Sat.Jun 04, 2016 - Fri.Jun 10, 2016

article thumbnail

What To Do When Your Team Doesn’t Believe The Project Schedule

Rebel’s Guide to PM

This is an extract from Project Pain Reliever. I contributed this chapter (and another one) to the book. This one is about ensuring everyone buys into the project schedule. The One-Man Plan: A Story. Hans had spent a lot of time working on his project plan. He knew what needed to be done and how long everything would take. Requirements gathering, that would take a couple of days, right?

Estimate 214
article thumbnail

5 Things New Team Members Want to Know

Project Risk Coach

Got any new team members? Tom replaced Bill as a developer at the midpoint of a software development project for an insurance company. Sheila, the project manager, had her hands full with multiple projects and hoped that Bill had provided Tom with the necessary information to hit the ground running. Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock. At Tom’s first project meeting, he was rubbing the back of his neck, twisting his watch, and bouncing a foot.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Are your Project Managers working too hard to be effective?

The Lazy Project Manager

‘Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.’ Robert Heinlein. During my time leading a number of PMOs across different organisations one thing was common across all of the project managers that worked under the PMO, and that was they generally could be placed in to two groups.

PMO 210
article thumbnail

Long lived teams need to emulate The Borg

Kiron Bondale

When staffing projects, many organizations follow restaurant prix fixe models – give me one team member from column A, two from column B and so on. Allocation decisions for such projects are usually made through a combination of degree of fit for requirements with a healthy dash of politics thrown in. Anyone who disagrees with my inclusion of the latter has never managed a project where the quality of their relationship with people managers was a key influencer over the calibre of the team

article thumbnail

Understand Digital Debt, Form a Team, Set Goals, and Plan Roadmap for Transformation

Understanding digital debt is crucial before digital transformation. Assemble a team to assess internal operations, market pressures, and digital debt's impact. Define future digital vision with measurable goals. Refine hypotheses and conduct market analysis. Develop a roadmap for transformation with defined projects, cost estimates, and governance.

article thumbnail

6 Real Project Managers Show You How To Manage Multiple Projects

Rebel’s Guide to PM

Managing lots of projects at the same time is tough. Here’s how 6 project managers stay on top of multiple projects – and keep their sanity. It was fun to talk to them to find out more about their tactics – the tip from Christine about diary management is definitely going to change the way I plan my week. Helen Curel. Get organised, if you’ve got a good system for keeping all your project documentation in one place, use it and block out time either at the end or the beginning of each week to giv

Prince2 204

More Trending

article thumbnail

Leading Change -- Kotter

Musings on Project Management

John P. Kotter is a change guy. I've been going through his 1996 classic "Leading Change" Here's my take: it's a good book, but a little long on the narrative since the essentials are right up front: 8 leadership steps towards change management.

article thumbnail

Microsoft launches Office 365 Planner project collaboration tool

The Digital Project Manager

Posted in Tools. If you’ve got an Office 365 subscription, and in the market for a project management tool, you’re in luck. Microsoft has launched its Office 365 tool, Planner. Aside from Project and SharePoint, Microsoft had been conspicuously absent from task management and collaboration tools. Borrowing features and functionality heavily from the likes of Trello, Asana, Basecamp and Wrike, Office 365 Planner is a tool for teams to create new plans, organize and assign tasks, share

Planning 123
article thumbnail

Why I Stopped Going to Agile Events

Agile Coach

This year at Agile and Beyond was the first Agile event I attended since I presented with Declan Whelan at Agile 2015. I remember someone quite well known tweeting out something to the effect of: “ Is this year’s #agile2015 the usual echo chamber? ”. Then this year at Agile and Beyond, I had a conversation with someone who self-admittedly is new to the Agile world, more or less.

Agile 139
article thumbnail

Do we need a command and control approach to deal with this issue?

Ron Rosenhead

It had been a good day, a long day but a very successful day. I had just completed one of two pilot project management courses for a client and after a meal and rest I decided to watch a few episodes of the West Wing. (Shown on TV 1999- 2006). In one of the episodes, the President of the USA asks to meet an expert on India- Pakistan affairs. The episode, called ‘Lord John Marbury’,introduced a British diplomat who talked about one of the countries not having a ‘clear command and control structur

article thumbnail

Strategic Project Finance Essentials: A Project Manager’s Guide to Financial Metrics

Speaker: Ketan Jahagirdar - Sopheon’s Director of Product Management

Empower yourself as a project manager with insights that directly influence the financial landscape and strategic direction of your organization! Join us for a deep dive into the world of financial strategy, as we dissect key metrics that drive CFOs and business leaders’ investment decisions. This session will equip you with the necessary tools to craft compelling business cases as well as a comprehensive understanding of the crucial distinction between capital expenditure and operational expend

article thumbnail

Thinking: it's about systems first

Musings on Project Management

I've pointed to "Thinking in Systems: a primer" by D. Meadows in prior posts, and here I go again, largely because I think she's offered a lot that is useful to managers of all stripes, not just systems people. But, there's traps! Here's an abridged list of 'traps' she cautions against, a list of ills we should all be cautious about: Success to the successful If the winners of a.

article thumbnail

Ready Ready

Zen Project Management

I heard the term "Ready Ready" being used at work last week. I've heard of "Done Done" but this was a new one on me. I remember the first time I heard the concept of done done. When a developer finishes coding, the story is done but not done done. There are a number of other steps that have to be completed before it is really done, that is done done.

Planning 126
article thumbnail

LiquidPlanner vs. Wrike: a Guide for Your Project Management Needs

LiquidPlanner

“There are few project management (PM) tools that can compete with LiquidPlanner ,” PCMag’s Juan Martinez wrote in a recent article, Wrike vs. LiquidPlanner: Project Management Pugilism. In the comparison, Martinez compares each product in three categories: Price; Features and UI, and Integrations. In the end, LiquidPlanner beat Wrike for the win.

article thumbnail

The Sustainable Development Goal to End Hunger. The Role of Projects and Project Management.

Green Project Management

Installment #2 of our series in which we cover each sustainable development goal (SDG) and how projects and project management can contribute to them. Ending Hunger Q. What is the goal? A. Specifically, the goal is to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. In the past 20 years, hunger has […].

article thumbnail

20 Common Mistakes Made by Inexperienced Project Managers

You’ve read the PMBOK® Guide several times, taken the certification exam for project managers, passed, and you are now a PMP®. So why do you keep making rookie mistakes? This whitepaper shows 20 of the most common mistakes that young or inexperienced project managers make, issues that can cost significant time and money. It's a good starting point for understanding how and why many PMs get themsleves into trouble, and provides guidance on the types of issues that PMs need to understand.

article thumbnail

Misquotes of Deming

Herding Cats

It's common to misquote famous quotes. The #NoEstimates advocates love to use a Deming quote. It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth. This is used in support of the fallacy that estimates aren't needed to make decisions in the presence of uncertanty. They are for, all the reasons listed in the 100's of blog posts here and other places.

article thumbnail

Implementation

The Tao of Project Management

Over the past four blogs I've set out what I believe we can do to make sure our projects don't fail. But, as I said last week, implementing it will be a major project or even program in its own right. So what are the steps in this process? Establish the Current Status Before you can start planning where you want to get to it is critical to understand where you are today.

article thumbnail

How Does the LiquidPlanner Scheduling Engine Work?

LiquidPlanner

Here’s what makes LiquidPlanner different from other project management tools on our market: our scheduling engine. And why is that? At a high level, it’s because uncertainty and risk is built into project schedules. We replaced hard (and often unreachable) deadlines with ranged estimates based on real-world best/worst case scenarios. Also, our schedule is priority-driven , which means that priorities are reflected in your schedule.

article thumbnail

5 Tips to Get Your Boss to Improve Creative Agency Workflows

Function Point

Have you been trying, again and again, to explain to your boss that it’s time to solve a particular problem? Tired of your boss not giving you the time of day to go over the plan you’ve put together that you know will save time, energy and money for the creative agency? Here are five tips that should help get your message across. 1. Don’t Bring Problems, Bring Solutions.

Energy 40
article thumbnail

The Big Payoff of Application Analytics

Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business. That’s what drove the five companies in this e-book to change their approach to analytics. Download this e-book to learn about the unique problems each company faced and how they achieved huge returns beyond expectation by embedding analytics into applications.

article thumbnail

6 proven project team communication strategies

Moira Alexander

Project teams are in a constant state of communication via email, videoconferences, telephone calls, texts, face-to-face discussions and even nonverbal interactions. Whatever media they use, project teams will increase their chances of achieving their goals if they develop successful strategies for keeping everyone informed about what’s going on. Here are some tips for communicating effectively during the course of a project. 1.

175
175
article thumbnail

The Science of Growth [Book Review]

Rebel’s Guide to PM

Have you ever wondered why some companies just get bigger and more successful and others don’t? Why projects at one firm always seem to pay off and those at another never get the traction you think they should have had? The Science of Growth by Sean Ammirati explains why that happens. Its subtitle is: How Facebook Beat Friendster – And How Nine other Startups Left The Rest In The Dust.

article thumbnail

The Learning Center 2.0: A Renewed Focus on Team Productivity | TeamGantt Blog

TeamGantt

The Project Management Learning Center is heading towards a new and more focused direction. We talk team productivity, remote work, and project management.

60
article thumbnail

5 Tips to Get Your Boss to Improve Creative Agency Workflows

Function Point

Have you been trying, again and again, to explain to your boss that it’s time to solve a particular problem? Tired of your boss not giving you the time of day to go over the plan you’ve put together that you know will save time, energy and money for the creative agency? Here are five tips that should help get your message across. 1. Don’t Bring Problems, Bring Solutions.

Energy 40
article thumbnail

Acclaim Projects Helps Deliver Innovation Projects on Time and on Budget

This large intercity transportation company for people and freight employs 100+ IT employees and contractors across North America and Europe and spends $10MM annually for approximately 50 inflight projects. The company needed the right financial tools to budget for innovation initiatives and real-time information on spending and forecasting. This transportation company turned to Acclaim Projects by Sopheon to help deliver projects on time and within budget.

article thumbnail

Do YOU Recognize YOUR Team?

PMStudent

Mary Carol had not only missed an opportunity to strengthen a bond with a team member, she had weakened that bond. She could tell that Sal was disappointed. After all, he had taken the time to know who she was. Did she think that because she was the boss, she did not have to know her team? Did she think that because they worked across the globe that she did not have to get to know them?

article thumbnail

Reporting on Project Status

Gina Abudi PM

To reduce questions and challenges on the project As a project manager, you want to report effectively on the project status by providing sufficient information to stakeholders while also reducing the amount of back and forth communications necessary. This entails providing complete, detailed information in ways that works for the stakeholders but also works for [.].

article thumbnail

When Failure is the Key to Success: Lessons from Famous Flops (Infographic)

Wrike

College dropouts, fired employees, bankrupt businesses. Even those people we perceive as the embodiment of success have experienced extreme lows—and used those experiences to fuel their future achievements. . This infographic highlights 6 famous figures whose failures turned out to be temporary setbacks on the way to grand accomplishments, as well as tips to turn your own defeats into greater victories. .

Process 51
article thumbnail

The New Face of Project Leadership

LiquidPlanner

Leadership has changed over the years. Fifteen years ago, being a good project leader wasn’t necessarily the same as being a good project leader today. There are, of course, certain aspects and fundamental character traits that have gone unchanged. For example, we value honesty and integrity in a leader as much today as we ever have; and we also continue to value people who inspire and unite the team, as well as a leader who can easily build bridges between team, client and stakeholders.

article thumbnail

From Concepts to Actionable Insights: Powering Digital Transformation Success

Speaker: Ketan Jahagirdar - Sopheon’s Director of Product Management

70% of most digital transformation projects fail. Learn how you can quickly improve that success rate. To be successful, digital transformation involves the strategic application of digitalization to improve a business’ entire system of production, procurement, sales, operations, human resources, and financial management. In short, to basically transform the way a company makes money and delivers value to customers.