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Project Management

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Over the last 5 years I’ve spent a fair amount of time working with Microsoft on deployments of its Project Server system. Microsoft refers to its entire solution as the Microsoft EPM (Enterprise Project Management) Solution as it encompasses much more than just Project Server. To consider the total solution we think of a “stack” of technology. There is Microsoft Windows Server 2003 to start with. Part of Windows Server that’s critical to this kind…

Everything old it seems is new again. One of the earliest programmatic approaches to project scheduling was invented in the heyday of the Cold War. Propelled by inter service rivalries on one side and by the threat of Soviets in the arms race on the other, PERT was born. The Program Evaluation & Review Technique looked beyond a simple Critical Path Methodology (CPM) analysis to introduce the notion of risk into the project schedule. The…

When I first got started in the project management software business, I knew that what people needed to be trained in to be a good project manager was the Critical Path Methodology calculation. If only someone knew this magic algorithm, they too could be a good project manager. I still have course materials which include exercise after exercise about how to do forward and backward pass of the CPM calculation. How far we’ve come. I’ve…

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 have been created with great care over an extended period but the assumptions that play behind the scenes in any…

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.