This is a timely article. Developing the right PM hygiene and routines can be invaluable, and the author is absolutely correct that they cross the boundaries of any methodologies. After all, project management, whether agile or waterfall, is about achieving goals effectively. Here are my list of top 3 hygienic questions:

 1) Do you know your agenda for the day, next day, and the week? You can be just spend five 5 minutes in the morning thinking about it…
 2) Can you distinguish between tasks that are urgent versus important? If yes, then you are thinking broad spectrum – both tactical and strategic. If no, then think about it.
 3) What do does success look like? This question can be applied to any set of activities, such as the day, a task, an issue, a meeting, a project, and so on.
Te Wu’s comments on the below article:
Michelle Lebrosse for Quality Digest writes:   When project managers establish effective routines for their daily work as well as for managing their teams, they develop healthy project management (PM) “hygiene.” This metaphor relates to having consistent processes in place, and it’s what project management is all about. Consistent routines deliver value on your projects.
Of course, if you’re a project manager who follows Agile principles and practices, you might be thinking, “But what about ‘responding to change over following a plan,’ and ‘individuals and interactions over processes and tools?’” The good news is that neither of these principles is incompatible with having consistent daily routines. In fact, here at Cheetah, we’ve found that consistent routines like the daily stand-up meeting improve our Agile approach.

 

To determine if you have what we like to call good “PM hygiene” routines, ask yourself these questions:

  • How do you make your to-do lists?
  • Are they a chaotic sprawl of Post-It notes wallpapering your cubicle, or are they a neat list in your Google Calendar, color-coded by priority? Although the latter method might be a bit extreme, prioritizing your daily tasks in some way is a crucial PM routine.

Take a few minutes at the beginning of each work day to write out your tasks for that day and note how important they are. Then (you guessed it) tackle the most important tasks first. This will keep you from procrastinating on more complex projects and ensures that your most important work gets done.   SNIP, the article continues @ Quality Digest, click here to continue reading….

By the way, good PM hygiene also applies to kids. Click here for a good article on life skills for kids.