PMcrunch

“Managing an IT project is like juggling chunks of Jell-O: It’s neither easy nor pretty.” So it says in an excellent article on IT Project Management is CIO magazine. The article goes on to say, very accurately I think, that “Information technology is especially slippery because it’s always moving, changing, adapting and challenging business as we know it.”

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As a program or project manager, one must keep an eye on both the near term and long term.  Today, under tough economic conditions, we typically turn to more near-term thinking because the focus needs to be first on survival before considering future plans.  We need to be careful however to not take this near-term thinking too […]

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Few weeks ago, I wrote a post about leadership in a virtual world in which I stated the limitations to achieve top leadership when not being directly engaged on site. The idea was that if a manager is not on site with regular phase time with subordinates, customers, associates, colleagues, and other stakeholders, he or she is not at all being positioned for increased leadership responsibility.

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The learning curve was “invented” many years ago. It refers to the competitive advantage derived from having learned a great deal about a product, service, market, or other competitive factors along the way. The learning curve can be a tremendous source of competitive advantage to organizations that have rode it upwards, especially when compared to those who have not yet accomplished that learning.

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An important consideration for any business is to think about whether or not its business model is effective. Presumably, any business will have at least a somewhat effective business model because if they did not, they will not be able to stay in business for long. How does the concept of business model impact project management?

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Operations and project management are, at the same time, very similar and distinctly different. In actuality, they feed off each other. Projects are undertaken to initiate support and enhance operations. Operations are what remain when projects are completed and they provide the continuous business that provides the need for project management.

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There is much discussion, and often confusion over the difference between Lean and Six Sigma. In general, here is the essence of the two approaches: Lean = Improved process flow and Six Sigma = Reduced process variation. This post provides discussion and links to various resources that take a look at this from different angles.

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Project organizations really are not unlike other organizations. Like a small, medium, or large sized corporation, projects have specific objectives that need to be supported by its own project culture. Projects inlcude collections of people and stakeholders, surrounding a concept or idea and particular action, take on a persona. Discovering, and even more important creating, and maintaining the character of that persona, is an important job of the project manager and supporting organization.

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Project reporting is very important because it enables us to keep our stake holders informed as to the project progress, decisions, achievements, and issues. However, often reporting is done around a certain specific format that you as a project manager, or your stakeholders, may find to fall short of the information needed – or worse, provide a lot of extraneous information that does not add value. It is important to capture the essence of project objectives and map them to the reporting routine.

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MBWA (Management by Walking Around) is a technique that has been around for quite awhile. I am not sure exactly where it originated, but I have practiced it myself and have observed others practicing it - both intentionally and unintentionally. It is very effective if used properly - and very ineffective if not used correctly!

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