There seems to be general agreement among the project/program community that projects are not focused as they should be on generating the desired business benefits. There are specific new techniques, extensively explored in my two books Managing Projects as Investments and Total Project Control, which can greatly assist this. They include the value breakdown structure (VBS), critical path drag and drag cost.

My blog is approaching 5,000 views from 116 countries so far this year. Some of the articles are “puzzlers” (usually for weekends), some are “philosophical” (e.g., “Ten Amendments to the Current Practice of Project Management”) and some are very specific “how-tos” specifically regarding the Total Project Control (TPC) enhanced techniques and metrics (how to compute critical path drag, or “How to Estimate the Cost of Time When Ain’t Nobody Told Ya!”).

In my next-to-last article “The Value Breakdown Structure (VBS): What, How and Why?”, I included a poll asking if readers liked the how-to articles. So far, only 16 of the 258 readers have responded – but 100% have said they liked the how-tos. (So if you violently disagree, please go to the poll and vote for one of the other options!)

So with that poll as a guide, I just posted a new blog article: “How to Use the VBS and Critical Path Drag to Ensure Maximum Project/Program Benefits”. You can find it here:

Fraternally in project management,

Steve the Bajan