Owner: Project Smart URL:http://www.projectsmart.co.uk Join Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2007 05:45:21 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Project Smart is the project management resource that helps managers at all levels to improve their performance. We provides an important knowledge base for those involved in managing projects of all kinds. With regular updates it keeps you in touch with Site statistics:Click here
Managing The Project Time 0000-00-00 00:00:00 Project managers know, or should know, the iron triangle of project management sometimes called the triple constraints of project management because all projects are constrained by these three elements: time, cost, and scope. My nemesis is the angle on the left, time. Read more:Project
Most IT Projects Fail. Will Yours? 0000-00-00 00:00:00 Studies on project failure are easy to find and make depressing reading. Gartner studies suggest that 75% of all US IT projects are considered to be failures by those responsible for initiating them. But what do they mean by failure? Read more:Projects
, Yours
Quality Projects Take Time and Money 0000-00-00 00:00:00 In project management, as with most things in life, quality is planned in, not inspected in. Quality
, and the expectations for acceptance, must be defined up front. Read more:Money
, Projects
Developing a New Project Scorecard 0000-00-00 00:00:00 For many firms implementing a new project is not an easy endeavour. This may come with a lot of risk, which is why it is always a good idea to use a new project scorecard. This way, managers have a more accurate idea of what needs to be achieved for a project to become a success. Read more:Project
The Evolution of Project Management - Part 2 0000-00-00 00:00:00 As a discipline project management developed from different fields of application including construction, engineering, and defence. The 1950s marked the beginning of the modern project management era. Prior to the 1950s, projects were managed on an ad-hoc basis using mostly Gantt charts, or with informal techniques and tools. This article looks at four periods in the development of modern project management. Read more:Evolution
, Management
, Project
, Project Management
How Project Management Developed 0000-00-00 00:00:00 Could the Crusades have been launched and the soldiers armed and fed without effective project management? Could the Great Wall have been built with ingenious natural materials and a team of millions over a span of a thousand years without project management? It is possible to say that the concept of project management has been around since the beginning of history. Read more:Management
, Project
Obstacles to Project Communication 0000-00-00 00:00:00 Communication is so important to project success that it has been referred to as the lifeblood of a project by more than one practitioner. Jack Vinson talks about the importance of communication across project interfaces - interfaces being boundaries between different groups within an extended project team. He views interfaces as constraints that limit project success. On reflection, I realised that many project communication issues I've encountered have, in fact, occurred at interfaces. In this post I explore the notion of an interface as an obstacle to project communication. Read more:Project
Managing Project Management 0000-00-00 00:00:00 Oooh - project management. Everyone talks about project management but what is it? Isn't project management just organising your little work to get the big work done? Isn't project management really just a series of events to create some thing, by some point, way off in some hazy future? Not really. Read more:Management
, Project
Cause and Effect Diagrams 0000-00-00 00:00:00 It is difficult if not impossible to solve complicated problems without considering many factors and the cause-and-effect relationships between those factors. Defining and displaying those relationships helps. The first such cause-and-effect diagram was used by Kaoru Ishikawa in 1943 to explain to a group of engineers at the Kawasaki Steel Works how various work factors could be sorted and related. In recognition of this, these diagrams sometimes are called Ishikawa diagrams. They are also called fishbone diagrams, because they look something like fish skeletons. Read more:Cause
, Diagrams
How to Become a Project Manager 0000-00-00 00:00:00 If you are new to project management don't be bamboozled by all the jargon. Managing a project is just another branch of business management. There are well understood methodologies, tools, guidelines, and procedures to help you on your way to developing the important life-skill of project management. This article sets out the key skills needed to become a competent project manager. Read more:Become
, Project
, Project Manager
Project Management Institute's PMP Qualification 0000-00-00 00:00:00 Being the proud owner of my newly acquired PMP (ProjectManagement
Professional) title, I mentioned the qualification to an associate the other day and was met with an "oooooh, and...?." sort of look. I realised that until about a year ago, my reaction to the mention of PMP, as a professional title, was probably the same, simply because it had not been prominent in my profession. However, recently, and increasingly so, clients are beginning to require project managers to have formal project management qualifications of the caliber of PMP and PRINCE2. PMP is the certification for proficiency and competence in the discipline of Project Management
, issued by the Project Management Institute
based in the USA. PRINCE2 is the British counterpart.
Earned Value Management Explained 0000-00-00 00:00:00 Earned ValueManagement
(EVM) helps project managers to measure project performance. It is a systematic project management process used to find variances in projects based on the comparison of worked performed and work planned. EVM is used on the cost and schedule control and can be very useful in project forecasting. The project baseline is an essential component of EVM and serves as a reference point for all EVM related activities. EVM provides quantitative data for project decision making.
Project Management Goes Live With Virtual Team Collaboration 0000-00-00 00:00:00 Web collaboration technologies enable project management teams to meet virtually with full audio-visual interaction, irrespective of their multiple locations. These solutions work by allowing one team member to securely share their desktop and its content in ad-hoc or scheduled meetings with their colleagues, and allow anyone to access and contribute to the information in real time. Read more:Collaboration
, Management
, Project
, Project Management
6 Steps to Successful Schedules 0000-00-00 00:00:00 Creating a comprehensive schedule is one of the more difficult activities that project managers face. Schedule creation is often considered more art than science, and results often support this. What is often more frustrating is that team members often find themselves on one team with a project manager that creates and manages schedules a particular way and on another team with a project manager with a different approach. Read more:Schedules
Lessons Learned - Why Don't we Learn From Them? 0000-00-00 00:00:00 In looking at lessons learned, many times we find things like - should have had a better schedule, or better budgeting, or more communications, spent more time on requirements, etc. All of these things relate to how we do the work, not what we work on. Talking about how things get done or working on how things get done does not, in and of itself, get anything done. This is one of the reasons so many people hate planning - planning is not doing and we all like doing. Read more:Learned
, Lessons
, Lessons Learned
The IT Worker Shortage: Practical Considerations for Tech Buyers 0000-00-00 00:00:00 The shortage of skilled IT workers is not like global warming. We are certain the worker shortage is real, and we are definitely feeling its effects now. Heavy users of technology tend to focus on how the worker shortage is affecting them most directly; that is, their present inability to fill open technical positions. Perhaps less obvious is the impact the IT worker shortage has on organisations' use of outside vendors and consultants for their projects. Vendors and consultants are also finding it difficult to hire the talent they need, which is limiting their engagement capacity and growth opportunities. Read more:Buyers
, Considerations
, Practical
, Shortage
, Worker
Managing Project Scope 0000-00-00 00:00:00 Ok, you're about to kick-off a project you're managing. The scope and budget are set, the team knows what they're delivering, and everyone is ready to begin. You're confident that hours have been allocated appropriately, but you also know how easy it is for scope to slip away from you - you need to keep a good handle on this project to ensure the team doesn't squander their hours and push the project over budget. In this article, I'll review some solid tactics you can employ to progressively manage your project budget and maintain total visibility from beginning to end. Read more:Project
, Scope
A Project Management Primer - Basic Principles - Scope Triangle 0000-00-00 00:00:00 The project management Scope
Triangle or Quality Triangle shows the trade-offs inherent in any project. The triangle illustrates the relationship between three primary forces in a project. Time is the available time to deliver the project, cost represents the amount of money or resources available and quality represents the fit-to-purpose that the project must achieve to be a success. Read more:Basic
, Management
, Principles
, Project
, Project Management
5 Essentials To Project Team Success 0000-00-00 00:00:00 To maximise the contribution of project teams, a number of essentials need to be recognised. The good news is that the essentials to team success aren't expensive, don't require the expenditure of large amounts of capital or expense money, and don't require new bricks and mortar. The further news and biggest challenge is that the only change needed to be made to implement the essentials to project team success is behaviour. Read more:Essentials
, Project
, Success
Project Overspend? Don't Worry About It 0000-00-00 00:00:00 Any project manager will tell you that the triple constraint is the most important part of managing any kind of project. Namely: scope, time and budget. This week, I have been mulling over the third constraint, budget. Why is it that so many large corporations, take their eye off the budget? For many large companies, over spending is not welcome but it is not a serious misdemeanour either, especially if the over-spend has occurred in-house. Read more:Project
Your Risk Management Process: A Practical and Effective Approach 0000-00-00 00:00:00 A solid risk management process can help to make a project run smoothly. By identifying and addressing a list of project risks as part of a larger project management system, many surprises and roadblocks can be eliminated. Learn more about the definition of a risk as well as the steps that should be a part of your business's risk management process and how you can incorporate such a process into all projects going forward. Read more:Management
, Practical
, Process
Five Steps to a Winning Project Team 0000-00-00 00:00:00 As healthcare executives work to increase efficiency and decrease costs in a dynamic healthcare environment, they often undertake projects such as technology implementation, operational and process improvements and facility planning. These projects typically require the formation of collaborative teams comprising hospital leadership and staff as well as project managers and support staff from vendors and outside consulting firms. Executives must be prepared to establish efficient project teams that focus on communication and collaboration to achieve success. Read more:Five Steps
, Project
, Winning
Mind, Meditation and the Project Manager 0000-00-00 00:00:00 Project manager and meditation seem to be two opposite sides of the world. The link between these two becomes quite noticeable when work stress breaks something; either a manager a project or sometimes both. This article first discusses areas of work stress, its affect, and finally, steps to prevent it. Though in the article a project manager is used as an example, work stress can affect any living individual because every person is prone to it without exception. Read more:Meditation
, Project
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