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The Inspiring Women in Project Management series is an occasional column that sees me interviewing women who are inspiring and who do inspire others in the world of project management. Today is the turn of Natalie Warnert, who set out to promote and support women in Agile. I asked her all about it. Natalie, what does Women in Agile do? WomenInAgile has created a place and community for women to network, share experiences, and spread diversity through the Agile community. MORE
We often joke that the only correct answer to a project management question is “ It depends! “ Many of us would also agree that the right approach to deliver a project is one which is tailored to fit its context, complexity and the culture in which it will be managed. But there is still value in establishing some standards for project management. One component of such standards is a set of operational definitions. MORE
I was a project manager when Bill Gates was still tinkering in his garage. I watched the birth of Agile and the adoption of Hybrid. I’ve managed multi-million dollar projects and am the founder of a project management software company. In other words, I know a thing or two about project management. Has project management changed? In the obvious ways: we have more technologies and methodologies than ever before. MORE
A New Year’s resolution is a tradition in which a person makes a promise to do an act of self-improvement, such as losing weight, doing exercise, giving up smoking etc. Babylonians made promises to their gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts apparently, and the Romans began each year by making promises to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named. MORE
Scope and Schedule Management How should you break down your project? Steven Pressfield said, “A great trick that I learned having worked as a screenwriter for many years, the way screenwriters work, is they break the project down into three-act structure: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3. I think that is a great way to break down any project, whether it’s a new business or anything at all.” ” Image courtesy of Adobe Stock. MORE
Knowing what your teams really need I recently had a friend ask me — since I have an agricultural background — how to take care of her Christmas poinsettia. She said, “The leaves have been turning yellow and falling off. I think I’m killing it.” ” Poinsettias have a reputation for being hard to maintain. I asked a few questions such as: How many hours of sunlight has the plant been getting? What’s the temperature in your house? MORE
Check out our list of 20 of the very best project management books. Whether you're a newbie, beginner, advanced or experienced project manager, we’ve done the reading for you so you can find one to match your level of project management experience. MORE
Project management methodologies define policies, principles and practices. Methodologies will also usually mandate the completion of some standard artifacts. On the low end of the prescriptive scale, specific documents might need to be produced only where organization policy dictates whereas with other methodologies, a whole slew of artifacts are required to comply with expected standards. MORE
The Problems with Crashing, Fast Tracking, and other Schedule Compression Techniques How do project managers unintentionally create schedule risks? As a result, perhaps you feel a cloud of uncertainty about your schedule. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock. Many times, it starts with pressure from a sponsor to deliver the goods early. MORE
In 1711 Abraham De Moivre came up with the mathematical definition of risk as: The Risk of losing any sum is the reverse of Expectation; and the true measure of it is, the product of the Sum adventured multiplied by the Probability of the Loss. Abraham de Moivre, De Mensura Sortis, 1711 in the Ph. Trans. of the Royal Society I copied this quote from a well argued posting by Matthew. Quotations Risk Management MORE
Now, this could be a bit stuffy: "The Requisite Law of Variety" But actually, it's an interesting concept to consider, to wit: Essential Elements (E): these are outcomes, results, or other artifacts that you want to have some control over, even if you are Agile Disturbances (D): these are events or actions that impact E. usually there are a lot of these! Regulation (R) or controls: these. agile Risk Management system engineering MORE
I’m working in a PMO at the moment and looking to move on in my career over the next year. Is there any advice you can give to help me get prepared. PMO still causes quite a bit of confusion in the marketplace – mainly because there are so many different types of PMO and in turn so many different types and levels of people who work within them. MORE
Are you grappling with a stubborn project management work issue? Ask Elizabeth! Email your question to: marketingteam@liquidplanner.com. Anonymity included. Dear Elizabeth: I’m currently running a large project that’s a mess. We’ve lost team members, the customer has asked for more features and now we’re scheduled to go well over our deadline. I’ve had endless conversations with my manager about the need to add more people to the project—I’ve even shown her my resource workload report. MORE
I ran a subscriber-only webinar recently about trends in project management collaboration tools and the barriers to adopting new technology in a project environment. I think people had a great time and the feedback was fantastic. I certainly got a bigger buzz out of presenting my own webinar than I was expecting! The only problem was that we ran out of time to get through all the questions so I wanted to address some of them here. MORE
As you can imagine, we have a lot of conversations about PRINCE2 at Arras. Often its about enquiries from people looking for a new role in project management. The split into two camps – those with minimal project experience who are looking to get into project management and want to do some training (or have already take PRINCE2 and don’t know what to do next). MORE
Agile is everyone’s favorite project management and delivery buzzword, but what agile tools can you use to help successfully run an agile project? In this. The post 10 Agile Tools for agile project management appeared first on The Digital Project Manager. Featured General Tools MORE
This time last year I reviewed the trends in social and collaborative technology in the project management space: some of my predictions had come to nothing and it was interesting to look backward and hold myself accountable for what I said would happen. This year I’m looking forward into 2017 to highlight some of the project management trends I think it is worth watching out for. A Focus on Professionalism. MORE
Chapter 12 of my book, "Maximizing Project Value", posits game theory as tool useful to project managers who are faced with trying to outwit or predict other parties vying for the same opportunity. When John von Neumann first conceived game theory, he was out to solve zero-sum games in warfare: I win; you lose. But one of his students challenged him to "solve" a game which is not zero-sum. To game theory risk decision MORE
This year I received two emails that changed the way I think about this blog. The first was from a lecturer in Africa who teaches project management to female students. He said he uses this site to show that it’s a real job that women can excel at. Some part of what we do here might have inspired a new generation of girls to go into project management. The second was from a woman with a long-term illness. MORE
As the holidays approach it’s hard to find time to do any reading. I haven’t even been using my commuting time to read because I’ve been crocheting Christmas tree stocking decorations instead. My NCT group from when Jack was born has had two new babies this year and it’s a bit of a tradition that I make them a little red stocking for the tree. The pattern I use works up quickly and small projects like that are good for the train. MORE
The fundamentals of project management normally focuses on areas like planning, resource management, risk management and stakeholder management. In the year 2016 it also includes understanding Agile – as I found out at a recent project management event being run by Hemsley Fraser in London. MORE
A good practice with agile delivery is to keep team sizes small to reduce the number of communication channels. But when planning a product release which cannot be delivered by a single pod within a reasonable amount of time, we need to structure the work across multiple pods of five to a dozen team members working in parallel but also orchestrating release cadence and work item priority based on the dependencies between work streams. So how should work be structured across the pods? MORE
Many challenges confront today's project managers -- new technologies, remote workforces and a global market to name a few. To take a project from inception to finish can be grueling and you've got to have great dedication and skills if you're going to be successful. But what sets apart good project managers (PMs) from the truly great ones? What does it take to go from being the manager of projects to a game-changing leader? Here are six skills the great PMs share. MORE
I’ve been trying to apply for positions at a certain salary level but I’m not sure if my resume reflects my experience at that level, what would you advise? This is a common problem for job seekers – how do you make sure that when you apply for a position, at say £100K, that your resume reflects that you’re worth that salary level? It works both ways too, you don’t want to pitch your resume and experience as too high or too low. MORE
What tips do you have for breaking down your project into deliverables and activities? I asked this question on LinkedIn: What tips do you have for breaking down your project into deliverables and activities? Bill Duncan responded with the following tips (which I thought were great): Recognize that “work packages” are only the lowest level of the WBS from the buyer’s perspective in a contracting environment. MORE
2017 is right around the corner so maybe it's time to try something new. As everyone is aware, the landscape of available project management and PM-related tools has changed greatly over the years. It is truly mind-boggling how many options are out there now for project managers across all industries. Many have been developed by organizations to focus on some key capabilities that they felt were either missing or not well covered by their existing counterparts. MORE
Work Together is a regular discussion with founders and CEOs about the people, processes, and technology that help today’s companies get work done. This week in Work Together, AeroFS CEO Yuri Sagalov interviews Bill Clerico, Co-Founder and CEO of WePay, about the company’s collaboration style. With operations across the U.S. and Europe, WePay uses a variety of collaboration tools to store documents, support customers, hold meetings, and chat. MORE
Imagine if you could gain a list of which project management training courses other project practitioners have taken which they’ve found the most useful in their career? What about a list of all the ones to perhaps avoid? Next month I’ll be able to share that list with you because we’ve just kicked off the Project Management Census which features these questions as well as the usual project management market insights. MORE
Ask someone which delivery roles are critical to successfully completing a project and you will get a wide range of recommendations. Three of the more common roles likely to be stated include a project lead, a requirements lead and a solution lead. This is logical as the first is responsible for the delivery process, the second what needs to be delivered and the third how it will be delivered. But aren’t we missing a vital role on most projects? MORE
I thought this posting on the "Agile Canon" was worthy of passing along in its entirety. So, there's the link for a pretty good read on the most important elements of a canon that all should be interested in adopting: Measure Economic Progress: Outcomes, means to measure, means to forecast Proactively Experiment to Improve: Assess options, embrace diversity and variability, execute. agile MORE
The Digital Project Manager
DECEMBER 5, 2016
Agile is everyone’s favorite project management and delivery buzzword, but what agile tools can you use to help successfully run an agile project? In this. The post 10 Agile Tools for agile project management appeared first on The Digital Project Manager. Featured General Tools
Girl's Guide to PM
DECEMBER 16, 2016
This time last year I reviewed the trends in social and collaborative technology in the project management space: some of my predictions had come to nothing and it was interesting to look backward and hold myself accountable for what I said would happen. This year I’m looking forward into 2017 to highlight some of the project management trends I think it is worth watching out for. A Focus on Professionalism.
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Project Risk Coach
DECEMBER 19, 2016
The Problems with Crashing, Fast Tracking, and other Schedule Compression Techniques How do project managers unintentionally create schedule risks? As a result, perhaps you feel a cloud of uncertainty about your schedule. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock. Many times, it starts with pressure from a sponsor to deliver the goods early.
Arras People
DECEMBER 12, 2016
Imagine if you could gain a list of which project management training courses other project practitioners have taken which they’ve found the most useful in their career? What about a list of all the ones to perhaps avoid? Next month I’ll be able to share that list with you because we’ve just kicked off the Project Management Census which features these questions as well as the usual project management market insights.
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Moira Alexander
DECEMBER 19, 2016
Many challenges confront today's project managers -- new technologies, remote workforces and a global market to name a few. To take a project from inception to finish can be grueling and you've got to have great dedication and skills if you're going to be successful. But what sets apart good project managers (PMs) from the truly great ones? What does it take to go from being the manager of projects to a game-changing leader? Here are six skills the great PMs share.
Project Management Update brings together the best content for project management professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
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The Lazy Project Manager
DECEMBER 30, 2016
A New Year’s resolution is a tradition in which a person makes a promise to do an act of self-improvement, such as losing weight, doing exercise, giving up smoking etc. Babylonians made promises to their gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts apparently, and the Romans began each year by making promises to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named.
Girl's Guide to PM
DECEMBER 7, 2016
I ran a subscriber-only webinar recently about trends in project management collaboration tools and the barriers to adopting new technology in a project environment. I think people had a great time and the feedback was fantastic. I certainly got a bigger buzz out of presenting my own webinar than I was expecting! The only problem was that we ran out of time to get through all the questions so I wanted to address some of them here.
Project Risk Coach
DECEMBER 5, 2016
Scope and Schedule Management How should you break down your project? Steven Pressfield said, “A great trick that I learned having worked as a screenwriter for many years, the way screenwriters work, is they break the project down into three-act structure: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3. I think that is a great way to break down any project, whether it’s a new business or anything at all.” ” Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
Arras People
DECEMBER 8, 2016
I’ve been trying to apply for positions at a certain salary level but I’m not sure if my resume reflects my experience at that level, what would you advise? This is a common problem for job seekers – how do you make sure that when you apply for a position, at say £100K, that your resume reflects that you’re worth that salary level? It works both ways too, you don’t want to pitch your resume and experience as too high or too low.
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To survive in the future of work, PMOs need to evolve beyond what most basic PPM tools offer. The best project portfolio management tools enables teams to plan and execute in one place, giving PMOs the visibility they need to ensure project success.
Musings on Project Management
DECEMBER 1, 2016
Chapter 12 of my book, "Maximizing Project Value", posits game theory as tool useful to project managers who are faced with trying to outwit or predict other parties vying for the same opportunity. When John von Neumann first conceived game theory, he was out to solve zero-sum games in warfare: I win; you lose. But one of his students challenged him to "solve" a game which is not zero-sum. To game theory risk decision
Kiron Bondale
DECEMBER 11, 2016
We often joke that the only correct answer to a project management question is “ It depends! “ Many of us would also agree that the right approach to deliver a project is one which is tailored to fit its context, complexity and the culture in which it will be managed. But there is still value in establishing some standards for project management. One component of such standards is a set of operational definitions.
Brad Egeland
DECEMBER 19, 2016
2017 is right around the corner so maybe it's time to try something new. As everyone is aware, the landscape of available project management and PM-related tools has changed greatly over the years. It is truly mind-boggling how many options are out there now for project managers across all industries. Many have been developed by organizations to focus on some key capabilities that they felt were either missing or not well covered by their existing counterparts.
Girl's Guide to PM
DECEMBER 14, 2016
The Inspiring Women in Project Management series is an occasional column that sees me interviewing women who are inspiring and who do inspire others in the world of project management. Today is the turn of Natalie Warnert, who set out to promote and support women in Agile. I asked her all about it. Natalie, what does Women in Agile do? WomenInAgile has created a place and community for women to network, share experiences, and spread diversity through the Agile community.
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The right analytics capabilities will turn data into valuable insights for your end users. This research-based guide, derived from insights of industry professionals, will allow you to create an optimal strategy for acquiring those capabilities.
Project Risk Coach
DECEMBER 18, 2016
Knowing what your teams really need I recently had a friend ask me — since I have an agricultural background — how to take care of her Christmas poinsettia. She said, “The leaves have been turning yellow and falling off. I think I’m killing it.” ” Poinsettias have a reputation for being hard to maintain. I asked a few questions such as: How many hours of sunlight has the plant been getting? What’s the temperature in your house?
Arras People
DECEMBER 15, 2016
The fundamentals of project management normally focuses on areas like planning, resource management, risk management and stakeholder management. In the year 2016 it also includes understanding Agile – as I found out at a recent project management event being run by Hemsley Fraser in London.
Musings on Project Management
DECEMBER 10, 2016
In 1711 Abraham De Moivre came up with the mathematical definition of risk as: The Risk of losing any sum is the reverse of Expectation; and the true measure of it is, the product of the Sum adventured multiplied by the Probability of the Loss. Abraham de Moivre, De Mensura Sortis, 1711 in the Ph. Trans. of the Royal Society I copied this quote from a well argued posting by Matthew. Quotations Risk Management
Kiron Bondale
DECEMBER 18, 2016
A good practice with agile delivery is to keep team sizes small to reduce the number of communication channels. But when planning a product release which cannot be delivered by a single pod within a reasonable amount of time, we need to structure the work across multiple pods of five to a dozen team members working in parallel but also orchestrating release cadence and work item priority based on the dependencies between work streams. So how should work be structured across the pods?
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With increased channels, tools, and pressure to achieve goals, your work management platform must be able to: Manage complex projects within tight time frames, Harness data from all channels to make decisions in real time, Prove ROI to the broader business. Download the eBook today!
Binfire
DECEMBER 12, 2016
I was a project manager when Bill Gates was still tinkering in his garage. I watched the birth of Agile and the adoption of Hybrid. I’ve managed multi-million dollar projects and am the founder of a project management software company. In other words, I know a thing or two about project management. Has project management changed? In the obvious ways: we have more technologies and methodologies than ever before.
Girl's Guide to PM
DECEMBER 12, 2016
This year I received two emails that changed the way I think about this blog. The first was from a lecturer in Africa who teaches project management to female students. He said he uses this site to show that it’s a real job that women can excel at. Some part of what we do here might have inspired a new generation of girls to go into project management. The second was from a woman with a long-term illness.
Project Risk Coach
DECEMBER 9, 2016
What tips do you have for breaking down your project into deliverables and activities? I asked this question on LinkedIn: What tips do you have for breaking down your project into deliverables and activities? Bill Duncan responded with the following tips (which I thought were great): Recognize that “work packages” are only the lowest level of the WBS from the buyer’s perspective in a contracting environment.
Arras People
DECEMBER 6, 2016
I’m working in a PMO at the moment and looking to move on in my career over the next year. Is there any advice you can give to help me get prepared. PMO still causes quite a bit of confusion in the marketplace – mainly because there are so many different types of PMO and in turn so many different types and levels of people who work within them.
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Every year Dresner reviews the state of the BI market as it stands today. This 12th annual report breaks down customer perceptions of BI and how well each vendor performs. See for yourself how all the major BI vendors stack up.
Musings on Project Management
DECEMBER 29, 2016
Now, this could be a bit stuffy: "The Requisite Law of Variety" But actually, it's an interesting concept to consider, to wit: Essential Elements (E): these are outcomes, results, or other artifacts that you want to have some control over, even if you are Agile Disturbances (D): these are events or actions that impact E. usually there are a lot of these! Regulation (R) or controls: these. agile Risk Management system engineering
Kiron Bondale
DECEMBER 25, 2016
Project management methodologies define policies, principles and practices. Methodologies will also usually mandate the completion of some standard artifacts. On the low end of the prescriptive scale, specific documents might need to be produced only where organization policy dictates whereas with other methodologies, a whole slew of artifacts are required to comply with expected standards.
LiquidPlanner
DECEMBER 20, 2016
Are you grappling with a stubborn project management work issue? Ask Elizabeth! Email your question to: marketingteam@liquidplanner.com. Anonymity included. Dear Elizabeth: I’m currently running a large project that’s a mess. We’ve lost team members, the customer has asked for more features and now we’re scheduled to go well over our deadline. I’ve had endless conversations with my manager about the need to add more people to the project—I’ve even shown her my resource workload report.
Girl's Guide to PM
DECEMBER 19, 2016
As the holidays approach it’s hard to find time to do any reading. I haven’t even been using my commuting time to read because I’ve been crocheting Christmas tree stocking decorations instead. My NCT group from when Jack was born has had two new babies this year and it’s a bit of a tradition that I make them a little red stocking for the tree. The pattern I use works up quickly and small projects like that are good for the train.
Advertisement
Self-service analytics are vital for how your users interact and engage with your application. As you explore analytics solutions for your application, see why self-service analytics can prove critical to the adoption and stickiness of your application.
Redbooth
DECEMBER 14, 2016
Work Together is a regular discussion with founders and CEOs about the people, processes, and technology that help today’s companies get work done. This week in Work Together, AeroFS CEO Yuri Sagalov interviews Bill Clerico, Co-Founder and CEO of WePay, about the company’s collaboration style. With operations across the U.S. and Europe, WePay uses a variety of collaboration tools to store documents, support customers, hold meetings, and chat.
Arras People
DECEMBER 21, 2016
As you can imagine, we have a lot of conversations about PRINCE2 at Arras. Often its about enquiries from people looking for a new role in project management. The split into two camps – those with minimal project experience who are looking to get into project management and want to do some training (or have already take PRINCE2 and don’t know what to do next).
Musings on Project Management
DECEMBER 26, 2016
I thought this posting on the "Agile Canon" was worthy of passing along in its entirety. So, there's the link for a pretty good read on the most important elements of a canon that all should be interested in adopting: Measure Economic Progress: Outcomes, means to measure, means to forecast Proactively Experiment to Improve: Assess options, embrace diversity and variability, execute. agile
The Digital Project Manager
DECEMBER 6, 2016
Check out our list of 20 of the very best project management books. Whether you're a newbie, beginner, advanced or experienced project manager, we’ve done the reading for you so you can find one to match your level of project management experience.
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