Location, Location, Location: Terminology Confusion in ERP Projects

11 April, 2009
Documentation, ERP
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Have you ever experienced the clash of terminology that results when supply chains are brought together, due to acquisition or merger? The typical scenario: different groups using multiple terms to describe where product is manufactured at and shipped from; folks use terms like "location", "plant", and "site" interchangeably, and confusion can result - are we talking about SAP configuration? Wide-area network architecture? Rollout plans? To communicate effectively, it helps to clarify things. Here is a starter list of terms from…

Dueling Collaboration Portals

I noticed an interesting phenomenon this afternoon; we are experimenting with SharePoint as our internal project management / collaboration portal. A nice platform to choose, because it's popularity is growing, and there are a wide selection of add-on products and development partners ready, willing, and able to help us spend our money to make it even better. The interesting part is that we are running into other companies who are also working with SharePoint. Specifically, third-party consulting firms that want…

The Power of Paper in Business Communications

Confucius was wrong - it is good to live in interesting times ... I'm deep-diving into a number of projects at work, while juggling a sudden surge in business travel (the majority of my tweets of late). All of the work involves significant change - different tools & process, or reworking process "traditions" that have ossified over multiple years and a succession of owners. I have developed a stack of notes on a range of topics - excellent blog fodder…

Enterprise 2.1: Exiting the Trough of Disillusionment

"What will you do with that car if you actually catch it?" -- what the cat asked the dog (from the Chicago Reader, circa 1989) So you've gone all "Enterprise 2.0", spinning up a wiki, a blog, and a SharePoint or Drupal server inside your firewall. Now what happens? The groundswell of interest in "cool tools" brings a wave of users and a burst of feed reader activity - for a few weeks. Before long, however, the organization will get…

Data Visualization: ‘Life’ of Open Source Projects

Part of the "art" of communicating IT and business abstractions - technical challenges, project roadmaps, budget performance, customer relationships, IT effectiveness - is landing on the right visualization. A picture tells a thousand words, and if you can draw the picture well, your target audience will grasp these concepts quickly, and (potentially) get insights that were otherwise difficult to attain. I have a large backlog of web links to point to, posts to write that I'll probably start cutting into,…

Tactics for Controlling Project Scope

5 January, 2008
Project Management
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I wrote about ways to "cheat" at project prioritization [aka trying to figure out what to work on next, when there is more demand (projects) than supply (people to work on them)]. One significant tool you have at your disposal is controlling scope - can you do 20% of the work to get 80% of the benefits? Easier said than done, sometimes you need tactics, that help identify an opportune place to stop, a run-on project, or a design that…

How to Win at the PMO Prioritization Game

19 December, 2007
Communication, PMO
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Last time I talked about "cheating" at the PMO prioritization game. Ok, it wasn't cheating, more like a trick to keep your projects small, fast - and easy to fit into a crowded schedule. Totally above board, but some might call it manipulative. Remember the old management hack ... how do eat an elephant? If that's too cliche for you, let's talk about ways to consistently win at the prioritization game. How can you make sure your projects are legitimately…

PMO Prioritization – Project Descriptions should be Effective, Relevant … and Short!

9 December, 2007
PMO, Project Management
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Next year, our PMO will be taking a run at improving "transparency" for project prioritization - a clearer process for getting projects approved and scheduled. Here's a key building block - what is the most effective way to describe a project? There is a certain amount of art and style in getting this right; most PMOs feature some sort of central database listing candidate projects; typically, the various screens, views, reports, etc. are designed for "short and sweet" descriptions. Note…

Five Key Skills for Successful Project Managers

Just a quick post this evening, capturing some thoughts that have been forming over the past week or so. When evaluating people for a role as project lead or project manager (PM), what exactly does one look for? I suppose many will point to PMI certifications, adherence to principles in the PMBOK, "excellent communication skills", and multiple, complex, high-profile, high-quality projects under their belt. But what about the intangibles - the stuff you can't really learn from a book? I…

Hidden Gold in Automating Recurring Processes

Here's a typical IT scenario: each quarter, you need to check audit user access to a critical application. Your internal security standards require that you revoke access for those who haven't been on the system for over 90 days. I've seen this before, and the process (at the time) had many challenges: It's manual; we did a quick-and-dirty set of steps years ago to cover the minimum requirements, that involves extracts from application logs, file transfers MS Access and MS…