What's going on with your project? Use this document to report to your PMO, project steering committee or to project stakeholders everything about your project -- recent activities, financial status, risk review, issues, milestones, deliverables and planned activities within future time periods.
Project management is all about communications. In fact, some have argued that 90% of a project manager's time is spent communicating with others. Even if you think this number is exaggerated, most will agree that a project manager is generally in constant contact, either verbally or in written form, with project sponsors, team members or other stakeholders.
This file requires the WebEx Player. It is 4.8Mb.
Trust is an important part of any relationship, as project managers are well aware. Trusting your team, your project sponsors, even your own judgment is crucial to getting your job done. Here is a set of checklists to help you evalute how trustworthy you are.
When gathering requirements, many participants will be eager to dive into very specific user needs. But what is the right level of detail when it comes to business requirements? What are the risks of too much or too little information?
Just what is governnance, and how will you know you’re not getting it? In fulfilling the project governance role, there are a number of key activities that any project sponsor and steering committee member should be addressing, regardless of the underlying paradigm being adopted and the overall philosophy of the project manager.
The Mayans may have had the first timeboxed project--they had a strict 2012 timebox cutoff with little room for extension (you know, since the world would no longer exist). Although agile methods have been preaching the benefits of fixed timeboxed schedules since their creation, it still raises concerns with many stakeholders. That's because timeboxing with flexing scope is the worst form of project compromise--until, that is, you try the alternatives.
The project sponsor checklist describes ways for the project sponsor to provide commitment and project support in an effective, visible manner.
To recover a troubled project you must have the experience to "see it how it is" and the courage to "call it like you see it." You also must negotiate a different set of rules by which to manage the project, with an emphasis on change. If you possess these qualities, the troubled project environment may be for you.
While projects have become larger and more complex, the expectations being placed on them are progressively more demanding, particularly with respect to the cost and schedule associated with getting them done. Here we give you some guidance in presenting the unknown and getting it accepted.
This article will explore how to establish the right governance process so it will be utilized and maintained within a business team.
Project leaders and sponsors would rather be involved in projects that will effectively solve business problems, and for this reason, they should be the first to recognize the importance of having a skilled business analyst on their teams. Tapping the power of business analysis minimizes the risk of project failure.
Much of the unwanted drama we face as project managers comes from people not understanding their roles and responsibilities. When people don’t know what is expected of them, they rarely perform well. It’s our job to make sure that doesn’t happen. But first, we must understand our role — and why we really want it.
Screening candidates on PMP certification is not enough to determine if they are an effective project manager. Use the following key questions to help staff your project and program management teams.
Project managers can often forget what's at the core of business intelligence--giving senior management the tools to make more focused, confident decisions. A look at one PM's experience provides some valuable lessons to take away.
Should project teams stop conducting post-mortems and wasting time by facilitating lessons-learned workshops? When this writer first heard these words, he thought it would’ve been considered blasphemy. Then he thought about it...
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 “chicken and pig” lore of Scrum is no longer part of the updated Scrum Guide. This is a welcome change, and should be helpful as practitioners go about implementing Scrum on projects — and explaining it to stakeholders throughout the organization.
Finding sponsors to back your project is an art. Make a compelling case for the project to gain sponsor support when you are pitching your business case to executive management. Here is an example of a brief, direct project concept designed to lure sponsors into your camp.
Here's a toolkit full of planning templates for instituting and managing organizational change and enrolling sponsors in your project.
The project sponsor is your project's champion. This guideline will help you pick the right person for this important job.
Why do sponsors refuse to provide contingency for risks? It’s not going to go away, you know! It's time to talk about reserves--the amount of time and money that needs to be put aside to cope with the risks on a project. In particular, we want to look at the mindset of the sponsor who refuses to acknowledge this contingency in the budget and schedule.
If it is not clear to your project sponsors that their ultimate success is dependent on you and your team, follow these steps to "educate" them and gain the support and involvement you need.
Unless senior executives make better decisions, project results remain the same. So how do we get to better governance decisions? How do we build better sponsors, steering committees and executive overseers? How can the organization create a decision-making environment that improves project results, rather than disabling it? Read on.
This writer was searching for the elusive missing piece that would allow project management to finally break through and be on par with other professional fields. The key piece we have all been missing finally struck him…Latin!
More experienced PMs are one of the greatest sources of assistance that you can have. Are you taking advantage of their knowledge? Use them and ask as many questions as possible, because there really is no such thing as a stupid question--except the one that you never ask.
The purpose of the project proposal template is the first step to gain approval of a project moving forward. Similar to a project charter, it provides the initiator of the project with an avenue to document the purpose of the project, the objectives, and the basic information need to see the project approved through to the planning stage.
Sponsors and stakeholders expect certain things. And your project team needs to discover, review and document certain expectations as requirements. Use this detailed interview template for this discussion with the sponsor, as well as when interviewing various stakeholders.
A veteran project management consultant shares some hard lessons learned from a challenging international engagement, including the importance of identifying the real decisionmakers early on, and the danger of assuming every project sponsor is willing and able.
It's important to clarify the purpose and status reporting expectations early in the project. Here, we share a sample integration management cadence for a large project or program that effectively balances the time with the administrative overhead.
Many organizations don’t do a good job measuring the benefits of the projects within their portfolios, and many more fail to formally compare the realized benefits to the estimated benefits in the business case. The process of business realization management can help.
Getting off the ground starts with a business case. This project plan is the first giant step you'll need to move forward with your proposed project.
The purpose of a status report is to provide the project sponsor, the steering committee and other stakeholders with an understanding of how the project is progressing. The status report template allows the project manger to provide the audience members with a high-level view of the project. The template provides them with enough information in order to for them to understand project progress whilst not so much information as to overwhelm them.
When a project is complete, it can be very useful to revisit the project in its entirety to understand if it actually met the original goals and objectives that it was initiated to do. The post implementation review template provides a direction and focus to the post implementation reviewing guiding the project manager or anyone else leading the review through an organized process.
On any projects, issues can arise that have the potential to impact the risk level of the project and/or reduce the overall productivity of the project team. The Issues Identification Form allows the project manager to identify and define issues as they occur on the project ensuring they are managed for the benefit of the project.
This easily customizable agenda template allows the project manager or meeting chair to quickly create a meeting agenda for steering committee meetings.
The purpose of the project acceptance form is to formally indicate that he project or phase of the project is now complete. In a summary form, it captures the key project summary information (final budget, effort and start and finish dates, a list of deliverables, and indicates closeout contracts. It becomes a primary communication vehicle to indicate that the sponsor accepted the deliverables and is formally closing the project down. It would also be used if the project were to be delayed, postponed or cancelled.
It's important to avoid confusion around decision-making authority. This template helps you have a productive discussion with your project sponsor and agree on the types of decisions you can make and the ones that need to be escalated.
Why do so many project managers fail to deal with risks on their projects? In this article, we examine some of the reasons and explore some ways to tackle the problem.
10:30 a.m. ET -- PMXPO 2012 opens!
11-12:15 a.m. ET – Keynote Presentation: CSI: Projects by David Berman and Jon Wellner
12:15-12:30 ET – Keynote Sponsor: Microsoft Tools for Project Collaboration Success
12:30-12:45 ET – Booth Time
12:45-1:45 ET – Session 1: Most Valuable Certifications: A Recipe for Your Perfect Alphabet Soup
1:45-2:15 – Booth Time
2:15-3:15 ET – Session 2: Brave New World of PPM: What We Need, Why We Need It and How To Get There
3:15-3:30 ET – Session Sponsor: How Collaboration is Changing the PPM World by CA
3:30-3:45 ET – Booth Time
3:45-4:45 – Session 3: Going For Gold: Delivering Successfully Despite Uncertainty
4:45-5 ET – Session Sponsor: Can Projects Run 20-50% Faster? by Realization Technologies
5-5:15 ET – Booth Time
5:15-6:15 ET – Session 4: Efficiency vs. Effectiveness: Defining a CXO's Bottom Line
6:15-6:30 ET – Session Sponsor: Combining Enterprise Efficiency with Project Effectiveness by Oracle
6:30-6:45 ET – Booth Time
6:45-7:45 ET – Session 5: Managing Agility: Embracing the Benefits of Agile Leadership
7:45-8 ET – Booth Time
8-8:15 ET – Closing Remarks: PMXPO 2012 in Review
8:15-8:30 ET – Booth Time/Show Closes
All other things being equal, the better a project’s business case and requirements are analyzed and communicated, the better the overall outcomes. And business analysts, by job definition, are going to fulfill this responsibility better than project managers.
You have a bright idea deserving of funding and implementation. Here's how to get it down on paper so your boss and a sponsor with deep pockets will say, That's brilliant. Do it!
When will the project start? Who's in charge? This memo template will help you tell it like it is. Remember, inquiring minds need to know!
You're a project sponsor with a number of project manager candidates. Who is right for the job? Use this worksheet to score candidates on a number of selection criteria.
After the review process, a formalized closure letter needs to be written that concisely identifies the project, any key aspects about it and the fact that it is now formally complete.
Keep your project planning kick-off meeting on track. Use this agenda to make sure you say what needs to be said.
Use this form to record formal acceptance of a project's existence within your PMO or company.
You have a great idea for a proposal. Here's a way how to put it in writing to catch the attention of sponsors, potential stakeholders and your upper management.
This quick summary-level template helps you keep track of project status by department. It’s very useful as a leave behind for meetings with executive sponsors.
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.
Project Management Institute is seeking proposals from scholars both within and outside the field of project management for research with a direct application to any aspect of the Project Management Body of Knowledge or its practice.
