April, 2016

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How to Actually Make and Execute Better Decisions

Project Risk Coach

Our lives are the sum total of all the decisions we’ve made – financial decisions, health decisions, whether to marry or not to marry, whether or not to have children, and where to work. My goal today is to help you make better project decisions. Here’s why — individuals, teams, departments, and organizations who make better decisions improve their chance for success.

Executing 240
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Industry-Specific PM Tools: Are They Worth It?

Rebel’s Guide to PM

Bill sent me this question on email: My organisation and I are looking for project management software that is geared toward research projects or projects where training/education is the final product. I have look at some of the larger programs and they seem to be either focused on construction or IT. Would you have any thoughts on this subject that you would share?

2015 167
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Release by sprint or capability?

Musings on Project Management

One of the Agile paradigm shifts from the "way we've always done it" is to shift release planning to either fixed calendar points -- at the end of one or more sprints, but typically three or more -- or when capability needed by the business is "done" In an interesting posting, here, the first idea is given the moniker "cadence release"; the latter "capabilities release".

Cadence 150
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Does ANYONE benefit from your PM information system?

Kiron Bondale

A project management information system (PMIS) is not an investment which most companies would make lightly. The one time and ongoing hard costs coupled with the change management effort involved in implementing such tools can be significant so it is reasonable to expect that there will be some tangible value derived once the dust settles. Unfortunately, in spite of PMIS’s being commercially available for more than a couple of decades, they sometimes provide us with a live example of the A

Executing 146
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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.

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Jell – a great tool to align your goals and improve your team comms

The Digital Project Manager

Posted in Tools. [link]. Align your goals and improve your team comms with SMART standups with Jell – a great tool that gives you a central place (that can integrate with Slack) where team members can share daily plans, accomplishments, challenges and long-term goals remotely without another meeting. The post Jell – a great tool to align your goals and improve your team comms appeared first on The Digital Project Manager.

Planning 120

More Trending

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How to Respond to Your Risks From Different Angles

Project Risk Coach

Are you guilty of trying to control risks after they are full grown? Bad idea. Allow me to share an analogy. Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock (edited in Canva). It happens every year during the spring. People — who know that I have an agricultural background — ask me what they should spray to kill weeds in their lawns. Two things are happening in the weed world at this time of the year.

Risk 183
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Software Review: ProjectManager.com [2016]

Rebel’s Guide to PM

General information. I last reviewed ProjectManager.com in 2013. Time to revisit the software and see what has changed. Name: ProjectManager.com. Vendor: ProjectManager.com. Hosting options: Online. Costs and plans: The Team plan for up to 10 users is $20 per user per month (this is actually cheaper than the equivalent plan a few years ago, which was $25 for up to 5 users).

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Two doors and the risk manager

Musings on Project Management

A narrative* Imagine two doors to the same room: One labeled risk manager; the other labeled decision maker. Though the risk manager's door, entry is for the inductive thinker: facts looking for a generality or integrating narrative Through the decision maker's door, entry is for the deductive thinker: visionary with a need to connect specifics to the vision And, consider this: Pessimists.

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Does your organization truly support project management?

Kiron Bondale

The April 2016 issue of PM Network provided updated project management capability findings from PMI’s 2016 Pulse of the Profession ® report. An unfortunate statistic is that only 38% of organizations are placing a high priority on creating a culture which recognizes the importance of project management. Organizational project management support can be either a blocker in lower maturity companies or an accelerator to project performance in higher maturity ones.

2016 146
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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

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When you shortcut your project planning

The Digital Project Manager

Posted in The PM life. The post When you shortcut your project planning appeared first on The Digital Project Manager.

Planning 129
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How to pick the best requirements management tool

Moira Alexander

What is requirements management (RM), anyway? During any project or significant business undertaking, RM is a complex, comprehensive and iterative business analysis process defining business-related needs that involve the following actions: Identifying. Documenting. Analyzing. Prioritizing. Tracking. Monitoring. Controlling change. Tracing. Versioning.

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10 Best Selling Project Management Books

Project Risk Coach

Looking to buy a great project management book to help you to mature as a project manager? Here are the 10 best sellers when it comes to what project management books are being purchased on Amazon: The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK(R) Guide. PMP Exam Prep, Eighth Edition – Updated: Rita’s Course in a Book for Passing the PMP Exam.

2016 163
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Strategic Project Portfolio Management [Book Review]

Rebel’s Guide to PM

It took me a while to get my hands on Simon Moore’s book, Strategic Project Portfolio Management *, but I’m rather glad I did. For a start, it’s beautiful. I read a lot, and I notice fonts, layout, box copy, but in this book, most of all the lovely tables. Praising a book because it is pretty is probably shallow, but it does matter for the reader experience.

PMO 164
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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.

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"Yes is where the risk is"

Musings on Project Management

General Michael Hayden, now retired, writes in his book* about his years as Director, NSA and Director, CIA that in government -- and likely all of elsewhere: "Yes is where the risk is". The meaning is straightforward: the safe thing is to just say No. In fact, it seems that in government particularly that the "staffers" main job is to protect their "principals" by saying No.

Risk 150
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The argument for agile gets even more appealing…

Kiron Bondale

The Standish Group’s October 2015 CHAOS report is based on a study of thousands of technology projects worldwide. Whereas past CHAOS reports had considered project success as achieving the triple constraint, their research is now utilizing a more current definition taking into account factors such as on Target, on Goal, Value and Satisfaction.

Agile 146
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How to fast-track your team member’s growth

Susanne Madsen

I often come across managers who say that they would like to develop their team members’ skills – but that they struggle to find the time to do so. Ideally they would like to have one-to-one sessions with people, teaching them not only business and management skills, but also presentation skills and increasing their confidence in the process.

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5 Easy Steps to Being Agile Using Axosoft

Axosoft

You’re here! Welcome. Whether you just started a trial or are interested in using Axosoft for the first time, here are some super important things that will help you get started: Get your Existing Data. Confirm/Define your Workflow Steps. Confirm/Define your Field Templates. Add your Projects and then Import your Data. Visualize your Items in a Meaningful, Useful Way.

Agile 60
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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.

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How to Identify and Manage Secondary Risks

Project Risk Coach

Have you ever tried to address an issue and created a different problem? A response to risk can create other risks. These secondary risks may be more significant than the primary risks if we are not careful. Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock (edited in Canva). One of the Pink Panther cartoon episodes pits the Pink Panther against a mouse in his house. The mouse was driving the Pink Panther crazy; he had to find a way to eliminate this problem.

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Using Video for Project Communications [Case Study]

Rebel’s Guide to PM

I like doing the communication bits of projects, and when I worked on a large software rollout there was plenty of opportunity to create buy in and engagement through communication. The project was going to fundamentally change the way people did their jobs. We knew this from the beginning, and we also knew that it was going to happen, no matter what, so it was important that people knew what was coming.

Logistics 164
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Procrastination (See: manage slack)

Musings on Project Management

Are you a procrastinator? Do you manage schedule? Do you think of yourself as a risk manager? Do you understand the concept of schedule buffers and the critical chain methodology? Then, you'll understand that handling your tendency to put things off, and managing slack and schedule buffers are not that much different.

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Constrain first or constrain last when populating a project portfolio?

Kiron Bondale

The essence of portfolio management is deriving the best possible outcome for the organization given that there are finite resources such as funding, time or capacity of skilled staff. These constraints will limit how much value can be realized hence the criticality of identifying the right set of projects to optimally consume resources such that there is neither over nor underutilization.

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How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

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The Story of TeamGantt [VIDEO]: How your favorite Project Scheduling Tool came to be | TeamGantt Blog

TeamGantt

While we were all together over the winter, we got to talking about the history of TeamGantt. We had a pretty good idea of the big picture but it was great to hear it directly.

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Improved project billing, planning and price estimates

Paymo App

Starting today, there will be three types of projects in Paymo (by billing type): Time & Materials – these are generally used for service contracts or any other type of work in which the client agrees to pay the contractor based upon the time spent to perform the work, and for materials/expenses incurred during the project. Flat rate – used when the client agrees to pay the contractor a lump sum for fulfillment of the project (no matter how much time is spent in order to deliver

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Are You Making These Mistakes When Responding to Risks

Project Risk Coach

Some project managers make timely responses to risks, resulting in positive progress toward their project goals; others act haphazardly, resulting in undesirable consequences. Chuck Swindoll told a funny story that illustrates the dangers of costly mistakes when responding to risks. Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock (edited in Canva). “Chippy the parakeet never saw it coming.

Risk 183
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How To Take Over An Existing Project [Free Checklist]

Rebel’s Guide to PM

Consider this. You’ve recently taken over a project that has already started. Your handover hasn’t been that great. The previous project manager might have moved on to do something else and you’ve got the project as part of an internal reshuffle of resources. Or they might have left the company. Either way, you’ve got a team waiting on your direction.

PMO 173
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From Complexity to Clarity: Strategies for Effective Compliance and Security Measures

Speaker: Erika R. Bales, Esq.

When we talk about “compliance and security," most companies want to ensure that steps are being taken to protect what they value most – people, data, real or personal property, intellectual property, digital assets, or any other number of other things - and it’s more important than ever that safeguards are in place. Let’s step back and focus on the idea that no matter how complicated the compliance and security regime, it should be able to be distilled down to a checklist.