Welcome to our Seilevel Photo Op.
I spoke at the PMI-OC Personal Development Day Conference, talking about delivering value on our projects. The talk covered whether or not we measure the right things for projects, and about the importance of understanding and driving toward business objectives. Now this being a PMI conference, there were all sorts …
I recently re-watched The Martian, a great movie I recommend to anyone. One lesson I learned from the movie that is also relevant to my work is to solve one problem at a time. For those of you who have not seen the movie (no plot disclosures – I promise!) …
I recently wrote about a critical, yet often overlooked, step in improving products: developing a true understanding of stakeholders. This week, I want to delve into a case study to demonstrate why this phase of development is so essential. Let’s say I am working with a hypothetical national non-profit with …
Recently, I had the honor of speaking at Product Camp Austin. I highlighted a crucial step that I think is often glossed over when setting out to improve products: truly understanding the stakeholders. Even amazing projects can fall flat when they reach users. Identifying our stakeholders and understanding what elicitation …
We live in a very device heavy world these days. You understand, we have our smart phones, laptops, iPads, Apple Watches, etc. We are never disconnected from any form of communication anymore. But should we disconnect at times? Especially during meetings? As I walk into meetings these days, it is …
Recently, I was able to speak at the Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. During the conference I participated in an interview for a PM Podcast; it was recently published. Here is the introduction to the podcast, with a link to the podcast at the end. I …
Seilevel recently held an event in Austin focusing on driving transformation in organizations. It was a terrific event; anyone who follows me or Seilevel on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook saw various pictures and comments from the event as it was happening. I know I learned a lot! We did livestream …
One of the toughest aspects of being a product manager or a business analyst is to get people to agree. Especially when they have different wants, ideas and opinions on the features the product must have. Negotiating with our stakeholders is a must. Of course, part of our job as …
I once had someone tell me that I am the only one who owns my career. No one else is under any obligation to help me grow, to help me learn more, to do what it takes to get to the next step. Those are words that are so true. …
A couple of years ago I wrote a blog titled the 5 Joys of using Excel as a Requirements Management Tool. In the post, I wrote about the frustrations I was facing using Excel as a requirements management tool. I still stand by what I wrote at that time (and …
