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Skip to the content Search Entangled.com International Strategy, Marketing and Project Management Menu About Entangled English PMP Certification Questions and Answers Search Search for: Close search Close Menu About Entangled English PMP Certification Questions and Answers Categories General As a project manager, trust your team Post author By Brian Crawford Post date May 29, 2017 No Comments on As a project manager, trust your team The other day I was shown some targeted marketing for a T-shirt on my Facebook feed. The T-shirt was geared toward senior project managers (which is something I’d listed in my work experience). This is what it said: Senior Project Manager: We do precision guess work based on unreliable data provided by those of questionable knowledge I see where the T-shirt maker was going with this, but it frustrated me to think there are project managers out there who might share this attitude. In my opinion, it is a poor project manager that questions the knowledge of the people on his or her team. That’s because as a project manager, you aren’t outputting a whole bunch of project deliverables on your own. It is your team that is doing the majority of the work on project deliverables. If you don’t trust the knowledge of your team members, and if you can’t find ways to work with them to provide reliable project data, then you’re going to be a pretty poor project manager. It’s crucial as a project manager to get to know and appreciate your team’s strengths and weaknesses and to learn to work with your team members to create a schedule for deliverables that your team is realistically able to accomplish. If the data that you are receiving from your team members is unreliable, then it’s up to you to find ways to help your team members provide reliable data. The same principle applies when it comes to working with customers or clients. If your clients are providing you with unreliable data, then you should work with them to provide realistic data that will allow you and your project team to get the expected work done in a predictable and efficient manner. This will make everybody happy…. except for maybe the T-shirt makers. Categories PMP Certification Project Management PMP Certification salaries: men vs women Post author By Brian Crawford Post date December 6, 2016 4 Comments on PMP Certification salaries: men vs women Chetan Ramesh from Bangalore, India sent me a tweet to let me know that he’d included a quote from this web site in an infographic he had created for Simplilearn . His infographic shows a global comparison between the experiences and salaries of men and women, based on data, where PMP certification is concerned. He also shows which industries employ the most male and female project management professionals. I think it is important that Chetan has highlighted the fact that on average, men earn more money with their PMP certifications than do women. He does indicate that the pay for women project managers is catching up to those of men, which is a good thing. Hopefully it will not be too long before both men and women earn salaries based on their skills, not their genders. If you’re a project professional working in the field of Information Technology, this is something that you should take note of. In interviews and when hiring or promoting your employees, make an effort to judge the people you are hiring based on their skills, work experience, education, and certifications, and not based on factors such as race, gender, or religion. Categories Marketing Product Design Respect your product or service’s core function Post author By Brian Crawford Post date September 17, 2016 No Comments on Respect your product or service’s core function I have a Panasonic sonic toothbrush that I bought for a decent price a few months ago from Groupon. It is a pretty good toothbrush – for proper oral hygiene I recommend using a sonic toothbrush in general (and flossing regularly, of course). One feature that this particular sonic toothbrush has goes as follows: every 30 seconds, the toothbrush stops operating for a split second so that you will know that it is a good time to switch “zones” in your mouth (front right quadrant, back left quadrant, and so on). They do this to encourage users to brush for a good two minutes, allotting 30 seconds per zone. This particular feature of the toothbrush really bothers me. For a while I couldn’t figure out why that was. After all, it only shuts off for a split second, and then continues brushing as normal – until 30 seconds later, that is, when it will shut off again to let you know that another 30 seconds have gone by. This morning while brushing my teeth I finally realized why this feature really bothers me. I bought this toothbrush for one reason, and one reason only – to brush my teeth. Shutting off that function, for no matter how short a time, goes directly against the core function of this product. I didn’t buy the toothbrush as a toothbrushing timer, I bought it so that I could clean my teeth. You can add extra features, sure, but don’t do so at the expense of the core function of the product. My toothbrush shutting off for a split second every 30 seconds is akin to having a car that stops moving every 30 miles to let you know you’ve driven for 30 minutes, or a phone that mutes every 30 minutes to let you know you’ve been talking for 30 minutes. Maybe you care about knowing how far you’ve driven or how long you’ve talked on the phone for, but if you do, you probably have another way of tracking that. You don’t need your car or phone to do it for you at the expense of your driving or communication. Although my toothbrush is a pretty good one, when it comes time to replace it I won’t be getting another one like it. I’ll get one that does what it’s designed for and lets me worry about the rest. Categories PMO Project Management The Virtual Project Management Office (PMO) Post author By Brian Crawford Post date August 28, 2016 No Comments on The Virtual Project Management Office (PMO) My dad, Tony Crawford, is an accomplished fellow. He’s been working in the field of Information Technology since his graduation from King’s College in London over 45 years ago. Many of those working years have been spent managing projects, programs, people, and data. He’s worked as a high-level executive for the Canadian government, as an executive at a large consulting firm in New York City, and he spent several years living overseas in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, consulting for Bell Canada and Saudi Telecom. I myself have some very interesting memories from these times! For many years, my father has been interested in project management. He’s PMP certified and has dedicated a great deal of time to project management consulting for a variety of different organizations. He also regularly conducts a series of webinars to help people understand the ins and outs of proper project management. One of the more interesting ideas my dad has come up with is the idea of the Virtual Project Management Office (PMO) . An effective PMO is important to successful project management within an organization, but many companies are of smaller size or do not have the funds required to maintain a proper PMO. The Virtual PMO is a way to have a PMO without a PMO; all of the various PMO operations within the organization are organized in a virtual manner. My father has created a webinar to explain the Virtual PMO, how it works, and some valuable information about managing PMOs in general. It’s free on YouTube, and in my opinion it’s definitely worth watching. You can find it here: Please check it out and let us know what you think! Categories Project Management A project manager’s responsibility Post author By Brian Crawford Post date January 11, 2016 No Comments on A project manager’s responsibility Nobody’s ever asked me what I think is the most important function of the project manager. There are many potential answers to this question. However, ...