One for Practice: De-risking your Large Initiative
This article describes a powerful risk reduction tactic for large, complex projects - illustrated with a practical example of success.
The Digital Project Budget: A Simple Way to Express Digital Costs
A simple but comprehensive method for defining your budget - gives a complete picture of all the costs, reduces risk by minimizing the unknown, and makes it easier to compare alternatives.
When Asked a Simple Question, Give a Simple Answer
How much rigor does any decision really need? One clue might be to look at the number of significant digits you will be presenting. Say you are asked to present the cost impact of IT systems on a major acquisition or merger. Based on the context of the conversation - the macro-financials, the pay-back models, and the YOY growth plan for the next five years, you will probably be delivering a single slide that shows $20M in cost and/or benefits…
The Contrarian Project Manager, and Other PM Lessons Learned
A collection of Project Steering Committee discussions from the past, illustrating a few common methods and patterns for PMs. The lessons learned here are applicable to many types of projects (and certainly not limited to technology efforts!)
A Simple Pattern to Drive Quality for Projects and Processes
It's not enough to capture Lessons Learned at the end of your projects; build in a process step to review Learnings from the past, to start new projects off right.
Successful Projects Start with Good Discussions
Even in the overhyped world of technology, these non-technical issues (resources, cost, time, priorities) are often the root cause of project difficulty and failure. Talking things out up front can save a lot of headaches and disappointment later.
“Lean” meets “Demand Management” in IT – Managing the Constraints
It has been a few months since I've posted, but I haven't been idle - two significant projects (aside from working very hard at the full-time job), only one of which I can talk a bit about at this time. Tomorrow (Thursday, 16 Feb 2012) , I am presenting at a conference on IT Portfolio Management in Rosemont, IL - a case study on how we use ideas from Lean Manufacturing and Demand Forecasting to solve a fairly common problem…
Help for the Newly Minted Project Manager
Congratulations! Due to the recent [acquisition / divestiture, market expansion / contraction, organizational realignments, other] you have been identified as a Critical Resource for this particular bit of business process change. And, to help us implement these changes, you have been named the Project Manager for this effort. So now you are a Project Manager (PM, for short); what does that mean? You may be vaguely aware that people get certifications for this sort of thing, or that Microsoft sells…
Idle Time is a Good Thing for IT
Lots of good conversations recently about managing IT, Finance, and other constrained resources for projects. We have implemented tools to model available time; when trying to understand what new work can get added to the pile, it helps immeasurably when you understand how much time you have available, plus what else has been committed. This has become a powerful process for managing chronically constrained resources - but one side effect is that other folks on the team can find themselves…
Estimating Bird-Dogging Time for Project Tasks
New year, new projects, and new adventures in getting folks to think in project management terms. I've written before about Calendar time vs. Effort time, but this past week we came up with a new distinction that is worthwhile to call out. When working with the business and getting folks to estimate how much time it will take to complete a task, there are actually three different things that most people will talk about - and folks need to be…