About

About POP—Plan On a Page, and
Dr. Rick Hubbard PMP, SMP
Project Strategist
Plan On a Page's author, Dr. Rick Hubbard PMP, SMP

Dr. Rick Hubbard’s work to create the Plan On a Page (POP)—the simplest, easiest planning and project management system—began in the mid-1980’s.

At the time—while employed as a Consulting Manager with a Big-5 firm—Rick’s consulting work included “project remediation;” which means…fixing failing projects.

  • There were so many failed/severely impaired efforts…the project remediation practice was quite good. Too good. “Professionally unsettling,” in Rick’s words.

In 1985, Rick set out to avoid problems with projects; not fix them.

This led to creating, testing & refining simple, easy-to-use, project management systems fostering project success.

  • Decades later…thousands of projects…hundreds of Practitioners…the results of this work speak for themselves.
  • In a technology sector where the Standish Group’s Chaos Report reports that two out of three reported projects are severely impaired or fail outright—POP enjoy greater than a 96% success rate.

Rick has applied the Plan On a Page methods for employers (including the largest enterprise software platform firm; a leading competitor in the technically-demanding Enterprise Search industry; a pioneer of Digital Analytics); clients; start-ups; and many others.

  • As a speaker and author, he mixes humor with rigor to entertain and inspire audiences to create lasting business value.

Dr. Hubbard earned a BS in Computer Science, an MBA in Finance, and a Doctorate in Computer Science. He’s the first to tell you that…none of that matters as much as the decades of success borne from applying POP for the benefit of business & technology executives and project managers in dozens of countries like you.

In addition to POP-Advisory and training engagements for many of the nation’s largest & finest firms—Rick leverages System Dynamics to solve difficult problems in the realms of Corporate Strategy, Technology, and Project Management. He is also a Professor, teaching Strategy, Project Management, Software Engineering and System Dynamics.

Dr. Hubbard has been recognized a “PMP” (Project Management Professional) Member of the Project Management Institute (PMI); “SMP” (Strategic Management Professional) Member of the Association for Strategic Planning (ASP); a Fellow of the Strategic Planning Society; a “CBA” (Certified Business Architect) Member of the Business Architects Association (BAA); a “CSM” (Certified ScrumMasters) Member of the Scrum Alliance; a member of the System Dynamics Society; and a Senior Member of the IEEE.

Too Much Planning as Problematic as Too Little

Thinking–Planning–Executing

How you think is how you plan is how you execute. “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” Interesting, yet sometimes flawed, belief. What if…the plan is not “good?” In most (not all) contexts, what’s the worst that can happen if a plan incurred marginally extra planning that resulted in marginal […]

Lightning, or Lightning Bug?

Project Responsibilities: Require “Stakeowners” Not “Stakeholders”

Words Really Make a Difference Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)—when asked whether word choice was important—is said to have replied, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” When planning efforts of any-size or type…using the “right” words for titles affects a project’s perceived  responsibilities. As […]

All Projects Have a Strategy

What is Your Project Strategy?

Would you agree…every project has a strategy? All projects are undertaken to solve a problem or fulfill an aspiration. Or, to put it another way: the nature of a project (or other type of effort), is a manifestation of a strategy intended to resolve a problem or fulfill an aspiration. (“We’ll solve this problem by…{project}.”) […]

The Responsibility for Professional Skepticism, Part 3 of 3

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