November 2016 - Life, Project Management, and Everything

Keep on Keeping On — Feedspot Ranks “Life, Project Management, and Everything” among Top 50 PM Blogs

Feedspot has published its rankings of the top 50 project management blogs and this site found itself squarely near the middle ranked at number 24. For those in the project management discipline, I strongly recommend you check out the list and bookmark all of them. They have a number of interesting lists by topic and so it is worth exploring beyond just PM. I read just about every one of the blogs noted on the PM list on a regular basis, which are both a source of inspiration and discovery.

A big thanks to those of you who read this blog and to the Feedspot editors for the acknowledgment. A great deal of research and work goes into each of the posts on this blog, whether about project management or other subjects that pique my interest. I would like to post more frequently, but my day job and living impose demands that limit my ability to write. Regardless, don’t give up on me during my short periods of writing hiatus. In all probability, I am working some problem of interest and am not yet ready to share my results for vetting.

Takin’ Care of Business — Information Economics in Project Management

Neoclassical economics abhors inefficiency, and yet inefficiencies exist. Among the core issues that create inefficiencies is the asymmetrical nature of information. Asymmetry is an accepted cornerstone of economics that leads to inefficiency. We can see in our daily lives and employment the effects of one party in a transaction having more information than the other: knowing whether the used car you are buying is a lemon, measuring risk in the purchase of an investment and, apropos to this post, identifying how our information systems allow us to manage complex projects.

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Veteran’s Day 2016 and Civic Courage

Photo by the author of the Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Memorial in Boston

The memorial pictured that sits on Boston Common marks a bit of history that is but an echo of an earlier time to us, it affected me greatly when I actually saw it up close, for it spoke to me. I felt a kinship over time and space to those men who are represented in bronze and stone and what they might have been thinking as they marched in the cause of equality for all people, of self-government, and of a steady intolerance of extremism, ruthlessness, and violence in defense of a cause, which cause itself was morally repugnant; fear, no doubt, trepidation, hope, pride, and steely resolve to acquit themselves well when the time came for them to do their duty. It was a time where warfare was very close and personal.