Do you want to be a Project Ninja?

I have been reviewing many Job Descriptions that are out there for Project Managers, and I realized the other day that if I was really graded solely on what was written in mine, I would really be failing in the eyes of the company. We are so much more than tasks, dates and Project Plans aren’t we? In many ways I am very lucky, the VP that I report to and I, see many things the same way and are more flexible in terms of allowing team members to bend the rules and do what makes sense, than to follow... Read More»

Why Do Projects Fail This article is a continuation of why projects fail. Inadequate attention to quality. I have seen quality problems arise from a corporations desire to embrace Auotcad by getting rid of experienced designers and hiring inexperienced CAD operators, to companies suffering because they didn’t get involved in a total quality package. Over my work history I have seen Vendors change from a lack of interest in equipment foundations to being very interested. One project I worked on were four pulp refiners. These were large revolving discs, of several tons, attached to a 10000 hp motor. In the... Read More»

Black Friday the Project Management Way

Just like approximately 200+ million people each year, I am a Black Friday shopper. It has become a tradition. After the yearly Thanksgiving dinner with friends, a cross section of the women sit down with the flyers from the Thanksgiving edition of the paper, and map out the "plan of attack". This year we had a "Black Friday Virgin" decide to join the experience, and was stunned by the "Project Planning" process that I go through (once it was mentioned, it got everyone torturing me, as I apparently take Project Management to the extreme - is that even possible??). We’re... Read More»

4 Tips for Managing Projects Around Holidays

In celebration of this week's US National Independence Day, I just wanted to take a quick moment to share 4 tips on managing projects around holidays. Tip 1 - Be Aware: Whether working with a multinational team or a collocated team, an effective PM is fully aware of national, religious, and local holidays that could impact the work site of the team members. Will offices be closed on a certain date at a certain location? HINT: Check out a calendar for each of the geographic locations that are important to your project team, and add any known holidays to your... Read More»

Location, Location, Location

No, I am not talking about real estate, I’m referring to location of the project when it comes to project estimating. I was assembling an estimating module for one of my workshops and got into the factors used in estimating. This article will be about some of the factors we use and why. On a day to day basis we use factors for labour productivity. We also take a labour rate from one area and use a factor to get a rate for another area. For conceptual estimates, we may want to evaluate a project by comparing the installed cost... Read More»

Portfolio Management: Lamborghini Body on a Plymouth Horizon Chassis

Having attempted rolling out project portfolio management at several organizations I can state with confidence that the portfolio management process fails to deliver on its promise to streamline an organization’s project pipeline and provide high value. However, it is not the fault of the portfolio management process. Rather, I have found that the fault resides primarily with how organizations are structured (refer to a prior blog post titled Portfolio Management: Is Modern Management Practice Compatible?). Another major issue is a lack of education and understanding of portfolio, program, and project management at the upper management level (think C-suite). It’s easy... Read More»

Do You Always Under Estimate Your Projects?

I got a request the other day looking for someone to do a workshop on estimating. Some engineers were interested in what projects really cost and how are these costs developed. It sounded like they were doing the estimating and were always wrong. If you do not understand what goes into an estimate and the process involved you will always end up with a poor estimate. In this article I want to give them, and you, the detail that goes into an total installed cost (TIC) estimate for a complex project (multi-disciplined project). This is an estimate that covers the... Read More»

"Manage That Pipeline!"

OK, so for those of you that manage the Project pipeline, I'm sure that many if not most of you have experienced those Charters that don't get approved, or die. The documentation gets completed, it goes to the powers that be, but somehow even though it doesn't get an OK2GO, it doesn't die either. It seems to perpetually stay on hold, but it keeps on getting brought up during the Steering Committee meetings, and six months or a year after its initial pitch, it is decided that the documentation should be reviewed, updated and reviewed again by the team for... Read More»

Project Procurement

What Do You Mean Equipment Deliveries Are Holding Up My Project? In my early days of project management, I learned that if you want to get a project done on time, you have to get the equipment / material to the contractor. Now, I'm sure most have you have been involved in a project that has gone off track because the equipment was late, holding up the contractor which resulted in your missing schedules. Some causes of equipment delay are; lack of planning for purchase of long lead items the procurement cycle expediting drawing approvals lack of vendor response. In... Read More»

Proper Methods for Resource Planning

Controlling and micro managing creative, knowledge workers generally doesn't work. Conversely, providing an arbitrary delivery date or even allowing the team to completely self regulate work without a delivery date, doesn't work either. We have all heard of Parkinson's Law (work expands to fill the time available for its completion), but don't try and run your business with this principle. Tried and true project management planning, scheduling and controlling will more scientifically determine the time needed to complete work assignments, effectively manage the execution of the work and create a reliable, realistic and healthy environment. Along with, and surprisingly sometimes... Read More»