Adele Sommers, Ph.D. is the author of the award-winning "Straight Talk on Boosting Business Performance" success program. She helps people "discover and recover" the profits their businesses may be losing daily through overlooked performance potential. Adele is currently a freelance business consultant and the president of an award-winning chapter of the Society for Technical Communication (STC). She also has taught college courses on project planning and systems thinking.

The way we approach projects can profoundly influence our customers' success. Often, we think primarily about what our customers asked for, even if it's not the best fit for their needs. Although it's...

Why do some projects proceed without a hitch, yet others flounder? One reason could be the type and quality of the questions people ask at the very start. This article suggests 17 insightful queries t...

This article offers a simple, sanity-saving approach to handling projects that have not followed expectations, or have otherwise gone awry. It explains how to extricate one’s team from "project overwh...

Getting a handle on project risks is a slippery job, but well worth the effort if you and your project team desire to sleep more soundly at night. After you’ve identified various risks related to choo...

Being optimistic is a wonderful thing, but being overly optimistic -- in the face of unrealistic odds -- can sabotage a project's success. Over-optimism abounds when people view every project as a "mu...

Does your organization see every opportunity as a "must-win" project, even when it's a poor fit for your in-house talents? If so, this is one of several viewpoints that can blind your company to poten...

When your business decides to undertake a new endeavor -- whether it's designing a training program, building a new system, or revamping an existing product -- this endeavor is called a project. It in...

Poorly run meetings - those held for the wrong reasons, that don't involve the right participants, or that don't use a disciplined meeting process - can waste the time, resources, and money of a busin...