Seeing a movie in the year 2000, when I was a younger project manager, helped me understand the practical relevance of project management and the fact that the tougher the circumstances the better and more granular the planning must be. This movie was titled, “Gone in 60 Seconds”, a movie that was about stealing 50 cars in just 4 days. Surprisingly it took a rather average movie, with over-the-top action and glitz to help me understand the true relevance and importance of project planning and the relationship between risk management and project resilience. Read on to understand the amazing project management lessons that could be learned from this movie.

An ambitious project which was about making a 7 Mile Highway under the ground. Part of it under a sea-water body. Started in 1982 and finally completed on December 31^st 2007. It was supposed to be ready by 1998. A project that poured enough concrete in the construction works, enough to create a 4 lane highway from Boston to San Francisco, grounded enough steel that could be used for making a railway track around the equator and at a cost which ended up being 25 times of costs used in construction of the Panama Canal and Hoover Dam, combined. It now holds the label of the most expensive highway project in USA till date. From an estimated budget of USD 2.8 Billion to USD 14.78 billion and finally on to USD 22 Billion after all interest payments and claims payments. The citizens of Massachusetts would be footing extra taxes till 2036 just for this project alone. And oh, it took about 20 yrs to get completed. Read On…

With every 100 person appearing for PMP exams over 70 fail. This is not a very healthy trend. And this is also not because that the PMP Exams is very difficult of tough. It’s really not so. Most people just commit some serious mistakes, even with the best of intentions, and thus are unable to attempt the exams with their true potential. There are some self-defeating mistakes that most candidates commit while preparing for the PMP Exams. This blog lists and explains those common mistakes. Read on…

What is evident is that it’s not that easy to work from home. Home is made for comfort and everything around at home Echos Comfort. Every single item like Couch, seats, swing in the porch and oh yes the bed. The feeling of “Finally being at home” is epitomised once you finally reach home after a tiring days’ work. It was NOT the place that was going to be used for serious official work. A few emails and calls may be but definitely not a full day of office work. However, due to the challenges of current situation, we all are forced to work from home.  A home that was built for comfort and love and not for Productivity. Read on more to understand some of the most effective tips for working from home during these trying times..

A lot of people think that Risk Management is actually too academic to have a real effect on real-world projects. Professionals do take training around this topic but tend not to practice it in real life, usually citing lack of time and resources. What they do not realize, usually, is that the very fact that they are not conducting proper and practical “Risk Management” is the very reason why they are too busy (and so is the entire project team) moving from one “Firefighting” to another.

Read on to understand the Real Idea Behind Risk Management.

Through an observation of some of the most successful project managers around the world, I have been able to compile a list of 15 habits that are consistently common among them. In this blog, I have tried to explain each of these habits to help you assess if you possess these habits or help you find your improvement areas.

This list is compiled from “practical real world success” not from academic circles and hence tend to have amazing practical relevance. Read on to find out all about these amazing 15 habits of the most successful project managers globally.

Over so many years of consulting work and being associated with organizations of all kinds, I have seen so many cases where serious money have been invested on the acquiring of a project management enterprise wide tool, with the hope of bringing some semblance of “process orientation” and discipline to the way project management is conducted with the organization, which, always gets rolled out to drum beats and red-carpet with expectations that touch the sky, but soon enough, all that exuberance gives way to unmet expectations or extra work of punching data into the system and the tool becomes a tragic story of a love affair that did not blossom. This article shares one such experience.

It pains me to see that so many people apply professional project management only to professional and large official projects and completely forget or do away with, even basic planning for their personal projects. What follows is stress and conflicts in organizing personal projects which were supposed to give them pleasure. I have seen so much of firefighting even for their personal projects that the results sought even for the little things in life are lost.

This blog encourages the readers to use WBS for their personal projects to remove stress and firefighting thus enjoying every little things in life. Read on.

One of the beautiful North Eastern States of India is called Assam.Through Assam flows the mighty river called the Brahmaputra. This river is so huge and volatile that it has been termed as the “Flowing Ocean” by the local population. It floods every year and decimates villages and towns on its banks. The level rises by over 30 feet during monsoon and brings with it millions of tons of silt.

The BJP government started construction on this ambitious project in April 2002. But after that when the government changed, this project came to standstill due to corruption and political rivalry. Learn how this project finally saw the light of the day through one of the most amazing “Agile” implementation in construction project. Read the blog to understand the full and true story that will give you immense insights about how to pull a project back from disaster and neglect.

A project so amazing that movies and comics were produced in anticipation. The technology so advanced that people were talking about the next step being “Space Travel”. The concept so brilliant that almost every airline wanted to order it. The first supersonic aircraft in the world that was capable of cruising at a speed of twice the speed of sound. And yet by the time this product was launched it was 5 yrs behind schedule and nearly 20 times over budget. It lost every single order and never sold even a single aircraft to any airliner. It was the most glamorous piece of aviation marvel which hid one of the worst project managements behind its public lure. This blog delves deep into what went wrong and what lessons that could be learnt from it.

A Ghost Airport - Is what it is called today. 

An airport that was conceived in 1991, construction started in 2006, has still not been completed after nearly 29 yrs. Even now it is expected to miss its new deadline of October 2020 and continue into the late 2021. A project that has costed over Euro 7 Billion as well as the national pride. This project alone has broken the decades old image of German Planning and Precision. Their own press has spared no stones to make this project into an international laughing stock. How could a project go so wrong? Read on to understand how good intentions alone are not enough for great outcome. There are so many lessons to be learnt from this debacle.

An ambitious project that was started by a consortium of top scientific brains in US to dig deep into the mantle of the Earth from an undersea location, something that would be the very first anywhere in the entire world, to bring international acclaim towards the scientific capabilities of US as well as become a powerful complement to the high stake space race efforts of US. This project was called the MOHOLE Project (the upper portion of Earth’s Mantle is called Moho). Soon after having a fantastic start the Mohole Project quickly and chaotically fell into dismay due to politics, power, greed and difference of opinion about the overall objectives of the project itself. This blog covers one of the ugliest stories of “Bad Project Management” in US. Read on to see the amazing pertinent lessons that are applicable even today.

Being an aviation enthusiast since my childhood days of reading Commando comics and war literature, I was gushing over the specifications and capabilities of the “All-weather Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF)” Lockheed’s F – 22 Raptor for over a decade before coming to know that all this was just a façade of propaganda by US Military just to keep up appearances, whereas the reality was that it was one of the worst projects ever undertaken in the US Military history and its outcome was an almost totally useless product that could not be used in any of the wars and which guzzles tons of money even while standing unused in a military airport. This blog chronicles the superbly researched truth about the project management that was started for all the right reasons, by the very best in the business but ended up planning and executing it for all the wrong reasons. The result was a product which several US Airforce Pilots used to frustratingly call as…. The F – 22 Craptor.

A brilliant idea that paved the way for having unlimited solar power plant projects without having to acquire any land whatsoever. What’s more, it would also save millions of metric tons of water as well. The canal top power plant trial project created the specifications for a templated design of placing solar power panels over canals, covering them in such a way that there are no bad effect on ecology as well as ensuring higher percentage power generation, while saving millions of tons of water from evaporating. The trial was done with just a small stretch of 750 meters in Gujrat, India but now this idea is being copied around the world. The project that put India in the forefront of Solar Power Generation and that too with lowest production costs. Read more to understand this amazing project.

Imagine a world when sophisticated electronic tools did not exist. Imagine a time when the world was plunged into the darkness of a global financial crash called the “Great Depression”. Imagine a time when a person lost all his money in one mistaken investment and then imagine, that from within all this rose the tallest building of the world that had 102 floors and was completed in just under 14 months. A rate of speed of construction that is unrivalled in today’s highly technical world. The Empire State Building is not only a great place to visit or photograph but also a place from where one could take away some of the best Project Management Lessons that were so ahead of their times that they are relevant even today.

Click <<view details>> to walk through this wondrous project management journey in 1930-31.  

When it was “Finally” launched in 2012 (already 5 yrs. behind original schedule) everyone thought that it would change the way the world flew and allow airlines to save a lot of money transporting people and goods across the planet on the Dreamliner 787 series, which were touted to be 20% more fuel efficient and with higher carrying capacity. The launch was so amazing that it was actually launched by none other than the US president (Obama) himself.

However in 2013 the entire fleet of Dreamliners 787 were grounded. It never recovered from that.

Click <<View Details>> to read the full story that will provide pointed lessons on project management.

Imagine a temporary city that sprawls over an area of 1,936.56 hectares, created on the sandy banks of one of the largest River Confluence in the world, that lasts for exactly 55 days where 155 million people showed up from 102 different countries, and during those 55 days of the largest human gathering on the planet which is even visible from space, where not even a single life is lost or suffer grave hurt and the entire city is created in just 4 months and dismantled in one.

If you can imagine all that, just imagine the odds stacked against the team that does the project management for such a feat.  

Want to know more. Click the button “View Details>>

Among the series of blogs on those projects that made it to the “Worst Projects Ever, List of PM-Pulse”, this blog presents the amazingly badly done project undertaken in the early 80’s and 90’s to provide global communication service without any ground installations like wires, station houses and towers, with anyone, anywhere in the world. A project that took 13 yrs and USD 6 Billion to make, but only took 9 months for it make the company go bankrupt. Here is a looking at what really went wrong with this project.  

Among the series of blogs on those projects that made it to the “Best Projects List of PM-Pulse”, this blog presents the amazing project undertaken in the early 60s to produce the most revolutionary military aircraft in the world called the “Blackbird” SR – 71. The project saw unprecedented success in those days when there were absolutely no digital crunching power and no kind of software modelling or scheduling whatsoever. And yet, they produced something that was revolutionary even by today’s standards. Read more to see what is it that they did.

Some of the most often used words in quality circles as well as in the general management and project management, are also the most misunderstood and abused words. The misunderstanding of these concepts has direct consequences on quality, in particular, and understanding of the work at hand, in general. We delve into this world of misunderstanding to emerge with clarity on these terms, in this blog.

One of the biggest diseases that is suffocating and killing clarity in management world (including Project Management) is the incessant use of “Jargons”.

One of the top most reasons why projects fail is “Difference In understanding of management language”, and now on top of that people are using Jargons. Visit this blog to understand more.

This blog delves into the concept of the parameters selected by various organizations to select their training partners and how often they end up selecting training partners mainly on cost. Concept explained through two real world stores (names changed).

Yey! Hoorah! Congratulations ….you are now a Certified Project Management Professional from PMI, USA. You worked hard and you gave up some of your pastimes to prepare and get through the exams. You held your cool during the 4 hrs of grueling exams and you PASSED……. Whew.

Take a week to enjoy and bask in the new found glory while it lasts …as the real challenge has just begun.

The last century was all about Intelligence and IQ. Over the years it has become more than clear that “Intelligence” is swept aside and rendered impotent by the EQ or the lack of it. This article explores and explains exactly what Emotional Intelligence is all about.