Journyx Project Management Blog

The majority of project planning effort today is still performed in a strictly “deterministic” manner. All project tasks and resources are assigned and executed within well defined timeframes. At the same time we all know that real life necessitates corrective actions:

* Resources are not always available
* Extra tasks pop up during the course of the projects
* What happens most frequently is the initial estimate of the time required to perform a certain task is no longer valid

It’s easy to mentally grasp such uncertainties and have an accurate estimate when dealing with a few variables. With large scale projects however having multiple uncertainty factors of a different nature and character means such analysis can not be performed manually. It demands a very special effort for an accurate project assessment.

Read more at: Project Perfect

For years, organizations have been working to gain control over their projects. They’ve collectively spent hundreds of millions of dollars and countless person-hours establishing methodologies, developing standards and metrics and implementing complicated software. Yet despite the effort and resources invested in improving project management (PM), we’re no closer to controlling the resulting projects.

What Went Wrong?

The problem becomes apparent when people in the organization wonder why they never really adopted the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) software they bought and the standards it supports. Much of this is because the cultural change that drives project management (PM) adoption and maturation has been under-managed. Without carefully managing the cultural change required to make PPM a success, the organization can’t build its PM capabilities, nor execute those critical projects that move it toward its vision or “future state.”

Effective change management also drives adoption of the supporting PPM software. PPM software is the steel beam that rests upon the foundation of your methodology and execution standards, and even if the foundation is strong, the building collapses if the beams fall down. What are the roadblocks organizations face in ensuring their PPM solutions are actually adopted?

PPM initiatives fail largely for four interrelated reasons…

Read more at: Project Times

Every IT project is executed with a set of deliverables, and has an expected closure time. Prior to this closure period, there are a predetermined set of tasks and activities to complete the project successfully. These tasks constitute the scope of a project. Since a project schedule is closely tied to the delivery time line and the scope, a little variation in the scope can affect delivery and in turn affect the success of the project.

This inching forward of scope to introduce more requirements that are not included in the initial planning of the project whilst maintaining the same time frame for project delivery, is called Scope Creep. Scope Creep is the pejorative name given to the natural process by which clients discover what they really want.

The scope creep can be classified based on the users who creates these changes…

Read more at: Project Perfect

Business intelligence, or BI, is an umbrella term that refers to a variety of software applications used to analyze an organization’s raw data. BI as a discipline is made up of several related activities, including data mining, online analytical processing, querying and reporting.

Companies use BI to improve decision making, cut costs and identify new business opportunities. BI is more than just corporate reporting and more than a set of tools to coax data out of enterprise systems. CIOs use BI to identify inefficient business processes that are ripe for re-engineering.

With today’s BI tools, business folks can jump in and start analyzing data themselves, rather than wait for IT to run complex reports. This democratization of information access helps users back up—with hard numbers—business decisions that would otherwise be based only on gut feelings and anecdotes.

Although BI holds great promise, implementations can be dogged by technical and cultural challenges. Executives have to ensure that the data feeding BI applications is clean and consistent so that users trust it.

Read more at: CIO

Projects fundamentally indicate how well an organization performs, as it is through projects that organizations, for the most part, can advance their agendas to increase revenue, reduce costs and gain both market and mind share. Over the past 25 to 30 years, we have observed a significant increase in the use of technology within both private and public sector to advance both tactical and strategic initiatives. With the advent of the Internet, the pressure on private and public companies and government organizations to leverage the web to deliver better service at a faster pace to a larger base, has been significant. All this has meant a surge in capital initiatives to drive business strategy. With that comes the monumental task of expectation management, which, in general, IT has not been able to effectively address. The number of organizations pleased with the performance of their IT projects is a lot less than those expressing disappointment. So why are organizations unable to foster project success? Our experience and research shows 10 reasons why most organizations inadvertently foster project mediocrity.

Read more at: Project Times

10. Adopt practices for exploring a variety of perspectives.
We think we see what we see, but we don’t. We really see what we think. Remember the blind men and the elephant. Make it your habit to inquire what others see. You’ll see more together.

9. Stay close to your customer.
Clients’ concerns evolve over the life of a project. Take advantage of that to over-deliver. Stay in a conversation with your client to adjust what you are doing.

8. Take care of your project team.
We’ve come to accept that the customer comes first…the customer is always right. We can’t take care of the customer if we first aren’t taking care of our project team. It’s a challenge. While there are some things we can do for the whole team, it comes down to taking care of each team member as the individual that he or she is. And to make it more difficult, then we must bring their various interests into coherence.

Read more at: Reforming project Management

If your IT shop isn’t using earned value management, you may want to start thinking about it. EVM, which has its roots in the U.S. Department of Defense, is moving into private industry. More important, it’s coming to IT.

When used properly, EVM helps team members, project managers and their bosses accurately gauge progress against an established project plan. EVM also enables teams to accurately assess where they’ll be in the future, allowing managers to make key decisions on resource allocation or revisions before projects unexpectedly spin out of control.

“When people report percent complete, you might get ‘I’m 50 percent complete,’ based on that person’s intuitive knowledge. Earned value analysis takes that guesswork out of it,” says Robert Leto, director of the IT effectiveness practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services in New York.

Read more at: Computerworld

What is project success? I always find the answer to this question interesting when speaking with different executives and mangers across the country during my seminars and workshops. Most of the time, during these seminars, I get quick and confident answers back…often many people at once saying the same thing, ” being on time and budget” as if they are part of a congregation or cult. The fact is that is that we have all been taught this simple rule of project management&thou shall not be late and thou shall not exceed the project budget.

I got it. If I deliver my project on time and on budget, my boss will be happy (this is good), I will be considered a good project manager (hopefully get promoted, this is great), and the company overall is better off because the project I just completed was a success. All is good.

Now don’t get me wrong, being on time and on budget is a good thing, but does this really mean that a project is successful? Is it possible that although a project is on time and on budget that the company is really better off? Perhaps the best way to answer these questions is to first define project failure. I can’t tell you how many times executives have told me that their project(s) failed because the solution implemented (whether a new technology, process or organization change) was not adapted to by the people impacted by the project. These same executives tell me quite passionately that they have spent money (in some cases millions of dollars) with little or no result because the people just won’t adapt to the new change within the organization. In the case of system implementations, this means that the system users were not using the new technology and went back to manual processes or spreadsheets. In the case of process changes this means that department personnel and process owners were not adhering to the new policies and procedures. In any case, the bottom line is that the people went back to the old way of doing things after the project was implemented even though it was on time and on budget. This means that the project objectives were not achieved and as such, no business value was obtained. Does this sound familiar?

Read more at: ProjectTimes

In the new world economy, global delivery models have become a way of life for most major corporations. Mergers and acquisitions, corporate globalization, technology breakthroughs, and the quest for low-cost solutions are just a few of the reasons behind this phenomenon taking shape.

When dealing with global IT projects, you quickly discover an inherently complex array of factors that must be managed to ensure success. These factors include some of the most basic elements—scope, cost, quality assurance, risk, and communication. In addition, distributed delivery—specifically global delivery—adds more complexity and poses additional challenges to achieving overall success. Many organizations implement a distributed model as a means of dealing with the issues. However, without having the systems, methodologies, and support mechanisms in place, the path to success is undefined.

In determining how to mitigate the challenges posed with global IT projects, we researched best practices in project management and technology solutions, and developed a customized project management system based around an array of applications including Microsoft SharePoint Services. The example we cite in this article helped streamline and mitigate the challenges behind the development of applications and is ushering in a true 24-hour development lifecycle by providing synchronization between development centers.

Read more at: Dr. Dobb’s Portal

As we gaze toward the vista of 2007, we find our e-mail inundated with IT predictions for the new year from analysts, vendors and consultants. From those predictions and our own prognostications we present our forecast for the top IT stories in the year ahead:

Pun aside, Vista

With fanfare, Microsoft Corp. will garner headlines early in the year as it releases its Vista operating system to home users, possibly even at the end of January as currently scheduled, avoiding another delay or three. The release splash will give way to headlines that enterprises are following through on comments from wary IT administrators and are waiting to upgrade. Then will come the security-risk headlines, followed no doubt by the patch headlines.

Content kings

We’ll go with the forecast of analyst Leonard Fuld of Fuld & Associates in Boston that an ongoing story and trend we’ll follow in 2007 will be “the world of information and how it’s monetized.” And we’ll put our money on Google Inc. to continue to lead the pack. The YouTube acquisition will be but the tip of that iceberg. Google will scoop up other content providers with an eye on their advertising revenue or potential advertising revenue. “There will be other mega deals,” Fuld said in a recent interview. News Corp. undoubtedly will be another company to watch in 2007 when it comes to content, with mergers among more traditional media companies that find themselves increasingly forced to compete with Internet content providers, not to mention the blogosphere and specialty content providers.

Along those lines, Internet-delivered TV is going to find its feet in 2007. We’ve heard that before, but it’s got to happen some year and we think the new year will be it. It might even go as far as the prediction of IP (Internet Protocol) communications guru Jeff Pulver: “Every TV network, film studio and content creator will start to adopt a direct-to-the-Internet and direct-to-the-PDA strategy.”

Read more at: Computerworld