Archive for January, 2007

Project Manager Today Software Review

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007

Atlantic Globals’s Corporate Vision began its life when its developer discovered that his business was losing one and a half day’s billable income for each employee per month, because it wasn’t being recoreded. He developed a timesheet system to gather up this missed time and it’s that system that’s evolved into Corporate Vision.

They pursue a business-oriented approach to project mangement, providing, in their software, the means to measure the expenditure of money and resources and the production of deliverables and benefits. The system must ‘wrap around’ the dynamics of the organisation and, to help them achive this, they work with ‘development partners’; their current major development partner is Norwich Union.

Each Corporate Vision installation is tailored to the client’s specific requirements – their business dynamics and procedures are analysed to that the system can be configured to support their existing infrastructure.

Posted in Atlantic Global, Project Portfolio Management | No Comments »

Project Management Quotes

Friday, January 19th, 2007

Dear Readers, how many of these quotes ring true… – “A badly planned project will take three times longer than expected – a well planned project only twice as long as expected.”- “A change freeze is like the abominable snowman: it is a myth and would anyway melt when heat is applied.”

  • “A little risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning.”
  • “A minute saved at the start is just as effective as one saved at the end.”
  • “A problem shared is a buck passed.”
  • “A project ain’t over until the fat cheque is cashed.”
  • “A project gets a year late one day at a time.”
  • “A project is one small step for the project sponsor, one giant leap for the project manager.”
  • “A two year project will take three years, a three year project will never finish ”
  • “A user is somebody who tells you what they want the day you give them what they asked for.”
  • “A user will tell you anything you ask about, but nothing more.”
  • “A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
  • “Activity is not achievement.”
  • “All project managers face problems on Monday mornings – good project managers are working on next Monday’s problems.”
  • “Any project can be estimated accurately (once it’s completed).”
  • “Anything that can be changed will be changed until there is no time left to change anything.”
  • “At the heart of every large project is a small project trying to get out.”
  • “Everyone asks for a strong project manager – when they get him they don’t want him.”
  • “Feather and down are padding – changes and contingencies will be real events.”
  • “For a project manager overruns are as certain as death and taxes.”
  • “Furious activity does not necessarily equate to progress and is no substitute for understanding.”
  • “Good project managers admit mistakes: that’s why you so rarely meet a good project manager.”
  • “Good project managers know when not to manage a project.”
  • “I know that you believe that you understand what you think I said but I am not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant.”
  • “If an IT project works the first time, it is wrong.”
  • “If at first you don’t succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried.”
  • “If everything is going exactly to plan, something somewhere is going massively wrong.”
  • “If it can’t possibly go wrong, it will – O’Malley’s corollary to Murphy’s law.”
  • “If it can go wrong it will – Murphy’s law.”
  • “If it happens once it’s ignorance, if it happens twice it’s neglect, if it happens three times it’s policy.”
  • “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.”

To read full list of quotes click here

Posted in Project Humor | No Comments »

All About OPM3

Friday, January 19th, 2007

PMI’s Organization Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) is not without controversy, and things are heating up more than ever. Some tout it’s ability to help organizations navigate a growth path and others claim it’s too focused on academia and doesn’t hit on real world issues facing project managers.

Click here to read recent articles from the PM Think website that show the good and the bad of the OPM3.

Posted in Project Management Office, Project Portfolio Management | No Comments »

Project Roles and Responsibilities

Tuesday, January 9th, 2007

The Project Steps web blog has a good overview of the roles and responsibilities within a typical project team. For your convenience, we have listed these roles below.

However one role is missing – the role of the Project Portfolio Manager.

Project Portfolio Manager is responsible for spearheading PPM within the business and has one of the most important roles within the Project Portfolio Management Team (PPMT) alongside the executive sponsor. This person is focused on leading the management team behind PPM and has overall responsibility for managing delivery of the portfolio process and communicating its performance to both the businesses strategic and operational functions. Project Portfolio Manager is responsible for guiding and updating the value judgments and policy decisions needed to guide the team. In additon the Project Portfolio Manager should have the ability to influence decisions to suspend, at any time, further commitment of investment monies due to failure to make anticipated progress, changing economic climates or shifts in business objectives.

Roles and Responsibilities

1. Executive Steering Committee: Sets the strategic vision and objectives for a given program or project. The team leads efforts to build consensus through the organization to support the project or program’s objectives.

2. Governance Board: Formal team of executives from across the organization that ensure projects will meet/are meeting enterprise goals.

3. Project Sponsor: Provides clarity of the project vision, and directs the activities of the project team. Allocates funding and resources to the project. Provides executive authority necessary to overcome organizational obstacles and barriers. The guardian of the business case, and ultimately responsible for project success.

4. Performing Organization: The organization whose personnel are most directly involved in doing the work of the project. This organization usually provides sponsorship for the project.

5. Project Management Office: An organizational body or entity assigned various responsibilities related to the centralized and coordinated management of those programs/projects under its domain.

6. Project Stakeholders: Persons or organizations (customers, sponsors, performers, public) that are actively involved in the project or whose interests may be positively or negatively impacted by executing or implementation of the project.

7. Program Manager: Person responsible for the centralized, coordinated management of a program (group of related projects) to achieve the program’s strategic objectives and benefits.

8. Project Manager: The person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objectives. The project manager is responsible for coordinating and integrating activities across multiple functional lines, and managing stakeholder communications. The project manager accomplishes the above by managing project scope, time, cost, and quality. Finally, the project manager applies project management, general management and technical skills, as well as team management, negotiation, financial and business acumen, combined with an understanding of organizational politics to meet project objectives and to meet or exceed stakeholder expectations.

9. Project Team: All the project team members, including the project management team, the project manager, and for some projects, the project sponsor.

10. Functional Manager: On projects, the person responsible for ensuring agreed-upon project tasks are completed using pre-defined resources under the manager’s control within scope, time, budget and quality constraints.

11. Project Team Leader: Responsible for ensuring that agreed-upon project tasks and assignments are completed on time, on budget, and within quality standards for personnel under their realm of control or influence. The team leader should be knowledgeable of the principles and practices of project management and understand the business unit’s strategic and operational issues.

12. Technical Manager/Liaison: Responsible for the technical implementation of the project as measured against the project requirements, quality targets, and budgetary constraints, and timelines. Ensures technical deliverables are consistent with the overall technical strategy of the enterprise.

13. Business Analyst: Primary interface between projects and business partners. Responsible for understanding current and future processes, including processes for the entire enterprise. Documents business requirements, generate business cases, assists in defining project benefits/ costs, and participates in project reviews
To view the Project Steps posting click here

Posted in Project Portfolio Management, Today's Project Management | No Comments »

PPM – Issues, Challenges, Opportunities & Trends

Monday, January 8th, 2007

In the summer of 2006, Dr. Shan Rajegopal of Berkshire Consultancy Ltd. brought together a round table of senior managers from the FTSE 100 companies.The roundtable followed three key themes:

1) Issues and challenges for companies seeking to implement PPM;

2) Ways of fine tuning PPM practices to make a lasting business impact;

3) PPM trends in the next 5 years.

To read the findings of the round table on the IT Toolbox click here

Dr. Shan Rajegopal is a practitioner, academic and consultant with over 20 years industrial experience in various sectors. He currently works for Berkshire Consultancy Ltd. conducting project portfolio assessments and implementation.

Posted in Books & Papers, Today's Project Management | No Comments »