Problem Solving

Many years ago, I had a very predictable job as a health care provider. I left for work at the exact same time and had the same commute. Like clockwork, my colleague Maria would merge onto the freeway just ahead of me every single morning. She drove at a very relaxed pace. I did not.…

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”  Oscar Wilde I’ve been interested with the concept of “self-management”, which is the idea that people are fully capable of managing their own behavior, time, tasks, and emotions in order to achieve goals without constant supervision. In theory, it sounds super efficient. Teams rely on peer relationships, shared…

This past week, someone I was working with said, “You are teaching me how to fish”. Now before you picture me in waders, standing in a river somewhere with a fly fishing rod and project plan, let me clarify that no actual fish were involved.  We were tackling a complex problem, one that the organization…

Early in my project management career, I worked with a colleague who happened to share my name. Barbara. We were affectionately referred to by our coworkers as “The Barbs”.  Barb had a way of gently challenging how I approached things. I remember once showing her a program tracker I had spent hours perfecting, feeling quite…

I get a lot of feedback from readers, and it usually falls into two camps. Some are die-hard project managers who want me to dive deeper into the weeds: WBS structures, RACI vs. RASCI, and all the beautifully complex, slightly geeky pieces of what PMs do. I get it. The geeky stuff matters. But that’s…

I can’t stand mowing the lawn. The other day I got home, sat out front, and just stared at it. The lawn had gotten so high even the dandelions looked overwhelmed. Definitely past the point of ignoring, but I was too tired to deal with it.  I’m not a lawn person. It feels like a…

I was listening to a stand-up comedy routine by Trevor Noah when something he said resonated with me. His therapist told him he has “an inability to not say what’s in his head” and that “the secret to relationships is knowing when to think and when to speak.” That landed a little too close to…

Have you ever attended a scramble party? I did recently. A scramble party is where the host has the best intentions, but doesn’t have a plan. So guests show up to a work-in-progress: someone’s setting the table, someone else is opening wine, someone’s trying to get the music going, another person is asking, “Wait… are…

Yesterday, I opened an email from the facilitator of a program I’d just completed. It began with “Just a gentle reminder to fill out the program survey.”  But the reminder didn’t feel very gentle. To me, it felt almost passive aggressive, and it got me thinking about how often we use phrases like that without…

Sometimes it takes a little chaos “When you arrive at the store and can’t remember why, and you forgot the vet appointment, and almost missed the dentist even though they called you yesterday, and the bills are late, and your kids need homework help, and you are behind at work, and haven’t exercised in weeks,…