One of the ways you can ensure your project and its team are always in sync, aware of obstacles and issues, and keep the line of sight in view is to meet 15 minutes each day, first thing in the morning or the last meeting of the day. This Agile practice not only helps team
Last week we talked about a simple presentation slide on your current project that would assist management in summarizing its current status. We want to emphasize simple. As gather-ers of information, facts, figures, scenarios, risks, exceptions, etc., at some point, we know more about the entire project than anyone else. We must avoid putting everything
You may be running one of 100’s of projects and not aware of visibility or significance however you should be aware of presenting an overview of your project will be helpful to you and to your management all the way to the top. One easy way to do this is a simple charter/status slide that
As tasks and time, which costs money, is a main focus for planning, nearly everyone you will talk with in gathering information will short change the overall effort. This is not on purpose but as we all tend to do, the one who knows the process best may fail to mention little items or easy
Many firms have no organization when it comes to development except Code – Test – UAT – Release. Especially in the age of exponentially increasing cybercrime, architectural review, not just code review, is a foundational practice. Developers that skirt around this step introduce costly and harmful elements into a company’s technology landscape and eventually network
As I see the count of people applying for jobs for PM’s move past 400, I am reminded many of my fellow IT workers and all job hunters for that matter may have a need to file for unemployment. Some tips in doing so: It’s kinda your money anyway — You pay into several buckets
When involved in an acquisition or divestiture, keep in mind the stress, fears, and pressures your user base is undergoing apart from the demands your project is adding to their reality. This calls for patience and grace in abundance, including a personal visit or phone call instead of text/email/Skype, creating special instructions, scheduling, or
Exclusions are anything that isn’t included as a deliverable or work for the project. It’s important to list exclusions in your scope documentation so there is no misunderstanding about features or deliverables once the product is complete. Think of exclusions as corporate or user assumptions all interested parties might make from the gist or title
Wrong. Consider the following when you are behind in schedule or have a newly added chunk of work to your project: Phase the new work to after you finish the already planned project work Have you taught someone to drive, do dishes, play a board game? It takes more than double the time to do
Lost in translation can describe 2nd, 3rd, and 4th handed information that is passed on as “necessary” requirements, causing PM’s to plan in one direction while ending up in a completely different place 1/2 way through planning. On one project, between the first list of needs relayed and an onsite assessment, the equipment list was