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.
Is "consultant" a dirty word? Many consultants get a bad name from the fact that they become indistinguishable from the organizational employees that they work alongside. How do you know that hiring a consultant is a good idea?
Green is beautiful, and it is certainly the color of IT looking into the future. There is a challenge, however, to coordinating the environmental shade of green with the financial one. Here are some thoughts and ideas for greening up your IT initiatives while holding on to the green stuff that pays the bills.
Effective decision-making requires forecasting the outcome of each option based on the probability of alternative scenarios. As a project manager, you must become the financial advisor on your project. Management reserve should be added to your baseline costs, then used to manage the uncertainty of risks and to mitigate variability.
How long should we spend on planning as a proportion of the project lifecycle? That's a very good question, and one this practitioner often gets asked. So, is there an answer?
In fixed bid projects, effective project selection, vendor management, a good contract, organizational change management and project management all play a role in ensuring a positive outcome. In this article, the author discusses how to manage fixed bid IT projects with a focus on the vendor's perspective. The crucial phases in the lifecycle of a fixed bid project and how to effectively navigate them are examined.
Money will always be a significant factor in any project you undertake. Having a good handle on how to build credible budgets is essential to successful project management. These approaches can help.
Are you looking beyond individual departments and focusing on the value created in the full series of activities they perform to create and deliver their product? Here’s the story of one PM who was willing to step beyond her role to move the focus of “better, cheaper, sooner” to the whole chain of work her firm delivered to its customer.
As project managers, it’s essential to understand that our project budgets exist in a broader economic reality. Here we explore two vital steps: taking a budget self-assessment, and taking a strategic approach to budget reductions.
Using a step-by-step approach to budgeting will make your life easier in the long run, allow you to accurately answer any questions about project expenditures, make much more accurate future cost estimates for similar projects and generally give you more control over the project. Here's some help.
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"I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need." - Rodin |
