Journyx Project Management Blog

Over at TechRepublic’s IT Leadership blog, Rick Freedman has written about the importance of not only focusing on projects in themselves, but also to understand the core business strategy that fuels the portfolio. He writes:

Here are my three best practice tips for keeping the overall project strategy in mind:

* Participate: The best scenario is one in which IT has a seat at the table as corporate objectives and strategies are being devised. Even if you aren’t invited to the strategy meeting, you can still contribute by posting your ideas and opinions in forums, suggestion programs, user committees, online communities, and various social media outlets.

* Study: Learn what directions your organization is thinking about taking in the future. Many enterprises have internal communication programs that are set up to ensure that all associates have a clear idea of the overall corporate strategy. Publicly traded companies must report to the SEC, and these reports are gold mines of data about the strategies, challenges, and risks associated with the company’s market, competitive position, and product mix. So are analyst opinions, which often cut to the heart of the challenges with a company’s strategies. In addition, trade magazines are one of the deepest sources of data on the risks, concerns, and opportunities in a particular vertical market, and they provide budding corporate strategists with plenty of great ideas about what the competition is doing and about what IT can bring to your firm.

* Think strategically: IT professionals and project managers who can think past their project and can see the entire context of the organization’s portfolio and strategy, are enabled to make the right decisions at every level of the project, from selecting the right components to pilot in a prototype or early iteration, to determining which projects should live or die depending on their overall contribution potential.

CIO published the findings of a Forrester Report in a new article, “The 10 Key Capabilities of Next-Generation Project Managers.” Forrester interviewed IT and project management professionals in order to learn what the future of project management will look like. Here are the top 10 capabilities they found:

1. Emotional Intelligence
2. Adaptive Communication
3. People Skills
4. Management Skills
5. Flexibility
6. Business Savvy
7. Analytical Skills
8. Customer Focus
9. Results-Orientation
10. Character

Another important finding is that project managers must be willing to embrace agile methods in the future in order to keep up with IT and software development trends. According to Forrester Analyst Mary Gerush,

In an Agile software delivery environment, the traditional command-and-control approach of project managers is counter-productive. [...] Instead of defining roles and making sure team members are following project management processes and procedures to a T, next generation project managers need to focus on improving collaboration and removing obstacles and distractions so that project team members can get their work done on time and on budget.

For more information on how to integrate agile and project management, check out the newest article by our CEO, Curt Finch, entitled “How to Create an Agile PMO.”

Today’s information technology organizations are responding to the most treacherous recession in memory. Their actions range from classic belt-tightening to innovating and improving value-added services in their organizations. A primary value-adding strategy for the most effective organizations is to further improve project management.

In view of this strategy, the project management software industry’s future looks especially promising. During the global recession, industrial countries around the world devoted billions in economic stimulus funds for infrastructure and other projects. This has created considerable demand for project management software.

Read more at InfoWorld.

Your project teams are already using collaborative and social networking tools, whether your organization embraces them or not. They’re using these tools to build relationships, share information, and collaborate. This presents a great opportunity for improved project success. While many corporations struggle to find ways to live with the social/business networking and collaboration trend, project teams can thrive on it.

While many collaboration and networking tools exist, there are three that merit strong consideration by project teams: Microsoft® SharePoint®, Facebook, and LinkedIn®. These tools can help create an environment conducive to informal learning, team collaboration, and information access and decision making. But these benefits won’t happen organically. It’s up to project managers to take these collaboration and social networking tools and mold them into a powerful project management function.

Read the rest of this article by Dr. Karen McGraw, CEO of our partner, Cognitive Technologies, at PM World Today.

Let’s take a look back at some warnings and tips about best project management and technology implementation practices from the past few months.

• IF you do not manage project scope effectively, THEN you will have low customer satisfaction.
  ProjectTimes – Why Should You Manage Scope and Customer Expectations?

• IF you choose a solution that requires too much manpower, THEN you increase overhead and lose productivity.
  Making Your Business Tools Work For You

• IF you decide to purchase a PPM solution without due diligence, THEN you might spend too much for little reward.
  The Savvy PPM Buyer

• IF you do not check customer references thoroughly, THEN you could be hoodwinked by a dubious vendor.
  Validating Customer References

According to a popular song, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.” Words of wisdom in popular culture. We often want to bite off more than we can chew, especially when we see exciting new technology. Yet think of it this way: Would you give your grandmother an iPhone 3G for Christmas if she has never touched a PC before? It might be an incredible piece of technology that can hold her photos, her shopping lists, her favorite music … but if she cannot figure out how to turn it on, it’s not much use, is it?

Likewise, many companies get excited about business technology. Software vendors promise to solve all of their problems with the click of a button. And, to be fair, the tools they provide might be able to do just that. But if your organization is not mature enough to handle it, you might as well put the software right up on a shelf immediately after purchase. It will not be rolled out, it will not be used, and it will be a total waste of money. For example, are you looking for a complex, sophisticated PPM solution while your team members aren’t even tracking time to tasks yet? Are you hoping for the latest cutting edge resource management technology, but you can’t even say who will be available to work on your project next month?

All of us have to crawl before we walk, though we can often forget this.

- April Boland, Journyx Communications Coordinator

Back in July, Kristen Caretta wrote a fabulous article over at Search-CIO about having purchased a 160-piece kitchen set only to find that she never used most of those tools and could have purchased something much simpler and more affordable. She goes on to say that many companies do the same thing when looking at PPM solutions – they spend time and money on an enormous tool and years later find that most of the functionality is untouched.

Come to think of it, we probably all have stories of times when we got excited and made an unwise, impractical purchase. The good news is that with project management software, you don’t have to. There are solutions out there that address the core basic needs every organization has without trying to sell you $1 million worth of add-ons. You just have to know where to look.

e-Builder is a software company that develops web-based, capital program and project management solutions. The company’s flagship product, e-Builder Enterprise, helps facility owner/operators, and the architecture, engineering, and construction companies that serve them address the challenges associated with the planning, design, construction, and operation of complex capital projects. The company recently released version 7 of their product, with new functionality such as the structured workflow engine, a business process automation tool.

Recently, e-Builder was selected for Constructech Magazine’s list of 50 Hottest Companies for 2009 and Buildings Magazine’s list of Top 100 Products.

From time to time we who produce the Journyx Journal like to heap praise on a partner or vendor whose work we really believe in. And today is one of those times. So without further ado, we’d like to introduce you to our friends at TESTCo, purveyors of high-quality, dependable On-Demand Software Testing.

At Journyx, we sometimes find ourselves in need of more software testers than we have. When those times come, we turn to TESTCo. In the four years we’ve been working with them we’ve been able to deliver quality and value to our customers faster than even we thought possible thanks to their able assistance.

John Maddalozzo, our VP of Engineering put it best when he said, “We simply could not afford this level of Software Quality Assurance if we did it all in house. TESTCo’s On-Demand Software Testing gives us trained, experienced and locally managed software testing engineers with as little as 24 hours notice and no more than a 5 day commitment. We can’t get that anywhere else.”

Now, in the face of what we euphemistically refer to as “a sluggish economy,” the good folks at TESTCo are offering Journyx Journal readers a 50% discount on their first week of On-Demand Software Testing services.

So if you find yourself in a situation where you need more software testers than you have, give TESTCo a look. Their On-Demand Software Testing may be just what you need to meet your project goals and deadlines.

To take advantage of this special offer for Journyx Journal readers, drop TESTCo’s CEO and Founder, Jeff Hotz, an line at jeff@testco.com. The pros at TESTCO will get back to you in a flash to get you the help that you need. Oh, and please be sure to let Jeff know that you heard about TESTCo here in the Journyx Journal. Mutual back-scratching makes the world go ’round, after all.

Recently, I tried to set up an online donation form to help with a fund-raising effort I am managing. Most people would try to use PayPal for this, and here’s where the fun starts.

I’d like to note that I’ve been working with computers for the past 30 years. My tenure as IT Manager here at Journyx is coming up on 9 or 10 years. Let’s just say that I have a vague idea of what I’m doing where technology is concerned.” Or, so I thought…

After logging into my PayPal account and testing my easy-to-setup “Donate Now” button, I found that I can “accept” funds, I just can’t “accept” funds. You see, it teases me by showing me that the money is there, awaiting my acceptance or denial. When I try to accept, however, it says that I need to be verified. Okay, I thought to myself. I’ll verify.

This is a pretty simple procedure that requires you to do one of two things. You can either link a bank account to your PayPal account, or you can sign up for a PayPal credit card. Personally, I’m not into the credit card thing, so I decided to link my bank account – a very secure, unhackable, unstealable process, if you optimistically ignore all the reports you hear about identity theft.

I tried to link my bank account, but as it turns out, I had done this years ago and since I didn’t switch bank accounts, I could not link the same account to 2 PayPal accounts. I don’t know what the old account login was. I do know that it goes to a domain that no longer exists.

Optimistic and friendly to the end (all of us in IT are smiles all the time, you know), I called PayPal for some assistance. No, I won’t regale you with an actual transcript of the conversation. I’ll just leave you with the idea that after that 30 minutes, I was ready to explore my other options.

Thank God for Google, I thought to myself, as I happily logged into my Google Checkout account to see this message: “Verification: Your merchant account has been closed.”

Looking down, they clearly explained to me what was wrong.

“For security reasons, Google Checkout cannot provide specific information regarding the closure of your Checkout merchant account.”

Ahh, it all becomes clear. Thank you so much for that useful information.

The more I thought about all this, the more annoyed I got. These people make money off of me. They get more market share for each and every one of us who uses their product. For providing piss-poor service and a substandard product, they get to take a small percentage of the money given to me.

PayPal, Google… Why do you make it hard for me to pay you?