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Skills Required for Effective Project Management

By Colleen Garton and Erika McCulloch

Editor's Note: This article is excerpted from Chapter 1 of Fundamentals of Technology Project Management

To be an effective project manager you need a fairly diverse set of skills. To develop these skills, you need a certain level of talent in quite a few areas. For instance, you need to be organized. If you live your life in a totally chaotic way, never remember to pay bills on time, turn up late for everything, and hate having to live by a schedule, this is probably not a good career choice for you! An important note is that being a great engineer or an accomplished technical lead does not necessarily mean that you will make an effective project manager or that you will enjoy being a project manager. Project management should not be seen as the obvious next step on the career path of an engineer who is looking for what he or she should be doing next. Project management is a career in itself, and though it requires some level of technical acumen, it is not going to be a good career choice for everyone who possesses some technical knowledge.

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The Role of a Project Manager

By Colleen Garton and Erika McCulloch

Editor's Note: This article is excerpted from Chapter 1 of Fundamentals of Technology Project Management

A project manager (PM) has various functions or roles. Project managers will find themselves wearing many different hats during the various phases of their projects (and very likely at different times in the course of each day!). The specific roles a project manager will be required to fulfill will differ to some extent depending on the company for whom the project is being managed. It will also differ depending on the particular needs and requirements of the department or client for whom the project is being developed and the nature of the actual project itself.

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A project without a project manager is like an orchestra without a conductor.

By Colleen Garton and Erika McCulloch

Editor's Note: This article is excerpted from chapter 1 of Fundamentals of Technology Project Management, by Colleen Garton and Erika McCulloch.

You can have the best musicians (or engineers) in the world, but without the leadership of a talented conductor (or manager) who understands how everyone’s piece must fit precisely together, in the right order, to produce the final product, the orchestra (or the team) is not going to perform well and the results will be poor.

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A virtual IBM i Conference

hosted by iTech Solutions

Tuesday, April 20th - Wednesday, April 21st

Two Full Days. Live IBM i Focused Sessions. No Cost.

You’re still sick of boring "virtual events", right?

Join us for two-full days of quick-hit, no-frills sessions with real tips you can apply a schedule of IBM i experts teaching you how to do the thing they know best.

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The younger generations are coming into our world, enriching it with new ideas and perspectives.

By Steve Pitcher

It’s kind of a funny story. I was in one of my first onsite meetings at iTech Solutions back in the spring of 2017. We had the whole team in the boardroom going over strategies and discussing how we were going to achieve them. Back then, I was 38 years old. I remember coming up with an idea and the room fell silent. The next words from someone were “Wow! From the mouths of babes!”

Back then, I was the youngest person in the company. We’ve added quite a few younger people since. But I found it really interesting that someone like me, with close to 20 years’ worth of IBM i experience and definite strands of gray hair at the time (and many more now), could be a target candidate for that statement.

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Ruminations from a work-from-home veteran.

By Steve Pitcher

Editor’s note: Our country first went into lockdown in March. Now winter approaches, and the changes we thought would be temporary remain. We’re running this article again because the points made in it are still relevant. 

This is it. The new normal.

We’ve all heard that statement over and over for the last few weeks, but what does it really mean? Regular updates from politicians and health department personnel. Constant news media coverage. Minimal movement away from your residence. Social/physical distancing. Working from home.

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The AS/400 platform (a.k.a. iSeries or IBM i) is behind the scenes at many organizations around the world, reliably storing trillions of records and running the large-scale applications that power their business.

By Chuck Losinski

Editor's note: This article introduces the white paper What to Do When Your AS/400 Talent Retires, which is free to download from the MC White Paper Center.

The advantages of this platform have been obvious to its user community—who are its most stalwart supporters—for decades. But this community is in the midst of a demographic shift. Many of the most experienced AS/400 resources are reaching retirement age.

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COMMON’s POWERUp 18 showcased new hardware editions and cognitive solutions.

By Steve Pitcher

I’m going to bounce around a little with my topic coverage, because there’s a lot to talk about with regard to POWERUp, COMMON’s newly renamed spring conference that was held in San Antonio last month.

About 1,000 people attended this year. As part of the Board of Directors for COMMON, I try to shake every attendee’s hand and say hello. I haven’t confirmed yet, but it seemed that the number of first-time attendees was up really well this year (we give those people special ribbons to signify them).

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