Follow my updates on Twitter ...
Care to connect our professional networks on LinkedIn?
Join my Cazh1 Circle in Google Plus ...
Follow the discussion in Facebook ...
Receive eMail notifications of new stuff ...
Subscribe to the RSS feed ...
Project Management
Can you, should you, bother Executives with The Details?
In a recent post on Thinking Faster, Phillips expresses concern about the apparent propensity for project sponsors to skim over the details and jump to quick answers. He’s talking about [what I believe is] a peer relationship, when external expertise is brought in to develop the solution that they (the sponsors) are responsible for “owning” [...]
When is a project a Project? How to prevent the buildup of backlogged requests
I just wrote something up (internal wiki) that I thought was common knowledge, but I think it’s one of those soft-skills things that makes total sense once you hear about it – but somebody needs to tell you. I think of one of the reasons that IT (at times) intimidates the business – or why [...]
Butting In to the Conversation: PM Communication Tools
Dennis McDonald and Lee White are conducting an interesting experiment on their blogs, crossposting a conversation about project management and social media. I’ll add my voice, with both input on the topic and observations on the method. (Topic) The Right Tool for The Job – depends on the Job The first part of the conversation [...]
Rules of Golf – Project Prioritization Process Needs Clear Documentation
Different areas of our IT department are using internal blogs, wikis, and collaboration spaces, with varying degrees of participation, readership, and success. Some observations: Blogging is Easy … The blogs and wiki(s) have effectively removed the hassles of capturing and distributing information quickly. One important early decision was to not implement an editorial approval process [...]
Update on Blogs as PM Tools – Tales from the Front Lines
We seem to be going through a second wave of focus (hype?) in the popular technology press, on the idea of using blogs as an important project management tool. The topic made the cover of CIO Magazine this week – Lynch made a number of interesting observations – interesting because I don’t necessarily see the [...]
Five Simple Rules for Project Names, plus Four Sample Lists
A recent post by Jeff Atwood about project names brought back memories of a previous employer, and the project naming convention we set up in our PMO. At this company, the IT group spawned maybe 30 to 50 chunks of work we would call “projects” – at least two calendar weeks in duration (anything smaller [...]
Tactics for Controlling Project Scope
I wrote about ways to “cheat” at project prioritization [aka trying to figure out what to work on next, when there is more demand (projects) than supply (people to work on them)]. One significant tool you have at your disposal is controlling scope – can you do 20% of the work to get 80% of [...]
PM Anti-Patterns That Increase IT Project Cycle Time
Lots of conversation at work these days about PMO, resource prioritization, and reducing cycle time for IT projects. I feel a series of posts coming on … IAPL, we launched a project to bring test discipline to our technology efforts. The team was writing standards and guidelines for test scripts, implementing integrated testing tools supplied [...]
Defining the Business Value of a Project
I’m following a project management meme lately; while freely admitting that I’m oversimplifying some complex topics, I will forge ahead with … project “value”. At work, we’ve been talking about the classic challenge of putting a business value on a project. I call it a “classic” challenge because it’s a basic requirement for every prioritization [...]
The Five Fundamental Rules of Project Management
Okay, the title is a bit of a false advertising. I’m not revealing the top five rules – I’m actually looking for help in defining rules #3-5. Any input is appreciated – care to weigh in with an opinion? I’ve had a number of discussions, with some of the best project managers I know, as [...]
Categories
Copyright (c) 2004-2012 James P. MacLennan All Rights Reserved
All trademarks and copyrights on this site are owned by their respective owners.
Comments are owned by the individual posters.
are licensed under a Creative Commons License
