Showing posts with label Schedule. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Schedule. Show all posts

December 30, 2020

Destruction Site


If there's a construction site, then there can certainly be a destruction site. 

Most of the time, it seems like more destruction than construction really going on. 

It's amazing how a construction job on one corner can take more than a whole year, when they built the entire U.S. highway system in not such a long time. 

Now-a-days, money just goes down the sinkhole with the littlest jobs taking seemingly forever and the costs spiraling out of control. 

Hello, is anyone out there managing this stuff?  

Oh right, it's all funny money anyway.  

Let's just keep printing some more.  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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December 19, 2018

Project Management - The Best Day

So a colleague said something interesting to me about project management:
The best day of project management is usually the first day, but I want to show you that the best day is really the last day of the project.
And as I thought about this, I sort of starting laughing to myself and thinking, you know what, I think this guy has something here. 

- Day 1 of a project, everyone is usually all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. 

We're embarking on an adventure together to build something new for the organization and our customers. 

We're going to team up and everyone will contribute.

And out of the project sausage maker--poof!--like magic comes a new system or product. 

- But as we all know, things don't always go so smoothly.

With some projects, the pretty smiley faces of day 1 may quickly turn to ugly frown faces.

There is analysis paralysis, scope creep, conflicting or changing priorities, resource issues, technical challenges, or the sausage just doesn't come our right--oh sh*t!

Thus, many  projects end up going bust in terms of cost, schedule, or performance. 

That is, they end up costing too much, being delivered behind schedule, or just not meeting the performance requirements. 

You have some projects that never even truly get off the ground, have multiple resets, or get dumbed-down or even cancelled altogether along the way. 

So by the time you reach the last day of the project, many people seem like they've been through the project ringer. 

I'm sure that I've heard more than one project manager say:
Just take me out back and shoot me!

So when this colleague said that he wants the best day of the project to be the last--in terms of satisfaction with the project (not that that pain was finally over!)--I really appreciated this as an awesome goal. 

We should all look to the last day of our projects as the best--one where we can look back and say: 
Wow, great job everyone!  We really got something great done here--and we did it right!  ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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December 13, 2017

Anything Is Possible

So you're all aware of the 3 legs of project management:

- Cost

- Schedule

- Scope

I remember learning the adage that if you change any one of these then there is an impact on the others. 

For example, if you "crash" the timeline on a project to finish more quickly, then you either need more money or you need to reduce the scope. 

Similarly, if you want to cut costs on the project then you may have to extend the timeline or scale back on the requirements. 

Recently, I heard someone says the following:
"We can do anything with enough time and resources."

And when I thought about this, it's true enough.

If you provide more money and time for a project then, of course, you can do more in terms of the scope of the project.

Pour enough bucks and time into something and conceptually, we really can do anything. 

Technically, we can do the proverbial "anything," but that's only if the politics and infighting don't get in the way of progress. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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September 12, 2010

Earned Value Management - Made Easy

Some exceptional Earned Value Management (EVM) instructional videos. These are great whether you are studying for your Project Management Professional (PMP) exam or wanting to apply EVM to your projects at work:

  • Part I: Basic Concepts


  • Part II: Calculating Variances and Indexes


  • Part III: Forecasting Completion


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November 11, 2008

Improving Project Management and The Total CIO

IT projects are notorious for coming in late, over cost, and not meeting the customer’s needs.

CIO.com has an excellent article on ways to improve project management in an article entitled, “When Failure is Not an Option,” by Meredith Levinson (3 July 2008).

For organizations, good project management is a critical success factor!

“Project management is the number-one success factor for getting anything done in the organization. A firm’s ability to execute its strategy lies with its ability to manage projects,” according to Sam Lawler, the director of GlassHouse Technologies’ project management practice.

Yet, for years, organizations have faulted CIOs and IT departments with failed IT projects. As recently as 2004, a study by The Standish Group found that only 29% of IT projects “were completed on time, on budget, and with all features and functions originally specified.”

Project management methodologies work when business and IT work together as a team.

There are various methodologies being employed to try to improve project’s success, such as PMBOK and ITIL. However, IT projects’ success depends on IT and business people working together to achieve results; if this partnership and collaboration doesn’t happen, then no PM framework will bring us the project success we desire. Our organization’s business people are critical to ensuring project success—they develop the business case, identify requirements/functional specifications, realign and improve business processes, and test technical solutions to ensure they meet mission and business needs.

No longer is it about tossing the proverbial hot potato to IT and then pointing fingers and assigning blame when something doesn’t work right. Instead, the business and IT people are on the same team, sharing accountability, and working toward the success of the project and the enterprise.

Performance measurement is a must:

Improved project management needs to be accompanied by measurement of project success and reporting on these to executive management. We can’t manage what we don’t measure. And we need transparency to senior management to ensure that everyone—business and IT—have “skin in the game.”

Further, there are trade-offs in project management between cost, schedule, and scope/performance. Changing one affects the others, so we need to manage projects harmoniously in this triad. If for example, a project is delayed or costs more, but delivers on added functionality requested by the business, then the project can still be a success. At the end of the project, success is defined by the business!
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