Help for the Newly Minted Project Manager

Congratulations! Due to the recent [acquisition / divestiture, market expansion / contraction, organizational realignments, other] you have been identified as a Critical Resource for this particular bit of business process change. And, to help us implement these changes, you have been named the Project Manager for this effort. So now you are a Project Manager (PM, for short); what does that mean? You may be vaguely aware that people get certifications for this sort of thing, or that Microsoft sells…

A Nice Knock-Down Argument

Sales and the Gantt "Why exactly does he want to meet again?" I could sense the exasperation in Karl's voice, faintly; the sales manager wasn't about to slip out of his professional demeanor over some perceived technical triviality. But for the fact that the request was coming from his newly-hired PMI maven, he probably would have found a convenient excuse to skip the invite. "I just don't understand why we need this meeting ... the projects are moving forward, we…

Estimating Bird-Dogging Time for Project Tasks

9 January, 2011
Project Management
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New year, new projects, and new adventures in getting folks to think in project management terms. I've written before about Calendar time vs. Effort time, but this past week we came up with a new distinction that is worthwhile to call out. When working with the business and getting folks to estimate how much time it will take to complete a task, there are actually three different things that most people will talk about - and folks need to be…

MS Project, Early and Often

9 November, 2008
Project Management
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99.9% of the project managers I know have at least heard of Microsoft Project (MSP), and all understand it to be a very capable, yet very complex environment for estimating and managing projects. But it's Saturday evening and I'm a bit cynical tonight, so I'll say that 50% of those people don't really understand how it works - and have many reasons why they should not use MSP for this project or that ... ... this is an iterative development…