Category: Project Management Basics
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Fail fast, fail often, fail well: the key to IT Project success
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan. An IT Project Manager I know, let’s call…
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Project Management Milestones
There are many issues that face the project manager. One of which is to set project management milestones. Working towards specific goals throughout the lifecycle of a project makes sure that everyone is pulling in the same direction and standards are achieved. But what do these project management milestones look like? What goals can be…
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Why IT Projects Shouldn’t Be Sheepish About BAaaS
Picture a Project Manager, a full team and a Business Analyst … on every project. IT Project Nirvana. Budgets are tight so often it’s the latter that either gets sacrificed, usually merged into someone else’s role. Many Project Managers have in the past, had parts of their job description that look more ‘BA’ than ‘PM’,…
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How to manage the fear of change in IT projects
Originally published on CIO.com As a CIO or a Project Manager you are a master of change to the point where, by now, it’s probably like a sixth sense. This was certainly how I felt. Change Management had become so much a part of my daily routine that I had almost habitualised the process.…
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Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good Projects?
I was inspired by a recent Facebook post by a friend who asked, in a status update, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Within minutes, dozens of replies appeared, all along the lines of “You OK hun?” or “How can I help?”. She’s fine by the way, just wondering why despite best efforts,…
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At harvest time what can IT project managers learn from farmers?
I was fascinated this week by a farmer in a combine harvester going up and down in a field adjacent to the road I was driving along. I pulled over to watch … it’s a man and machines thing! The farmer pulled over too and we briefly talked about the vehicle he was driving. I…
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IT Projects. Do We Actually Ever Learn Lessons Learnt?
Originally published on CIO.com We record ‘lessons learnt’ as part of the project management process but do we actually learn from them? Recent experience and the number of projects that fail to deliver suggest we could probably all do better at learning from lessons learnt. It is worth considering this for a moment … Do…
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Effective Ways To Deal With Poor Performance From a Project Team Member
Discover some effective methods you can use to deal with the poor performance of a project team member . If a member of your project team is not performing to their best, it can create an awkward situation. Not only do you need this team member to start pulling his or her weight, but also…
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Managing IT Projects: Respond Don’t React
In IT Projects, when something unexpected happens, I get better results when I respond, than when I react. You may have sussed this for yourself ages ago but my epiphany, strangely, came when I met a St John Ambulance community first responder. He was telling me about a traffic accident that he’d attended. He was…
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Who needs a PMO?
I was reminded of an old Monty Python sketch today. Did you ever see Life of Brian? One of the characters Reg, played by John Cleese, asks “What have the Romans ever done for us?” One by one, other characters pipe up with loads of suggestions … medicine … roads … public order … Eventually,…
