May, 2021

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3 Ways to Improve Cost Estimates with Your Teams

Project Risk Coach

Do you ever feel like the Lone Ranger when working on cost estimates? Actually, you're not alone; you have a team. Let's explore how to engage your team members and subject matter experts to improve your cost estimates. So, let's look at three techniques to use with your teams: Brainstorming Delphi Technique Nominal Group Technique 3 Team Techniques to Improve Cost Estimates 1.

Estimate 370
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Product Backlog vs. Sprint Backlog: What are the Differences?

Inloox

In recent years, “agile” has become an increasingly important topic in the corporate world. Driven by the need for better performance, efficiency and results, companies are using various agile management methods. Scrum is probably one of the best-known methods. For many teams , this agile management method has become an indispensable tool for effective collaboration.

SCRUM 175
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Future Trends in Project Management: The Debate

Rebel’s Guide to PM

Recently I spoke with Lela Machaidze on Clubhouse about future trends in project management. Here are the notes from that discussion. Lela: For the last decade, there have been a lot of changes in the PM profession. The trend that is here to stay is remote work and digital teams. That’s echoed in the PMI Pulse of the Profession 2021 report. Maybe not in the same volume as we are seeing now, but it will definitely stay. .

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What Is Contract Administration? Key Practices and Processes

ProjectManager.com

If you’ve ever worked on a large-scale project—especially a construction project—you’re familiar with the concept of contract administration. An employer hires a contractor to do work. The two parties come to an agreement on what the work will be, how long it will take and how much it is worth. These details are outlined and solidified in an official document; a contract.

Process 442
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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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Psychological safety might help to reduce “zombie” projects

Kiron Bondale

In a recent HBR article , the authors wrote about research they had conducted over a year on the relationships between how dispersed teams were and the speed at which their projects either succeeded or failed. While dispersed teams appeared to be more efficient than co-located teams when it came to completing successful projects, co-located teams were quicker at abandoning those projects which were doomed to fail.

More Trending

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How to Be a Productive Project Manager: 7 Tips

Project Risk Coach

Many project managers feel overwhelmed with emails, phone calls, and meetings. They often work overtime, but few feel as though they are making progress. Although we are all given the same amount of time each day, some project managers are able to produce greater value for their organizations. Some are more engaged. Imagine yourself as a more productive project manager, one with greater capacity and energy to complete each day’s tasks.

Energy 397
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Project Management Guidelines (Part 1) - What We Can Learn From Project Failures

Inloox

Projects are becoming increasingly complex. This may be due to the project itself, which is becoming more complex because of the multitude of parameters it contains. Another reason can be the influence of the project environment or a high number of stakeholders. A good project manager knows that some developments are out of their control. However, it is the way you react in such situations that can make the difference.

Aerospace 209
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Project Management Career Tips

Rebel’s Guide to PM

I recently spoke with Anna of Women in PM Network on Clubhouse about project management career tips. These are the notes from that conversation. What do you think of the Google certification? Wendy @woshifodunrin asked about the Google certification. Anna recommends it. Lydiah @lkimberly1 also shared her experience of taking the course and was positive about it too.

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Benefits Management for Projects: How to Make a Benefits Management Plan

ProjectManager.com

A project is a vehicle to deliver benefits to their stakeholders. These benefits include improved quality, reduced cost of production, better customer service, increased customer retention and so on. Identifying, describing and measuring these benefits is called benefits management. Having a benefits management plan lets project managers maximize these outcomes for the organization and stakeholders, and it’s part of any successful project management plan.

Planning 420
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Strategic Finance Essentials: A Project Manager’s Guide to Financial Impact

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 expendi

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Psychological safety provides the foundation for a team culture of kindness

Kiron Bondale

A recent HBR article showed how kindness could serve as a lever to generate productivity improvements. The authors explain that while receiving kindness can enable us do better work, the act of giving compliments is equally powerful at making us feel better. Some suggestions were provided in the article on how leaders can create a kinder work place but will a few tactics be enough to change culture?

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Winning Office Politics – 3 tips that Scrum Masters can use

Scrum.org

The term Office politics is taboo for many professionals, as it is pervasive at any workplace. To put it simply, workplace politics centres on differences within employees at the workplace, differences in views and opinions, conflicts on various interests and perspectives, etc. Everything boils down to communications and relations in-between humans. .

SCRUM 238
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How to Actually Close a Project

Project Risk Coach

If you are like most project managers, you are managing several projects. And when you finish one, you are anxious to start your next assignment. However, I encourage you to actually close each project before moving to the next one. There are many benefits. As your project comes to an end, here are some steps that you can take to close out the project: Evaluate the project Review the risk register Archive the documentation Pay the invoices Thank the team Reassign the human resources Let's look a

Closing 300
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Modernizing PPM: A Practical Four-Step Roadmap to Accelerate Agility

The Lazy Project Manager

Special Live Webinar with Peter Taylor – The Lazy Project Manager – and Planview. Modernizing PPM: A Practical Four-Step Roadmap to Accelerate Agility. PM Today is delighted announce that our associate editor, Amy Hatton, will be hosting a very special live Planview webinar , featuring Author, Speaker, Coach, Consultant and Trainer, Peter Taylor – AKA The Lazy Project Manager.

Agile 225
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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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Master’s in Project Management vs MBA: 10 Expert Tips to Help You Decide

Rebel’s Guide to PM

Here’s the TL;DR: The MBA will give you more flexibility later in your career and should probably be the route you choose. While everyone has individual goals and it’s impossible for someone on the internet who doesn’t know your personal situation to advise you, an MBA is worth serious consideration. In this article, I’ll share 10 expert tips from a range of people about their experiences to help you choose the right higher education goals for you, so you can make the right choice for your caree

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Time and Materials Contract: When to Use One & Best Practices

ProjectManager.com

There are two ways owners can pay for work done on a project. One is by a fixed price, where a contract defines what will be done and sets a specific and final price for that work. If the team takes too long to complete their tasks or requires more materials than outlined in the contract, they eat those costs. The other is a time and materials contract.

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Could nudges help to increase psychological safety?

Kiron Bondale

In one of my earlier articles , I had proposed the use of behavioral nudges to help improve project governance. After reading an HBR article this week in which the authors provided a number of suggestions on how to sustain newly adopted behaviors in the context of the imminent return to in-person office work, I thought that a nudge-based approach might also help with increasing psychological safety.

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Agility for a Sustainable World: Why We Need to Redefine The Meaning of Agility

Scrum.org

This year was the 20th anniversary of the Agile Manifesto for Software Development, and in many sectors, agile ways of working have long since become the standard. There are also many explanations of what agility really means, but there is agreement on the core meaning: focus on customers and their needs. Our own explanation of agility so far has been "the skill to turn customer needs into value flexibly, creatively and quickly while managing risk in complex environments.". .

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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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Most Googled Methodologies: The Surge In Agile During COVID

The Digital Project Manager

The post Most Googled Methodologies: The Surge In Agile During COVID appeared first on The Digital Project Manager.

Agile 283
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How to have bigger impact by deepening your project communication

Susanne Madsen

We often say that one of the most important roles of a project manager and leader is to be able to communicate effectively. Being the hub of the project, the PM communicates with team members, stakeholders, end users and the project sponsor – all of whom have different preferences for how they would like to be communicated with. Some people prefer email and written status reports whereas others favour telephone and face-to-face interactions.

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Uncertainty in Business: Today’s Challenges in Adapting to Change

Planview

Uncertainty in business is increasing, caused by rapid change, disruptions, unknowns, and whatnots. The problem is treating uncertainty today as an anomaly – a one-off event to overcome – instead of a constant. This is the topic I covered in a recent webinar featuring guest speaker Peggy Lawless, Founder and CEO of Lawless Research. We jointly presented findings from the new Strategy Execution Benchmark research.

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Construction Bids: Mastering Construction Bidding

ProjectManager.com

Construction projects are won by responding to solicitations or requests for proposals with a construction bid. It can often feel like a lot of work for possibly no return, but there’s a way to make a construction bid that doesn’t break the bank and sets your organization apart from the competition. Managing the construction bidding process and expanding your customer base without breaking the bottom line is a delicate art.

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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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Helping team members avoid the fears of working remotely

Kiron Bondale

HBR published an article this week titled Managing your WFH paranoia. In the article, the author focuses on the impacts of the “out of sight, out of mind” concerns which many workers have developed over the course of the past year resulting from COVID-19 pandemic work restrictions. Such fears could include a sense of persecution, feelings of abandonment or being disrespected.

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Why Scrum Requires a Failure Culture — Making Your Scrum Work #10

Scrum.org

TL; DR: Scrum Failure Culture: A Requirement to Be Successful. There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. To make things worse, a crucial success factor of every Scrum team is not even mentioned in the Scrum Guide: Any organization that wants to employ Scrum to learn faster than its competitors needs to have a solid failure culture.

SCRUM 231
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Project Dependencies Are Eating Us Alive: A Zombie Handbook

The Digital Project Manager

The post Project Dependencies Are Eating Us Alive: A Zombie Handbook appeared first on The Digital Project Manager.

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Your Guide to Cost Benefit Analysis in Project Management

nTask

Project management involves making a lot of decisions and these decisions cannot always be easy. This is especially true when those decisions could potentially be critical to the success of your project overall. These decisions, therefore, are not taken lightly. But what is a good way to be able to make such decisions and feel content with the course of action you take?

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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.