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PMBOK Explained! – Coming Soon

October 21, 2010 By 2 Comments

Over the coming weeks here at Project Management Success we’re going to be running a series called ‘PMBOK Explained’.
This will be an introduction to PMBOK for the uninitiated! A high level overview of what PMBOK is all about.

Now to get started – PMBOK is a Project Management methodology. The acronym stands for the Project Management Body of Knowledge. Developed by the Project Management Institute (world’s largest recognized Project Management professional organization) it has really become the gold standard for Project Management guidelines, rules and characteristics for project management.

The PMBOK Explained! series will not make you a project managment expert but it’ll give you an idea of what it’s all about – enough of an idea to see if following up with PMBOK and possibly gaining certification as a Project Management Professional (PMP) is something that you’d like to follow up with. And of course if you do choose to go down the PMP exam route then we do have resources we can recommend to you for preparing for your PMP exam, including PM PrepCast (awesome video and audio package with practice questions and online forum) and load of different study guides, flash cards and all sorts!

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Project Management Success – PM PrepCast Review

September 12, 2010 By 1 Comment

I’d been looking around the internet for a while trying to come up with a way to study and prepare for my PMP when I first came across PM PrepCast.

PM PrepCast is a video based prep program for studying for your PMP and is probably the best priced and most efficient way I have seen to prepare and pass your PMP.  I am extremely busy and can never seem to get a good ‘chunk’ of uninterrupted study time.  I don’t want to be wading through massive books, I just want someone to tell me what I need to know and be done with it!  So a video based prep program is perfect for me!  I also like to catch a video here and there, in bed, at the airport, waiting at the doctor surgery, wherever – and that’s the best thing about this program is that you can synchronize with your favorite player (the iPhone for me) and have the freedom of being ready to study wherever you are, for a few minutes here and there.  You can also download it and play it on your PC if you wish.

  • No need to wade through heaps of books
  • Focused and efficient video presentations that tell you what you need to know in a way that is easy to remember
  • Portable – you can synch it to your favorite player and go anywhere
  • It is simple and efficient with 38 hours of video and you’re ready for the exam.
  • It is amazingly good value at less than $100!

If you are the sort of person who prefers a text book then it may not be for you – but if you want fast, efficient, thorough and inexpensive – then PM PrepCast is for you!

Check out their website where they tell you everything that is included in the program and all the great features and benefits.

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Project Management Certification – PMP

September 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Having Project Management Certification provides benefits to both you and your employer.

Whether you are an experienced Project Manager or just starting out, going through the certification process provides you with great learning opportunity.  Having the actual certification also gives you a level of professional recognition and credibility and means that you are more likely to be able to command a higher salary.

PMP stands for Project Management Professional. PMP certification is offered by PMI (Project Management Institute) and being a certified PMP demonstrates that you meet a certain level of proficiency in project management and leadership skills.   PMP is widely recognized by major companies and government agencies worldwide as the standard qualification for the role of project managers with the other well recognized qualification being Prince2 Practitioner (though this is more popular in the UK and Australia).  These days, many companies require their project managers to hold certification in Project Management and PMP is the most recognized choice.

I recommend that you think about obtaining certification, this is one of the best project management tips I can offer!  It really does lift your knowledge as well as your marketability and improves your level of project management success.  Check out this post for information on preparing for the PMP exam.

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Managing Issues for Project Management Success

April 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Issue Management starts when you are planning the project and lasts throughout the entire project lifecycle.

Even before a project starts there can be issues already in play.  You’ll need to identify issues in the planning stage and document them in an issues log.  Issues Logs can be as simple as a text document with a table in it or a simple spreadsheet or can utilize specific software systems designed for logging issues.  Issues log should be regularly monitored and updated throughout a project as part of your general project reporting and as issues come up.

The content of your issues log may vary, but generally there are some basic fields that most issues logs will contain.  These include:  Issue Reference, Name, Description, Severity, Impact.  Then issue updates may include fields such as a date, description, status and actions.  It really is imperative to keep a good issues log.  Just the act of having to update a log keeps you on top of where things are at and pushing along the actions required.  The other good aspect of having well documented issues is that when things hit the fan, and they sometimes do, then you have a detailed, documented trail of the actions you have been taking to rectify or resolve issues.

There are some issues that require documentation beyond the basic Issues Log.  This is where an issue requires further analysis and consideration of impact of possible actions – often where escalation is required.  Where this is the case I use an ‘Issue Report’ or ‘Issue Description’ which is a concise report that descibes the issue background, impact (time, cost, quality) and potential actions with their time, cost and quality impacts.

Keeping on top of issues that arise is imperative for project managment success.  It can stop little issues from becoming ‘showstoppers’, it keeps your project moving on the right path and it fosters confidence in you as a manager – from your stakeholders and your team.

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Getting signoff

March 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Getting sign off from a customer during a project can be a frustrating experience.  It can hold up the work on the project, pushing out your timeline and impede your project cashflow where payments are dependent on getting acceptance.  All of this is not good for project management success!

The issues that you may come across in getting a document or a deliverable signed off include:

  • Insufficient time allowed in the plan for review of the deliverable item
  • Insufficient support given to customers in the handover of a deliverable
  • Insufficient project management around this crucial period

I’ll talk about each of these briefly in this post.

Insufficient time allowed

It’s hard to stay in front when you didn’t have enough time allowed in the first place.  So consider the review periods that will be required, both internal to your organisation and at the customer end.  The more reviews and the more people involved in getting sign off, the greater the time period that needs to be allowed for.  It can be really tempting when planning a project to reduce these periods so try as hard as you can to resist calls from above to cut down the review times.

Insufficient support given to customer at the time of handover of the deliverable

Think about what you are handing over to the customer and ensure that you give clear instructions on what you need from them.  Be clear about what it is you expect them to do with the deliverable, be clear that you are expecting approval or proposed amendments (or whatever is relevant), be clear about the format you wish to receive feedback in and be clear about the timeframe you expect to have a response by.   Consider also that your customers may need help with their review of the deliverable and provide the necessary assistance.  For example at the handover of a piece of software for User Acceptance Testing you may need to provide a training session or demonstration, along with necessary testing plan and/or scripts and instructions on how and where to log issues with the software.

Insufficient project management

This is not the time to leave people to their own devices.  You should keep in regular contact with your customer and facilitate the approval of the deliverable by pushing them along in performing their actions as well as solving any issues that may impede them from undertaking their review or providing their approval.

Projects can really blow out around approval times, so to maximise your chances of project management success make sure you allow enough review and signoff time, provide support and manage the process.

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Project Management Success – Keeping it Simple!

February 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I really agree with the keep it simple approach.  When scoping out a software project, I try to scope the minimum functionality that will meet the customers needs.  I find this hard sometimes, so when I feel myself wanting to add a function or feature that I believe is good, but possibly beyond the basics I write it down (just to get it out of my system) but place it in a list of ‘Potential Enhancements’ that are for consideration beyond the initial project.  This is because I can’t afford to complicate the project beyond what is needed.

I came across a blog post that also embodied this philosophy within the software development phase:

It’s important to bear in mind the ‘Keep it simple’ philosophy throughout a project, if you stick to the minimum required to meet the customer deliverables you’ll be much more likely to deliver.  If you try to get fancy, you can come unstuck!

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Mind Mapping for Project Management Success

February 22, 2010 By 1 Comment

I love mind mapping software!  It’s simple, it’s visual, it’s versatile – and everybody gets it!  I use mind mapping software throughout the project lifecycle for many purposes, including:

Product Breakdown Structure – the very first thing I do when I’m making sense of what a project is about is go through the documentation and try to define what the project deliverables are.  I use mind mapping software to make a visual and hierarchical representation of the project products in a product breakdown structure (PBS).

Project Plan – once I’ve identified the products of the project I can then export this PBS from my mind mapping software to my Gantt chart software, which happens to be MS Project 2007 at the moment.

Project Meetings – I use mind mapping software to take notes during any project meetings and then export the notes to MS Word or a pdf document.

Project Reporting – I keep the PBS and add some progress type icons to it and use this as a key project reporting tool.  Project boards and committees love it – they don’t have to wade through gantt charts or cumbersome text, they can just look at it – and get it!

So there’s just a few uses for you!

The software I use for mind mapping is Mindjet’s Mind Manager 8 – it’s commercial software that costs a little bit, but well worth it for the use I get out of it!  There is a free alternative that looks quite good – though I’ve not tried it and so not sure if it has all of the cool export options, but recommend you give it a go if you want free software – it’s called XMind.

Sample Product Breakdown Structure with progress indicators

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Project Management Success

February 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Being a Project Manager is hard work!  It can be an extremely challenging undertaking – managing people, tasks, risks, issues,activities and deliverables.  Get it right and sometimes it may just go unnoticed – all part of the job.  Get it wrong, however, and you  can bet everyone will be watching!  Being in control of a large project is kind of like being in control of a large freight train that is hurtling down the tracks. Exhilirating and a little bit scary!

Project management success depends on the ability of the project manager to perform in a number of areas:

  • Planning – the project manager needs to undertake a thorough and detailed planning phase that identifies the actual deliverable items of the project along with the development approach, the resources, time and tasks involved and the quality acceptance criteria.
  • Manage stakeholders – the key stakeholders of the project should be identified and an appropriate engagement and communcation plan developed for managing the stakeholders.
  • Manage teams – the project manager needs to lead a team to deliver the project products.
  • Manage Tasks – the tasks of the project need to be identified, estimated in terms of cost, time and resource requirements and tracked through the project.
  • Manage Scope – the scope of the project, or the quality and quantitiy of project product and function needs to be carefully managed throughout a project to ensure it stays close to the planned project outcomes and remains within the constraints offered by time and cost.
  • Manage Risk – risks need to be identified, assessed for their likelihood to eventuate and potential impact on the project should they eventuate.   Actions to mitgate risks should be employed where appropriate and risks should be monitored and managed throughout the project.
  • Manage Issues – similar to the management of risks, issues need to be identified, analyzed and managed through a project to reduce their negative impacts upon a project.
  • Communicate – communication is a key part of project management.  The project manager is the central point of communication for all project stakeholders.  Communication needs between the project team members, the project manager and the customer.  Project meetings and project reports are often the key vehicles for project communication.
  • Documentation – project documentation serves several purposes – it clarifes and solidifies what the project is about and who is responsible, it facilitates better tracking and management of the project and forms part of the communication of the project.
  • Manage Delivery – ulitimately the project has to deliver something.  It is important for the project manager to remember that whatever else is going on, whatever reports need to be written, meetings that need to be held, risks that need to be monitored and so forth, the primary focus must be on delivering the goods!
Having a process to follow, a methodology, can play a part in project management success.  Many project managers tend to be well organized and methodical planners and executers of process – and that is no accident.  Project management process is imperative to consistent success in managing projects.
Having templates and tools to assist in delivery projects is also a facilitator of project management success.  There are many software tools available to help you, including:
  • Project product planning tools.
  • Project task planning and tracking tools.
  • Project Documents.
  • Project Reporting tools.
  • Issue/Risk/Deliverable Management tools.

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Project Management Success – Quick Fire Strategies

February 5, 2010 By

Managing projects can be a difficult job and sure isn’t for the faint hearted!  All projects have challenges to overcome, in fact the complexity our projects, time and budget constraints in our high paced work environments mean that ‘putting out fires’ is an everyday part of managing projects.  But take heart, there are strategies that can help you to deal with challenges, issues, risks and problems and find Project Management success!

Here’s a few quick-fire strategies to get you moving straight away – strategies that take just a moment to employ, but can really make a difference in you everyday project world:

1.  Get Amongst It – Know your project inside and out, really understand what it’s about, talk to each member of your team and understand what they are doing, where they are at, what problems they are facing.  Really get amongst it.  Managing from afar just doesn’t work.

2.  Believe that you can – Ever heard that saying ‘whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right’?  Well project management is a bit like that.  Often we are given projects where the resources, time, scope and budget just don’t point to success even at the get-go, however, we need to keep believing that we can do it.  We can deliver it.  We will find a way.  This belief not only focuses our mind on solving problems and taking actions but it sends a message to the whole team.

3.  Get on top of issues – No, they just don’t tend to go away by themselves, do they?  If you or another team member have identified an issue – solve it.  Nip it in the bud.  Solve it now, while it’s still small.  Come up with the options, communicate with the team and with the stakeholders.  Some issues are just carried all the way through the project like a grumbling under the surface until the project has to grind to a halt.  If you know something is going to cause a problem, get on top of it.

4.  Make deadline – all projects have key dates where deliverables are due to customers.  Isn’t it amazing what a flurry of activity can occur in the week or so when the next deliverable is due.  Funny what deadlines can do, isn’t it?  Having goals that are bound by a date really focus people’s time and energy, so set internal deadlines for the next piece of work with your team and get focused.

5.  Prioritize – Prioritize your time and energy into doing things that matter, things that are directly related to the completion of key project deliverables or the solving of project issues.  Sometimes we get so caught up in the small stuff that we lose sight of what’s important.  Project Management success, particularly where you have multiple projects to manage, is dependent upon your ability to determine what is important – and what isn’t.

6.  Communicate – talk to the team, talk to the customer, tell people what’s going on.  If there’s a problem, if there’s a success, whatever, just communicate.  Being visible as a leader and manager is important and ensures both your team and your stakeholders are confident that you are on top of things.

So there are a few strategies for you to employ, that can help you to achieve Project Managment Success.  Good luck!

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