Project risk management is what separates good project managers from great ones. Even when everything has been planned and executed to perfection, an unexpected event can cause considerable duress on the project stakeholders and even cause the project to be considered a failure. Risk management is a three step process: Risk Identification Risk … [Read more...]
Project Planning
Planning is the single most important thing a project manager can do to ensure a successful project that meets its goals. The Project Management Institute suggests that planning should ideally consist of about 20 – 30% of the time required to perform the project work. This is substantially more than most project managers actually spend on project planning. … [Read more...]
Guide to Project Management
Managing projects is like steering a ship. When the wind or sea conditions are rough, experienced helmsman use their keen sense of how the ship will react to keep it moving in the right direction. Because the ship doesn't react right away, the helmsman must anticipate the delay between turning the ship's wheel and the reaction of the ship. The destination is … [Read more...]
The Cost of Quality
The American Society for Quality (ASQ) suggests that the Cost of Quality is usually around 15 - 20% of sales, often as high as 40% in some organizations. Clearly, you need to know what that means and how to prevent errors and omissions from hurting your business. Cost of Quality (COQ) is a measure of the cost an organization faces due to the production of substandard … [Read more...]
How to Write a Schedule Management Plan
With little exception, missing deadlines reflects poorly on the project manager and sometimes has financial consequences too. Because projects are by definition temporary, someone has authorized the project and expects its deliverables in a timely fashion. To meet the deadlines, a schedule management plan is produced which is a subset of the project management … [Read more...]
The 10 PMBOK Knowledge Areas
In the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) the process groups are the chronological phases that the project goes through, and the knowledge areas occur throughout any time during the process groups. The process groups are horizontal, and the knowledge areas are vertical. They are the core technical subject matter of the project management profession, … [Read more...]
Project Management Fundamentals
Project Management is a unique field in that people generally don't choose it as an initial career path. They enter via the back door through a technical field, or they want to learn project management theory with the goal of advancing into the role. For this reason, many people who practice project management are generally not well equipped with project management … [Read more...]
Applying the PMBOK to Real Projects
The Project Management Institute's Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) is a very structured, analytical outline of a somewhat abstract topic. Using it to manage projects is like trying to enjoy a play by reading the script. Although the relevant information is there, it is difficult to put into practice without external training. To that end, I … [Read more...]
10 Qualities of a Project Leader
Project management is more than just working with numbers, charts, templates, graphs, and computer systems. A common denominator in all projects is people. There is nothing more powerful than a project manager who utilizes one of the three main project management methodologies but focuses most of their time on being a strong leader. This is because strong … [Read more...]
The 10 Primary Project Roles
Every project has distinct roles that must be fulfilled in order to function properly and provide the products or services it was intended to provide. As a minimum, it needs a project manager and a project team who does the work, although those roles could be fulfilled by the same person. It also needs a connection to the larger corporate body who ensures funding … [Read more...]