It wasn’t that long ago that the world was a much bigger place. In the olden days (about 10 years ago) we didn’t have to think too much about the real-time impact of global project teams. The world just isn’t that big anymore. Collaboration challenges Modern communications technology means that every team member probably has a mobile phone and the Internet is available virtually everywhere (well, almost) and the collaboration tools for video conferencing and…
Since I started in the project management software industry in the early 1980s there has always been an interest in managing skill scheduling. It’s easy to see why. When you need to build something whether it is a house, a pipeline, an aircraft, a new drug or a piece of software, you are going to require resources who have specific skills. Skill scheduling has been designed and even delivered in different project management tools…
This year political correctness seems to be everywhere. In the US it’s a presidential election cycle so perhaps some level of political correctness goes with the territory. But political correctness isn’t just a political phenomenon. In the private sector, in public sector organizations, in volunteer or charitable work the insidiousness of being “PC” can wreak havoc. Project Managers are faced with this every day and are under pressure either to make sure their project reports…
“Hey man, that’s old school,” said the person at the next table over from me at Starbucks. I looked up to see who he was talking to. To my surprise, he was looking right at me. The young man looked like he was studying for college. There were text books and an iPad in front of him. “Old school, man,” the young man, repeated pointing at my hand. I was holding a fountain pen and…
We’ve just published a new free webinar based on seminars that have been given many times in different venues around North America. Panning for Gold by Data Mining your Project Tracking data is approximately 60 minutes long and covers how to data mine enteprise project and enterprise timesheet data to improve efficiency. The webinar includes real life examples from some of our HMS Software clients in how they were able to data mine their project timesheet…
No, I’m not talking about the new vine on your deck trellis. I’m talking about scope creep. It’s every project manager’s nightmare. The project starts off at a manageable modest size and in the blink of an eye, it’s a beheamouth of unmanageable porportions. In one of HMS Software’s first ever mandates back when we were just getting started, we had a client who asked us to configure their project management system with multiple baselines. This…
I’m in the software publishing business. I should be all about selling you the tools. It’s not about the result you want, it should be about the result I want… but that’s never been the way I’ve gone about business. So this article is about the result, not the tool. I came across an interesting expression recently. A software salesperson was talking about delivering the entire solution to his client. “We don’t sell drills.…
Over the years I have received a number of questions from project managers expressing the challenge of sharing bad news with their management. “No matter what the potential benefits might be,” one said, “I’ll be fired if I share news that bad.” No matter what your work environment, it seems that some people are better at sharing bad news than others and for project managers, being able to share both good tidings and bad is part of the…
In my office recently one of our most experienced employees came to me with a strange question. “How do you know if something is a project management system?” they asked. I opened my mouth to answer then paused… for a long time. The answer is not obvious. In the early 1980s the first critical path scheduling packages became available for personal computers. In fact, I find it interesting that history shows that critical-path scheduling software…
Many years ago in the project management software industry there was a hotly contested debate that could have no definite outcome. What was better, pundits asked, taking the “best of breed” or “all-in-one”. The timing coincided with the recent release of all new “enterprise” project management systems that purported to do everything you might want all in one system. This movement wished to displace the trend of the time which was to choose multiple project…