Journyx Project Management Blog

Back in October we began a project to assess many of our internal processes, including those in my angry little world of IT.

This proctologic exam was undertaken to prove that, among other things, we keep private data private. The assessment proved what I already knew to be true. We do, in fact, keep private data private. That’s why we call it private. Go fig.

This whole thing was a new endeavor for me, and let me tell you, there are tender areas of my body that still hurt.

Now, to make an agonizing story shorter for your sanity, let’s just say that when we received the “draft” report* I discovered that many of the information in the 66 pages was just blatantly wrong. So I found myself in the unenviable position of rewriting the report.

Actually, it was worse than that. I couldn’t just rewrite the damned thing. Instead I had to give a point-by-point change list of what was wrong and what was right, because, you see, the folks doing the assessment had to write and sign off on the report themselves. CYA, thy name is the 21st Century business world.

The good news is that it was this very process that reminded us in IT here at Journyx of the usefulness of checklists. My suffering was assuaged ever-so-slightly by the fact that I was able to go through our checklists (expertly designed by, well, me) and use them to quickly and efficiently comment on each and every page where inconsistencies were found.

Some people call this kind of thing project management; I just call it getting my stuff in order.

It’s amusing to me that the very people responsible for handling the assessment do not have their own checklist in place and must rely on the people that they’re working with to ensure that the data they themselves have to sign off on is accurate. Think about that for a while.

*Whenever I hear the word “draft,” I remember one of my creative writing profs back in college who admonished us by saying, “Never waste my time with a draft. If you don’t think it’s a final product, what makes you think I want to read it?” I truly understand his point now.

-The Grumpy Journyx IT Guy

And now for a variation on our regularly scheduled “Mondays with Curt,” here is a link to the Student Operated Press, where Judyth Piazza had a chat with our fearless leader.

The two discussed issues like project accounting and time management, as well as some of Curt’s philosophies on business, technology and leadership.

It seems I’m presented almost weekly with fresh industry statistics that tell me that project management success rates continue to be low – as measured by projects that are delivered on-time, within budget and to the satisfaction of the business customer.

Our prospects put a voice to those numbers, with complaints such as “I’ve invested so much money and time in project management training, different software tools, and sophisticated measurement techniques. I’m still not delivering on time consistently – or viewed as successful by my management. And my project managers are frustrated too.”

Indeed, it’s a constant battle. The good news is that we’re starting to see a way out of this frustrating pattern. This is partly due to new advancements in software tools that better support the project lifecycle, but also due to a growing recognition by senior IT executives that improving project outcomes starts at the top.

Core to this effort is learning how to optimize your resource utilization across all of IT – which ultimately will give you the planning flexibility you need to keep the right people on the right projects. Additionally, when faced with the all-too-common unplanned change request, you will know exactly what your trade-offs are and what choices you can offer your business customers. Making such informed choices will reduce the number of projects in jeopardy.

A focus on achieving this type of strategic agility requires a shift from two predominant resource management approaches that have thus far impeded project management success rates:

1. Maintaining a narrow focus on time-tracking systems. Capturing time is a key component of resource management, but when it is not implemented with a parallel top-down resource planning process, the quality and value of the data is greatly limited. No question, capturing end-user time will allow you to perform after-the-fact trend analyses – but it can’t help with up-front planning or determining how an unplanned change is going to affect critical projects mid-stream.

This puts IT in a perpetually reactive mode. You also run the risk of end-users ultimately abandoning the time tracking effort if they do not see how their data is being used to improve overall project outcomes. Simply put, time tracking is necessary for effective resource management, but it is not sufficient without support for high-level planning processes that bridge planning with reality.

Read the rest at Project Manager Planet.

Most CIOs would concur that there is more project demand for their resources than they have resources and/or time to manage them. Most IT departments have to continually juggle and re-assess projects and their priorities. This means that an IT resource manager must constantly assign and re-assign resources.

Ranking project priority is a difficult chore for many organizations because it requires enough maturity among the business departments and divisions to slow down enough to conduct pre-project launch discussions. Unfortunately, in many IT environments, project prioritization comes down to the loudest department head, or the most influential, based on less than logical decision making.

The first step in the process is to hold a meeting or series of meetings with key decision makers or department heads to determine how projects will be prioritized and weighed. Your organization will need to develop criteria for the following:

Categories for the projects or project types;

Metrics for scoring the projects; and

A scoring system.

Read the rest at Project Manager Planet.

Okay, it’s January. But it’s now late enough in the month that all those New Year’s resolutions have likely melted away like ephemeral icicles in the Texas sun. Alright, maybe not for you, but definitely for some people. Like me.

In any case, this is my favorite time of the year to make real efforts at change. When all the glow and shine is off and things are starting to get back to normal. In other words, when no one is looking.

This year, as befits someone who works with timesheet software for a living, I’m going to approach my problems with time management. And I’m going to do it with time boxing. I’m not the sort who can dive whole-heartedly into a complete Getting Things Done methodology (I know, I’ve tried) - but time boxing I think I can get into. If nothing else, it will help me address my chronic near-ADD. It’s not really diagnosable ADD, of course, but a propensity for feeling soul-crushing boredom with whatever task I’m actually working on. I know that something more interesting is out there, just waiting for my attention, but normally I’m too bloody-minded to break my work up in the way that time boxing pushes you to.

To help me on my way to a time boxing title, I’m going to be using David Seah’s Emergent Task Planning form, which comes from his excellent Printable CEO Series.

Now if this works, I’ll finally have time (and focus) enough to take up that other pursuit I’ve been meaning to look into… Kickboxing.

-Andrew Trent, Journyx Director of Web Content

It’s been a tough climb to your project management position. How do you establish your authority and inspire respect? What must be done to influence project results and growth and make your stay long and productive?

The Predecessor
To begin the style of your predecessor determines how comfortably you settle in. The greatest challenge falls on the shoulders of a company insider who succeeds a strong predecessor. In this case, imitation by the new manager will seem inadequate, at worst foolish. An outsider who follows such a leader has slightly greater chances at being successful.

The insider of a weak predecessor should immediately try to win over the supporters of the old regime. The outsider who takes over from such a manager has more favourable chances to start afresh and win a loyal following.

The Honeymoon
With any management inauguration, a honeymoon period exists. During this time the incumbent is virtually exempt from criticism. For this reason, the new manager should use this time to establish authority and perhaps introduce changes.

To emerge in a positive light once the honeymoon concludes, the manager should secure an understanding of the organisation’s finances. Finding and gaining control of the group’s purse strings should be a priority.

Read more at ProjectSmart.

Projectlink - the Timesheet/Microsoft Project integration - has been updated recently and is now available to Journyx customers. So if you’re with one of the many organizations that’s making good time on the road to profitability by using Timesheet to feed your critical business infrastructure, be sure to get in touch with Journyx to get your hands on the latest versions of this powerful tool.

New Projectlink features include:

• Transfer of existing MS Project Task field information to Timesheet, including Baseline Start, Baseline Finish, Baseline Duration, Baseline Work, Work, Work Variance and Duration
• Transfer of MSP custom date field information to Timesheet
• Support for synchronization when using custom views in MS Project
• New file registration system that replaces the need for stand-alone .ini files

Existing Projectlink users in need of the latest patch can contact Journyx Support.

Not using Projectlink and would like to? Contact the Journyx Sales Team.

You can also find out more about Projectlink on the Journyx website.

Since I’m claiming that we can apply this non-work approach to our team communications when we’re trying to achieve some kind of commitment, I decided I’d better test myself on that. I picked a typical team problem, one I’ve had to deal with before: getting team members to commit to and follow-through on regular attendance at weekly team meetings, even when
their schedules are dense and perhaps their meeting tolerance is on the low side…

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What’s that? You didn’t get a copy of Journyx CEO Curt Finch’s critically acclaimed masterpiece All Your Money Won’t Another Minute Buy - Valuing Time as a Business Resource for the favored winter-solstice holiday of your religious persuasion? That, my friend, is horrible!

To help you rectify this tragic situation immediately, Journyx would like to offer you a once in a lifetime (or quarter, whichever comes first) opportunity to purchase this magnificent book for $5 off the cover price. Yes, for a mere $11.99 USD you can have your very own autographed copy of the book that PM Forum called “an important addition to the literature” of time and cost management.

To order your very own, no one gave it to you in December but you’ve got it now, autographed copy of “All Your Money…” drop us an email.

Working in the program management office (PMO), I get the same question from project managers with each new process. You can see it in their eyes: “Why do we need a procedure for that? I’ve been successfully doing this for the past 10 years!”

To ease the transition to new processes for members of your IT staff, try using these guidelines to SHIFT ‘EM in the right direction…

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