PMcrunch

These tough times are different from past recessions in that “visibility is low”. What I mean by that is that it is not just a matter of seeing that sales had declined a certain amount, or that certain costs had reached a certain amount; it is not just that there is a general slimming or pruning of weaker competitors across the board. The problem is that it is very hard to predict with any reasonable level of certainty what is going to happen next and, thus, we find ourselves driving through our challenges “with low visibility”.

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In today’s economy, managers of all kinds are under pressure to right-size their businesses or business units. With the contraction of the economy, sales decreases trigger the need for rethinking, resizing, and reshaping throughout any organization. Projects and programs are no different. Let’s take a look.

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SaaS, an acronym for Software as a Service, continues to evolve in the market today. Any project or program manager involved with software application implementation needs to be very familiar with SaaS. But any project manager on any project where there are systems involved with managing any aspect of the project will also benefit by being familiar with SaaS.

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Project management in one sense can be a pretty dry field. While it can be exciting professionally and emotionally, it also can be relatively mechanical in many ways and to many people. However, as I think about it, most things are actually that way. Most things can get to be ho-hum and humdrum. The difference I find is when we decide to do things with style. We add some class to our actions and become a different kind of project manager. Let me give you my thoughts.

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As project managers, we need to manage the resources and deliverables on our projects. In tough times we are often under pressure to deliver more with fewer resources. The question is “How can we cope with this? Is there a different way than just working harder, that we and our teammates can employ?”

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Two methods of capital budgeting often used on project and in project portfolio management are internal rate of return(IRR) and net present value(NPV). They are close cousins but take a little bit of a different look at the value of a project. They are both time based and bothrelayed to cash flows over time on a project.

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Sunk costs are exactly as the name implies: they are costs that are “sunk”. The money spent is irretrievable. It is gone, history, sunk. However, often there is either a misunderstanding or an emotional attachment to money that was spent. This is a difficulty that we, as forward looking project managers, need to remember.

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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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Marketing projects are important to companies, simply because they provide the opportunity to increase the top line of the business. That is, they are initiatives focused on driving revenue, as opposed to controlling costs. I have been thinking about three keys for how to lay out the requirements for such such revenue-enhancing marketing projects.

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