Process > Critical Success Factors

Earned Value Management is recognized within the project management domain as an effective cost and risk management technique. The formulas are not difficult to understand. So if EV isn’t difficult to calculate, why isn’t it more prevalent?

A new survey from Project Management Institute identifies key trends in project, program and portfolio management, including a renewed focus on talent development and increased use of agile methods. The results also point to critical success factors, among them clearly defining expected benefits, ensuring top-level management support, and creating a career path for project participants.

Establishing a program management office is a project in Itself. And like all projects, you need a charter that presents a clear and measurable purpose, scope, schedule, quality, budget, risks and critical success factors. Here are guidelines for creating a charter for your PMO project.

The goal of this article is to encourage project managers to participate in an academic survey to help determine if an organization is ready to apply earned value management to its projects. If you are interested in learning more about EVM--and providing input into an assessment tool to help determine if an organization is ready to apply earned value--please read on!

Does your organization have the right processes in place to support the next great idea? Once an evaluation and selection framework is in place, aligning an “idea pipeline” with the project portfolio is crucial. Otherwise, your next star project might not even get a chance to soar doomed or less-promising initiatives drain resources.

Are you ready for EVM? Our writer conducted a study on earned value management readiness based on 40 critical factors found in successful EVM implementations, and here we present the Top 10.

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.

Although many organizations are adequately capturing lessons learned, they often struggle with learning and reusing them on current projects. A detailed analysis of the lessons-learned programs at three organizations uncovered these nine best practices that can help you and your team share and find all those lost lessons.

To enhance performance and get a jump on their competitors, companies no longer need managers, they need leaders. Leadership has become a widely examined topic of academic research, especially within business schools. There is now a substantial body of research and literature on all aspects of leadership: what it is, how it influences the behavior of individuals and groups, and how it achieves its effects. Here we take a look at leadership competencies and project results.

A new book emphasizes the integration of project management and change management to improve the chances of success for business, IT and other organizational initiatives.

The most effective virtual team leaders are able to balance execution-oriented practices with interpersonal skills and cultural factors. Communication is king, according to a study of 48 virtual teams that identified five best practices for virtual team leadership.

Risky behaviors and attitudes are needed to advise and build trust with your team. Can you accept the risk? This article reviews why project management competency measures are important, and how the view of competency has evolved with the PMI Project Management Competency Framework. The article then highlights three critical success factors of personal competency, a component of the framework.

We need to learn and understand more about the potential of Business Intelligence. One of these gaps is being able to understand and communicate the value it brings to organizations. Like many of the other management disciplines, that value is often difficult to quantify. As a result, the lifespan of any given BI function is shorter or more limited than it should be.

Many, if not most, projects rely on outside suppliers — vendors, contractors, consultants — for critical activities and expertise. But these partnerships can do more harm than good if ground rules aren’t established and respeected throught the project. Here are seven factors for working successfully with your project’s external participants.

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.

After three or four projects, you learn that there are a few things that must go right for most any project to succeed. These are generally referred to as the Critical Success Factors, or CSFs. Here are six:

In the history of organizations trying to implement and get some value from project management, there has been a string of buzzwords that have captured the hearts, minds and budget approvals of senior executives. Why doesn't the hype of portfolio management seem to measure up in real life?

Projects@Work is supporting an academic survey to help develop an assessment tool for determining an organization’s readiness to apply earned value management to its projects. Here’s how you can participate.

There is no “Holy Grail” for managing a project, but there are certain fundamentals that can influence your results for the better, more often than not. From upfront discovery session to holistic communication throughout the life of the project, here are nine steps that can make you a better project manager.

Your project indicators must go beyond past phases and address readiness for upcoming tasks and activities. This is one of six principles for implementing a project assurance methodology that can help minimize surprises, provide objective analysis, and build trust among team members and stakeholders.

The year is almost half over, so it's time to think about needs and objectives for next year. Follow these planning guidelines for CIOs to make sure you have all your business bases covered.

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.

The project manager’s critical success factor will be leadership skills, according to a global panel of consultants and senior executives assembled by ESI International.

When implementating a program or portfolio management solution, it is better to have 80 percent of the potential users of the system (adoption rate) using 20 percent of the system functionality, than to have 20 percent of the users exercising 80 percent of the system functionality.

The fostering of any successful relationship requires us to see the world, issues, concerns and needs through the lens of the other person. Additionally, you need to factor the person’s influence, position and attitude toward you into your assessment of how to cultivate and manage the relationship. This holds true for SRM as well--and purposely taking these elements of the relationship into account when designing your communications plan will only add to your success.

Between political necessities and organizational realities, defining a structure where PMOs make sense can be challenging. What needs to change for the implementation of a PMO to be successful? Read on to find out four critical success factors to ensure the political survival of a PMO.

On bid projects, a poorly managed transition from the sales team to the service delivery team can put the engagement at risk even before the kickoff meeting. Here is advice on what, how and when information should be shared during and after the sales phase in order to align expectations.

After more than 20 years in the financial services industry, this writer thought he knew exactly what to anticipate moving into his new role as a software vendor project manager. He was wrong...

An equipment manufacturer is turning away new business. An airline is delaying flights due to maintenance issues. A homebuilder is struggling with a regulatory-driven software implementation. Here is a look at how three companies turned to Critical Chain to fix debilitating project management problems.

At the heart of agile methods is the key tenet that teams and teamwork are better than individual contributions and effort. Here we explore the key factors and attributes of teams and teamwork for agile project management.

In many ways, starting a new Project Portfolio Office is easier than inheriting a PPO that is already in process. However, the risk assessment process is essentially the same. Assessing risk of project delays and failures on the PPO basket of projects, at a minimum, should consider six areas. Find out what they are--and plenty more crucial risk management information--inside.

When it comes down to it, does the “rock” of domain experience really beat the “paper” of project management skills?

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.

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.