Unrehearsed players executing spontaneous postmortems will not reap the full benefits, but cultivated regimens can enable even casual players to consistently succeed and draw expected results in ad hoc postmortems. If you're in a PANIC, maybe it's time to get PACIFIC...
Ideally, every project ends in success, on time and on budget. In the real world, projects are canceled--and the project manager needs to be ready for this eventuality.
Managing issues on a project takes strategic planning and a little finesse so that issues do not turn into show stoppers. Do you have an issue management plan that can handle any problems and still keep the project on track?
Project failure is inevitable...are you equipped to handle it? Major project failure can be a life changer, so you need to make sure that it’s a positive experience by keeping the right outlook. Here's some advice from a PM who lived through a few rough experiences.
The project manager should make sure the lessons learned sessions are positive experiences for all involved. But how can you turn a session on mistakes into something constructive?
What data needs to be captured during project closeout? We’ve all heard about the importance of closing a project properly, and every organization will have a slightly different perspective on what’s important. But there should be some key elements that we always aim for.
No manager wants to demotivate their team, but sometimes their actions have unintended consequences. How can well-intentioned actions backfire?
Asking the right questions is the key to a successful post-mortem. This is especially true for analyzing project workforce control techniques. This list of questions will help assess your workforce control efforts.
Project management is all about people and relationships--and there will be times when not everyone gets along. Projects have the potential to be political hotbeds as stakeholders have their own personal agendas--and that applies just as much to team members as it does to the sponsor or customer. Here we present a true story of politics and the destruction of departmental relations...learn from it before it's too late!
Whether the end of the project is a celebration or a time for tears, it is important to take the time to properly close the project. While there are some subtle differences in closing a project with a party or a wake, a carefully defined checklist will help with either ending to the project.
Much has been written about project failures, but what about teams? It seems that management has little or no appreciation for the value of a team that exists beyond the project. Why do teams fail and what is the impact of those failures?
There is a cost to project management; it is not free, and it does not happen by magic. When this writer looks at where he got into trouble as a project manager as he was developing his career, he can point to very specific failures--ones that inexorably led to fundamental problems on the projects that he was responsible for. Trace back from those problems, and some concrete and specific themes emerge.
Think you're having a rough project? Maybe you should put yourselves in Santa's sizable shoes...he's not having a happy holiday season so far. Maybe his elves--or someone else (cough*you*cough)--can come to the rescue.
Document a business case to persuade upper management to fund your project. Keep it short and succinct enough that the busy executive management audience will read and digest it. It should directly convey the information they need to know with salient, hard-hitting, supporting evidence that addresses the bottom line. This is a basic instructional framework of the information you should include in your business case. Enhance it as you wish!
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.
This checklist is a quick and dirty way of weighing risk factors against project criteria to discover level of risk.
Formulating a business case and proposing your project to senior management for buy-in can be tricky. Don't dive right in and start writing. Begin with a solid checklist of guidelines to ensure a business case that's more than buzzword hype.
Mission-critical projects need to be well-justified, with clear goals that can be referenced throughout the life of the project. This business case template offers an excellent approach to goal-setting and a way to communicate those goals effectively.
This is a high-level example of a Project Charter for implementing a methodology, but the structure and approach will work for many projects. This example is heavy on risks and assumptions, light on budgeting, role descriptions and conflict resolution.
The project sponsor is your project's champion. This guideline will help you pick the right person for this important job.
The attached tool has been developed to assist you in generating some solid payback data to be used to evaluate the return potential of your proposed method. Not only will it help the gods of finance see the light, but will also help you to understand whether your project is a winner or loser before you ever put your signature on the purchase requisition.
This excellent project justification guide will provide sophisticated advice to maximize the impact of your business case, making it accurate, complete and persuasive. In addition, learn some handy tips, techniques and strategies to complement existing procedures, templates and spreadsheets that you already use.
Presenting a winning business case with the right amount of the right information for the right audience is the key to getting approval and funding for your project! Here is a presentation that will give you the fine points on how to do just that.
No project was ever completed on time and within budget. Identifying risks associated with a project and mitigating them is a crucial activity of project planning. Managers need to not only analyze project risks, but also must develop contingency plans to address those risks.
The project sponsor checklist describes ways for the project sponsor to provide commitment and project support in an effective, visible manner.
Building an application? This checklist outlines 52 potential risk areas in application development, defining low, medium and high risk levels for each. Classifying your project risk in each of these areas will not only guide you in forming mitigation strategies, but really help you focus your management attention during the course of the project.
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"What is the voice of song, when the world lacks the ear of taste?" - Nathaniel Hawthorne |
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