Project Management Software > Metrics Tracking Software

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.

Agile and earned value are inherently different approaches to managing projects, but they can complement each other in support of flexibility and bottom-line value. Here are three practical tips to help you bridge the gap between an agile approach and the earned value reports and measurements many organizations require.

CMMI provides several models that organizations can use to identify best practices and organizational improvements. Studying the maturity models and researching earned value management readiness reveals a series of baby steps for organizations to adopt EVM.

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.

All the project measures in the world are useless if the end result is not of high quality. But how do you quantify quality? What metrics measure how good something is? Agile practices respond by making quality part of the process rather than something you measure along the way.

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.

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.

In order to assess a project’s schedule status, you need to review the integrated project schedule and answer three questions. Find out what they are--and how to answer them--inside.

What are the business drivers for enterprise project portfolio management, what are the consolidation challenges and what is the solution?

As we enter 2011, it's time for a refresher--it's the perfect time to explore the cross section of views and perspectives about PMOs. It's the perfect time to see what others are thinking regarding the state of PMOs, and this article will focus on starting a PMO, avoiding PMO failure, trends and the future of the PMO.

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.

Although the role of the business stakeholder has evolved using agile as a methodology, the business need or pesky constraint typically remains for delivering functionality by a particular date. Hence, project success many times is still measured by delivering functionality by a pre-defined date to meet business goals. Here we offer some suggestions to try if your organization is using an agile methodology--yet expected to deliver a large-scale project that has the same constraints that have existed over time.

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.

Contrary to a recent report, PMO longevity doesn't lead to greater success; PMO success leads to longevity. And PMOs that thrive share fundamental commonalities of alignment, from culture to customer, that they start getting right early in their existence. Here are six ways your PMO needs to be aligned.

Despite challenges, many organizations effectively measure aspects of their project work. Here are some best practices for developing and maintaining a successful metrics program, from defining items and procedures to making it a habit and respecting privacy.

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.

Unchecked and forgotten, minor difficulties are left alone until they bubble up and become real irritations. Having a systematic process in your customer service and support area--one that allows you to act proactively with clients to correct these issues--can set you apart from competitors and give your own project teams peace of mind.

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.

Decisions on IT Governance are easy when your company has ample resources and infrastructure to implement and support it. As companies get smaller, however, those decisions get much more difficult. Here are some guidelines to help you evaluate and prioritize your needs to build a strategy for getting the maximum benefit while staying within your means.

How do you know how your project is doing? Metrics are going to be part of the answer. Here’s a review of some commonly used metrics … what they can measure … how to choose the right ones for your project … why a simplified dashboard can help … and pitfalls to avoid.

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?

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?

Agile projects are optimized for different constraints than traditional ones. To truly understand how to design a performance measurement system for agile PM, we need to dig a little deeper into the value system underlying agile methods.

More and more, companies are looking at project management from an organization-wide perspective, but they are making assumptions about the current state of project execution within those organizations. How hard can it be to identify the projects underway and the teams managing them? It shouldn't be too difficult to inventory the project portfolio...right?

Portfolio Management is about managing the flow of projects through their transitions into and out of the basket of projects being pursued by the organization--and thus integral to the activities found in the PMO. In order to keep PPM processes easy to understand and implement, they will be presented in terms of pre-, active and post-portfolio activities--which we explore here.

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?

Successful business execution is dependent upon having timely and accurate financial information. But too often, little thought is put into how to present the data in a meaningful way. From a project or portfolio perspective, what does a C-Level executive expect to see from the PMO for actionable decision-making?

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.

Integrated support for customer product planning, requirements definition, release and iteration tracking, and defect and test management.

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.

Anxiety and strain on the job is normal, but in the process of using Scrum it is common to find product development groups and senior management going head to head. Here we look at some keys to its successful implementation.

New Business Intelligence offering from Oracle features role-based intelligence to track project performance.

With the cost, quality and complexity of healthcare under a national microscope these days, some hospitals are already realizing critical improvements by implementing project portfolio management, thanks to niche solutions designed specifically for their needs.

When it comes to standardizing project management practices, PMOs are essential. If your organization doesn’t have a PMO, here are some ways to approach the concept. (And even if you do have a PMO, they will serve as important reminders!)

Project managers can report progress on agile projects using metrics that may appeal to stakeholders steeped in more traditional practices. Two approaches gaining appeal are agile earned value management and iteration status reports.

With social media continuing to gain traction in the marketplace, it's an easy bet to say it’s here to stay. Read on for some additional thoughts about what social media can do for the PM profession.

In the ever-increasing speed trip down the ramp of badly made cost-cutting decisions, many mainstream manufacturers are compromising on the quality of their products. To help address this, we all need to more carefully monitor the quality of our supplier goods.