Sustaining a Positive Environment: Be Acute!

Many things make it difficult to sustain a positive project environment. The solution is to ensure that our attention to task definition, task assignment and task monitoring is acute.

Productivity Beyond Prioritization

Faced with overwhelming workloads, we are often advised to “prioritize,” as if that is some sort of magical spell. We need to look beyond prioritization. Here are some useful tools and techniques that can be applied by individuals as well as teams to increase productivity.

How to Integrate Time Zones for Successful Collaboration

Many managers of distributed agile software teams struggle with time zones. Team members may also struggle with maintaining a traditional eight-hour workday when separated by multiple time zones. Perhaps it’s not the time zones that are the challenge; the real challenge lies in re-thinking the workday of the team.

Introducing Program Maps

A program map is a diagramming technique used for showing the relationship between various components (usually operations and project-type activities) of a program and program events plotted against time. Program maps, when properly constructed, can convey a lot of information that stakeholders can easily absorb.

Topic Teasers Vol. 112: PMBOK^® Guide—Sixth Edition New Earned Schedule Theory

Project Crashing Using Critical Path Method

Project crashing is the name given to schedule compression techniques that are used to shorten the duration of a project without changing the scope. Two techniques, fast tracking and crashing, with cost and schedule trade-offs, are analyzed to determine how to obtain the best result.

Project Management Tattoos That Don't Wash Off (Part 2)

Getting a tattoo is an act of meaning. You get “inked” to help you remember something: an idea, a person, an inspiration. What PM tattoos should you consider to help you on your road to success? Part 2 explores more ink options.

How to Avoid the Project Status Meeting

Project team status meetings are boring. Worse, they take up valuable time. So how then can the project manager get updates from the team on the progress of assigned tasks if not with a weekly status meeting? Through individual status updates.

Deciding on a Data Date

For big complicated projects, the process of schedule update data collection can take many days. This is where one of the most common questions arises: Which data date should you consider?

Begin With the Endgame

Endgames help to clear a path for specific outcomes—learning the micro to understand the macro. Projects are all about the finished product or service. How you get there starts with your determination of the endgame.