10 New Year's resolutions for project managers

Overview The chance to make a fresh start on enhancing your project management skills is right around the corner. PM expert Tom Mochal gets things rolling with this list of self-improvement goals for the new year.

How was your PM track record in 2005? Were you happy with the way your projects went or did you run into a buzzsaw here and there? Project management columnist Tom Mochal put together a list of resolutions for next year based on some of the concerns that managers typically face. He says, 'Based on what I learned in 2005, I hereby resolve to...'

• Get my PMP certification. PMP certification is becoming more and more important to my company and to the project management field. I'm going to establish a personal project around this objective and establish a plan to obtain the certification within six months.


• Keep my workplan up to date. It's not enough to develop a workplan that's a work of art. I also need to keep it up to date as my project progresses. I know now that the workplan is my friend. If I feed it updates, it will tell me where I am on the project. It will also tell me if I'm trending past my deadline while I still have time to do something about it.


• Make sure my sponsor remains engaged. I've been on too many projects where the sponsor became disengaged and the project wandered off course. Shame on the sponsor. However, shame on me too for not recognizing what was going on. A project needs the sponsor to remain engaged. I can help make that happen, with proactive communication and ongoing personal contact.

Join the discussion of this download.