Project Management Software > Issue Tracking Software

Why is change control so important? With everything a project manager is responsible for, why so much concern over it? What does it really mean, and how do we perform it?

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.

In the previous installment, we reviewed five effective leadership behavior questions. This article provides a set of technical project management questions that assess the candidate’s knowledge of project management tools and techniques.

Recently, concerns have surfaced regarding the viability of the remaining three months of your project. Management wants quantitative evidence that it will finish successfully and on time. You need to act and act now. Before hitting the panic button, rely on these proven techniques to help achieve success.

Is there any advantage to using Cloud-based project management tools to manage projects? Is it cheaper and more effective? Are the tools more feature-rich? And what about the disadvantages? Here is what some research has revealed…

PM principles state that there should be absolute clarity in obtaining the requirements. If the fog of ambiguity clouds this phase, the delivered project will never be accepted by the stakeholders. Here we examine some of the glaring issues in the requirements management process.

Morale killers can disrupt and damage a project’s forward momentum. This article explores some of the ways to move past them and keep the project on track.

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...

Much of the ScrumMaster's role has been focused on the individual effort of leading a single team through the successful completion of a Scrum project. At some point, a person who has successfully established themselves in an organization will be looked on to take on more responsibilities. What would these responsibilities be? What kind of career roadmap would be best suited for a person who is an established ScrumMaster?

It is clear that both roles are essential and integral to the success of a project, but often on small projects the manager and administrator role are combined. Regardless of which role you are playing in your organization, it is important to understand the distinctions and the need for both.

Risk meetings are under-appreciated--but a vital part of risk management during project execution. A regularly scheduled risk meeting can help keep risks managed properly, and it is the project manager’s job to bring the resources to the table and help assist the project by naming and mitigating risks.

When something goes rotten in your PMO or project portfolio, all of your projects may be in jeopardy. The best way to handle crisis across multiple projects is to treat it like the train wreck it appears to be. Take a lesson from the medical community and triage the damage before you start trying to treat the wounded.

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.

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.

The cloud is moving in and taking over. What does this mean for the typical project manager? And as importantly, what does this mean for the organization considering moving its projects into the cloud? Clearly there are some benefits, but there are also some potential challenges. In this column, we examine both sides of the issue in an effort to bring some clarity to project management in the cloud.

Issues and action items are often lumped together, but there are differences--and they require different strategies to make sure they don't derail your project. Do you have a plan in place?

Supporting project delivery across project, program, PMO and portfolio management processes, BrightWork is a SharePoint-based collaboration tool that can be adapted to each organization’s capability and maturity level without overwhelming users with unnecessary functionality.

You're leading the team to deliver...what more do they want?! This article highlights a few, simple best practices that--if introduced at the beginning of your project--might help you easily control costs along the way.

Assuming we have decent software, the essential strategy for making it work well is deciding how we want to work with it. In this article, we explore the considerations behind what we need to do to develop a good workflow for using software. What are the things we need to think about in using the software? What are the critical steps that actually enable us to define a useful software workflow? And why should we care?

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.

A project out of control doesn’t just happen overnight. It often takes weeks or months of inadequate knowledge of what the workforce understands about the project. Use these techniques to avoid failure due to naiveté.

How do we ensure that we aren’t running around reprimanding team members and shouting “No!” to everything that comes out of the customer’s mouth? Here are three steps to set scope management in motion and ensure that it’s a positive for the project.

There is lots of great information available on how to use agile methods for custom software development projects, but less so for package implementations. Commercial-Off-The-Shelf solutions make up a large percentage of the IT projects undertaken by companies each year, and many organizations are missing out on benefits that an agile package approach can bring.

It’s not enough to manage a good agile project, you have to be seen managing it. In this article, we explore why this is the case--and look at how to provide better visibility on what’s happening on your agile initiative.

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.

Instead of measuring quality, Agile enterprises commit to it by investing in integration and testing, developing a common language around quality, and nurturing motivated, disciplined teams. Ultimately, quality reigns when organizations value it as much as profitability and protect the agile processes that support it.

Project control is not about the minutiae, it’s about the big picture. Here we provide some guidelines on how to move from micro-level project management to a more macro-level control phase.