Project Management on One Page

I just picked up The One-Page Project Manager by Clark Campbell. I'm always looking for ways to simplify things, and am a big proponent of "one-page" type solutions. I've use a one-page business plan, a one-page charter, a one-page business case, and other such tools, always with good results.

Needless to say, I was intrigued by the concept when I saw the book. And I was not disappointed.

Not only does the book offer some good insights, but it offers step-by-step instructions on how to complete a visually appealing, one-page project overview and status for senior management that includes:

- The project's key objectives
- The major tasks and schedule dates
- How the task align with the objectives
- Project cost and schedule status
- Key resources and priorities
- Intangible key criteria
- A brief summary of the project status
- Basic descriptive information

Best of all, as noted in the book, the templates are available as free downloads from the book's website (below). I still recommend reading the book as opposed to just winging it with the template, as the book offers further explanation.

The author notes that this is not meant as a replacement for MS/Project, Primavera, or any other tool you may be using. Instead, it is used in addition, as a way to communicate with senior management, the project team, or anyone else that needs to know the relevant facts about the project without reading a fifty-page report.

Check it out...

OPPM -One Page Project Manager

Project KPIs Discussed

Video discusses techniques to judge how you project is doing ...

Event Map: Mind Map Technique

Nifty approach to mapping events using mind-map model ... Inputs are converging factors and outputs are diverging consequences. Think project go-live events, product launch, etc. ...

... "Many business people are primarily concerned with events that change the status quo. This could be launching a product or service, commissioning a process, solving a problem, delivering a physical event (such as a seminar), or establishing a new behaviour. " ...

Via Beyond Crayons: Template for Visualising Events

Project Controls Governance: Michigan Recognized ...

State of Michigan recognized by State CIO Association for excellence in governance and project controls. Executive sponsorship embraced project oversight and a project office established the performance control standards and monitored status independently and objectively. ...

... "Michigan's child support enforcement system (MiCSES) is an excellent case study of how a large failing project can be transformed into a successful one with the aggressive application of project management processes. " ...

Via NASCIO: Awards

Project Gates: Are Kill Points Really Considered?

Since capital is usually constrained in most organizations, are we really making the best use of our project stage-gates as potential kill-points? Are we fully considering the cost-to-completion, the probability of realizing the original benefits documented in the business case, or a declining ROI if costs escalate? We will be doing a service to our organization if we take some time to develop exit criteria and consider alternatives at the project stage-gates. There's always another project in the portfolio. ...

... "The Project Plan should have included a schedule for steering committee meetings and other key points to ensure regular tracking of project progress and release of status reports. Additionally, the plan should have identified milestones and project kill points, that is, go/no go decision points for the action of senior management, the steering committee or other authority. " ...

Queensland University: Controlling phase

Project Framework Leverages ITIL Provides Common Status View ...

ITIL-capable service solution is implemented as a management framework across multiple implementations to enable a common performance status view. ...

... "Aspiren has selected Infra's IT Service Management solution, infraEnterprise, to support the rollout of a new National Performance Management Framework (NPMF) to local authorities across the UK. The infraEnterprise implementation will ensure that all procedures associated with deploying the initiative are fully compliant with IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practice. Aspiren is using infraEnterprise's Workflow module to automate the management of 400 local authority technical installations, and to provide managers with one common view of the status of the implementation project. " ...

Aspiren Puts Infra To Work On New National Performance Management Framework ...

NPMF - What Is NPMF?: "The project has successfully established the first truly national template for a performance management framework in Housing Benefit departments. Essentially it brings together in one place all the key components of a world class performance management framework ... "

Project Management Graphics: Lessons from Edward Tufte

I recently checked an old discussion thread on project management graphics that I had participated in on Edward Tufte's forum. Suprisingly (or perhaps not), the thread is still going strong after four years! It must be the world's longest running discussion thread.

The premise of the thread was to find other ways of portraying project status and schedule beyond the Gantt chart. Edward Tufte, for those not familiar, is the world's leading guru on information presentation.

He was brought in by NASA after both the Challenger and Columbia disasters to analyze why the scientists weren't able to present the facts in an effective enough way to avert the disasters.

Tufte is listed as one of Amazon.com's top 100 nonfiction authors of all time.

For those interested in breaking new ground in project visuals, it's worth checking out. Feel free to participate.

Ask E.T.: Project Management Graphics (or Gantt Charts)

Einstein Project Management Tip #5: Imagination Counts

Our next project management tip from our Einstein series regards the need to challenge the status quo----to think out of the box. Consider this quote:

"To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science."

Of course, Einstein also famously said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." To a project manager, who's typically focused on things like scheduling, monitoring, reporting, and driving the team to completion, this can be a particular challenge. But it's important nonetheless.

Imagination is required in many situations, including (but not limited to):

• Achieving success when the odds are against you
• Conceptualizing ways to achieve the objectives more effectively
• Brainstorming solution ideas and possible risks
• Overcoming barriers, whether political, technical, or physical
• Improving the cusotmer experience

For some practical advice on building the right team for innovation, see my blog series on Tom Kelley's The Ten Faces of Innovation.

More to come.

5 Lessons in Leadership

The following Lessons in Leadership were originally presented at a recent CIO Leadership Conference but are also applicable to PM's:

10. Failure is not an option (as per Apollo 13's project leader Gene Krantz)

9. The kind of organization you are in determines the kind of leader you need to be (I'd also add that WHERE the project is in its lifecycle and the level of project experience your team and stakeholders have also matters)

8. A good leader has integrity (e.g., accountable, truthful (including in how you report project status and metrics!), a team player and tough when needed)

7. Don't be lazy. (push beyond your natural abilities - get into the details, get out of your office and talk to people, etc.)

6. Make sure that everyone in your organization can articulate what it is you're trying to accomplish (I've also heard this called "the hymn" (i.e., make sure everyone's singing the same tune, from the same book); if you have a more PC, one-word term, let me know!).

You'll have to wait until later for the next 5...this was plenty to digest in one sitting.

Thanks to Abbie Lundberg, the Editor in Chief of CIO Magazine for the info and insights that she shared in the June 15, 2006 edition. They formed the basis for this blog.

One-Page Project Status Report; Keeping it Brief

There's a great writeup in Projects@Work about project status reports, including tips on meeting format and frequency as well as a format for a one-page status report.

According to the article, there are 5 Project Status Best Practices:

1. Consistency — The status process should be basically the same for large and small projects, and consistent with their measures of success
2. Escalation — The status process provides a mechanism for escalation of key issues.
3. Simple — One page with the ability to drill down for details when necessary
4. Public — Status is available to all (as appropriate) in order to communicate issues, risks and corrective action measures
5. Inclusive — All projects are required to provide status on a consistent set of metrics

For busy managers who see loads of project status reports, it's much easier to have a consistent, brief summary of what's really happening on each project. They don't need a dissertation on all the details, nor will they get a clear picture just looking at performance metrics. Much like on a business case, most just want the executive summary. Simpler is better. Less is more.

For those looking to improve their status reports (and their credibility with management), read on...

http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/Articles/231704.cfm

Project Planning Not All It's Cracked Up to Be

OK, everyone relax, I haven't lost my mind. Of course planning is important. But, as I've been saying for years, circumstances change the minute a plan is put on paper and a good project manager needs to expect uncertainty and know how to deal with it when it arises.

There's a great article in Projects@Work by Roger Bly that supports this approach. Bly talks about how project managers must manage the entire end-to-end process, and recommends taking a collaborative approach, using tools that enable frequent two-way communication and the ability for resources to keep the plan current and reflective of reality (something I completely agree with).

Here's an excerpt...

"A collaborative project execution application can make this process a reality in organizations of all sizes by allowing project teams to successfully tackle multiple concurrent projects. Projects are no longer constrained by static plans produced and updated only by project managers.

A project execution approach also frees project leaders from the mundane work of updating project plans, collecting progress information and reformatting information into status reports. Project plans can be collaboratively built and updated by the project team, often by reusing collateral, deliverables and templates from previous projects."

Far too often, a project manager will create an elaborate plan, and struggle to keep it current, ignoring the real issues that occur during project execution. If the team is trained to contribute frequent updates of remaining time (and any changes to the plan), the project manager can spend more time leading and monitoring as opposed to administrivia.

Of course, another easy way to accomplish this is to update the plan and percent complete collaboratively at a weekly meeting on an overhead projector, but it's ideal if the resources can update their own activities electronically.

For more about the need to focus on execution and communication, read the full article...

http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/Articles/231152.cfm

Organizational Project Management; Why Should CEOs Care?

Paul Dinsmore and Pedro C. Ribeiro's article in Chief Project Officer talks about why CEOs should care about project management. He lists several areas where project management can directly impact the bottom line, including working capital, sales growth, and profit margins.

People are beginning to realize that project management is much more than managing individual initiatives; it's about transforming everything an organization does into a project-based approach.

In the article, Celina Antunes, CEO South America Region for Cushman & Wakefield Semco comments:

“For decades, project management has been a discipline in engineering, construction and other industries, where a key management skill has always been the ability to complete a job on time and on budget. Yet it's only been in recent years that the discipline has moved to its current status as one of the leading reasons for success in some of the world's best companies. When you need an outcome done right, on time, and within a budget, you definitely need project management to assure results”

Of course, to be truly effective, this requires a strong committment to becoming a "learning organization." Here's an excerpt from another quote, from Robert Cook, former CEO Latin America for Unisys Corporation:

“The importance of excellence in project management could not be over rated. I would guess that all of us as senior operations people have been involved in projects that have created shareholder value and those - that have reduced
shareholder value... We need to be in a continuous learning process. A well structured lessons learning process in project management is key to seamless execution and ensuring that the direction of the project is correct from the beginning of the effort”.

For the full article, read on...

Chief Project Officer: Why Should Project Management Matter to CEOs?

Business Agility: IT Proactive Partner ...

To support the need for business agility, IT must be a proactive partner in engaging with the business. Todd R. Weiss covers the theme at the Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders conference. ...

... "Bringing in new technology ideas -- and sharing those ideas early on with users so they can weigh in with what they need, want and expect from an IT project -- is key to delivering a successful IT deployment. " ...

Business Agility: IT Proactive Partner: Via Computerworld Premier 100: IT can pave the way for business agility, panelists say ...

This message is consistent with recent research findings from the IT Governance Institute: (1) IT has a pretty good understanding of the business, (2) IT is not very proactive at exploring new business technology opportunities with the business. ...

... "Observation: A small majority (55 percent) of IT departments always or regularly inform the business about potential business opportunities." ...

Via IT Governance Institute: IT Governance Global Status Report—2006 (PDF) ...

So, here's an opportunity for the IT organization ... Get some early, raw ideas in front of your business partners and start getting some feedback.

Fighting the Status Quo; A Lesson from an Education Reformer

Reading Dennis Littky's The Big Picture: Education is Everyone's Business has been very inspiring. Just as Littky challenges the status quo in the education system, we must do so in our organizations.

Here's a quote I especially like in the book:

"No matter how far you have gone on a wrong road, turn back"
- Turkish Proverb

I've listed 21 key points, paraphrased from the book, to illustrate how the same issues that face the education system apply to creating a learning environment in business...

1. Teach how to think flexibly, not that there's a right way and a wrong way for doing everything. It's worth noting that the best tennis players hold the racket the wrong way.
2. Create an environment that allows students the freedom to find themselves with the support and motivation of inspiring adults [leaders]
3. Teach students to fish; don't give them fish. Quote: "We have plenty of people who can teach what they know, but very few who can teach their own capacity to learn" - Joseph Hart
4. Use collaborative learning - i.e. "What do we think of this passage as compared to this one?" etc.
5. Teaching and learning are about problem solving. Put teachers and learners in the best possible environment for them to do this together.
6. Don't dismiss someone as "dumb in math" or "uninterested in science." Cater to their strengths [as Peter Drucker says, "Make weaknesses irrelevant" and pair people with complementary strengths if need be]
7. Don't measure education [or any kind of success] by the number of minutes a kid sits at a desk.
8. Remember the Three R's: Relationships (with teachers, community, parents, etc.), Relevance (to the students lives and passions - i.e. "what's in it for me"), Rigor (allow them to concentrate intensely in an area of their interest - build depth, not breadth)
9. Insure a shared philosophy among the principal and teachers [i.e. management]
10. Fix the atmosphere. Create an environment for learning. Fun, happiness, respect, kindness.
11. Build celebration into the culture. Celebrate often, for various occasions.
12. Know who really sets the culture of a school [or organization]. It's the senior students [middle management and vocal champions -- what Seth Godin calls "the sneezers" --those who can spread an "idea virus"]. Engage them in recreating the culture, and others will follow suit. You can't change the culture by holding a special assembly [or a meeting or a memo]
13. Never make rules based on the exception.
14. To build trust and respect, provide responsibility and decision-making to students, and control over their environment, tools, and learning
15. A culture can thrive and grow on its own stories. Every interaction helps build the culture.
16. Start with the student, not the subjects or classes. Quote: "One size never fits all. One size fits one." - Tom Peters
17. Use real world examples - or better yet, real projects. Students can tell when things really matter and when they're contrived. [so can business people learning project management]
18. Don't give grades. The real world is based on giving feedback and showing people what they need to do to improve. It helps students succeed. Grades are meaningless, subjective, and can destroy morale. Use a narrative instead. It's a tool to help learning, not evaluation for evaluation's sake.
19. Quote: "Nobody grew taller by being measured." - Phillip Gammage
20. Measure what counts. There is no one indicator of success that fits every student. Instead, measure how often a student talks to teachers about their problems [builds the right culture]; measure if parents agree the school is a safe place and that it views parents as partners [i.e. customer satisfaction]
21. Friends of change [6 C's] are: concentration (on your philosophy), commitment, conversation, collaboration, caring, conviviality

Project Managers: Green Means Go?

George Harrison discusses the need for project managers to recognize and react to indications of project failure. ...

... "Generally speaking, you and your business will not be able to make up missed milestones without one of two things: a reduction in scope and quality to your project or a major increase in project costs, whether it is to add more resources or to lengthen the duration of the project’s schedule. " ...

Project Managers: Green Means Go?: Via LocalTechWire: When Green Means Stop! in Project Management ...

Tags: Project Management, Project Manager

For Project Success, Ask Plenty of Questions

Tell me about your father and your mother. Did they feed you often? ... What were some of your other memories growing up? How about...


OK, so maybe we don't want to overdo it. But it's vital that we not hesitate to ask questions during preliminary project research, at status meetings, and behind the scenes.

This is one of the most frequently cited problems with rookie project managers. They hesitate to ask questions for fear that someone will think them incompetent, and as a result they appear incompetent.

In fact, I've noticed that the more experienced a project manager is, the more questions they tend to ask. I once knew a manager who purchased pens as promotional gifts for all of his staff with nothing but the company logo and a question mark on it, as a reminder for everyone to never stop asking questions. This really got the point across, and helped build the culture of a learning organization.

Project Perception is Reality; Don't Let 'em See You Sweat

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!


When it comes to project success, perception is more important than reality. That's not to say you should lie or cover up anything, merely that your stakeholders don't need to know (nor do they care about knowing) all the little difficulties and issues you're experiencing in the project.

Keep project status reports brief, listing a short status, the key milestones, the top 3 issues, and what's being done to address them. Paint a positive picture of events, even regarding the issues being addressed. Project team members and stakeholders must feel that the project is well under control.

Of course, if huge barriers exist, or major issues arise, address these immediately with whatever team members and/or managers you need to resolve the issue. Management needs to know these things. But if you reach a point where you must communicate bad news more broadly, try to focus on the positive side of things (everything has a positive side if you look hard enough). Public relations experts have taken this approach for years with great success.

Even a project where it makes sense to cancel it, maybe because it no longer will bring the expected benefits, should be seen as a good thing, as it means the system is working. Remember, keep it positive!

Project Status Reports; Simpler is Better

NEED THE INFO

There's a good article in Computerworld about project progress reports. The key lessons are to know your audience, including what they want to see, how they want to receive the information, and how frequently they want to see it. There's no "one size fits" all approach, and it can vary based on the audience, the type of project, and at what point in the project you are.

One thing that everyone seems to agree on is to keep it simple. The best progress reports are one page, with the option for people to ask for suppporting information if needed.

Here's the full article...

How to Write a Progress Report - Computerworld

Project Management Heresy; Is Gold-Plating Really that Bad?

PMI has drilled it into our heads for years about the perils of gold-plating, and how we need to focus on just meeting requirements, yada yada yada.

Yet, when I think back to the most exciting work that I had done (years ago), it was when I had met with a client (a customer service specialist) to look into a simple request to develop a few reports. She needed this so she could have more information readily available to solve customers' problems. I watched this person work for a while and felt immediate pain at what she had to go through to resolve customer problems and take orders over the phone.

She had to make a zillion phone calls and run back and forth to the plant flooor to see the status of an order, most of the time calling the customer back hours or days later. I went back to my team, and we decided it would be just as easy to give her an online "dashboard" right from her primary order inquiry screen (this was before dashboards were popular).

From there, she could see inventory allocation, and at what point material would be in stock to complete the finished products for the order, as well as other related info. She could track the customer's products from order through manufacturing. This saved her daily walks to the plant floor. Not only that, she could now address her customers' problems while they were on the phone!

Upon seeing the impact this made, we then asked if she'd also like to be able to look up shipping information, delivery tracking, and accounts receivable as well, and of course she was overjoyed. The system revolutionized customer service for this company.

One might call this gold-plating, but I call it excitement. We were excited about making a huge difference in the ability of the client to solve problems, and the client was excited to offer this benefit to her customers. Of course, I first watched the client in action so I could easily tell what was needed, so this was still a pragmatic approach.

As long as innovations have a practical use, then it's not really gold-plating. It's gold.

In our relentless pursuit of "meeting requirements" and "attaining better efficiency", let's not forget that passion and excitement can energize teams and customers, and often leads to further innovations. Above all, it leads to action and movement! Ironically, this critical mass can increase throughput even better than traditional efficiency and scheduling methods. Bottom Line: We need to bring passion and creativity back into the workforce!

Earned Schedule instead of Earned Value?

This presentation from PMI conference in UK this year describes the problems with Earned Value Management. One is that Earned Value is useful only in the early stages of a project for providing schedule management information - the SPI will always be 1.00 at the end of the project. Another is that most people don't understand schedule in terms of budget - and the use of accounting practices in project management probably has a lot to do with that!
The proposed approach uses the same basic information as SPI but expresses a Schedule Variance in terms of time rather than money. The SV(t) is the difference in time between the the status date and the date for BCWS equal to the current value of BCWP.
Earned Schedule

Project Status: Traffic Light Dashboard ...

Dashboards provide line-of-sight to executives and enable the ability to understand and respond to problems in near-real-time, if built on an accurate set of timely data. David Crain, Camp Inc., provides insights on the development and use of executive dashboards, including common visualization techniques, such as the project management status traffic light. ...

Project Status: Traffic Light Dashboard: Via Crain's Cleveland Business: An eye on the dashboard ...

... "The Red / Yellow / Green traffic light approach is one used commonly in project management as it is a color theme everyone is familiar with. " ...

Top 3 Qualities of a Successful Project Manager

Although there are many qualities that a good project managers should have, it has occurred to me from recent observations that there are really 3 key ones. If nothing else, a project manager needs to be:

• Organized
• Assertive (not to be confused with aggressive)
• Empathetic

They need to be organized in order to keep up with all the events and details going on during the project; including issues, schedule monitoring, communications, status reports, risk monitoring, and a whole host of other things.

They need to be assertive when dealing with resistant stakeholders, overbearing managers, and lackadaisical team members.

And they need to be empathetic to the needs of customers, stakeholders, team members and all sorts of constituents. To be overly assertive or too soft is equally ineffective, so both are needed in balance.

The rest, as they say, is details

EVMS Earned Value Management: Federal Agencies Lag Behind

Primavera studies the adoption and implementation of earned value management processes and systems (EVMS) in federal information technology organizations. Current assessment shows that agencies lag behind on implementation versus their EVMS targets. ...

EVMS Earned Value Management: Federal Agencies Lag Behind: Via Primavera: Study Reveals Disconnect Between Perceived Merits of Earned Value Management and Federal Agencies Readiness to Implement ...

... "Specifically, the study indicates that the federal IT community agrees with OMB that EVM delivers improved project outcomes, with 60.6 percent of respondents reporting that EVM is very or somewhat important to achieving their capital investment goals. Despite this value perception, results do not demonstrate agencies movement from belief to action, with only 37 percent currently utilizing EVM and even fewer prepared to train or hire personnel skilled in EVM within the next 12 months. Respondents cited their top challenges to EVM implementation as unfamiliarity with EVM and lack of trained personnel. These findings indicate that agencies will not only have difficulty developing EVM implementation plans in time for the December 31 OMB deadline, but also will face challenges implementing documented plans. EVM processes, systems, and software enable the continuous assessment of project performance and status - providing a methodology that can help agencies effectively measure project alignment with resources and goals by comparing status to original plans and end goals. EVM can help agencies achieve green marks on the President's Management Agenda scorecard. To achieve and maintain this high score, agency projects must stay within a 10 percent variance from their cost, schedule, and performance goals. Further, OMB issued a memorandum in August 2005 requiring agencies to utilize EVM Systems (EVMS) on all new major IT projects. The memorandum requires development of written policies outlining agency-specific plans for EVM implementation by December 31, 2005. Agencies must also evaluate exiting, cost, schedule, and performance of ongoing IT projects and take any necessary corrective actions by March 31, 2006 and before devoting any FY06 funds to associated projects. In support of this effort, OMB is working with the Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council to develop a model agency EVMS policy for IT projects ... " ...

Project Management Certification: Global Recognition ...

Project manager certifications are gaining global interest. Ho Siew Yee explores the project management certification strategy at Kompakar, where a major investment in its project managers is expected to increase brand value, name recognition, and global status. ...

Project Management Certification: Global Recognition: Via Business Times: Kompakar raises spending to certify project managers ...

... "By year-end, all Kompakar project managers being deployed will be internationally-recognised project management professionals who will undertake large-scale overseas projects. " ...

Business Strategy: Align Objectives and Execute

IBM launches new software that enables workers and managers throughout an organization to align their personal and departmental objectives with business strategy and drive execution of their workplace activities ...

Business Strategy: Align Objectives and Execute: Via IBM: IBM Software Helps Employees at All Levels Align Their Objectives With Company Strategy ...

... "According to feedback from IBM's customers and partners, more companies are recognizing that while they have lots of data and a sound business strategy, the execution of the strategy needs improvement. IBM Workplace for Business Strategy Execution helps employees understand their company's strategy in concrete terms, focus on what is important, and remain current on status and risks. A department leader can use IBM Workplace for Business Strategy Execution to clearly communicate team objectives and how they fit into the company's strategy; link to and monitor internal and external dependencies that could affect the ability to reach objectives; track progress toward the objectives though intuitive scorecards and dashboards; and initiate actions to correct gaps in performance. " ...

PMThink references on strategy and alignment:

• Achieve Strategy Execution: Accelerate Plan Funding Support


• Business Continuity Project: Key Part of IT Strategy ...


• Business IT Alignment: Business-Relevant Metrics


• Business IT Strategy: Successful Alignment


• Governance Alignment: Project Portfolio Management (PPM)


• IT Alignment: Cost Benefit Analysis ...


• IT Governance: SAP ESA Strategy


• IT Strategy: Motorola Exec Podcast ...


• ITIL: IT Service Catalog: Alignment Focal Point ...


• Microsoft Framework: Business IT Alignment


• PMO Role: Align Business and IT ...


• Project Failure: A Success Strategy


• Project Management Strategy Integration Conference December2005


• PublicSector CIO: Enterprise View IT Strategy


• Software Aligns Project Management With Enterprise Strategy: Enhanced Portfolio Analytics ...


• Strategic Alignment: Project Portfolio


• Strategy: Visualize the Design ...

Planning for Project Initiation

Here's another of those questions that comes up during consulting engagements, particularly those where resource planning is an important management process.
Many organisations have a formal point at which a project is recognised as being part of the portfolio. Once a project is recognised as being official in this way, then it gets general visibility - it will have a name, perhaps a reference number, a project manager, a charter, a budget, a place on the executives regular status report, etc.
Frequently there is some kind of gate meeting for those organisations that use a Stage Gate Process. For others there may be a portfolio review committee or perhaps it's as 'simple' as getting three separate VPs signatures. Whatever the method, a common requirement is that there must be supporting information giving some kind of cost benefit analysis and, usually, more detail on probable timing, resource requirements, risk assessment and so on.
This information takes time, effort and resources to prepare. And there can be a lot of time, effort and resources involved. The issue is how does one plan for it when, technically, there is no project. There are three general approaches. Which one an organisation uses depends on its management and accounting practices and priorities.

1. Start tracking the project from the time of very first idea. Once it becomes 'official', there needs to be a way to include the effort spent in preparing the proposal in the newly approved budget - including the cases where the project gets rejected at the first gate. This approach would be relevant where the organisation is really interesting in total product costs. The problem is that there is no official plan at the outset against which time and costs can be recorded - and this makes resource planning difficult.
2. Have a specific proposal preparation project with it's own budget and approval mechanism. This would be relevant for major projects and often fits in the context where each phase of a major project would have it's own methodology, plan, budget and approval mechanism.
3. Have a pseudo project which covers 'early project activities' with resources and budget to do a range of relatively lightly defined activities. In this case there would be little formal connection between the effort for the early project proposal effort and the eventual full project. This approach would be suitable for an organisation where project proposals are fairly simple and the effort required for an individual proposal can be approved under a fairly large umbrella.

IT Governance Solution: Maturity Acceleration ...

IT Governance Solution: Maturity Acceleration: Via Pacific Edge: PACIFIC EDGE LAUNCHES NEW FLAGSHIP IT GOVERNANCE SOLUTION: Industry's First Maturity-Based Approach for Achieving IT Governance Objectives ...

Pacific Edge introduces maturity acceleration as a differentiator in its new IT governance solution. Interesting marketing concepts and good bundling of software/services. Be interesting to see how cultural adoption is address to achieve its fastest possible velocity for maximum acceleration ...

... "Mariner is powerful and practical to adopt, and ensures that the benefits of IT governance can be quickly and fully realized. Pacific Edge also announced Maturity-based Accelerators, bundled software and consulting services that guide organizations through multiple stages of IT governance maturity. Together, the two offerings represent the industry's first maturity-based approach to helping customers deploy IT governance best-practices at their specific levels of readiness. With portfolio management at its core, Mariner also encompasses robust project, resource, and demand management. Project management capabilities provide a consistent, comprehensive approach for initiating project requests, creating project and task plans, collecting project costs and tracking time, status, and deliverables. Resource management enables the IT organization to analyze resource utilization, skills, and the impact of project changes at the named resource level. Demand management features capture all sources of demand for resources, channel requests through required approval levels, and rapidly mobilize resources. " ...

Open Source Project Management

Looking for free project management tools? Check out this index of open and free project management tools (O&F PMT).

As the site says:

"This is the place where you can follow the development and status of the project management tools under some kind of Open Source or Free Software License"

Better than that, you can actually download and use these tools!

cHBs - Open and Free Project Management Tools

Beyond Gantt Charts; Project Frontier Reports on Information Design Challenges

Garry Booker at Project Frontier is proving to be a key thought leader in project management. His latest essay explores the limitations of most graphical tools used today, such as Gantt Charts, Dashboards, Earned Value charts, and other tools we know and love. Unfortunately, most of these tools are two-dimensional at best, and only offer a snapshot of the whole picture (something Edward Tufte would certainly agree with).

No system lives in isolation, and this is the essence of Garry Booker's essay. The essay explores systems thinking, and the 10 top challenges for those looking to adopt a systems approach to presenting their project management data. The key to any information design layer is awareness-- awareness of both the forest and the trees (and, as presented in the essay, even the leaves). Booker feels he may have addressed these problems with his EV Maps, and perhaps he has (KIDASA's Milestones Professional certainly seems to think so).

Regardless, I encourage everyone to read this essay and think about the implications of how we present data currently. Never mind the fact that he praises PMThink in his essay --- honest! Our site is all about research and exploring ways to improve the status quo in project management. Project Frontier is certainly pushing the envelope and we fully support endeavors such as that.

Information Design Challenge

Project Frontier's Earned Value Maps Part of KIDASA Milestone Professional 2006 Beta

As we reported here several weeks ago, our friend Garry Booker of Project Frontier came up with a revolutionary way to depict Earned Value status in a graphical pattern that goes way beyond Gantt Chart flatland.

Looks like people are taking notice. KIDASA's Milestones Professional 2006 will include these "EV Maps" as part of their product, and they're now looking for beta testers.

Here's the link to the Project Frontier news item, which contains more detail...

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