Look into using your existing business systems as part of your project management tools. The business systems used by everyone to do their daily jobs can often provide more current and predictive information than relying solely on our traditional project management tools.
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September 2, 2009 Bruce Benson
Communication, Reporting
If we want a successful project, we may want to develop it remotely, so it is away from the chaos of the main office.
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August 30, 2009 Bruce Benson
Change Management, Communication, Reporting
Sometimes we just need to bring order to one key project process to stabilize and enhance the overall project.
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August 25, 2009 Bruce Benson
Change Management, Schedule
You have a big project. Critical to the company. So you put your best people on it. The "A" team. Funny, you always seem to get the same results. If your company is not doing well, your "A" team still results in you not doing well. Often, I attribute this kind of consistent pattern to a cultural or major organizational issue that needs to be resolved.
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August 20, 2009 Bruce Benson
Change Management, Team Management
The problem with being a good project manager, or any kind of good manager, is that often your project or organization is running along too smoothly. You stay on top of the issues and continuously improve the way you do things based upon feedback from your team and customers. Boring!
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August 17, 2009 Bruce Benson
Communication
Some successful managers, line managers -- not just project managers, may have never experienced a successful project. A few days after I originally wrote this, I came across an on-line discussion by some senior managers that just illustrated this surprising situation so well.
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August 13, 2009 Bruce Benson
Change Management
What you say and how you say it may have more impact than you expect.
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August 9, 2009 Bruce Benson
Communication
I would often talk excitedly about some project we completed that was on time and had good results. Folks would say "yeah, we did that too." In my naive enthusiasm, I would pepper them with questions on what they did and how they did it. I would get horrified looks and then they would flee. I would come to discover that too many of those other on time projects were more noise than substance. How could a simple notion such as "on time" be so complicated?"
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August 5, 2009 Bruce Benson
Change Management, Schedule
I talk a lot about "on time" as being a project management tool. This might strike many as backwards.
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August 2, 2009 Bruce Benson
Schedule
Pay Attention. That's it. Pay Attention. The Ultimate Project Management Tool.
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July 26, 2009 Bruce Benson
Communication
All I had to do was to get about 500 software defects fixed, according to my project management tools. My boss told me I had to have daily meetings with everyone concerned to get this done. This meeting centric approach to managing this project turned out to be utter madness. Simple measurements, that anyone can do, demonstrated that these meetings had no discernible impact.
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July 20, 2009 Bruce Benson
Communication, Reporting
We had done everything "by the book." Sold management on the great project management technique and tools. Called all those planning meetings. Got approval and funding. Six months later, few people seem to be talking about the improvement project. Things don't look too much different . Does this sound familiar? Here are seven techniques we've used to ensure success.
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July 12, 2009 Bruce Benson
Change Management
Your development team is telling you it will take 24 weeks to do product development. You only have 20 weeks to your product launch window. After that, the product won't be competitive. What does a good project manager do?
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July 5, 2009 Bruce Benson
Schedule
A simple project management tool, such as computing an average, can transform a project from chaotic and out of control to suddenly predictable and manageable. Here are some simple averages that made a huge difference in our management of large and complex projects.
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June 28, 2009 Bruce Benson
Reporting
Project management tools is all about turning an out of control situation into a rational, methodical discipline. Sometimes, however, losing some control of the situation can be the best course of action.
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June 19, 2009 Bruce Benson
Change Management
