How’s your ability to manage multiple tasks? Here’s an infographic that might support you to manage your time differently when you wear multiple hats. You know the hats I’m talking about – father, partner, boyfriend, son, mate, team player, sports enthusiast.  Each of these ‘roles’ or ‘hats’ has expectations and time requirements attached to them. […]

Do you struggle with managing virtual teams? This team or teams may also just be remote. It is often not easy due to time differences language barriers cultural differences The team at Time Doctor have put together this list of 25 tips that might assist you. I especially love the tips relating to ‘Communication.’  You […]

Which of these four habits do you regularly display? These habits are harmful to your ability to be a strong and successful leader.

There is value in having a RACI matrix completed for the stakeholders involved in your project.  Let’s talk about why they are of value and what the R.A.C.I stands for.

Have you stopped to consider how clear your communication is? You may not even realise that your communication is not clear. Here are four ways things that you may be doing which are impacting on your message. Change them and you will be clearer. Being clearer leads to less conflict, less stress, and more productivity.

Having team members working against you isn’t productive. Here are five ways to get them back working WITH the team and you, rather than against you.

Is your project schedule off track? If your project is not on schedule then you need to go back and understand where it went off track, in order to understand WHY it went off track. Here are four simple steps to gain focus and input from your project team in order to bring your schedule […]

Let’s talk about the negative side of being too focused; how it impacts on the team, you and the project as a whole.

Today we look at one of the 7 Skills of a Strong Leader – How to ask. The key is to ask the right sort of questions based on the response that you are looking for. In this episode, I explain about open and closed questions.  I also provide you with some questions to ask […]

In this episode, we look at seven skills that demonstrate you are a strong leader. How are you at each of these seven skills? * Asking questions. * Listening. * Wanting to know. * Wanting to learn. * Being open to change and different ways of doing things. * Clarity in your communication. * Treating […]

Are you managing an IT project? Do you consider testing nothing but a nuisance task that needs to be shortcut? Think again! This week I explain why testing is ALL about YOUR reputation.

Are you having trouble engaging your Project Sponsor in your project? Here are seven ways that you can get them on board and work with you. These ways allow you to create a strong partnership with your Sponsor so they are there for you when you need them.

“When people are in a group, responsibility for acting is diffused” – A quote from the book Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. This is what has me dive into today’s episode; noticing three reasons I see why people don’t want to act or take responsibility for an item on the project. I’ll walk you through […]

So you think you need to be in control of EVERYTHING? What a myth.  That’s not what Project Managing is all about. Let’s break open this myth and let’s talk about what it’s really like to manage a project and lead the team.  We explore ‘managing’ versus ‘being in control.’

How often have you ignored issues on your project and had them turn into risks? In this episode, we look at what an issue is and why it’s of value to track and investigate it BEFORE it becomes a risk and derails your project. It is also of value to have your team members support […]

Want to know the top seven ways to really upset someone on your team?  Here they are. It’s an interesting list, given that a lot of the time we do these things unconsciously and yet it always causes team disruption. Turnaround this habit of upsetting people and you will have a strong cohesive team.

Let’s look at a way to describe the ‘Scope’ of your project.  In this episode I explain the acronym SCOPE for you: S = Succinct C = Contained O = Outcome Specific P = Purpose Driven E = Easy to Understand

Do you have the monitoring and tracking in place to ensure that your vendor isn’t overspending? Let’s talk how to manage external vendors so that they don’t overspend. How do you manage it if you find out they are?

Do you have a problem with your project resourcing? Here are some tips that I have used myself to successfully gain the resources I needed to deliver my project.

How are you at time management? Here are some tips to have you more productive and feeling in control of your project.

Here is the first in a series on Team Tactics. Let’s look at a way to create more team cohesion where there is a mix of external and internal team members who aren’t getting along. These Team Tactics tips will give you some real ideas to implement to support better teamwork.

What do you do when you get given a project to manage and there is no Business Case? Here are some key questions to ask so you can develop a light business case. This will help set up some scope and benefits tracking.  A must for you to ensure that you are delivering on exactly […]

In this Project Management Insights episode, I have an open discussion with you about risks and the importance of calling them out and managing your mitigation strategies. Too often we are scared of risks and don’t address them. Let’s make them a welcome part of our project delivery.

What do you think of project issues.  Do you love them or hate them? In this podcast episode, I share with you how to love them and work with them to have a successful project. Listen to my tips for getting a resolution for them, by including the whole project team.

In this episode, we look at your project schedule.  Have you set it up with phases and milestones, time for downtime?  Are you monitoring your schedule so that it is easy to see where you need additional resources, or which teams are struggling to deliver? Do you have enough milestones so that the team feels […]

The Project Management Insights Podcast is published weekly. It contains tips on different topic areas of interest to you as a Project Manager. In each podcast, I share my own insights and things that have worked well for me, in order to successfully deliver on-time, on-scope and within budget projects. I also share with you […]

In this week’s Project Management Insights episode I talk about ways to make risk management easy. Too often it is seen as a task that is only the responsibility of the PM.  Why not get everyone involved?  Why not have them feel that it is an important part of their role working on the project? […]

Pick up the phone to talk to your team members rather than send an email. In this Project Management Insights podcast, I explain why it’s of more value, both in time and in team cohesion.

In this episode of Project Management Insights, I talk to you about how to rebuild trust in your project team and why it is important. We look at personal trust as well as key things you can do to rebuild trust.

What do I mean by the importance of project foundations?  In this weeks episode of Project Management Insights, I explain what the foundations of a good project are and why they are necessary.  I explain the pieces of the necessary foundation.  Will your project crumble when you don’t have a strong foundation in place?

In this episode of Project Management Insights, I explain why conflict is great. Let’s talk about what it means when there is conflict, and why it is a positive thing to have. I also talk about how it benefits everyone on the team to have conflict. Podcast Script Hi. Welcome to this Project Management Insights […]

Have you considered how you can strengthen your relationship with your Project Sponsor?  In this episode of Project Management Insights, I offer you ways to go about gaining a valuable understanding of your sponsor and what works for them. It’s all about setting up a win/win situation so that they get what they need, and […]

You might ask “What is the importance of project scope?” We all hear about successful projects being within scope, delivered on time and within the assigned budget and yet a large number of project fail to do these things. The reason?  Not treating project scope as important. The importance of project scope The project scope […]

Sometimes the meaning of BAU isn’t easy to describe because of the different contexts that apply.  Here is how I would describe what BAU is and isn’t in relation to day-to-day business operations and project work to better help you understand it.  I’ve used examples in the hope of making it easier.

Productivity tools should be something you consider using for your team, especially with remote workers. These days with the agility and stability of technology we often end up with Project Team members working across many sites. Having these workers on your team is a great benefit.  It can also feel like it makes your job […]

Never underestimate the value of early stakeholder engagement to a project. Not engaging the right stakeholders early enough in your project creates added headaches and problems with project delivery. In previous posts I have discussed the value of good communication, and of creating what I call ‘the one team‘ mentality, this post ties in with […]

When you manage a project you want to run effective project meetings. It is important because… -> wasting project resources time costs money, -> wasted time impacts on your delivery schedule, -> staff working on the project want information they can easily digest, -> effective meetings gain buy-in.   Six tips for running effective meetings #1. Consider […]

There are many online tools available these days to support project team collaboration.  With social media such a part of everyone’s life, many people are used to byte size information sharing. People presented with a full load of information, become overwhelmed and don’t read it.  I see the future of team collaboration as providing these […]

Use Prince2’s Project Health Check Question List to undertake a quality Health Check.  It doesn’t discuss the right time to undertake the check though. In my opinion the right time to undertake a Project Health Check will depend on the size of your project. Another key factor will be the maturity level of your organisations project […]

In his article 5 Killer Mistakes Project Managers Make’ I love the approach that the author Duncan Haughey has taken. In reading the article there were some key things that stood out for me and resonated with my approach to project management. Let me tell you what they are.

You believe you need a system to solve all of your problems. Vendors should not write the business requirements. Why? They don’t know the business, like the business. In a perfect world the business would first document their business requirements.  And, in a not so perfect world .. a software vendor will suggest that they develop them for […]

What is it about your project team that frustrates you the most? I used to find that it was the people who would tell me they were going to deliver something, and then not deliver, They wouldn’t tell me they were having difficulties meeting the deadline we had originally set, they simply didn’t deliver. This […]

I want to take a different perspective on one persons perspective of a project headed for disaster. An article titled ‘7 signs your project is headed for disaster’ specifically discusses ICT project failure and I was interested in the way that it looked at each of the seven signs.

PMO Staff need project management backgrounds. The role of a Project Management Office (PMO) is one of governance and standards.  They are the administrators of how projects are run within a program or portfolio, ensuring that processes and procedures for good project management are followed, and providing an assurance function to check that things are […]

 Never underestimate the value of  documenting business requirements. All too often I have seen projects which were clearly on the road to failure, even before they formally started.  Why?  Because they didn’t have fully defined and documented business requirements.

Have you considered ways to improve team cohesion? As a Project Manager it is all too easy to get caught up in the day to day of running your project.  There are a million and one things that need to be done, you’ve got pressure being put on you from your Senior Executive to deliver, and […]

In my view, project failure isn’t an option. Let’s talk project success tips. On a LinkedIn Group that I am a member of I read a large number of the posts related to the question of what the main cause of failure for a Business Process Improvement project was.

How do you manage political situation that cause problems for your project? Here are my tips for managing political situations to get what you need. Political situations arise when there are people or groups that feel they have power over others.  Do you see people within your team or the broader context of the business […]

Business project vs IT project. This is the debate that never wins me friends, because the people that I debate this with have a strong sense that Information Technology (I.T.) is the world and therefore how dare I have a different point of view.

Most people don’t understand how to write good business case content.  Over my working life I have seen some documents which really don’t contain any of the information needed in order to make a decision, which is ultimately what a business case is about.  The business has a business decision to make. Make that decision […]

Here is my five step process to manage conflict on your team. I have experienced that people see conflict in a team as a bad thing. I would love to show you why conflict on a team is a good thing, simply by making it something that you can manage. What is conflict? Conflict is […]

Do you have perceived generation gaps between workers on your project team?  You know what I mean, younger team members who don’t listen to older more experienced team members.  Older and more experienced team members who won’t listen to the younger and newer team members. Do these ‘differences’ mean that their are issues with the […]

In this week’s Project Management Insights episode I talk to you about the value of exception reporting. I explain what it is and why it is valuable. In order to use exception reporting on your project, you need to have the trust of your Executives, your Project Sponsor or Owner and the Project Control Board. When […]

Do you regularly say Yes, when you mean No? There is an interesting book titled ‘The Abilene Paradox’ written by Dr Jerry Harvey in which he describes one of these typical such situations. Abilene is a town in Texas, in the USA, and it is the place where a number of he and his family […]

Here are 5 useful ways to manage aggressive team meetings.  Are there any that you use that aren’t on the list? Aggressive team meetings aren’t fun. Not for you, the PM, nor for the other team members. Here are five ways that you might find useful to change things up: 1. Be Silent An angry […]

Let’s talk about why project change management is important for your project success.  If you don’t change the behaviour of the people impacted by your project, the ROI or Return On Investment that was laid down in your Business Case won’t be realised. Change management is a key part of successful project delivery.  You can […]

In this first episode of Project Management Insights, I ask you to look at the core competencies you might be missing that will make a difference to you undertaking your role.  I talk about the interpersonal skills of leadership, team building, motivation, communication, influencing, decision making, political and cultural awareness and negotiation. The aim is […]

In this week’s Project Management Insights episode I provide you with useful tips for collaborating with your project team.  Do you understand the way that people take in information and how this might impact the way that they collaborate? I explain different learning styles and how you can understand the best way to interact with each individual team […]

Have you ever considered how good you are at working with people?  Is this something you have considered at all in your role as Project Manager, that it is an important skill that you need to have? ​One of the core skills of being a Project Manager is working with people. That may involve working […]

Dealing with naysayers at work isn’t always easy.  We all come across them, those people either in our team, or in the broader business who do nothing but throw a wet blanket over everything we say or do.  They are the people who will always tell you why something can’t be done.  They may be […]

In my last post “How to deal with passive aggressive team members” I talked about one approach to dealing with passive aggressive team members. In this post I want to talk about some of the signs that you are being passive aggressive.

Do you identify that you have ‘passive aggressive’ team members on your project team?

If  you are like me you will have been involved in a large number of projects where data is involved and most times there have been issues on the project.  In most IT projects the reason for the project is a better way to manage customer data is needed. In this article ‘22 tips for better data science‘ […]

There are some interesting concepts in a recent presentation that I found and would like to speak to on how to lead not manage. It specifically talks about the behaviours of a Manager and Leader.

Do you have any idea how to re-establish trust the right way?  Trust is something that you feel in a way that it’s hard to describe.  You know it exists, or you don’t. You trust one person in your team and not trust a number of others.  This impacts on your ability, as the Project Manager, […]

For this post I  bring you useful resources that I have found today.  Each article has great insights that may help you be a better Project Manager.  They may help you answer some questions or fill a knowledge gap that you have. They are an interesting mix of articles.  I have chosen them because each one provides […]

In a recent article by Speller International titled “When good SAP projects fail” they spoke about a number of things that make the project fail. These project pointers are relevant to not only SAP projects.

A project team is like a mini organisation where understanding of roles and responsibilities is important If you look at a project as a mini organisation and consider that it is very important that the people working in your ‘mini organisation’ fully understand their roles and responsibilities, just as is the case in any organisation or […]

When is a project not a project, when it’s a Business As Usual activity. I was involved in a very interesting situation in the past month whilst working as the Project Manager and Change Manager on an initiative which I would call BAU.  It felt like being caught in the BAU versus project trap, an […]

I work near some really switched on project finance team members who know their stuff.  In the last couple of days we’ve been having a great on-going discussion about ROI (Return On Investment). Of course it has gone hand in hand with discussions around benefits realisation, but that content is for another blog post. What […]

Who ever said an EDRMS implementation needs to be a difficult task? Here are eight ways to make the task of implementation easier. Elise Stephens from Fix My Project Chaos and I caught up to talk about ‘How to fall in love with your EDRMS implementation’, or in other words the key tips for a […]

Why would you hold a team meeting?  What reasons would you have to schedule a team meeting?  Too often I see team meetings held for the sake of holding a meeting when there are more simpler and efficient ways that collaboration and information sharing could occur. Here are 4 reasons for team meetings that I […]

Consider how successful you would be as a Project Manager if you followed these top tips for success from Cindy Hook the new CEO of Deloitte Australia:

“Collaboration is about all parties knowing what needs to be done. It’s about equality of understanding and power and knowledge.” – MC Munro What an interesting statement this is. It got me thinking about its meaning.

Have you been in the situation of being bought in as the Project Manager (PM) on a project that has already started. When you start in your role you find that there’s no business case for the project, what do you do?  It is fine to ask why there is no business case.

I see a project as something that needs a strong foundation and footing in order to be successful. Want to rock your project foundations?  Here are just a few ways you can do it:

There are some great reference sources out there which contain useful information on EDRMS Business Case building. Here are my EDRMS business case key tips. My previous blog posts on business case writing generally have covered some of these areas. The key is to understand those things that are more important and relevant for your […]

Change management is of no value – is that true? I know as a PM that you see change managers as a burden on your project.  I know that you see that they are additional cost and resourcing that you don’t really need on your project. You don’t really get what this ‘change management’ is really about […]

What 4 keywords for effective teamwork would you consider the most important?  Have you stopped to think about the important aspects that do make up effective teamwork?  Here is what one National Hockey League coach in the USA has as his top for keywords.

When soliciting requirements from an SME or Subject Matter Expert, what is the most important information that you need to capture and how do you know that you have captured it? What would your response to this question be?

It is important when preparing risk mitigation strategies that you prepare for ANY eventuality.  Project Managers tend to not want to highlight these eventualities, because they feel that the more risks they have the more work for them.

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” —Lao Tzu  What an interesting quote this is if you consider it in terms of the concept of what a Project Leader might be like.

What is risk management?  It is an interesting question. You start with the understanding of how to identify risks and then work towards documenting them and development of a mitigation strategy.

Ever been in a meeting and watched someone have a profound realisation? His realisation was that the reason his sectors projects fail is because the wrong people are writing the business cases.  I could easily identify from my own experience of five people who shouldn’t write a business case. This also got me thinking about this very […]

This is Part 4 in a series of posts looking at how project maturity impacts on the contract negotiation process. In this final of thet series we are going to look at Quadrant 4 in the diagram, where the project maturity process levels are high and it aids the contract negotiation process.

The final step in business case development is how to present a business case so that it gains maximum buy in. Once you have prepared your business case and are confident that it presents the full case for why a change needs to be made, then it’s time to consider how you are going to present […]

Do you, as a Project Manager (PM), assess your decision making risks? Do you own the risk associated with the decisions that you make on a day to day basis especially in regards to how they will impact your project delivery?

Here are some key principles for building a CRM Business Case. I’ve listed them as my CRM Business case top 5 tips:

In this third part of a four part series we are going to look at Quadrant 3  in the diagram, where the project management process maturity levels are low and it aids the contract negotiation process.

‘What comes first business case or business requirements?’ I’ve heard this question asked a number of times.  My personal view is that it is very important to develop business requirements before or as part of your business case development.

If these 5 questions for your team are asked regularly you have a good chance of building a stronger relationship with each of your team members.

What does BAU mean? BAU is the acronym for ‘Business As Usual’. Business As Usual is the view of an organisation, business unit, work team or team member completing their everyday work in the normal way.

In this second part of a four part series we are going to look at Quadrant 2  in the diagram, where the project maturity process level s are high and it detracts from the contract negotiation process.

The ability to collaborate as a project team is the key to it’s success.  As the Project Manager you need to ensure that collaboration across the team is easy and working. For the past four months I have been using a collaboration tool for my own projects.  There are a number of these tools available in […]

I want to suggest that project failure is relative to PM skill level.  Of the research that I have looked at project failure can generally be categorised under a set of key areas.  If you identify with any of these triggers then I suggest to strongly consider your skill levels.

In this first part of a four part series I will investigate and discuss how project management process maturity within an organisation might impact on contract negotiations. In each part I discuss one of the four quadrants in the diagram above including both perspectives from the procuring organisation as well as the supplier in the […]

In order to build a strong ERP business case, robust analysis is required.  I suggest that the following areas be fully investigated as part of building your business case:-

People with technical backgrounds don’t make good project managers (in my opinion).  Why?  Because they are usually way too focused on the technical aspects of the situation to be really ‘managing’ the total project or program.

After watching sporting teams playing in the finals (and ultimately the Grand Final) I realised that there is a strong connection between these high performing teams and project teams that perform well and succeed.  How you may ask?

I’ve spoken before about what I see as the really strong value in creating what I call a ‘One Project Team culture‘  and a discussion that I had today reinforced my views on this principle. Many projects fail, because there is too much tension around ‘who owns the system’ (business or IT); ‘they don’t deliver’ […]

Detailed business requirements are as valuable as a well written business case. I say this because detailed business requirements provide clarity, just as a well written business case does. What therefore does it take to create detailed business requirements?  Here are my top five tips:

Whilst, as a Project Manager I prefer to manage a project my own way there is value in visiting the ‘Lessons Learned’ logs of previous projects run within the organisation to see where common problems or risk areas lie. In the context of IT projects there will be very valuable lessons that will have been […]

Here’s a different form of negotiating.. Don’t accept ‘No’ as an answer, when you need something for your project. Why do I say that? As a Project Manager I am being paid to ensure that I deliver this project for my Business Owner, to the best of my ability, on time, on budget and within scope.  And […]

In my opinion most people don’t really understand what ‘managing’ a project is actually about. I have seen many project managers who do everything other than actually ‘manage’ what needs to be done in order to deliver the project.  And in seeing this occur I also see that the project is usually flailing, falling behind, […]

It’s hard to see what project governance really is, because it can often feel like an unnecessary burden on a very busy Project Manager.  But it is VERY important in ensuring that a project is run and delivered as it should be.

Never underestimate the value of Senior Management involvement in your project! Your ability to gain buy-in and support from across an organisation is really dependent on having one or more Senior Managers along for the ride.  Your project needs to be something that these managers talk about, whenever the opportunity arises.

Do you see yourself as a ‘Project Manager’ or a ‘Change Manager’ or a ‘Project Manager managing change’? It is interesting considering the context of these titles.  Project Managers are seen as people who manage projects, whilst Change Managers are seen as people who manage change related to projects, or as the outcome of projects. […]

Project managers are taught that if they spend hours developing a good clear and structured project plan, then their project has a better chance of success. Whilst the plan might ‘contribute’ to the success of a project by ensuring that tasks are defined, or at least listed, and there is some method for how the project […]

This week Elise Stevens from Fix My Project Chaos and I spoke about the difference in a business case for an Agile project. This is the overview of our discussion.

An issue is something that is raised by anyone on the project.  Issues are something that has been unresolved; is causing a problem; or that raises a question.  It is information that is incomplete.  An item that needs clarification or further investigation.  How do you track them?

When you are the Project Manager on a software development project it is important that you understand the importance of the different testing requirements that are needed.  I use the word needed, as I consider testing a very important part of any software development project, and something that doesn’t get enough time or effort allocated […]

A Project Manager should be able to handle anything and everything that happens in line with their role of managing the delivery of a project. They shouldn’t need support or help, as they have the skills and resources to enable them to do the job. What do you think of my statement?

There are eight key differences that I’ve picked up in writing a business case for an Agile project.  This post discusses those 8 differences and what you need to consider when creating your business case using this method.

I really love project reports. They tell so much of a story.

Project schedules are a sense of security for your project sponsor and Project Control Board (PCB).  That is their purpose. They are a simple tracking tool only and of no real value.  Therefore there is no real need to have one.  You can track how things are going making an estimate and report this to your […]

I noticed earlier this week in a team meeting that it is all too easy to place the role or hat of Project Manager (PM) on someone and that seemed to automatically change the way that they are seen in the broader context by the people around them.

  Yes, I’m being controversial yet again, and this time it relates to project PIRs (Post Implementation Reviews). I have been speaking to PMO staff members about the value of PIRs and realised that they are really a waste of every ones time.

Writing a winning business case is easy, when you know how.  If you understand the key things that need to be included and how to go about gathering the information, your job is easier. Here is a podcast that I recorded that might provide you with some useful guidance.

Do you think Project Managers (PMs) need negotiation skills? I do.  I have seen a lot of occasions where they would have come in handy.  Times when the PM is getting push back from streams  or stream leads about delivery items.  In this instance it would be valuable for the PM to have some more […]

Following a discussion I had last night about the issues surrounding benefits tracking for the business AFTER a project has been implemented, or more to the point, the difficulties in doing this, I got to thinking about this whole dilemma.  Here are my thoughts:

There is debate from both camps of the project delivery method space – Agile vs waterfall when to use. In my earlier post ‘Agile vs Waterfall methods‘ I described my understanding of both the Agile and Waterfall methods and which one I preferred. I’ve had an email from ‘Adam’ who works in mining with some great […]

If you are doing all of the things that point to project chaos then you are likely to have a clear understanding of how to confuse people in the business. In my recent post titled ‘No collaboration = Project chaos‘ I spoke about the sorts of things that I see that cause chaos in a […]

Have you ever run a Post Implementation Review (PIR) or seen one run? I like to run PIR’s in an informal way.  Why? Because I find that I get more out of people than when I have very formal processes and protocols about the way that they are run.

I want to thank all of the ‘ego’ driven project managers out there.  Without them I wouldn’t gain such wonderful ideas for my blog posts.

A project team needs to be a group of individuals all striving for the same outcome. Let’s look at the difference of people that work as individuals on a project versus those that are really working as part of the team.

Most projects will have an Executive Sponsor. In Prince 2 terms I am referring to the ‘Executive’ and in PMBOK language this is the ‘Sponsor’.  This is the person who (a) has the funds to pay for the project to go ahead and (b) is the person who will or should champion your project. This […]

This week I have seen the real value of communicating. By explaining to the team “Why communicate change?” they have come on board fully for the project.

Do you know what it means to handover to BAU?  BAU equals ‘Business As Usual’ by the way. I find that IT teams usually don’t, because they are to caught up in the doing associated with the project.  They have been so focused on delivery of all of the pieces for the system change, that they don’t […]

The importance of upskilling staff providing support to the business cannot be under estimated. It is all too easy to assume that the staff providing support for a product or system have all of the knowledge or expertise that they need to be able to do that. Often they don’t.

This week I have been focused on developing support models for two different projects so felt it worthwhile discussing how to develop a support model that really does support the customer or end user.

Project chaos is not something that any business owner, project sponsor or project manager want and yet it can be an easy thing to achieve on projects when their is no real collaboration. Here are some of the things that I see that cause chaos.

Today I had the privilege of participating in an all team meeting. This meeting is the first one that has been held for this project.  The project has been running for seven months now and at times there have been difficulties with it.  The project team operate in two sites, in different cities, so communication […]

I see that people find it difficult to consider “collaboration” an important part of good project management, and yet for me it is one of the key elements of real team work.  And the best possible way to get the project outcome that you want. I decided to look at the hidden value of collaboration […]

Managing a project is easy, right?  Most Project Managers, would answer No to that question.  I thought that I would provide you with five easy ways to not manage a project in case you needed some help.

One key task for a project manager is to manager their resources so as to avoid burnout. Burnout on projects is quite common these days with so many of them running over time and budget. This has it’s toll on your project team members in ways that you really don’t want.  Here are some tips […]

There are some basic things that people will see when they consider the cost of poor project planning.  I would like to suggest that there are more ‘hidden’ costs that aren’t always visible.  In this post I will talk about four hidden costs of poor project planning and once identified you might be able to […]

The ability to identify and manage issues on a project is a key task for any project manager. When I’m managing a project I like to think of issues as tasks or items that need to be analysed, resolved, or discussed in order to have decisions made about them. They are those things that come […]

Today I want to look at some of the reasons why a business case gets turned down. Here are the top 5 reasons that I have seen over my time recently, reviewing business cases.  What can you learn from this when you next need to write a business case?

Why would trust among team members be important in a project team even more so than in any normal circumstance?  Or perhaps I should say, why it is needed even more so than ever? Because in a project team each and every individual contributing to the outcome of the project is reliant on each and […]

I’ve had an open mind about the Agile method of project delivery until recently. This post is going to compare my views on Agile vs Waterfall project delivery methods. Previously I’ve been involved as a Project Manager working with both methods and my preferred method was Waterfall. At that time though I really didn’t have […]

I cannot stress enough the importance of rigour around project plan tracking. When you start a project you need to understand what it is that you are aiming to achieve at the end of your project.  This will of course take the form of detailed information in a Project Initiation Document or Business Case, sometimes […]

Would you put an action plan for issue resolution in place within two hours?

Have you thought about cultural impact on your project? Have you considered the culture of other teams or groups of people that you are working with in order to deliver your project?  Is there culture different to yours and what is the impact of that?

When you first come across Project Management as a methodology it is not always easy to understand the difference between this (as a methodology) and the number of other methodologies out there.  People often confuse what are process improvement methods with project management frameworks.

Why do I say that ‘testing equals your reputation’, because it does. As a project manager it is your responsibility to ensure that what you are changing (and we are specifically talking about system changes here) are fully operational at the end of the project, to meet the agreed and defined terms of the business needs.

Do you understand how to gather business requirements or the need to? A Business Requirements Specification (BRS) or Business Requirements Document (BRD) is a key document that should form part of any project document suite.  It is actually one of the first documents that should be produced.  Possibly after the Business Case to get the […]

Why would you stop a project before it even got started?  Because the business benefits don’t stack up. There has to be a good reason why time, money and resources are spent on changing something.  That good reason is the business benefits that are going to be gained from making the change.

What is change management? Change management is one of those terms that most people know very little about.  Some people would tell you there is some framework, others would be able to tell you about the steps involved from the famous text by Kotter on managing change, but my instinct from working with project managers […]

There are a number of reasons why projects fail.  Here are five of them. These reasons come from my experience with remediation activities.

Good weekly project status reporting isn’t easy to do.  The value of weekly status reporting on projects is that it allows problems to be captured as soon as they start to manifest, rather than finding them weeks or even months into project delivery.

Here I am going to provide five more tips for writing a business case.  You might like to also read my earlier post on how to write a business case for other useful suggestions.

Lessons Learnt tracking ..  sounds like more work right? There is hidden value in creating a Lessons Learnt Log for you as a Project Manager, if you look at it from a different perspective.

It would be crazy to say that a project can run without any issues being identified.  It is just not possible! Issues come in many forms and can be items that require a small amount of attention to fix, or erupt from when they are first identified into much larger problems and even create a risk for […]

If a Project Control Board (PCB) is set up with the right people on it, and by this I mean, those with the level of decision making authority to be able to make decisions at a level to directly influence a project, then the project will be in the best state for it to deliver […]

A lot of people have difficulty in understanding how to document options in a business case.  This post will help you understand more about what is required.

Change management is a project responsibility because every project involves some form of change.  I haven’t yet found a project that doesn’t. Most projects are done to address something, be it a system or process, that isn’t working and needs to be changed. Projects either (a) look at the change from the system or process […]

There is real value in having impromptu chats with your Project Board members and this post explores why. Consider your Project Control Board (PCB) members as valuable to your project success.  If you do that and engage with them in the best way you will gain strong support and be more likely to success with […]

One of the major benefits of clearly defining your business requirements is they help to lock in project scope. This might not seem to make sense initially, but here are the five reasons why this is the case:

For successful project delivery you need to capture detailed business requirements.  Here’s a How To guide for doing that. Remember to start with high level requirements. You’ll find information on that process in the post on “How to capture business requirements“ . Capturing these requirements get you thinking about your business process and how it works, or […]

To capture good business requirements is not easy. One of the hardest things to do well is capture business requirements.  Why?  Because most people go into solution mode and provide solution requirements, not requirements that articulate the business process.