Article: The Dash for Dashboards
Dashboard views are all the rage within the executive suite. There is a notion, fed in large part by software vendors, that executives can get real time levers and dials like they would while driving down the freeway so they can make instant decisions. While creating dashboard views is quite easy now compared to several years ago, there’re more to creating such displays than just picking out the graphics.
Article: Project Management System Training Wheels
When we talk about project management systems, we tend not to talk so much about the training these systems will require. Vendors don’t help by advertising “Easy to Use” and “No training required”. Project Management includes complex concepts and these are not all taken care of by an easy to use interface. This article talks about considerations for training in any new EPM system deployment.
Article: Project Management and the Web
How has the Internet and the ubiquitous web interface transformed the project management industry and aside from the new commercial tools that naturally appear whenever there is a new platform to write them on, what does this new medium empower for project managers?
Article: PPM and a whole new generation of acronyms
The extension of Enterprise Project Management concepts into the Project Portfolio Management paradigm means a whole slew of new definitions and their requisite acronyms. How do the definitions within PPM match up with EPM and where do the concepts overlap?
Article: Multi-Project Management – Who owns what?
When you move from managing one project at a time to a more integrated model where the milestones, the resources, the facilities and even the budget are shared, how do you determine who owns what part of the project management process?
Article: Integrated PM System and the Project Maturity Model
With the release of Microsoft Project Server originally in 2002, Microsoft catapulted itself from the ranks of individual project management software provider to organizational or enterprise provider. How does EPM software like Project Server affect an organization’s score in the Project Management Maturity Model?
Getting project managers to share and executives to prioritize
In many of the EPM deployments I’ve been involved with I run up against two significant cultural challenges. The first comes from the project managers themselves who, while they claim to be committed to the orgazational nature of the Enterprise Project Management process, suddenly find themselves reluctant to share their own data. The second comes from the very executives who have requested that an EPM process be deployed. As it reaches time for the system to be used in production, they find themselves reluctant to prioritize projects for resource assignments. This article discusses these challenges.
Article: Gaming the Process
Once people know how a process works, it’s only natural for them to get the most possible out of the process by adjusting their own inputs to it. This is particularly true for Project Portfolio Management and can be a major source of frustration for those who believe that implementing a PPM system will immediately remove all notions of subjectivity. This article talks about how to game the process.
Article: Enterprise Project Management and Do-It-Yourself
The Do-It-Yourself movement has some people making big savings by buying materials and tools at low cost and doing their own home renovations. This has spawned a generation of people who are sure they can do almost any home renovation themselves. However, just coming home with the lumber and nails doesn’t mean that your new kitchen will appear without effort. The same follows for those who want to do their own EPM deployment. This articles explains why.
Article: Enterprise Project Management
Once you’ve committed to manage your projects organizationally, you’ll need to turn your attention to the systems that will support that commitment and the changes in process and corporate culture that working across the enterprise will require. This article looks at some basic building blocks of your first epm deployment.