So many project managers do the original schedule of the project, the planning and then start the project and run by the seat of their pants from then on. I can tell you how many projects I’ve seen with the schedule never updated. Project management isn’t just the planning.
The Dakota Indians have a saying – “If the horse dies, dismount” which you figure would be obvious. Why then do so many project managers keep trying to save a project that should have been made into glue ages ago?
So much of successful project management comes from starting with the right projects. Portfolio management isn’t just for IT departments, it’s for every organization which has some influence over the projects they select.
It’s a question that we would have thought would get settled years ago. When looking for EPM (Enterprise Project Management) software, should you be looking for the all-in-one or looking for the best of each type of tool that will link together?
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or GAAP are now a part of all big project management environments. These standards are what makes for things like Sarbanes Oxley and other compliance challenges. What do project managers have to know about GAAP and where they come from?
You’ve heard the expression “From little acorns big trees grow.” The same can be said for projects. There’s something compelling about the big project, the huge project, the significant project. There must be because almost everywhere I go, people take little projects and try to make them bigger. It might start innocently enough, the project team brainstorms in the early planning stages and a mind-mapping exercise takes the little project and gives it branches from…
What kind of PMO would you design if it could be any kind at all. What? You’re surprised that there’s more than one PMO? There are many. Here are a few of the most common examples.
Project scheduling is at its most interesting when the schedule is constrained. There are few examples of this better than a shutdown and turnaround schedule in an industrial plant. Everything you know from project management in other contexts applies here too but the project only lasts a few days with hundreds or thousands of workers descending on the plant to do the work in as short a time as possible. Here are some of the areas where shutdown project management is more tightly managed than elsewhere.
HMS has released the latest version of TimeControl, 5.1.2. As usual, the new version has a number of fixes but more interestingly, the version now supports the use of Primavera “Steps” for updating tasks. This project updating feature lets a project manager define a number of sub-activity steps which can be progressed individually. The summary of that progress can be used to update the progress of the task itself. Now TimeControl will transfer any steps…
It’s easy to run a project when everything goes well. What preparation have you made however for when things go awry? We’re told to be ready to recover from a disaster at home but do you apply the same logic to your projects?