PM Resources > Project Plans

Just like the rulebook for chess, planning and preparation are important--but activation and execution requires a different view. Managing your project through the execution phase is a game of skill and experience, but if you take a tip from the chess masters there is a way to give yourself an advantage.

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...

Elaborating on Dwight Eisenhower's often quoted declaration, a project plan that exists in a vacuum is useless, but active, collaborative planning is indispensable. Here are three keys to injecting a collaborative mindset into your project environment, from decision-making to execution.

Motivation can be a difficult force to master. While the idea of taking small steps may not be the answer you want to hear, for longer lasting results it’s the best path to take for a happier and healthier career.

It's time to take control of things again and apply our skills and experience to alternative project management--and challenge our thinking beyond conventional norms.

The Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary says new project plans must be created that meet the requirements of the Program Management Accountability System.

What sets PM Masters apart from the rest of us? Is it their learning, innate talents and aptitudes or is it more? In observing those who exhibit PM mastery this writer has found they share some common traits and capabilities that provide some interesting insights.

What constitutes a successful project? Should it be defined by budget and schedule, or by the extent to which the outcome adds real business value? Until the project management profession and its standards evolve to a more balanced “art and science” approach, success criteria will be misaligned with real business needs.

Mindjet’s task-based collaboration tool keeps teams in sync by making information more people-centric, organized and transparent. With social aspects similar to Facebook and Twitter, Cohuman helps colleagues coordinate projects and tasks with each other. Here are five reasons to consider the tool for your collaboration efforts.

The purpose of the PMO is to create a more efficient, more successful project portfolio. How do you know if your PMO is getting the job done? That's where PMO governance comes into play.

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.

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”.

What is a PM to do when confronted with an organizational culture that places little emphasis on structured project management principles? In Part 2 of this series, we’ll examine a simpler approach for introducing structured PM techniques into an organization with one-page project plans.

…a.k.a., “You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know” or “A Treatise on How to Improve Spotting Risks on Your Project”. Quantifying the potential for that danger isn’t always easy for a lot of project managers. But here are some ways that you can improve the odds. (Cue Tom Cruise and Bob Seger!)

First and foremost, project planning must be practical. Here are some insights from an old timer who has learned about practical project planning and management. These insights are presented in two parts. The first set pertains to project planning while the second set focuses on the project management process.

HarperCollins needed an intuitive solution that could manage and track its Digital Technology Services work for over 100 global users. With Innotas’ on-demand IT Governance solution, the publisher was able to manage both strategic projects and sprints with the same tool.

When PMI-style project management techniques don’t align with the culture and abilities of an organization, PMs are left frustrated and their colleagues skeptical of perceived PM mumbo jumbo. Both sides emerge with a reluctance to collaborate and a dramatically lessened taste for implementing project management techniques in their workplace.

Planning is too important for the beginning of a project. Instead, planning needs to occur throughout the project and plans need to evolve to reflect the changing realities of projects.

The project management office has a different role in the operational team than in project teams. In general, there are two major reasons for having a PMO as part of the operational team--and it's up to the PMO to ensure that it is supporting operations instead of hindering them.

Earned Value Management is not just fuzzy math, but you need to help people understand it. The problem is not in the math itself, but in the difficulty of explaining EVM to stakeholders who don’t understand the numbers and what they mean. How do you sell EVM to your stakeholders without focusing on the math? Here we look at EVM for the masses.

So you want a career in project management? What will it take to be successful, and what about earning potential? This article will explore the pursuit of a career in project management, including looks at characteristics of successful PMs, what employers are looking for and salaries.

In the pursuit of improving IT project delivery, many companies focus on processes but overlook a crucial step: benchmarking. In the third of our six-part series on enterprise best practices, here are tips and techniques for establishing effective, iterative benchmarking.

Move over, Letterman. There's a new Top 10 in town. Having spent several years managing corporate IT projects, this writer emerges from the misty corners of the project arena, shakes off the dust of combat and presents 10 valuable truths.

Here’s our December 2010 roundup of the latest technology solutions and services for project leaders, teams and organizations, including an application to leverage SharePoint … Agile offerings for distributed environments and portfolio-level planning … mobile capabilities for PPM … a free project management tool for small teams ... and more.

When teams lack trust, projects fail or encounter severe trouble. One of the most critical ways to promote success on an agile project is to foster an environment in which team members respect one another and demonstrate trust.

While good governance rarely happens naturally, it does and can happen. But rather than waiting for the right bowl of porridge to appear before us (because that really does only happen in fairy tales), we need to make the porridge we want. As with any good meal, it helps if we start with a recipe.

Or ladies, as the case may be. Apply the concept of reusability to your project plans and you will be able to develop a consistent, detailed project plan quickly. WBS templates are a good start.

An IT transformation program at Allianz sought simpler creation and review of project information to let stakeholders resolve project issues more quickly, with more timely and detailed data. Allianz implemented BrightWork's pmPoint solution, leveraging its use of Microsoft Project and SharePoint.

A wide variety of technology solutions and services are available to help organizations implement, customize and improve their project portfolio management processes. Here is our August roundup of recent updates and announcements from CA, Daptiv, Innotas, Oracle Primavera, Planview, PowerSteering, Rally and others.

Managing uncertainty is one of the most important challenges facing project managers, but many have no consistent process for dealing with risks, large or small. One helpful step is to take a page from Agile practices and pay more attention to the size of team tasks and the quality of our conversations about them.

While plans, progress and budgets are all critical elements, we can bring more value to the project by releasing our obsession on these project metrics slightly and focusing more of our attention down the road to items like sponsor satisfaction and team morale.

Unless you enjoy bogging down your entire project team while they watch you update your schedule in real-time, consider breaking your large project plan into subprojects and delegating some or all of them.

Learn about one of the most massive projects of them all, and the father-and-son project managers who made it happen.

How accurate are your project plans? One of the most common problems for overly optimistic project schedules is the project manager's failure to account for all the activities required to complete the project. While most technical project managers are fairly precise at estimating the effort required to implement a specific feature, many can't accurately determine the overall duration of a larger software development project.

Offshore outsourcing is no longer an experimental option. It’s the direction of the industry and it makes business sense to execute it the right way. This two-part article serves as a guideline for IT managers planning to move development offshore, and the issues discussed are from an outsourcer’s perspective.

You've worked hard, built your constituents, put a killer presentation together and management bought it. The good news is - management wants you to head up a process improvement project. The bad news is management wants you to head up a process improvement project. NOW WHAT?

With little extra money but plenty of extra time, smart IT managers are learning how to improve PPM functions without breaking the bank. Here are seven ways to get creative with PPM on the cheap.

Microsoft Project is an inescapable part of a PM's life. There seem to be two schools of thought on this tool, and our writer examines both of them in this two-part story. In the conclusion, our writer looks at some shortcomings. But are those a problem with the tool, or with the people who use it?

Hidden traps often come from surprising sources, resulting in project delays or funding shortfalls. It is critical to identify all the risks up front, establish mitigation strategies and allocate ample time and budget to overcome any hurdles. How? Through effective planning, of course!