Five key things your CEO should be thinking about today in terms of protecting your organization from cybercrime and data breaches.

I’m pretty sure by now that executives in organizations – especially organizations with some sensitive data to secure – are paying at least some cursory attention to cybersecurity and cybercrime. If not, then they need a wake up call and then a swift call to action in order to ensure that they don’t lose grounds and future lawsuits over a cyberattack that could have possibly been avoided or at least mitigated...

Are you a candidate for a new project manager position in your organization or at another company and you’re preparing for the interview? If so, there are some strategies that will help you and one is to ask a few pointed questions to get some detailed information about the PM infrastructure you may be heading into and to help you make your mark, so to speak.

You want to ask questions – always ask question – especially when the interviewer asks if you have any questions. You always want to try to answer questions in the positive. Try never to say, “no” or “I don’t know” or “I’ve never had experience with that,” etc. Always look for ways to apply some experience, some quantifiable success stories, and some leadership qualities to whatever you answer, of course. But when the tables turn, or throughout the interview session, be ready to ask some intelligent questions. And make them worthwhile so that you are actually finding out information that will help you determine whether or not you want to take the job if it’s offered – or help you determine if they seem stable enough to stop interviewing for other jobs if you do take this one out of desperation...

The Internet of Things is estimated to grow to 50 billion devices by 2020. How soon - and how - will IoT affect the tech projects we manage?

Ok, the Internet of Things (IoT) may not mean anything to your next project, but it’s coming. IoT will eventually affect you, your next project, the technology you are delivering, and your IT organization as a whole.

What is the IoT? Taking a quick trip over to Wikipedia yields this definition and description:...

6 Sep 2015Strategy vs. Luck: Managing Projects in the Face of Uncertainty~ By Kenneth Darter

Managing projects is all about strategy. You have to decide in advance how you're going to plan out tasks, mitigate risks, staff the project team and so on. All of these decisions and plans form the project strategy. As the project moves from planning to execution to monitoring and then to closing, the strategy is documented, refined, and implemented.

Hopefully, everyone understands the management of the project strategy and what the project team and stakeholders are doing in order to be successful. While it might seem that all the planning and processes involved don't leave much room for luck, luck is as much a part of life and projects as strategy is...

Cyber crime isn't reserved just for big businesses. In fact, being a small business might make you more likely to be targeted. Here are four ways cyber crime can damage your business.

Image source: Photospin.com Internet security may not be your number one priority when starting a new business, but neglecting the potential dangers could put your business at a great risk. One common mistake for managers and executives is assuming that their small business is at a lower risk compared to other larger businesses. Contrary to this assumption, small businesses are at an equal, if not, greater risk to being the victims of cyber crime. A common reason for this is that smaller businesses may not have the budget and resources that many larger businesses may have, often leaving them more vulnerable to malicious attacks. According to a study conducted by the Ponemon Institute, smaller organizations incur a significantly higher per-capita cost than larger organizations...

Pardon me if you are a New England Patriots fan. I was once, but I just can’t do it anymore. They are good, but they cheat. And he – and the team – should be justly punished. They were, but a judge somehow saw fit to intervene and undermine the NFL Commissioner’s authority and overturn Brady’s punishment. I’m appalled. It’s crazy.

So lets consider the situation. Brady appealed his punishment to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell – basically the CEO of the NFL if we are equating this to the business world. Goodell basically said "no, you're still suspended...largely because you tampered with evidence by destroying a cell phone that we asked you to turn over." I realiize these aren't exact quotes...just a summary of what happened...

The potential for project failure looms over every project and has since the beginning of time.  Most surveys and reports have the project failure rate at greater than 50%....so you can see that true project success is often painfully difficult to obtain. So many variables go into each project, so many outside entities can affect the success or failure of any given project, and unknowns can enter the picture at any time – making risk planning…something that is often too overlooked – a very necessary piece to the early project planning puzzle. 

I’d like to discuss what I consider to be five key things that can greatly diminish any projects chances of success – and in all likelihood, any one of these can absolutely squash the project undertaking. Keen project management skills are required to prepare for, plan for, and react to each of these…and these are merely the tip of the iceberg of things that can kill a project...