The Blog / deborah

What Email Can’t Tell You

Yesterday, I had one of those traumatic email days where I felt a bombshell had been dropped in my inbox.  A teammate sent me an email that seemed to discredit some work I’d been doing.  I felt my face heat up out of embarrassment first, then anger as the thought “how does he know anything […]

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Two Rules for Small Team Management

Obviously, being one of the founders of Fellowstream, I have a biased opinion of how you should use tools to facilitate good communication on a small team.  Bare in mind, though, that Fellowstream is a labor of love born out of frustration managing several small video game teams throughout my career. An online tool, like […]

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The Cost of Not Trying

The price of failure might seem high. But consider the cost of not trying: You will not become better than who you are today. You cannot learn new things. You will not discover new things about yourselves. You will not discover new things about others. You lose touch with the cutting edge. Any dissatisfaction you […]

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What does Work Life Balance Mean to You?

I recently read an article by Sean Ogle, one of my favorite bloggers, on what it means to have work life balance. His number two advice reads as follows: Realize there doesn’t ALWAYS have to be a good balance. This is HUGE and something many people will not understand. In order to achieve the perfect […]

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Patience and Project Management

Piggybacking on my last blog post on why project management isn’t fire fighting, today I tackle the idea of patience.  Patience is often said to be a virtue, but unfortunately, this concept doesn’t often translate into our professional lives.  Stakeholders want deadlines moved up two weeks, co-workers want to resolve their problems today, and we […]

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Why Project Management isn’t Fire Fighting

Unless you live in a happy fantasy land (and if you do, please send directions so I can go there too), you’ve worked on a project that has had at least one “fire” emergency.  It could have been that the server went down right after a website launch.  Maybe the catering company didn’t show up […]

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Who Leads a Self-Managed Team?

When we think of good project management, we think of leaders.  The person who holds “the vision” carries the torch for making sure the project gets done the way it should be.  All eyes to turn to him whenever big decisions are made.  The failure or success can be pinpointed to this one, easily identifiable […]

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You’re Not Perfect

You’re not perfect, so… Make the best plans you can given the information you have now. Don’t beat yourself up when things start to fall apart. Apologize if you are wrong and that will improve the atmosphere. Listen to others, but ultimately follow your gut. Take time off once in a while. Know that you […]

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Podcast with ResourcesUnite!, Fellowstream Customer

If there’s ever a moment where any entrepreneur feels good about hours of work, it’s when they have the opportunity to sit down with a satisfied customer and chat.  I recently got to do that in a public way with Jon Filitti at ResourcesUnite!  Jon has been a Fellowstream user since our beta days and […]

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Donate to the Red Cross for Japan

By now, you’ve probably seen footage from the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan last week.  Japan holds a special place in my heart because I spent 2.5 years there, as a student and as an English teacher. A few of my former students and I giving the ol’ V sign. I don’t […]

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