December, 2022

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Using the 5 Whys in Project Management

LiquidPlanner

Nearly 2,500 years ago, Socrates (when he was not occupied with founding Western philosophy and instructing his star student, Plato) pioneered a method of asking questions that led people to draw conclusions and pursue deeper truths and realities. His practice of relentlessly picking apart ideas earned him the deserved reputation of being the gadfly of philosophy.

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Five Techniques for Risk Identification in Projects

Project Risk Coach

Risk identification is an integral part of project risk management. It is essential for any project manager to know what risks might affect a project and navigate them. This article will examine the five techniques for risk identification. Techniques for Risk Identification 1. Use a Risk List A risk list is a list of potential risks for an industry, organization, or company.

Risk 396
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Project lessons I learned from installing ceramic tiles

Kiron Bondale

For those of you who are Do It Yourself (DIY) pros, you may not consider this a significant accomplishment, but not usually being a DIY’er, I am quite pleased with having installed ceramic wall tiles for the first time ever. In this particular case, the tiling was backsplash for our main bathroom sink area. Once the work was completed, a friend who had provided a lot of hands-on assistance and tool support suggested that there might be some delivery lessons I could harvest from this home i

Risk 244
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How Culture Can Impact Communication in the Workplace

Rebel’s Guide to PM

It’s no secret that culture can have a big impact on communication. Just think about how much harder it is to communicate with someone from a different country who doesn’t speak your language. But culture can affect communication even when everyone speaks the same language. Different cultures have different ways of communicating, and if you’re not aware of these differences, it can lead to misunderstanding and conflict.

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From Predictive to Agile: How to Choose the Right Project Management Methodology

Our profession is undergoing a transformation, moving away from rigid, one-size-fits-all methodologies. Instead, project managers are embracing dynamic and adaptable frameworks that carefully consider project and product variables to determine the most suitable development approaches and project life cycles.

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Best of: How to Write a Proper Project Management Plan?

PM Times

You have a big project and you know that the basis of successfully executing lies in the project management plan. The pressure is rising. But there is no need for you to get overwhelmed because all you need is some guidance on how to write the project management plan. Writing a project management plan […]. The post Best of: How to Write a Proper Project Management Plan?

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Top 10 Agile Estimation Techniques for Project Managers In 2023

nTask

One of the things agile project managers struggle the most with is an accurate agile estimation. How are PMs identify the time and effort required to accomplish a task in the backlog? How can one be sure that their plan will work in the long run? When things get tough for PMs, they turn to […].

Agile 88
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Six sins with work boards

Kiron Bondale

Regardless of what type of work your team does, work boards can be a helpful tool. But just because they can be helpful doesn’t mean they are always implemented well. The most common mistake is when teams don’t keep their work boards up to date with the actual status of work that is being done. Increasing transparency is a great way for stakeholders to understand what is going on and to increase their level of trust in teams.

SCRUM 177
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What Is Lean Portfolio Management? A Quick Guide

ProjectManager.com

Having many projects to manage in a portfolio can be daunting. You need to strategize and plan your resource allocation to ensure that every project has what it needs when it needs it. There are many ways to do this and one of which is lean portfolio management. Let’s first define lean portfolio management and then delve into how it works. This will give you an idea if it’s the right strategy to execute your portfolio management.

Lean 385
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Everything You Need to Know About Release Managers

Rebel’s Guide to PM

Do you have a release manager on the team? Or are you wondering whether it would be a pretty good job to move into? It wasn’t until I worked in IT as a project manager that I had a lot of contact with the release management process. My software projects needed releasing, so we had to follow the formal process and engage with the release manager to make sure that the bug fixes and new features got pushed to the production environment in a controlled way.

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ERM Program Fundamentals for Success in the Banking Industry

Speaker: William Hord, Senior VP of Risk & Professional Services

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is critical for industry growth in today’s fast-paced and ever-changing risk landscape. When building your ERM program foundation, you need to answer questions like: Do we have robust board and management support? Do we understand and articulate our bank’s risk appetite and how that impacts our business units? How are we measuring and rating our risk impact, likelihood, and controls to mitigate our risk?

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Don't make this planning mistake during Product Backlog refinement in Scrum

Scrum.org

The refinement process for those practicing Scrum determines the detail, order and size of the items in the Product Backlog. The purpose is to ensure that we have the highest-ordered Product Backlog items (PBIs) ready to Sprint. During refinement, the team discusses what we will deliver with each Product Backlog item. Although it's easy to drift into sorting out how we will deliver each PBI during these discussions, planning at this stage is a mistake. .

SCRUM 248
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How To Create A Procurement Management Plan In 8 Easy Steps

The Digital Project Manager

If you’re not using a procurement management plan and working in tandem with the procurement team, you’re missing a key step in managing risk on your project and staying on budget and on schedule. The procurement management plan sets the boundaries for the entire procurement process, and covers risk management, vendor management, and even the […].

Planning 177
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Why are projects often delivered late?

LiquidPlanner

Why are projects often delivered late? Missed deadlines or missing deadlines – both can challenge your project and cause late delivery. I recently undertook a complex journey by car involving six locations, a number of people, and finally the drive back home. It was over a long distance and took most of one day to complete – but I completed it, and, in fact, I arrived home a few minutes earlier than expected.

PMO 158
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10 Critical Project Management Concepts You Absolutely Have to Know

Online PM Courses

If you're starting out, you may be wondering: what are the most important Project Management concepts that you need to understand? The post 10 Critical Project Management Concepts You Absolutely Have to Know appeared first on OnlinePMCourses.

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The Definitive Guide to Dashboard Design

Dashboard design can mean the difference between users excitedly embracing your product or ignoring it altogether. Great dashboards lead to richer user experiences and significant return on investment (ROI), while poorly designed dashboards distract users, suppress adoption, and can even tarnish your project or brand. That’s one of the many reasons we wrote The Definitive Guide to Dashboard Design—to help you avoid common pitfalls, including… Cramming too much onto one screen and expecting the u

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What Is Resource Loading and Why Does It Matter in Project Management?

ProjectManager.com

You’ve heard it countless times; teams are projects’ most valuable resource. They do the work. But a project manager has to connect each team member to that work. Resource loading is a process to keep team members fully engaged throughout the project. Being able to balance the resource load across your team is important. Resource loading in project management helps you avoid overallocation, which can erode morale and weaken productivity.

Budget 347
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Project Requirements: The What, Why, and How

Rebel’s Guide to PM

Have you ever been a part of a project that just didn’t seem to be going anywhere? Maybe it felt like there was no clear goal, or that the requirements kept changing. If so, then you know how frustrating and even maddening it can be to try to work on something without having a good understanding of what is required. Requirements are essential for any project, yet they are often one of the most difficult aspects to get right, especially if you work in an environment where there are high lev

Budget 339
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How can a Scrum Master serve the organization?

Scrum.org

How can a Scrum Master serve the organization? . There is a very sad joke about Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters regarding work at organization level – “an Agile Coach is a person who works with the organization and makes sure the Scrum Master doesn’t ”. It is both very wrong towards some of the Agile Coaches and unfortunately very right in other cases. .

SCRUM 217
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Five benefits to creating a schedule network diagram

Kiron Bondale

Whether you have taken a foundational project management course which covered practices for predictive approaches or you were studying to take the PMP exam, you are likely familiar with schedule network diagrams. However, like many tools and practices in the PMBOK framework, just because we learn about them doesn’t mean we will use them. If you skip creating network diagrams, you could miss out on these benefits.

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How to Battle Layoffs: The Career Star Accelerator Bootcamp

Facing layoffs in your organization? Support your team members' career transition with Career Star Accelerator Bootcamp: Custom Resume & LinkedIn Revamp + 6 Weeks of Career Coaching. Our certified resume writers will create job search-winning resumes and LinkedIn profiles while they work with a career coach to learn unique strategies to stand out, attract the right employers, automate their job search, and land their dream job.

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Step-by-Step to Smooth Project Closure

LiquidPlanner

Project closure is one of my favorite times in the lifecycle as a project manager. It’s when all your hard work pays off and you complete a structured, efficient handover to the business as usual team. At least, that’s what I was planning for in my head! In reality, it ended up more like a rush to get everything on the project closure checklist ticked off, complete the project wrap up and move on to the next initiative.

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Gantt Chart Vs Timeline: Similarities and Differences Explained

nTask

When it comes to planning and managing projects, many people prefer the Gantt Chart method. This basic visual tool is simple to understand, easy to use, and can help you stay organized and on track. However, there are times when the Timeline method may be a better choice. For instance, if you’re dealing with a […].

Planning 158
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PERT and CPM: Their Differences and How to Use Them Together

ProjectManager.com

Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Method (CPM) are both useful tools when planning and controlling a project. PERT and CPM are complementary and both are important analytical techniques in project management when managing tasks. There are differences between PERT and CPM, of course, which is why they work so well together when calculating the time it’ll take to complete tasks in your project.

Estimate 343
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Build, Excite, Equip: How to Simplify Change Adoption in Your Projects

Rebel’s Guide to PM

Build, Excite, Equip: How to Simplify Change Adoption in Your Projects, by Nicola Graham, is a handbook for business change management aimed at project managers. Given that project teams have to incorporate the business change elements to make sure projects land as expected – but often without the support of a dedicated change manager – this is a useful and much-needed book.

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Unlocking Business Agility: Leveraging the Power of Strategy Execution

True business agility is impossible if execution is disconnected from strategic planning. Download this eBook to learn about the 12 key imperatives every organization must address, and discover how they impact the capabilities you’ll need to effectively deliver execution across all investments.

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How can Product Owners get maximum value from Scrum?

Scrum.org

Scrum is a lightweight framework for solving complex problems. Therefore, the mechanics, as shown in the next picture, are relatively easy to understand: . It's the Scrum Master's job to bring the Scrum framework to life. And yet that is no guarantee that the product will be successful. It is the Product Owner's job to maximize the value of the product.

SCRUM 212
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How To Really Nail Project Scheduling & Wow Your Stakeholders

The Digital Project Manager

Project scheduling is one of the most important components of project management. A well-crafted project schedule helps deliver a project on time and on budget and reduces the risk of scope creep. If done correctly, it may mean the difference between a worn-out, unproductive group of people and a synchronized team that zestfully zips through […].

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How to do more with less

LiquidPlanner

Layoffs and hiring freezes have emerged as a troubling trend given evidence of a slowing economy. In fact, many economists are predicting formalization of the inflation-induced recession as we flip the calendar into 2023. As such, most of us are facing resource constriction and forced now to think about how to do more, with less. This article offers several solutions to this challenge, providing prioritization, process and people tips and how technology can be leveraged.

Software 148
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A 4-Step Guide to Creating Powerful Team Rituals

Planio

When it comes to productivity, routines and habits get all the attention — but high-performers rely just as heavily on having powerful rituals in place. Rituals tie your team together, creating a shared purpose and a powerful culture. While everyone has their own routines to help them maximize productivity, team rituals create a sense of togetherness and motivation that takes performance to the next level.

Defining 146
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How Modern Paralegals Are Implementing Project Management Principles

Speaker: Michael Quartararo - Managing Director at eDPM Advisory Services and President of ACEDS

The paralegal and project management fields may seem totally unique from each other, but in reality, they have many overlapping similarities when it comes to personal characteristics and everyday tasks. In fact, they have enough in common that project management methodologies and principles can help paralegals complete essential tasks.

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Design Brief: A Quick Guide

ProjectManager.com

If you’re working on a design project, wait. Before you start you need to have a design brief. It’s similar to a project brief, only focused on design. After all, you wouldn’t start driving if you didn’t first know your destination. Projects can’t be idle and exploratory endeavors. Design projects are no different, which is why a design brief is so important.

Budget 337
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MPlaza PRINCE2® Practitioner Exam Simulator Review

Rebel’s Guide to PM

Are you looking at the Mplaza PRINCE2® Practitioner exam simulator? The right exam simulator can boost your confidence on test day and help you focus your study time on the topics where you need the most revision. I’ve spent several hours reviewing the exam simulator from Management Plaza (MPlaza) and I can confidently say that it’s great. In this PRINCE2 Practitioner Mplaza exam simulator review, I’ll tell you: Whether the software is worth the hype (spoiler: definitely!).

Prince2 321
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To Fix Your OKRs – Go Back to First (Familiar) Principles

Scrum.org

Context. OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) have become the latest management framework to suffer the fate of becoming popular too quickly, to the point where in many organizations, OKRs are a theater/charade with little useful substance or benefits. That’s a shame because OKRs have huge potential if used effectively. So let’s go about fixing your OKRs!

Cadence 185