From Gartner. In this session from the June 2005 PPM Summit, Jim Duggan, Research Vice President for Gartner, looks at the elements of governance, assessment and operational processes that successful implementations have exploited.
What is maturity? Can an organization be considered mature if it does the wrong things well? What if it does the right things in the wrong way? The OPM3 business standard helps organizations become more mature. But misperceptions still exist about what “maturity” means. This issue is not explained in the standard itself and has never been written about by anyone, so what better place to do so than here and now?
Here it is, a comprehensive crash course on knowledge management--what it is, what it does and why your company needs it.
This will be the first in a series of articles that will look to provide the background of issues involved with managing an agile software development project under a traditionally linear and sequential project procurement process. Software development has been deliberately chosen for the example industry since that’s the domain for which agile is most typically used, but for those using agile in other industry domains, the general issues and proposed solution should work equally well within your industry.
Agile needs to change the rules of deployment; otherwise, it’s losing effectiveness. If you are going to commit to agile development, then commit to more frequent deployments and everybody wins. Let’s take a look at changing the product deployment model with agile.
Your multinational client has asked you for help implementing a process improvement project for its worldwide customer order processing operation. You whip out this Microsoft Project plan and get to work.
What is the link between Process Reengineering and people? How is process excellence achieved? And what the heck does knowledge managemnt have to do with it all? Read on to find out about the impact that combining these powerful tools can have.
How do we adapt in the face of consistency, or of anarchy or of brutal regimentation? As project managers, the only thing we really have control over is ourselves. Given this, how do we change our approach in a way that enables us to be effective in producing project results, rather than bashing our head repeatedly against an unfeeling and unchanging wall of bureaucracy? Here we take a look at adaptation in the face of organizational consistency.
While working for a small firm, a new PM was asked to go to a major company to help them integrate their IT PMOs...leading to the worst three months of his career. As his two-part article concludes, we find out if if there was truly a light at the end of the tunnel--or just a train coming the other way.
Sometimes things go horribly wrong once. Other times, they go horribly wrong on a routine basis. Ever wonder why that is? If failure is a recurring theme in your projects, you'd be wise to download this deliverable.
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.
Improve your organization's process management capabilities by implementing a toolset that stores your customized methodologies as reusable, improvable processes and converts them into detailed project plans. Here's a Microsoft Project Plan for implementing just such a toolset.
Here is a project plan for a project to model and define the "order-to-cash" business process in a retail environment and recommend process improvement opportunities.
Engaged in the path of transforming their business processes, many organizations need to choose between multiple options available to satisfy their needs. This deliverable is a sample template discussed in the article "The Bumpy Road to Alternate Service Delivery", which presents some practical advice for the analysis and selection process.
Earned value analysis is an excellent technique to assess project health and apply metrics to manage your project. Use this presentation to conduct an earned value orientation for your team members.
On new development projects, the production stage can be the point of no return. Before it’s too late, a rigorous gating process can help to ensure that development activities, teamwide input and critical stakeholder priorities are all aligned with the overall project vision.
Organizations often undertake the wrong projects and fail to understand if the projects they choose actually provide the expected outcomes. The Portfolio HEADWAY process is a project-focused step-by-step process that will help your organization to select the right projects, manage those projects well and, realize the expected benefits. Put Portfolio HEADWAY to work for your organization.
How did project feedback mechanisms and performance goal-setting impact your project? This questionnaire will allow you to analyze these processes, develop conclusions and make recommendations.
Engaged in the path of transforming their business processes, many organizations need to choose between multiple options available to satisfy their needs. This deliverable is a sample template discussed in the article "The Bumpy Road to Alternate Service Delivery", which presents some practical advice for the analysis and selection process.
Engaged in the path of transforming their business processes, many organizations need to choose between multiple options available to satisfy their needs. This deliverable is a sample template discussed in the article "The Bumpy Road to Alternate Service Delivery", which presents some practical advice for the analysis and selection process.
Engaged in the path of transforming their business processes, many organizations need to choose between multiple options available to satisfy their needs. This deliverable is a sample template discussed in the article "The Bumpy Road to Alternate Service Delivery", which presents some practical advice for the analysis and selection process.
Now that you've built yourself an intranet, you'll have to maintain it. This Microsoft Project plan will help you do just that.
Your workforce improvement program will really take off if you use this Microsoft Project plan based on a real-life project to automate the workflow and improve organizational structure, communication and work processes.
Here's a quick and dirty way to determine if a methodology or process is a roadmap or a roadblock.
The social engagement of the project is what underlies every aspect of the project process more so than normal. In social PM, collaboration, transparency and mutual participation is central--with the assumption that if this socially engaging environment and the necessary collaboration tools are in place with a clearly defined project goal, then success should follow. But in order for social PM to work, some principles and guidelines need to be incorporated.
Monitoring quality on your project means tracking the process as well as the product. This template will help you gather all of the quality issues in one place so you can keep on top of your project quality from justification through close-out.
It doesn’t seem that the succession planning process should be so difficult. Yet success in this area seems to elude most companies. Perhaps the seeds for deficiency are sewn in the process itself. So how does an organization achieve a high degree of engagement from its leadership teams?
For anyone thinking about or faced with implementing a PPM tool, here are some tips to keep in mind to help you wade through the sometimes problematic process.
The science behind Scrum is the notion of Empirical Process Control, which that is derived from (and firmly rooted in) industrial process control theory--and applicable to the complexity of human process management that often derails project schedules. This article is outlines the foundations of EPC and how it drives empirically based team management.
This document describes the purpose of risk management and provides an overview of the general process for managing risks within a project. Use it to capture and codify processes and procedures that need to be undertaken to initiate, act upon and review risks within your projects.
Just because there are benefits to consistency and an organizational approach doesn’t mean that is the only--or even the most desirable--way to go in all circumstances. An alternative view starts with two essential principles, which are the first steps in figuring out a way that works for us.
When you need to hire, how do you ensure that you get the right person? This two-part article explores some of those challenges and ways to work around them. In Part 1, we focus on the lead-up to interviews--a process that is often not given the attention it needs.
Buying a software package? How do you know which package best suits your business environment and which vendor will serve you best? This checklist will help you evaluate the key questions and tend to the important details of procuring the right packaged application.
Capture a snapshot of your current processes and systems with this form. By completing one profile for each system, you'll get a good idea of what you have and what it does.
The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a quantitative decision-making methodology that uses pair-wise comparisons to determine the importance of relative evaluation criteria and the relative strengths of decision alternatives. This document is a crash-course in AHP and is designed to help get you making difficult project decisions (particularly package software-related ones) quickly, confidentally and rationally.
How did the corporate career development program and succession planning program impact your project? This questionnaire will allow you to analyze these processes, develop conclusions and make recommendations.
The Change Management process is fundamental to the successful delivery of the project. The Change Management process ensures that each change introduced to the project environment is appropriately defined, evaluated and approved prior to implementation.
We all have issues, and so do our projects. A good project management office has processes in place to handle issues as they come up. Here is a sample process to put into place issue management handling procedures within a PMO setting.
This document describes the purpose of risk management and provides an overview of the general process for the management of risks within a project.
Start your requirements gathering with this all-inclusive document outlining the entire process from start to finish.
We've all done it: failed to identify all of the stakeholders up front. And you only realize it when you need them to approve something, provide resources or assist with the project. What’s the best way to deal with a “forgotten” stakeholder?
A project failure is seldom caused by unknown or mysterious factors. In fact, failure is often predictable based on symptoms and warning signs. And it can be prevented by following a disciplined approach to recovery. Here, an experienced project recovery specialist shares his methodology for fixing a failing initiative.
Despite this global recession, the competitive landscape keeps becoming more urgent and faster paced. You will be expected to keep managing new projects to keep your organization competitive--but will do so with less (and exhausted) resources, tight budgets and more scrutiny for success. How does one meet such challenges and succeed? One of the agile practices tailor made for such an environment is the Lean method.
The Requirements Management Plan is primarily used for communications, giving all stakeholders a view on how this process is managed for your project. It completely answers the very common question, "How are you identifying and managing your project requirements?"
You justified your project, planned it to the last detail and have gotten it approved and activated. Now what? Time to actually do the project--and that means managing the actions needed to insure the plan delivers as promised. In short, time to control the process. Here we explore this critical stage of JPACE in terms of its practical application.
Welcome to the PMO! Does your Program Management Office have a plan for helping new project managers? More than any other function, the PMO varies hugely from one organization to the next--and even from one division to the next. That means that there will always be a ramp-up period for anyone entering as a project manager--and yet many PMOs make no allowance for this.
Do you ever feel like your certification isn’t serving you well? You spent all of that money and the job offers still aren’t pouring in. Or perhaps you have the experience--but you’re being weeded out early in the job search process because you’re missing those fancy letters after your name. Find out what some of your peers have to say.
Ignoring resistance is futile. Use these tactics to be prepared for inevitable resistance to alternate project management techniques. Otherwise, be prepared for a whole lot of frustration.
The elusive achievement of organizational alignment in corporate America is striking. What is needed is the development of an organizational structure and culture that dynamically self-adjusts and recalibrates to an ever-changing environment.
Why do PMOs have such a high failure rate? It's time to take a look at the top 10 PMO worst practices--and advice on how to avoid them.
