There are two isolated communities involved in delivering innovation and enhancements in business. Each community knows of, but remains relatively uninformed about, the other. The first community is that of change management practitioners, the second is that of project managers. In a business context at least, there is significant gains to be achieved by bringing these communities together. This article is a request to try and close the divide.

Since I've read Seth Godin's "Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?", my mind could not stop making connections between linchpins and project managers. Therefore I could not rest without writing an article on the topic and share the reasons why I believe project managers to be more likely to become linchpins in their organizations.

Management consultants have a mixed reputation, but irrespective of your personal feelings, consultants are part of modern business. Organisations call on management consultancies frequently. With ever tighter budgets and leaner businesses, when something unusual arises external support is required. That support regularly comes in the form of consultants. For project managers, the inclusion of management consultants in a project team can be a mixed blessing. Consultants can bring skills and techniques which reduce risk, speed delivery, and provide innovative solutions to problems. But reality does not always match the expectations. Consultants are not straightforward to manage, their fees can decimate a constrained project budget, and you may sometimes wonder if they are there to help you or not.

If you are a project manager - how can you get the best from management consultants working on your project?

After a few months of studying, I've got my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification in April this year. Although, at the beginning, the process for applying for the certification seemed extremely complicated, I didn't find it to be that hard. Since there don't seem to be many blogs on the Internet giving information about the actual experience of getting a PMP certification, I would like to share with you a few tips and tricks from my own experience. Hopefully, you will find them useful.

Prioritisation is crucial for effective project management in organisations. It is prioritisation that gains access to those resources required to get the project done. Without prioritisation there can be a continuous fight for resources and projects drag on and on. That is not to deny that some project managers are brilliant at getting projects done without priorities, using a range of relationship and influencing skills. Whilst this can lead to an individually successful project, it is questionable whether this is in the interests of the organisation. Without explicit priorities you do not know whether the project is really important enough in the wider scheme of things going on in the organisation.

The problem is that whilst we need clear priorities, project managers usually have no control over prioritisation. Priority decisions are made by other, often more senior managers – or more to the point, not made! A project manager may feel hopeless in this situation. But there are things you can do. You can lobby for clear prioritisation, and you can explain the impact of a lack of prioritisation to your managers. For this to be effective you first have to recognise the symptoms of it.

In this article I want to explore the symptoms of poor prioritisation. If this proves to be a topic of interest, in future articles I will look at what you can do about it.

I would like to continue the discussion started by Richard Newton on the challenge of managing offshore suppliers and talk about facebook and how to use it to manage your projects. After delivering several projects with only virtual teams, I've learned that facebook can be quite a useful project management tool, which helps you build relationships and know more about your project team and how to manage it. In this article I will explain what I think on this subject and share 5 reasons why project managers should use facebook.

I am often involved in recruiting project managers for my clients. Project managers who clients hope will deliver the perfect project. What is it that makes me want to interview a project manager, and what CVs do I throw in the bin? At all times, but especially in tough times like the present, successful project managers are those who's skills are relevant to their customer’s needs. This is really important when it comes to changing your role. So, how do you make yourself appealing to that customer? Here are 6 simple tips that in my experience will increase your chances of getting that new job.