Monitoring and Controlling

By Ronald Brown • May 11th, 2012

Global commoditization and complexity make innovation an urgent priority for firms of all sizes. And to promote innovation in a meaningful way, individual development teams must be the focal point of your strategy. Culture and vision are extremely important components, and developing them properly takes time and effort, but innovation improvement is mainly an organic, [...]

Part III – Predictive Modelling for Collegiate Academic Excellence – An Ongoing Case Study! Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Co-Author and Project Lead Contributor, Ms. Reethika S. Iyer*   Background: In Parts I and II, we touched upon the value proposition in understanding the impact of high school on final examination performance.  We concluded with results [...]

Part II – Effect of High School on Final Board Examination –The Analytical Treatise Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Co-Author-Project Lead Contributor, Ms. Reethika S. Iyer*     Background: In Part I, we shared our experience on how parents make decisions to selecting high schools. Once the students graduate they are then again faced with the [...]

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence Part II (of an III Part Series) Validating Project Timelines against Expected Changes in Customer Requirements Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Mr. Gustav Toppenberg Background for “Changes in Customer Requirement:” In Part I we initiated discussions on how the KPI needs to link with the business goals and objectives.  In [...]

You have all heard the old saying, “Time is money”. Well, obviously, this one is very true. Especially in our modern, fast-paced world of rapid product development cycles and short time-to-market windows, every second lost in a product development cycle means lost customers, lost sales, or even business failure. So, what are you as a [...]

When things are not going our way, we need to stop and evaluate; because things are supposed to work smoothly together. So, when we find any type of resistance, chances are something isn’t matching. Either the rules or the people involved are not aligned. Once again – no one is doing anything wrong. It’s just not a perfect match, yet.

This is the second part of a three part article discussing “how does a project manager intelligently handle delays?”

Last article we focused on acknowledging the natural flow of a project which includes periodic speed bumps and roadblocks. In today’s article we’ll focus on using critical path analysis to assist with project management. Diagramming the critical paths of a project accomplishes several things:

Last week I was taping a series of lectures for the Sequel Server World Wide User Group (SSWUG.org), and I was asked “how does a project manager handle items that causes us to miss deadlines?”

This is an interesting question, because every project will have speed bumps. A good project manager expects speed-bumps and actually plans for the unexpected. So – how does one do this intelligently to synchronize with the final delivery dates?

This is the second part of a three part article discussing “how does a project manager intelligently handle delays in a project?”

Last article we focused on acknowledging the natual flow of a project which includes periodic speed bumps and roadblocks. In today’s article we’ll focus on using recovery protocol plans to assist with project management.

I am part of the generation that has been told from birth that “as long as you have your college degree, you can grow up to do anything you want.” Realistically speaking, this concept is flawed, or at least overly general. I can’t become a Brain Surgeon with a degree in Social Behavior, and I [...]

Did you know Project Management is having a birthday? Well, sort of a birthday. It was 100  years ago, in 1911, that Frederick W. Taylor published Principles of Scientific Management. Early pioneers of project management, such as Henry Gantt, were followers of Dr. Taylor. Now, for historical accuracy, it should be noted that Dartmouth College [...]

What are some of the main causes behind estimating errors? And what specific steps can project managers can take to increase the accuracy of estimations?

A lot goes on around me as I’m working on any project and I’ve learned is to pay attention to things at the corners of my focus: little comments at the end of a statement are one of the most important – what I call watching out of the corner of my ear. A lot [...]

If you are managing a project to deliver a new product or service, you’ll be making lots of decisions.  If you are doing a good job of keeping your stakeholders involved, there will undoubtedly be scrutiny about those decisions. Most companies are filled with smart, highly-trained managers who make it their job to be critical [...]

Nope. There’s just no way around it.  You are going to have to work with people. Even if you are a “technical project manager” buried in the bowels of a data center or focused on software projects or on enterprise application integration projects, the key to your success is how you work with people. Your [...]

Last time, I talked about status reporting, which is commonly required but whose power as a multitool is often overlooked. Today I am going to talk about a tool that is frequently overlooked altogether – the contingency management plan. Projects are initiated for a reason – in a business setting, to create something of business [...]

Status reports (or whatever your particular methodological school calls them) are frequently maligned – c.f. “TPS Reports” in the movie Office Space – and misused. They are the weekly report that you just have to grind out for your project or program that shows you have been doing something, that you suspect no one reads [...]

When you first start out as a professional project manager, you typically have had some informal project management experience as part of your other professional responsibilities. Then you take a serious PM course or two, maybe get a PMP and suddenly you find yourself equipped with a giant tool chest full of powerful and complex [...]

A common culprit behind schedule slips is adding up estimates for building subunits and not accounting for verification and integration.  In software, a piece of code may pass unit testing, but fail when integrated with other blocks. The code may work on one operating system, but not the four that the product declares it supports.  [...]

We’ve all heard the groan: “We have an aggressive schedule to meet.” The fact is, it’s not the “schedule” timeline that is aggressive; rather, it’s what we choose to fit into it. Adopting an attitude of progress refinement (perfecting over perfection) with the confidence percentage strategy helps reduce this tension between promised and actually delivered tasks.

How do you schedule innovation? A common conflict, even in a well planned and organized environment is marketing’s request for a new feature yesterday versus engineering’s expectation for it to take weeks to months, or even years to deliver.  In addition to the starting point gap in availability, it is extremely difficult to accurately estimate [...]