Fearless Project Leadership
If you are absolutely dependent on your paycheck to survive, do yourself a favor, don’t be a project leader! In most of the scrappy high-tech organizations that I have worked in, the role of a project leader cannot be successfully filled by anyone who can’t put their job on the line in the pursuit of doing The Right Thing. From the project kick-off, where the project leader may not even be involved, to the attempted premature launch of a less-than-ready-to-ship product, projects run a higgily-piggily route. This real-world path rarely resembles the neat, tidy, well-defined process described in the PMBOK®.
In order to deliver results in the challenging circumstances typical of many business environments, project leaders must be absolutely committed to the success of their projects and leading their team to that success. Frequently they must execute this feat without any explicit support, sometimes with active resistance, and occasionally in the absence of any evidence that the project is indeed possible. This calls for leadership in the face of fearsome challenges. Continue reading→
Wild Success in 2008 through Optimism and High Self-esteem
In spite of much rhetoric on the subject, and the holy grail of the triple constraint, you cannot measure your entire worth as a project leader, or the success of your project, purely by whether they are on-time, on-budget, and feature-complete. In fact, to do so could create a negative spiral that further undermines your chances of success.
Marcus Buckingham, of First Break All the Rules fame, argues in The One Thing You Need to Know that people and teams do not perform at their best when they are realistic. Great managers get the best performance from people when they build their self-assurance to the point of helping them to become unrealistically optimistic. And great leaders achieve the best from their organizations when they rally people to a better future and get them to be unrealistically optimistic about the prospects that things will get better.
Optimism is a Strategy
Unrealistic optimism and high self-esteem are key factors in individual and team success. However the project management environment isn’t exactly brimming with unbridled optimism and positive reinforcement. Quite the opposite. Continue reading→
Kimberly's Areas of Expertise
Contact Kimberly at:
Wiefling Consulting
Phone +1 650 867 0847
Testimonials
We had awesome event with you last Friday! I am still amazed from your workSHOCK. It was absolutely above all expectations! I would like to thank you personally and on behalf of all employees for a great time and all the useful insights. I am sure we will meet again soon, since I will promote for another workSHOCK asap! I did a short survey about how everyone understood and experienced it and they all love it. They all confirmed that it is great and useful to have activities that burst our organ… Read more
GTT (what this company calls our project-based 15 day/6 month global leadership development program) was the perfect preparation for this project we are running now and so much of what we did during the 3 weeks can be applied to ‘real life’.
Nothing is impossible in Kimberly’s world. At a point of career change several years ago, from Silicon Valley CEO to something fun, I participated in Kimberly’s “Create a Vision” workshop. We were friends through a professional organization and I just wanted to see what she did for a living. The result: I was, and still am, amazed and delighted with this brilliant woman and the results she helps others to achieve. Kimberly has a unique ability to infect her listeners with transformative optimism… Read more
In a 3 hour workshop you helped to change people’s attitude about our challenge from something with too many obstacles to starting to see the big prize and plan the first baby steps, in short a transformative experience.
Kimberly Wiefling recently conducted an outstanding workshop at Stanford University, on the topic of engineering in the face of very large, complex problems, as part of a new graduate-level course I’m teaching on Engineering and Climate Change. The way Kimberly helped the students experience the frustration of an “unsolvable” problem and then helped them experience how such problems are solved was brilliant. Kimberly’s approach is so lively and fun that even while you are gratified by her terrif… Read more
If you want to build energy, velocity, and momentum toward an outrageous goal, Kimberly’s Scrappy Project Management is just what you’ve been waiting for to help you get those results with more pleasant surprises and fewer disappointing shocks along the way.
You provided me so many gifts yesterday. I feel like a large weight has fallen from my back. I’m smiling and feel better about having some direction, thank to you!
Kimberly is a force of nature and a truly unique talent in a sea of consultants that promise change but never quite achieve it. I’ve worked with her both for my own company and together with other clients and I’ve experienced first hand how she uses her talents as a brain scientist, entertainer, empathetic listener, and engineer to get ideas to become reality and groups to become teams. With just 1 visioning session with her 5 years ago, she changed my mindset and put my company onto an entir… Read more
All the advice you gave me during our last meeting is paying off. Who could believe having a white board would do wonders – – just as you said. . . . this afternoon my manager said “You’re so organized and such a good communicator.
Keep Kimberly’s ‘Inspired Organizational Cultures’ book within arm’s reach. It is filled with many thought-provoking tips and sage advice intended to make us think about what was, is, and could be in our organizations. This book explores organizational culture from a variety of perspectives, but always with the intention of inspiring positive opportunities for meaningful growth. Focus on any of the 140 nuggets and allow your mind to wander and explore within the context of your personal experien… Read more
Books in the Scrappy Guides Series

By Kimberly Wiefling
A Top-selling PM Book!
Scrappy PM Audiobook


Authors: J. Abrams, C. Amos, E. Davie, M-H. Le, H. Kain, S. Lebeck, T. Mui, P. Obuchowski, Y. Shibata, N. Udo, B.J. Waxman, K. Wiefling


By Michael Seese


By Michael Seese

We Can Help You:
- Lead your business more effectively.
- Develop products more predictably.
- Manage projects with greater ease.
- Increase your professional effectiveness.
Pricing Information & Our Promise to You
"We only bill where we add value. Our invoices carry this message: If you are not completely satisfied with anything that you have been billed for, simply circle the amount of the charge, write a brief explanation of your concern, and subtract it from your payment. Our goal is your complete delight with our services, and we appreciate your valuable feedback."
- Kimberly M. Wiefling, M.S., Founder






