Other Posts Archives - Page 8 of 21

Competition or colleagues?

The world of project management is a crowded place. There are multiple profesional accreditation options, multiple project management methodologies and countless books, blogs and tools to manage projects.

This is a good thing. I have never talked to two organizations who managed projects the same way. It makes sense that there would a wide range of options.

In most markets, when you sell something, the other products that are sold to do the same thing as your product are called competition. The customer base is finite and the game is to win over the heart of a majority of those customers. When we talk about AceProject and the world of project management software, this feels wrong to me.

There are many, many, many project management tools out there. Open source tools, free tools, affordable tools, expensive tools, web-based and desktop-based. The Google search for project management tool comes up with 188 million results. With that many players in the race to win over users and fans, how can we even see it […]

By Daniel Raymond|2009-05-08T13:23:00-04:002009-05-08|

The discipline of producing new, fresh content

Go Ahead, Manage is over one year old. I know, it’s young compared to most of the blogs out there. I’ve been writing the majority of Go Ahead, Manage’s content. After a year, I find that the greatest challenge is to have something to say.

This blog is not about my personal life, but about the life of the whole team here, the life of our product, AceProject, and the life of our field, project management.

When we began this blog, I had a lot of things to say, I even had a backlog! As time passed, I got through that backlog and now I find my inspiration a few minutes before I start typing the new post away.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned about blogging is that it requires discipline to produce new, fresh content three times a week. In the last few months, with Twitter taking the world of project management by storm, there is even more content out there about project management, project managers, and managing a business. It becomes a challenge to create content […]

By Daniel Raymond|2009-05-06T13:24:00-04:002009-05-06|

Project metrics: earned value management with a 6-function calculator, part 2

Last time, we focused on how to get the basic project metrics without so much as a basic calculator. On the second part of this post, we’ll focus on estimates.

Estimates seem even trickier than variances and indexes. Because a lot of the original estimating process is fuzzy, it’s easy to assume figures like Estimate to Complete and Estimate at Completion would be hard to understand and hard to believe that – Gasp! – they can be computed with a pen and paper.

Just like last time, we’ll work with a 6-month fictional project with a 50 000$ budget. In order to compute Estimate to Complete and Estimate at Completion, we need the following figures:

Budget at Completion is your project’s total budget. This is (usually) decided when the project is approved
- With our project example, the Budget at Completion is 50 000$.
Earned Value is how much you’ve really accomplished in the project.
- Working with our 6-month project. Let’s pretend that you’re
  only 40% done with the project. That portion of your project budget is
  the Earned Value.
Actual Cost […]

By Daniel Raymond|2009-05-04T13:39:00-04:002009-05-04|

Project metrics: earned value management with a 6-function calculator

Project metrics have a bad reputation. Things like Earned Value and Schedule Performance Index are presented as complex calculations that only experts can master.

Nothing could be further from the truth

Actually, most project metric calculations can be done by anyone with grade-school math skills. The challenge in project metrics calculations is not in the formulas themselves, but in mixing project management concepts with mathematical operators.

Still, these concepts are basic to project management. Every good project manager should understand them.

Start with the basics: Earned Value, Planned Value, Actual Cost

These three are not really formulas. They are the three figures project metrics use to create all the other ones, like the Cost Performance Index and the Estimate to Complete.

Planned Value is how much you were supposed to do in a given period of time.
- For example, let’s say you’re half-way through a 6-month project. Normally, you should be half-way done as well on the project. This means your Planned Value is 50% of the total value (or budget) of your project.
Earned Value is how much you’ve really accomplished in […]

By Daniel Raymond|2009-04-27T14:22:00-04:002009-04-27|

A gutsy move in California

Last week, California’s CIO announced that state projects information would now be available on a web-based dashboard, for everyone to see. This is one gutsy move. It takes a lot of courage (and little fear of failure) to decide to put up a web page that shows whether projects are on time, and on budget, along with 15 more indicators. It takes even more guts to make this information clear and simple: the dashboard will display red/yellow/green visual indicators for each project. Anyone will be able to understand the dashboard.

How transparent are you?

News like this should resonate with every project manager. Project status is the one thing that everyone needs to know, and yet sometimes it’s the hardest piece of information to get. When a project’s status is unknown, people make up their own ideas of how well (or how bad) the project is going.

Furthermore, this news also highlights the importance of having higher management support a project. When the State’s Chief Information Officer makes transparency a priority, it becomes much easier for […]

By Daniel Raymond|2009-04-24T14:44:00-04:002009-04-24|

Virtual teams make everything more difficult

Virtual teams are a fact of today’s projects. With outsourcing and increased mobility for the workforce, there is a higher proportion of people who either work in satellite locations, or simply work from home.

The project team becomes virtual. How can we keep up with everyone when we can’t see them?

A huge part of project management is getting a feel of how the team is doing

How can we do that without seeing the people we work with? After all, the biggest part of a person’s message is not conveyed with words. It’s transmitted via pitch and intonation of voice, the way she sits or stands, her facial expressions and hand gestures. These are all things someone can’t show in an email, a tweet or a chat window. And while video conferencing and conference calls can help getting a bit more from that team member, it’s still not the same as being right in front her.

Another issue is created by writing instead of talking. In writing, people have different personalities. When we write something, it’s not spontaneous. […]

By Daniel Raymond|2009-04-22T14:42:00-04:002009-04-22|

Get over the PMBOK

Since it’s Canadian Project Management week, I thought I would start the week with a PMI-related post.

When I happen to discuss the PMI project management method, I often hear the comment that the PMI’s method is too heavy and creates too much red tape. The Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) is pointed as the big culprit.

Truth is, the PMI and its PMBOK a misunderstood.

Time and time again, the PMI stresses that the PMBOK is a collection of best practices in project management. It’s not a set of regulations. It’s not a list of obligations. It is simply a repository of information for project management.

The PMI does not expect small projects to go through all 50-some processes. That would turn a 6-week project into a 12-week project. In fact, the PMI states:

“The PMBOK Guide identifies that subset of the project management body of knowledge generally recognized as good practice. […] Good practice does not mean the knowledge described should always be applied uniformly to all projects; the organization and/or management team is […]

By Daniel Raymond|2009-04-20T14:34:00-04:002009-04-20|

Canadian Project Management Week

With the Vancouver Olympics project getting a lot of attention worldwide, the Canadian chapters of the PMI have organized a Project Management Week. This is a great time for all Canadian project managers to inform and train their teams about project management today.

The Globe and Mail and the French paper Les Affaires will be running a special insert next week, and your local Canadian PMI chapter has events lined up for you to attend!

To get involved virtually: join the LinkedIn group for the Canadian Project Management Week.

By Daniel Raymond|2009-04-16T14:22:00-04:002009-04-16|

Software should get out of your way and let you work

Last week, Seth Godin made a good point about website design.

Seth made me think about software interface design. I think the same principle should apply here as well: your interface should not be noticeable. It should not take from the work that’s being done.

With AceProject, our goal is to get out of our users’ way and let them manage their projects. It’s nonsense that someone should spend so much time just setting up the project. It’s nonsense that the project manager would have to spend hours and hours babysitting the project. And the sad truth is, with many project management solutions (online and offline), it is often the case.

It is a challenge to make an interface easy to use and functional, without forgetting to make it aesthetically pleasing. But it has to be done. It’s a delicate balance between making features easily accessible and not drowing the users with choices.

I’ve rarely heard someone say “This interface is so complicated, but it’s just too pretty, I can’t stop using the product.” I’ve often […]

By Daniel Raymond|2009-04-14T13:58:00-04:002009-04-14|