Management By Walking Around
11 years 11 weeks ago
I met a lovely old guy last week at a Fleetwood Mac concert at Madison Square Gardens who was an Attendant there. We got talking while I was getting a beer and he told me he'd worked there for forty years, he remembered when Fleetwood Mac first played there 20 years ago, Led Zeppelin filmed Song Remains the Same, Rolling Stones tours, he'd seen them all, I was very envious
Cost is a management output
11 years 11 weeks agoThe simple fact ignored by most accountants, general management and project managers is that cost is an output from the management process, and pretending cost is a manageable input is a recipe for disaster.
Profit is the difference between the price received for doing work and the cost of doing the work. If the work is accomplished satisfactorily for less then the price that will be
Why the PMBOK is not a Methodology
11 years 13 weeks agoOne of the more common discussions on the web and in other places is focused on arguing the merits of, or comparing, the PRINCE2 Methodology with the PMBOK Methodology.
The problem with the proposition is basic premise is completely wrong! The PMBOK® Guide is not and never has been a methodology. Methodologies define the processes, responsibilities and workflows needed to
PMI Standards Update
11 years 15 weeks agoMost people with an interest will know that PMI have released the PMBOK® Guide 5thEdition, the Standard for Program Management 3rdEdition and the Standard for Portfolio Management 3rdEdition, with an official publication date ofthe 31stDecember 2012. PMI’s other key standard; the Organisational Project Management Maturity
The Case for a Standard Data Reporting Format in a Massive Multi-Contractor Environment
11 years 21 weeks ago
If my team and I were on a mission to standardize our program control software, we might perform a benchmarking exercise. I firmly believe if we performed such an exercise, we would find that one-hundred different organizations would have at least one-hundred-five software architectures between them. In fact, that may be optimistic.
Schedule and cost control tools have
A Brief History of Scheduling
11 years 23 weeks ago
The science of ‘scheduling’ as defined by Critical Path Analysis (CPA) celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2007. In 1956/57 Kelly and Walker started developing the algorithms that became the ‘Activity-on-Arrow’ or ADM scheduling methodology for DuPont. The program they developed was trialled on plant shutdowns in 1957 and their first paper on critical path
The Scheduling Conundrum
11 years 25 weeks agoThe scheduling conundrum is simple:
We know effective scheduling makes a significant difference to project success and we know what effective scheduling looks like but in most projects, the schedule is ignored, bad scheduling practice is the norm and most projects finish late.
The business of scheduling and its underpinning concepts and theories underwent a revolution in
Project task durations
11 years 27 weeks ago
Probably the most common action undertaken by project planners everywhere is assigning a duration to a task; most of us do this almost automatically. Generally it is only when a dispute arises that the complex interaction of the factors discussed involved in setting the duration come into play.
There is no universal answer to the question of what is the ‘correct’ way to
Distributed -v- Consolidated Contingencies
11 years 28 weeks agoDistributed contingencies are normal in most aspects of project management but often result in sub-optimal use of resources. Typical examples include allowing some safety margin in each CPM duration estimate (eg, setting the durations at an 80% probability), allowing contingencies on a project by project basis for risk, setting budgets with a 90% confidence limit, etc.
A better approach
Scheduling For Effect
11 years 31 weeks agoAs the end of 2012 approches, and assuming the world won't end of the 12/12/12 I have a few thoughts for every scheduler’s New Year resolutions.
- You can’t change the past, the present is being managed by the project workforce, the only thing you can influence with your schedules is the future. To achieve this, the schedule needs to be an