Currently Browsing : project management

by Michael Railton Challenges are just opportunities to think differently Offshoring has its horror stories. Many of them resulting from putting the desire to drive cost down ahead of the desire to deliver against business benefit. Throwing specs “over the fence” may be cheap, but there is often significant business upheaval in the wake of a poorly built software system. The cost of correction (in the software) and disruption (in the business) is often significantly greater than would’ve been incurred had a smarter approach to working as a team been pursued from the outset. Effective collaboration within distributed development teams is [&hellip

I fear the wrath of project managers everywhere when I write that delivery against planned timelines is unimportant. The success of a project does not depend on whether the changes were implemented by some, often random, predetermined date. The success of a project depends solely on whether the benefits promised (and paid for) were delivered. It amazes me how often this perspective gets overlooked, never at the outset of the project of course. In the heady early days, it’s all about benefits models and the associated business case. It’s usually once the project gets underway that the focus slowly shifts [&hellip

Too often we see projects delivered months or years after initiation with no rigour around ensuring that the project achieves what it set out to. As project teams focus more and more on delivery, the recognition of benefit becomes “did we implement it?” rather than “does it deliver the value we had wanted?” A business case should be a living document. Benefits need to be defined in the early days of the project and, on an on-going basis, the likelihood of delivering the benefits should be assessed. PRINCE2® advocates this is done as part of each stage review. More importantly, [&hellip

Too often, project managers talk about how a delayed deliverable affects a Gantt chart or a projectplan. The leap from project administration to project management comes with an ability to understandhow change affects the ability to deliver the benefits promised rather than merely raising exceptions tomanage budget, scope or resource. It is our experience that business analysts are often best placed toinform this type of decision making and therefore play this role more effectively. Business Analysts make the best Project Managers from BSG (UK)

It is a myth that Agile projects are not requirements driven. The Agile Manifesto is all about bringing business and technology closer through creating a co-located single team environment where requirements can be tested with limited overhead. This does not negate the need to wrap the project with structured requirements or the reality that enterprise systems live well beyond the project teams that deploy them. Agile projects cannot be successful without Business Analysts from BSG (UK)

Evolution is key to the survival of any species. This isn’t a revolutionary concept; it has been around since man moved from eating raw meat to finding his first source of heat and energy. In business, the same is true. Those still using caveman techniques in a world evolving around them are likely to become extinct like the dodo. There is clearly a need to constantly adapt, to realize that if one approach doesn’t work that it isn’t the end but rather the beginning. There is a need to recognize that you do not know all the answers, but collectively, [&hellip

I was sitting with my wife the other day, enjoying a bright summer’s afternoon and having a bit of a chat. We were discussing our experiences during interviews, and chuckling about certain questions that inevitably get bandied around during the process (yes, we are nerds!). One question that always pops up is about teamwork: are you a team player, etc, etc.  Now we both like to think of ourselves as efficient individuals, people who get things done. Hence we were amusing ourselves by hypothesising at how an interviewer would react if one of us said during an interview that I [&hellip

During the past few days my curiosity-muscle has been tickled by the dormant value that resides in understanding stakeholder backgrounds early on in a project. Of particular interest is how this relates back to project timeline estimations and planning. “How?” you ask. Allow me to explain… I wouldn’t expect much “umming and ahhing” if I alleged that there was considerable value to be gained in building strong relationships with stakeholders. It seems almost logical that building robust connections brings with it not only commercial benefit, but also project benefit. It instills a sense of teamwork as opposed to the typical [&hellip