The overriding philosophy to risk management is that we must be proactive. We must try to anticipate any risk to the project, evaluate the probability of the risk happening and plan how to deal with the risk if it occurs. First let’s define what a risk is. Risk is related to an uncertain event and [...]
First let me ask you to think about which is better: To meet your customers’ expectations or to exceed their expectations. If your answer is to exceed their expectations you really need to read on. I sometimes come across companies that proudly show me their corporate mission: “Our mission is to exceed our customer’s expectations”. [...]
If you have managed a couple of projects or have worked as an IT consultant with clients you soon find out that communicating with people can sometimes be challenging. Since a project manager is communicating 90% of the time during a project (see link) it is of utmost importance that what is communicated is received [...]
In an earlier article about the nine project management knowledge areas, I briefly went over the concept of Integration Management. In this article I will dig deeper into this fascinating area and make sure you get a better idea what this area contains. First, let’s understand what Integration Management (IM) is all about. A project [...]
When reviewing a business process we want to make sure that the process produces a product or service of the best possible quality. This is because the quality of the product or service is directly related to customer satisfaction. So “who” and “what” determines what is considered quality? “Who” is an easy one. The customer [...]
You may have heard about the critical path in a project and how the development of the project schedule is dependent on the critical path. As a project manager the critical path is essential to determine potential issues in our project schedule. So what is the critical path and how do we determine it? Well, [...]
In earlier articles I have gone through the steps to define the project scope using a Scope Statement. The Project Scope Statement contains the definition of the scope in detail and for IT projects this is typically in the form of an Enterprise Design Document (EDD). So we have a detailed description of the scope [...]
What do you think a project manager is doing most of the time during a project? You may be surprised to know that a project manager spends up to 90% of his or her time communicating and 50% of that time is spent communicating with the project team. So communication management becomes an important part [...]
In my last article I covered all the Nine Knowledge Areas related to a project and in this article I will go over the process framework and its processes. It’s important to understand that I am going over the exact same aspects of running a project just from a different angle. Thus all process groups [...]
The choice of a VAR (value added reseller) to assist with your software implementation is just as important as the choice of software itself. With an ERP implementation, the cost of services will often exceed the cost of the software. A bad implementation of good software can result in total failure. When comparing proposals from [...]
