to accomplish with a communications plan?  Effective project management is the efficient achieving of an organization’s objectives.  To do that, we have to keep our project team informed and working toward the target.  That includes our project sponsor and other stakeholders.  Ultimately our plan should be able to quickly answer the […]