Application Development > Use Cases

On many projects, work is planned months in advance and you might delay a milestone or implementation if it is not completed. In an Agile project, you plan for the current iteration and adjust workload, if necessary, for the next. Here is a primer on the fundamental Agile concepts of story points, velocity and team rhythm.

Successful business execution is dependent upon having timely and accurate financial information. But too often, little thought is put into how to present the data in a meaningful way. From a project or portfolio perspective, what does a C-Level executive expect to see from the PMO for actionable decision-making?

RFPs are a double-edged sword for many vendors. In the first article, we looked at the challenges with layout and content. In this second installment, we look at the challenges vendors experience in the process from the point they are made aware of the RFP to the submission of the bid.

IT loves the cloud, but what does the business understand about the pros and cons? In this article, we take a brief, high-level look at some of the considerations that require business engagement--even if cloud-based project management is only being used on IT projects.

Need help with project recovery? A whole new skill set and strategy is needed to recover an IT project from free fall. Here we provide practical recovery pointers on four project areas for failing IT projects, with a focus on software development for business applications.

How can organizational change be implemented with a minimum of distress? Change frequently results in unrest, uncertainty and concern caused by nothing more than fear. People lose focus, become less productive and potentially seek out alternative employment because of the fear of something that is not going to happen. In this article, we look at how we can manage those situations more effectively.

Most project managers think of changes to a project to be related to change requests that modify the scope of deliverables. But changes to projects go far beyond mere scope changes, so it's important to have a change management process in place that can address any manner of project change. While the majority of organizations have fairly mature change request processes in place, most lack similar processes to handle event-driven changes.

Just who is in charge of your user acceptance testing? For many, it belongs in the hands of business analysts and corresponding business owners. These individuals collaborate to create the test plans and test cases and then determine how to implement and track their progress.

It's important to engage your stakeholders early on in the project process and work with them to understand their perspective. In this article, we will examine some of the key things to consider when making certain that your project engages and captures the perspectives of your stakeholders to ensure that project results are sustainable over the long term.

When missed task deadlines start to become a problem, it’s often due to one or more of four reasons. Examining these key possibilities can help get to the root of the problem--and get the project team back on track toward on-time delivery of critical project tasks.

All organizations face significant challenges in planning for and managing their IT portfolios. These challenges can be addressed, in part, by the use of systematic processes for selecting and evaluating IT investments. Based on a framework created for federal agencies, here are some key components to consider including in your project portfolio-scoring model.

Thomas Jefferson advised to “never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” However, when it comes to Agile-run projects, all potential future requirements should almost always be put off until tomorrow. The focus is on doing only those things that support the current sprint — “today’s functionality.”

Project managers hate risks. But is this always a good thing? When projects are established, there's a lot of focus on budgets, schedules and scope (and the relationships between those constraints). Here, we argue that there should be more conscious focus on the role that risks play in that equation--and explore why you shouldn’t always try to minimize negative risks.

There are certain strategies and actions that the PM may take when managing a virtual team in order to make it more productive. These strategies will also increase the likelihood for a successful project implementation--and hopefully a very satisfied customer post-deployment.

The key challenge to organizational PM is that companies tend to view projects in isolation by ignoring the obvious (and sometimes not-so-obvious) linkages. Here we present a list of essential factors to ensure the organization can begin to not just benefit from the discipline of project management, but be able to maximize the benefits that organizational PM can provide.

This writer has seen some truly atrocious project communications where the PMO seems at a loss to be able to assist. In this article, he looks at a few ways that the PMO may be able to assist in building a communications model that brings consistency without burying the PM in “dashboard hell”.

How many people on your projects understand the specific roles and responsibilities that are assigned to them? A huge challenge in many organizations is that they fail to define a governance structure that includes the necessary measures to be practical. An effective structure needs to have well-defined roles and responsibilities that are understood and adopted. Without it, governance is a hollow shell.

This two-part article will provide you with some insight into some of the most frustrating aspects that vendors experience when they attempt to decipher the hieroglyphics found in the proposal documents. The first part will focus on the content of the RFP.

Management consultants are being called on to help establish project management offices that are simply not equipped to succeed after they leave. Here are three things they’re doing wrong.

We are all leaders of our teams, and that’s a responsibility that we shouldn’t take lightly. Your project team looks up to you--don’t let them down. Here's some advice on how to set the right example.

Effective project activation is more than just hard work and good luck. It's an important focus on the work required to bring the project up to speed, and this article explores some ways to get from zero to 60 as quickly as possible.

For most IT investments, business cases are either missing or unbelievable. In the first of a series of articles, John Finneran explains what has gone wrong and outlines how to fix the business case.

It's time for some observations and lessons learned from the acquired perspective of a company integration. For those of you who find yourselves managing integration projects--whether from the buyer’s perspective or the acquired company--hopefully some valuable lessons can be taken from this writer's experience.

At the beginning of a project, plans are all about approximations. So what aspect of reality is it that creeps into projects and seems to shatter those estimates? Here are seven traps to watch out for...

Anxiety and strain on the job is normal, but in the process of using Scrum it is common to find product development groups and senior management going head to head. Here we look at some keys to its successful implementation.

Rather than being half empty, maybe the glass is actually half full. One writer argues that the opportunities for project management to make inroads in an organization are actually better now than they have been for many years. Let’s look at some different scenarios.

The following recommendations will help keep quality management in mind before the company contracts with a supplier for services.

Contract resources have long thrived in IT, and in tough economic times they have a very big role to play. But how do you maximize your return?

You think you can justify that? Some organizations conduct an objective and formal analysis of their project opportunities, appropriately evaluate and prioritize them against objective criteria and make reasoned choices based upon independent assessment. There just aren’t many of them. Here, we’ll explore what does happen, and why. We’ll evaluate some alternatives and considerations in approaching project justification and talk about some of the changes that can lead to organizations making better decisions.

Much like risk management, quality management can benefit from a brainstorming session.

If your project has adversaries, participants who are hostile or reluctant to contribute, it can damage team cohesion and threaten the outcome. You must confront the problem early on, taking steps to win them over to allies, minimize their negative impact, or remove them from the effort entirely.

Before PMO directors pursue ISO 9001 certification, it is important to understand what it constitutes and how it can benefit PMOs. For some, the certification can be a way to increase performance and staff confidence. For others, it can be cost-prohibitive and add little value.

Agile got you anxious? One way to address the fears of management--and to possibly make agile PM more palatable to the masses--is to adopt and publicize the following seven principles, which will help make agile more...agile.

What does your project management office need to do to ensure that it's serving your organization? What makes it effective? In this writer's professional experience, five primary factors greatly influence the ultimate success of the PMO.

Globally dispersed teams and stakeholders present daunting challenges to project, program and portfolio leaders. It is imperative that organizations develop a formal communication strategy that addresses distance, language, culture and access to information. In this undertaking, “the cloud” is a friend.

Call us optimistic, but we want you to be prepared for the economic comeback that we're sure is just around the corner, or at least somewhere on the horizon. Sooner or later (we hope sooner), this recession is going to recede, and by planning for that now, you can be first in line when management starts handing out all that new funding.

It’s not the responsibility of project managers to build business cases for their projects, but you should be knowledgeable about the reasons why your project was given the green light. Here are some fundamental questions you should ask your project’s clients, sponsors and other stakeholders:.

The project may be global, but the details are just as important. Have you considered just how wide-reaching the impact of certain issues could become on your project? There's no way all of those issues and impacts for all of your projects can be flagged on one article, but here we look at just how significant some of these issues are.

Why involve project management before there’s a project? Customer expectations are often out of whack before the services part of the organization ever gets its hands on the project. Here we look at the root of the problem--and provide some solutions.

Quality is hard to build and maintain, and very easy to destroy. Here we look at some of the areas where those bad decisions are commonly made--and see if there's help in navigating through the minefield.