PMThink! Project Management Thought Leadership

Act on Ideas

2010-03-16T07:32:00.000-05:00

Projects and product enhancements at Google start as ideas and gather momentum through actions that influence and garner support. ...... "Many products and product improvements at Google start with one person having an idea, sketching it out, showing a prototype to others, getting feedback, and soliciting support from others. " ...Via Poyner: Google projects

New ISO Standard for Project Management: Is this Necessary?

2010-03-13T14:01:00.003-05:00

For those who haven't heard, there is a new ISO standard being developed for project management ---- ISO 21500.Considering that PMI standards are already establshed internationally, the first question that comes to my mind is "why?" Apparently, this standard will build on existing global standards, and will incorporate the work of a number of national standards as well. The project brief for the

Project managers keep your team on task

2010-03-11T18:12:00.005-05:00

Case is made for focusing team members on as few tasks as possible ... ideally, the critical path. ...... "Studies have shown that our brains switch between one activity and another (called executive control). We really don't do two things at once very well. " ...Via Teamwork and Leadership Blog: Multi-tasking?

Agile predicts, senses, and responds

2010-03-10T13:40:00.004-05:00

Robert Kaplan sees agile techniques applied to business, where information is leveraged to support prediction and modeling of strategic responses. ...... "It's also keeping track of competitive forces as well, to be able to offset that. But the front end of agility is information because it's what you're being agile with respect to. " ...Via SearchCIO: Robert Kaplan, Balanced Scorecard

Project management maturity assessment

2010-03-07T21:41:00.001-05:00

Scenario Planning IT Problems and Outages

2010-03-03T21:49:00.010-05:00

While planning for problems is a valuable exercise on projects, application management and support groups need to perform periodic risk assessments of critical business systems as user adoption evolves over time after the original implementation is complete. Are your business continuity plans fresh enuf to serve your enterprise during the next glitch? ... ... "Risk management exercises —

The Data Center Consolidation Project

2010-03-02T22:27:00.005-05:00

Data center consolidation projects are not out of fashion yet. NYC and the feds move to consolidate their sprawling infrastructure to gain financial and energy efficiencies. ...NYC Data Center Consolidation via InformationWeek: "current IT infrastructure of New York City is fragmented, with more than 50 unique data centers serving nearly 48 city agencies, many located in prime commercial real

Project Goals and Team Members

2010-03-01T20:04:00.004-05:00

Keep a pulse of your project team members, especially off-line, to surface any mis-alignments before they derail your critical path. ...... "find a way to surface the underlying goals and expectations of project participants. This may involve private meetings, group discussions, or perhaps even a combination of sorcerer’s potions ... " ...Via ZDNet: IT gridlock

Intel Data Center Strategies Drive Business Value

2010-02-28T15:40:00.002-05:00

Top 100 Project Management Blogs

2010-02-23T23:07:00.002-05:00

I was recently notified about a great list of the Top 100 Project Management blogs on a construction industry blog called The Fixer Upper. It's a pretty comprehensive list, with great descriptions of each of the blogs. I was of course pleased to see PMThink made the list. Check out the list here. You're bound to find some excellent blogs, some of which you may not have heard of.

Structural IT Business Alignment

2010-02-21T11:44:00.003-05:00

Use Business Value Dials to Steer IT

2010-02-14T16:59:00.004-05:00

Business value dials are used to align IT with customer (internal client) objectives in this framework for measuring the business value of information technology. ...Via Intel Press: Measure Business Value of IT (PDF)

What does it take to be GREAT?

2010-02-14T13:30:00.007-05:00

Obviously one must have technical project management capabilities. But that is NOT enough to be a GREAT project manager. To be called upon to lead the most important projects, one must also have backbone, leadership skills and the ability to think broadly as well as in detail. 1) Backbone – You have to be willing to take on a tough project and tell the TRUTH to people who

Resource Capacity: Where Have All My People Gone?

2010-02-13T17:14:00.005-05:00

My friend and colleague Terry Doerscher, Chief Process Architect at Planview, has a superb blog called Enterprise Navigator, and recently posted an excerpt from his upcoming book, Taming Change with Portfolio Management, which he co-authored with Planview CEO Pat Durbin.The excerpt talks about resource capacity planning and reveals a startling fact: For an average staff of 500 people, there's

Project Milestones

2010-02-11T16:25:00.004-05:00

Create good project milestones with bite-sized tasks and celebrate them routinely to create high-performance teams. ... Via Tom Peters: http://bit.ly/alY5fC

Cloud Email Project in LA

2010-02-10T20:49:00.008-05:00

LA government moves to outsourced cloud-based email solution (Google's Gmail) and will demonstrate the effectiveness of the cloud in supporting an enterprise solution, while delivering tangible savings to the city. ...... "Los Angeles is now slowly marching toward a full implementation of Gmail for the city work force. If successful, the project could open the floodgates for other governments

CIO CFO Alignment

2010-02-07T21:32:00.006-05:00

CIO CFO alignment can be built on a partnership of business value, metrics, and governance. ...... "So engage the CFO on a shared set of requirements and implementation actions. Then follow up with outcomes that can be tracked to common measures ... " ...Via Baseline: CIO-CFO Partnership

Stabilization Phase of Projects

2010-02-03T18:05:00.003-05:00

Often, there is a short support period after a project phase is completed and the team moves on to the next phase as planned in the schedule. State of Georgia meets with some success by planning for the stabilization phase and slowing down the phases, as necessary, to bring the organization and process to a stable state prior to next-phase kickoff. ...... "Still, Moore said the biggest

Project Police

2010-02-01T21:44:00.003-05:00

The project police use portfolio visibility to control the funding lever at the VA, if project performance degrades. ... ... "The new evaluation system temporarily stops projects that miss incremental, 6-month milestones to determine whether to spend more money rejuvenating them or permanently end them. " ...Via Next Gov: VA IT Projects

The Open Innovation Bridge

2010-01-31T20:39:00.004-05:00

Personal networking across organizational and enterprise boundaries enables open innovation to flourish.

Agile meets DCMA

2010-01-30T14:43:00.004-05:00

An interesting debate at a program meeting last week - the DCMA 14 point analysis was being summarised for a group using Agile methodology. The sponsor for the program is a government agency and software development is being done by one of the well known large contracting companies. Major features of the required system are well described but not so for many of the details. For one of the phases,

Lean Partner Teams

2010-01-24T11:38:00.004-05:00

The integration of enterprises through global sourcing strategies is a common occurrence today. As part of its sustainability strategy, Nike works with its partners in the value chain to drive principles to the team level and develop an empowered extended workforce. ...... "Lean principles put the decision making closer to the worker through skill building, teamwork and understanding quality

Social Media and Project Management: Elizabeth Harrin's Pioneering Research

2010-01-22T14:18:00.004-05:00

I was speaking recently with Elizabeth Harrin of the amazing and award-winning blog "A Girl's Guide to Project Management." Elizabeth is a fellow member of PMI's New Media Council, and is working on a book on how social media changes the way we manage projects. This book is very timely, and much needed in the project management space.Here's what Elizabeth has to say about it...The aim of my new

IT Budget Constraints and Strategic Shift

2010-01-21T22:33:00.004-05:00

Technology and business priorities shift as CIOs focus on IT transformation to strategic business partner. ...... "CIOs see 2010 as an opportunity to accelerate IT’s transition from a support function to strategic contributor focused on innovation and competitive advantage ... " ...Via Info Management: IT Strategic Role

Got Research? PMI Wants you to Apply for Grant Funding

2010-01-19T14:57:00.004-05:00

Good news for reseachers and writers. Between February 1st and April 25th, 2010, the Project Management Institute is accepting preliminary proposals for research funding for potential 2011 research projects. Awards can be up to $50,000 USD.Examples of areas they're especially interested in are:- Ethics and governance- Project management as a career choice- Portfolio prioritization- Standards