Purchasing is such a routine of process and procedures in each organization that the effects of the process are rarely challenged. Well, we do so in this article on how standard purchasing practices are applied to the selection of enterprise project management software.
Project management comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes but nowhere is scheduling more tightly managed than in a high-pressure shutdown/maintenance project. In these 5-10 day projects, an entire industrial facility must be stopped, have maintenance done and then restarted and ever hour that passes is huge amounts of money lost in production. It’s a particular kind of scheduling from which anyone in project management can learn a lot.
Article: EPM in a Foreclosure economy Project management is a popular concept when there is a boom economy but when economic times are more challenging, project management becomes a survival skill. This article looks at how organizations apply enterprise project management concepts when business is challenged. Read more…
Article: Head for the Hills With a teenage daughter in the house, we end up watching MTV rather often. The MTV hit “The Hills” has one of its cast fulfilling the role of project manager. It makes you think how project management is perceived by people outside of the more classic scheduling expert. Is project management becoming democratized? And, is that a good thing for all of us? Read more…
Article: The Electric PMO While at a local Project Management conference I was able to talk to project managers about the different kinds of Project Management Office (PMO). I was struck by how choosing a different direction for the philosophy of the PMO would make for very different tools that should be selected by it for making the organization efficient. Here are some of my thoughts from that confererence. Read more…
Article: Third party project management tools – timekeeping Third party project management tools come in many different flavors but I have a soft spot for the timekeeping category. Since my own firm, HMS Software, produces TimeControl, a project oriented timesheet system. This article takes a look at why looking outside of your EPM system for a timesheet is worth thinking about.
Article: Their Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch TAANSTAAFL is an acronym we can thank science fiction writer Robert Heinlein for. But sometimes he’s wrong. Every once in awhile you’ll find something that you can have for nothing. Here are a list of tools and services that don’t cost a thing!
Article: The project manager’s perspective So much of the project manager’s role involves communication. But, how can you effectively communicate with someone if you’re not sure that they mean the same thing you do when you speak? Common terminology from places like the PMBOK is a good start but do you take into account your own bias and your own perspective when you communicate?
Article: That elusive proof of concept Many organizations have purchasing policies that involve a proof of concept for enterprise software. The problem is, it’s hard to evaluate the effectiveness of enterprise software until the company commits. We’ll examine this Catch-22 of how to get around the proof-of-concept dilemma.
Article: Project Stage Gating Stage gating is a concept that is known to many in the project management community. But, did you know it started as a study on what organizations were more effective than others and trying to find out why? We’ll talk about the origins of ‘stage-gate’ and the reasons that the practice makes organizations effective.