As the economy slowly recovers project teams are facing an unusual challenge. Management is coming to project offices and to product managers and asking them to ”restart“ projects that were suspended due to economic concerns some time ago. Restarting a project can be infinitely more complex than starting it originally. The original project plan might […]
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Display changes decisions
Anyone who has worked with project management systems knows that the way you display data can dramatically affect the decions people make from it. This is why we often see GANTT charts with critical activities in red. I’m reminded of one of my very first sales of project scheduling software back in the 80’s. I […]
Changing a Culture happens one tiny procedure at a time
How do you change corporate culture? Do you use a carrot? A stick? One of the most effective methods I’ve come across deals with the challenge with more finesse thanks to some thinking from Buckminster Fuller. It’s called “trim tab”.
When Resources have to come from nowhere
Dealing with Resource overload is one of the most common challenges in project management. How do you deal with the project workload when the resources just aren’t there?
Thanks to Scott Adams for a good laugh
I’ve been enjoying Scott Adams Dilbert comic strips for years. They’re a treasure trove of laughs for people in the project management or timesheet software business as I am. Adam’s Dilbert website has too many old strips to choose from so here’s just one that had me chuckle today.
Sometimes it’s better to look integrated than be integrated
We hear the salespitch almost continuously from large ERP/Finance system vendors. “It shoudl alllll be integrated.” That’s a story that sells easier than it implements. Sometimes it’s just easier and more effective to look integrated than to be integrated.
Oh, what a year it’s been!
Happy New Year and welcome 2010.
Risk analysis software: A definite safe bet
Managing projects is all about risk. If there were no risk, we’d have no need of project managers. When we think about risk though, what kinds of systems can help with collecting, tracking and analyzing risk? Let’s take a look.
Managing Culture Shock
Implementing enterprise systems is only partly a technology challenge. This is certainly true with enterprise project management systems. Must more important is managing the culture shock or behavioural change of the organization. What does this mean and how can you mitigate the risks of culture shock derailing your epm deployment?
The Project Office; a time who’s come(again)?
The Project Management Office (PM) isn’t a new idea. But we used to think of the PMO in a trailer on a construction site. The proliferation of desktop project management tools enabled everyone to be their own PMO but the idea of a centralized PMO is making a comeback thanks to centralized web-based epm systems.