PMcrunch

Often it is hard to decide to what to do first, or what to do next. In fact, in my experience, it is often easier to make such decisions on large projects than smaller projects. The Theory of Constraints is a neat concept that can help.

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Whether new or experienced managers, we need to always be mindful of our delegation skills. Most important to remember is that not only can our delegation style change, but the people, tasks, and circumstances can change also. Thus, it is important to periodically ask ourselves “How are my delegation skills right now?” because the answer may have changed!

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I have used this. If you don’t want to have to start every project from scratch, then it’s worthwhile creating your own Project Life Cycle. I have found it especially useful – and impressive – in environments where there are a lot of technical people who have little project management orientation, and it has really made a difference. The best part is that it has helped me leverage my strengths – and to think through the project in an organized way.

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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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I have found the practice of having an “ADMIN DAY” is a great valuable and necessary one. But what is “ADMIN DAY”? How does it work and how does it provide value?

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As project managers we… well, manage projects! Or, do we? Actually, as I have been thinking about my experience managing projects and my experience managing my own time, I really think all we do manage are tasks. It is actually the practice of project management that simply allows us to manage more complex collections of tasks. Likewise, managing programs enables us to manage all that much more complex tasks, managing a company goes even further, and so on and so forth. This is a revelation to me that I actually find refreshing and empowering.

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Project teams, project oriented organizations, and project management offices have an unusually strong opportunity today for building highly motivated project teams. The reason for that is projects sit at the center of a new evolving organizational structure.

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Thomas Edison was the quintessential mistake maker. He believed that the more mistakes he made, the more wrong answers and wrong solutions he could eliminate and, therefore, the closer he came to the correct solution to his problems. In management and on projects, on one hand, we seek to minimize mistakes but it is important to recognize when “mistakes” can actually be beneficial and produce positive outcomes. Indeed, we should not be afraid to make mistakes but rather should try to control and leverage the process. The project portfolio management process is an ideal place to formally do this.

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MPMM – Method123 Project Management Methodology offers a very comprehensive suite of project management templates and more for implementing best practices – derived from PMBOK and PRINCE2 – within an organization.

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There are some key factors that must be in place in order to put Earned Value Management into practice. These ‘key factors’ are all good project management practices. Indeed, part of the benefit of practicing earned value management is the disciplined process that earned value demands up front! In other words, you cannot implement earned value management without practicing good project management!

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