Convincing Purchasing that your project comes first

Hi, This is ArLyne Diamond again (www.DiamondAssociates.net)  I am ths week’s guest blogger, and I think this is my third or fourth time to do so.  BUT, I don’t see my name on the list of guest bloggers - oh well…. Here;’s my blog for today:

Scenario I:

Jose Bive was Project Manater of three very improtant projects, each having tight deadlines and he was in a spot.  He wanted to succeed because he beleived that success in all three was the key to the promotion and raise he coveted.  But, he was completely over-worked and exhausted.

Luca Carlisle was driving him crazy.  She was an important performer on Poejct #2 and yet she constantly came to him complaining about the lack of cooperation she was receiving from the purchasing department.  No matter how often she remindd them that she needed parts in order to complete her portion of the project, they “shined her one” telling her she ws in the queue and would get her parts when her turn came.

Jose’s response was to tell Luca to “use your charm” and “stop bugging me”.  He warned her that it was her responsibility not his to make sure she got what she needed from others in the organization.

Wait for tomorrow for Scenario II. 

Be positive - Be happy…………..build the team…

OK here is the scenario - Do you pass the “ink blot test”??.

It is Friday afternoon on the day before a holiday weekend. You are on the telephone to a venture capital company in New York wanting to know about RoHS impact. The project you are working on since October and which has had three design revisions is finally about to exit manufacture and be ready for test. It is actually running to the revised plan of record and the ETA for the boards is 4-30 pm and the whole management team is looking for results.

Oh and did I mention  that you are in the process of buying a house in the horrendously expensive silicon valley and things are not going well…….And the phone rings and Sandra from UC Santa Cruz says “Hi John can you be a drop in blogger this weekend” and the answer is ………..”of course”…………..8-) (more…)

Resource Poaching 101

Have you ever been the program manager on a job where you planned everything down to the smallest detail; you collected the requirements, got your experts together, reviewed what it would take to perform the development, and finally presented your plan to upper management.  They were so impressed with your presentation that (more…)

Winter is the Season for Preparation

Mother Nature can teach us much about managing projects if we apply her fundamental principles to the work. In this installment of The Nature of Project Leadership we will begin with the season of WINTER. This is the season of planning and preparation. There is little hope for a prosperous harvest if the soil is not fertile for the seeds that will be planted. Strategies must be devised to replenish the nutrients that were stripped away for the last crop. Likewise, cultivating new ideas, relationships or customers require upfront work and an open mind for possibilities to evolve.
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The Effect of it All

ccording to the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, “effect” can be used both as a noun and a verb, meaning “a result” or “bring about a result.” The best way to assess the effect of project management on your organization is by monitoring key performance metrics, especially those influenced by project activities. An EPMO supports their organization’s success by creating processes effectively used to select the “right” set of projects and efficiently used in successful project delivery. As a result, organizations who instill the practice of project management will, over time, become huge believers in the value of project management, as well as see the direct correlation between the adoption and practice of project management and the organization’s success. (more…)

Systemize, 1, 2, 3

The project management profession has experienced dramatic growth over recent years.  Yet, formal recognition and practice of project management in organizations has not reached the same levels.  Based on conversations with business leaders who attended project management industry conferences over the past two years, it seems virtually every organization today conducts some type of project management activity, whether they recognize it or not.  A little more than half of all companies do not have criteria for defining project success, and many do not track the benefits of their projects. Most organizations have chaotic, non-repeatable project management processes – they manage project success more by chance than by directive.  And only a small number of all companies actually invest the time and the energy in tracking the accrued benefits of their internal projects over a multi-year period. 

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Best of PM Network 2007 - The Afterlife

Project failure is the subject of this article in the August 2007 edition of PM Network. The article presents some good common-sense points about how to deal with project failure and learn from it. The standard wisdom of finding problems early when they are small, and applying lessons learned are put forth. All of this seems like common sense, but why do I know of many project managers who ignored trouble signals on projects, including myself? And why are lessons learned mostly used as a theoretical construct, and not something referenced regularly in everyday project management? (more…)