By Dennis D. McDonald

In New Kids on the Blog, professional project manager Rich Maltzman asks the following:

I think of blogging as giving organizations the opportunity to do what I call real-time lessons learned. So I am hoping to encourage Project Managers to blog their projects. I realize that PMs are busy and cannot be bothered to keep an online diary of what happens on their project on a moment-by-moment basis.

So here is my question - or rather set of questions:

• Does your organization use blogs within the firewall to share project progress?
• How do you encourage the PMs to blog?
• What roadblocks have prevented blogging by PMs?
• How have you got those roadblocks “outta the way”?
• What are the results - how has this helped the blogger and your PM community?

I really like Rich’s reference to “real-time lessons learned.” Just because you place a diamond on a Microsoft Project chart to indicate a “deliverable” doesn’t mean you have to wait till that deliverable materializes to realize project benefits. And what better way to converse with your project’s key interest groups along the way about what you’re learning than with a blog?

If you have a few minutes to spare and have an interest in project management communications practices, check out Rich’s blog and leave a comment. He’ll appreciate it!

• Copyright (c) 2008 by Dennis D. McDonald