The Art of Project Management: Expert advice from experienced project managers in Silicon Valley, and around the world
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PMP and LSS for Students in Colleges and High Schools Part II – Effect of High School on Final Board Examination –The Analytical Treatise

PMP and LSS for Students in Colleges and High Schools  Part II – Effect of High School on Final Board Examination –The Analytical Treatise

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 [...]

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PMP and LSS for Students in Colleges and High Schools: Part I – Impact of High School Choice on Student Final Year Performance

PMP and LSS for Students in Colleges and High Schools:  Part I – Impact of High School Choice on Student Final Year Performance

Part I – Impact of High School Choice on Student Final Year Performance Dr. Shree R. Nanguneri and Project Lead Contributor, Ms. Reethika S. Iyer* Background: In an earlier publication on this forum we focused our discussions on the relevance, meaning and value of LSS and PMP professionals in the industry. In Part I of [...]

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Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence – Part III Viable Lean Six Sigma Solutions

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence - Part III Viable Lean Six Sigma Solutions

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence Part III (Final Part of Series) Viable Lean Six Sigma Solutions to Validate Project Timelines and Increase KPI Linkage for PMP leaders Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Mr. Gustav Toppenberg   Meandering in a World Swayed by Certification: In Part I, we addressed the vitality of the linkage of a [...]

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Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence – Part II Validating Project Timeline Against Changing Customer Requirements

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence - Part II Validating Project Timeline Against Changing Customer Requirements

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 [...]

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Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence – Part I Success with Key Performance Indicators

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence - Part I Success with Key Performance Indicators

Linking PMP Leaders’ KPI with Customers’ Success Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Mr. Gustav Toppenberg click to hear music Brief Introduction of the current PMP and LSS status quo: Whether we refer the PMP or LSS leadership success there is a clear process that is transparent as shown below: With the PMP space we are looking [...]

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Time is money in products, too!

Time is money in products, too!

On a closely related topic to my last post, I would like to relate a recent experience I had with a consumer product that illustrates one very important aspect of consumer products that is often not given enough importance in the product development priority list: User Interface Speed. We have been satisfied owners of a [...]

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Time is money in product development

Time is money in product development

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 [...]

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Turn the hour glass upside down to create more time…..

Turn the hour glass upside down to create more time…..

Many of us feel overloaded and overwhelmed with aggressive schedules and never-ending todo tasks. Often we wish for more time, or more hours in a day. What we don’t often realize is that it’s sometimes as easy as turning the hour glass upside down; emphasis on the phrase is “upside down”.

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Handling delays in a project schedule (Part III)

Handling delays in a project schedule (Part III)

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:

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Handling the speed-bumps in a project schedule (Part I)

Handling the speed-bumps in a project schedule (Part I)

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?

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Handling the delays in a project schedule (Part II)

Handling the delays in a project schedule (Part II)

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.

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Tips to increase effectiveness and efficiency at the office

Tips to increase effectiveness and  efficiency at the office

Many of us like to think of ourselves are multi-tasking experts.  But in reality, multi-tasking is an euphemism for “interruption” and  “distractions”.    You feel busy and much in demand.  But at the end of the day we feel exhausted with not much to show for the churn. Below are some simple tips to increase your [...]

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How to Eat an Elephant

How to Eat an Elephant

How to Eat an Elephant And close your eyes with holy dread, What was it about the number ‘3’ that is so fascinating to poets like Samuel Coleridge in his famous opium induced poem, ‘Kubla Khan’? I remember learning of a tribe in the highlands of Papua New Guinea whose language only had words for [...]

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A Century of Scientific Management

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 [...]

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It’s not what you say….

We’ve heard saying like “It’s not what you say, but how you say it”; “Actions speak louder than words”; “It’s not what you way, but how you feel when you say it.” After an incident this past week, I totally agree with all of those statements more than ever. Why?

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What are some of the main causes behind estimating errors?

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?

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It’s Never Been Easier To Stay Close To Your Customers

It's Never Been Easier To Stay Close To Your Customers

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 [...]

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The Project Manager’s Multitool: The Status Report

The Project Manager's Multitool: The Status Report

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 [...]

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Simple Tools, Advanced Users

Simple Tools, Advanced Users

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 [...]

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Twins – Double Your Efficiency, Double Your Fun

Twins – Double Your Efficiency, Double Your Fun

If I ever hear “Well – could you make a baby in one month with nine mothers?” again – I will scream.  Personally, I average four months per baby with my preemie twins.  Because designing is so costly, looking for twin opportunities – more often called “design re-use” – is a very sensible plan. In [...]

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Done or Done Done?

Done or Done Done?

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.  [...]

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