Volume IX - Issue XII - December 2007
PM Tips and Techniques
Are you ready to advance your organization’s By Cheryl L. Strait Finding the definition of e-discovery is as easy as Googling it: “An electronic discovery (also called e-discovery or ediscovery) refers to any process in which electronic data is sought, located, and searched with the intent of using it as evidence in a civil or criminal legal case.” (SearchSecurity.com) Your mission begins with deciphering the e-discovery guidelines for the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, newly revised in December 2006. These guidelines will help you to define your project’s end state by giving you an understanding of what your organization’s requirements are if it is faced with a lawsuit. These rules apply only to U.S. courts; because they are new, they are subject to a range of interpretation by a judge. . Read complete paper in English
Purchasing Project Management Software: How to Appraise References
Knowing the Real from the Fake When It Counts By Curt Finch
, CEO, Journyx When you're making a large investment in a project management product or solution, you need to be sure that you're making that purchase from a reputable vendor that will be there to support you in the future. Obtaining a short list of happy customers that your vendor has helped – in other words, some references - is a common part of the buying process of many businesses. There is, however, a right way and a wrong way to check references. Are you doing it right? Are you getting the data you really need to make this critical buying decision? Or are you talking to one of the vendor's own employees who is just pretending to be a happy customer? Sounds far-fetched, does it? As CEO of a software company, I have actually come across other software companies (one of our competitors, for example) that are guilty of pulling the references scam. The web allows companies to appear bigger and more successful than they actually are, because professional-looking websites can be created quickly and easily. They do not prove, however, that a company has been in business very long, or is reputable within its field.
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10 Ways to Inspire Your Team By Michelle LaBrosse
, PMP®
Inspire. Just the word itself causes us to pause and think. We may remember our own personal heroes like Martin Luther King or Mother Theresa or a teacher or mentor who brought out the best in us and showed us the power of one person. It’s easy in business to get cynical when we’re surrounded by what I like to call “faux inspiration.” I’m talking about the corporate posters with motivational sayings that are easy to spoof when the actions of management don’t reflect the glossy images and quotations. In my experience, inspiration comes from example. As Albert Einstein said: “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” So, that means we all have the power to inspire others by our actions. As project managers, you’re in a prime position to inspire your team. Here are 10 ways to get you started.
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The Seven Deadly Project Sins: Part 5 – Personalization By Tim Bergmann, PMP, ABCP This document is fifth in a series about the Seven Deadly Project Sins. In this narrative, I will continue to focus on some of the “soft-elements” of the project, some temptations that the project manager needs to be on the lookout for in order to foster success on the project. The Seven Deadly Project Sins as I have defined them are:
The fifth Deadly Project Sin – Personalization can affect your ability to accomplish projects as a project manager. Read complete paper in English
Sharing and Collaboration – Enable your team, By Anders Heie If there is one thing that never changes for a project manager, it is that change is constant. This is one of the reasons agile project management has become so popular. It allows requirements to morph during project implementation. However, constant change breeds uncertainty, and that affects how accountable individual participants in projects ultimately feel. This paper will suggest ways to embrace the uncertainty and turn it into strength. It also will provide suggestions on how to improve accountability and information-sharing within your team. To illustrate the issues most project managers face, let's look at a real life example: Project Manager Bill Lumbergh is managing a team of 35 software developers. Based on input from management, he has created a project plan, which he has shared with his team in a meeting. He also printed the plan, put it on his wall and made sure each person knows which tasks to perform. Bill regularly talks to his team members and receives email with updates to each task. He enters these into his project plan. He also receives new requirements from the customer and feeds them into the plan. Once every few weeks, Bill shares the new plan with his team and prints a new copy for the wall. When management wants a status update, Bill emails the entire team, collects the status updates per email, updates the plan and then informs the Management Team. As time passes, Bill discovers that tasks were missed. Integration takes longer than expected and Bill is spending many hours a week updating the plans. Bill's essential problem is that his team has no snapshot, nothing visually at all, to remind team members of the current status of the plan. Due to the many changes, Bill cannot keep everyone up-to-date at all times. Instead he does it haphazardly at best. His team cannot easily make a change to a plan. They are unaware of pending changes and new requirements. Team members will be reluctant to suggest changes, leaving the project at risk of having many unidentified tasks that may lead to delay after delay. As a result, tasks are often overlooked or the team suffers from the familiar “but-I-thought-he-was-doing-it” scenario. The solution is simple: Share and collaborate in real-time.
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“Juggling School” for Project Managers: Seven Reasons By Rudolf Melik If you work in a project-based environment, you probably feel like one of those juggling clowns at the circus: trying to keep your ball, your baton, and your flaming torch in the air at the same time, all while maneuvering your unicycle around the ring. Focus too much on one object and you risk dropping one of the others—or even taking a tumble. Project management can be a lot like this. Neglect to give one project the attention or funding it needs and the consequences of doing so can be much more serious than a dropped ball, especially when your higher-ups find out money has been wasted on an unimportant or failed project. Great news: it’s time to send out the clowns. Organizations don’t have to manage their projects in such a circus-like manner. And in fact, following my advice can save valuable time and money and result in consistent success for your company. A dearth of facts and unbiased analysis lead executives to make poor decisions when selecting new projects or assigning resources to existing ones. The result? Unmet business goals and lost opportunities. Bad project management decisions not only cause the misuse of valuable funds, they create an environment where strategic projects take a backseat while certain “pet” projects are given higher priority. Project prioritization and selection—part of Project Workforce Management—is the clear solution. By using this methodology, you can organize and manage projects as a group, or a portfolio at a business or departmental level. Project prioritization and selection requires involvement at all levels of the organization, including executives, the project management office, project managers, and other stakeholders. The information is collected, shared, and presented for analysis in a systematic and easy-to-use manner. Read complete paper in English
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