It’s not enough to have a list of great features in a project management system in order to be successful. You’ve also got to have a system that can reach the people involved in the project management process. That’s more than knowing it has a web interface. Project mManagement these days is all about communication and if your system can’t reach more than the professional schedulers and be relevant to the day-to-day business of the people on the project team that it does reach then there’s little hope of the system becoming an “Enterprise” project management system. This article looks at what it takes to be an enterprise-level project system.
Article: Batteries not included When people used to buy large-scale project management systems, buying the training was just part of the cost of doing business. The cost of training compared to the cost of the software was a fraction. You might spend only 10% of your software investment on training of your personnel on the proper use of the project managemnet system. As project system have become cheaper the percentage people expect to pay on…
Project management systems have moved from analgorithmic-centric view to a collaboration-centric perspective. Here are a few things to look for in collaboration project systems.
Written originally over 10 years ago, this article is still particularly current today. Most project management tools written originally in the 70’s 80’s and 90’s were based on the Critical Path Methodology paradigm. They were fundamentally scheduling tools. Yet, the practice of project management has becmoe so much more. See my thoughts on whether we should move on from Critical Path as our driving force in the project management systems industry in this article.
It’s been some time since I wrote this article which has been published in a number of places since. Amazingly, the list is still appropriate. This is a letter to Santa on what I’d like to see from the Project Management Industry for Christmas.
Usually the engineering-oriented mind of project management people would never even consider the role of salesperson as part of being a project manager but the truth is, we’re selling all the time. Project Managers must sell their projects, their planning ideas, the impact of any changes and, even themselves. We’ll look at the various salesperson roles and their potential ‘clients’ in this article.
As project managers we strive for the large, complicated mega project. It’s the kind of project careers are built around. But, is this the best kind of project for your organization? Can you do a better job of managing when the projects are bite sized enough? In this article we’ll look at how you can break down projects into manageable pieces and manage each as a separate part of the whole.
Article: Can you make EPM from the sum of its parts? There are a lot of aspects of EPM. Do you have to go to one big integrated EPM system to accomplish them? Of course not. There are solutions to each of the main EPM challenges that are simple to deploy and quick to return results. Here are a few hot tips on how to accomplish them. Read more…
Article: EPM in a Foreclosure economy Project management is a popular concept when there is a boom economy but when economic times are more challenging, project management becomes a survival skill. This article looks at how organizations apply enterprise project management concepts when business is challenged. Read more…
Article: Head for the Hills With a teenage daughter in the house, we end up watching MTV rather often. The MTV hit “The Hills” has one of its cast fulfilling the role of project manager. It makes you think how project management is perceived by people outside of the more classic scheduling expert. Is project management becoming democratized? And, is that a good thing for all of us? Read more…