Tag: english

A conversation with Marisa Silva – the Lucky PM, passionate and intrigued by projects. The interview has been conducted by Aneta Catalan Sikorska. I cannot start with the other questions until I ask about “The Lucky PM”. Is there any story behind it? Because when you talk about the PM world, I can see how much you enjoy it. But maybe “Lucky” doesn’t only mean that you love what you do, maybe you are lucky because you still improve the PM/PMO world. Thank you, first of all, for such kind words. I do try to share my passion and leave my mark in the community at least! Not really a story but there are three main reasons for my luckiness. First, I think that chance or luck plays such an important role in what happens in our life and projects, even if we prefer to ignore it. Sometimes it’s just a matter of being in the right place at the right time and I think that, although talent is fundamental, we need to acknowledge fortunate accidents too. Second, there’s this saying that goes as “there are no good project managers, only lucky ones: the more you plan, the luckier you get”, which I fully agree with because luck also requires hard work and preparation. Finally, because I’ve been very lucky to grown and learn with amazing colleagues, clients, organizations, and project teams. And, of course, I call myself “The Lucky Project Manager” because “The Lazy Project Manager” was already taken!

An interview with Gunther Verheyen by Paulina Szczepaniak You are a renowned international agile expert, with particular expertise in Scrum. Why do you think this framework became so popular? Probably because of the growing need of what I like to call “agility”, meaning flexibil¬ity, responsiveness, and not just from an IT perspective. IT is where agile sort of emerged from, but companies have to survive and thrive in very turbulent markets, a lot of business changes, market competition, but also internal changes, stakeholders and so on. And the way that organizations are struc¬tured and therefore how they organize their IT work and their software development, because that follows from the way they are structured, is just not fit for the agility re¬quired today to thrive and prosper. Structures are very rigid, very fixed, and need to become more dynamic.

An interview with Tendayi Viki by Kornelia Trzęsowska Do you agree with Steve Jobs that it’s more fun to be a pirate than to join a navy? You refer to his words in the title of your newest book. I don’t think it’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy. Pirates are often in danger of dying. Steve Jobs was talking about how startups are faster than already set up companies – they move quicker than any large company. But what we’re learning these days is that large companies often become innovative, maybe surprisingly. The cool thing about large companies is that they have something that startups don’t have – they already have a brand, access to markets, customers, vast resources and other assets. Sometimes startups are really small and they need to find all these things by themselves. As long as large companies create the right environment for innovation, I really believe that it’s better to be a pirate in the navy than to be a pirate outside the navy, because you have a greater chance of success.

A conversation with Sunil Prashara by Agnieszka Krogulec.