July 2010 PM Survey – The Project Schedule
Posted by Brad Egeland
It’s hard to believe it’s July already, but a new month means it’s time for a new survey. This month, I’d like to get a feel for what we use for project scheduling and how we use it.
The survey is available now through late July at this address:
www.bradegeland.com/july-2010-survey.html
So, for question #1 – I want to know what tool you’re using. There are a lot of tools out there so I’m just looking for the name. You don’t have to tell me if it’s web-based or not – I think we’ll get into more of that in the next month or so.
Questions #2 & #3 – let the readers know how close to the vest you keep the project schedule. Does just the project manager revise and distribute the schedule? Is it a collaborative effort with the project team – do you let others go in and revise task status on percent completes and effort estimates? And do you let the customer do anything but look at it? Are there ever any projects where you allow update capability for the customer? I’m assuming this is probably almost never, but who knows.
Question #4 – Do you use the project schedule to actually track project costs? Are the hourly rates of the project resources and costs for materials entered into the project schedule or do you track project costs through a different mechanism?
June PM Survey: Managing the Project – Part 2
Posted by Brad Egeland
Part 2 of the June PM survey is now available. This 2nd part of the monthly survey again deals with concepts associated with the ongoing management of the project.
The survey is now active and ready for your participation at:
http://www.bradegeland.com/june-survey-part-2.html
In this 2nd part of the survey, we’ll be looking at the following topics:
Definition of project success
For this question, I’m looking for how either you or your organization primarily defines project success. Is it on time project delivery, on budget project delivery, or customer satisfaction? And for those of you who feel it’s something other than those three options, there is a write-in ‘other’ response area available.
Percentage of successful projects delivered
This one will definitely a best-guess scenario because I doubt that anyone has compiled hard numbers on this plus it’s somewhat subjective as to what one would call a ‘successful’ project. I’m trying to get an idea of where our readership stands in regards to successful vs. failed projects. Recent studies – as I’ve reported here in recent articles – place the percentage of failed projects between 62% and 75%. It will be interesting to see where PM Tips readers fall in that spectrum.
Percentage of project revenue from change orders
Change orders are always a love – hate thing. For the PM and team, they are a great way to increase project revenue and executive management loves them. However, it’s often difficult and even uncomfortable for the project manager to present the customer with change orders – unless they are the result of direct customer requests. Also, change orders are a necessary tool to bridge the gap between the originally defined requirements and what reality fleshes out over the course of the engagement.
Four Ways Attending Professional Conferences Can Re-Energize You
Posted by Brad Egeland
I have to admit, until recently I’ve stayed away from conferences. For a couple of reasons … 1) as an independent consultant they are often too expensive for me to consider AND 2) work gets in the way and I always feel that I should be working rather than attending a conference. Especially as an independent consultant… it’s about the billable hours, right? (At least that’s what my wife tells me).
Recently, though, I’ve had new opportunities to attend important IT-related conferences and I’ve been rethinking my stance on these things. Yes, I will admit that my admission has been free as I’ve been able to obtain media passes because of my professional articles. So what that does is place me back in the category with the W2 employees who don’t usually have to pay their own way into the conferences they attend. Now we’re back on even ground…
What I have found recently is that there are, indeed, some benefits to be found in sucking it up and taking time away from work to attend a professional conference that is applicable to area of expertise. Here are four that come to mind:
#1 – Networking with peers
Whether you’re an independent professional or a W2 employee and in either case have more work than you can handle, never ever underestimate the value of networking with your peers. Take a look at the economy if you haven’t lately. Tomorrow could be the day that you need to take advantage of professional contacts that you’ve made at a conference or professional gathering.
Take a lot of business cards with you and make a point to get together with professionals in your line of work. Networking with other project management professionals is not only a good way to potentially get an ‘in’ at another organization, but it is also a great time to share ideas, templates, frustrations, etc.
#2 – Resetting your mindset
Even if networking and schmoozing is not your thing, then at least putting things on hold for awhile and meeting up with some peers and taking the time to take in new information related to your profession is worth it. Look at it as a chance to reset your mind. As a project manager, you’re under constant stress and pressure to not only perform well on your projects but also to ensure that your projects as a whole perform well. I realize that getting away from it to reset your thinking at a conference is not that easy and you’re likely to have your phone/email with you at all times, but it still helps if you can at least ‘tentatively’ put someone else in charge of your project for the week and make it to a conference. The take aways may even be beneficial to current projects and yield immediate benefits.
Better Software Conference + Agile Development Practices Conference
Posted by Brad Egeland
As we strive to deliver better projects to our customers, I am more and more intrigued by Agile development processes. Luckily, I’ve been granted a media pass to both the upcoming Better Software Conference and the Agile Development Practices Conference here in Las Vegas. For the first time ever, these two agile-focused conferences are co-located and one admission (or media pass) gets you into both conferences and their associated expos.
These conferences will be held in Las Vegas at Caesar’s Palace June 6-11.
Key reasons to attend the Better Software Conference and the Agile Development Practices Conference are to:
- Discover the latest in software development, agile software development, technologies, trends, and practices.
- Network with hundreds of your peers to problem solve, collaborate, and gain fresh ideas.
- Enjoy opportunities to meet with the speakers throughout the week.
- Benefit from real-world experiences of leading software development organizations.
- Attend the EXPO for the latest tools and services to help you build and deliver better software.
- Engage with summit participants in thoughtful discussions about leadership at the Agile Leadership Summit.
Since I’ve never worked for a company who utilizes agile development processes on the product development activities or on their projects, I’m hoping to gain useful insight and understanding on these practices and share them with our readers. As a project manager, I also plan to take away what I learn and use these concepts to both better manage my projects and to work with the development staff and my clients to provide them with better built solutions in the end.
The full conference including all sessions from both conferences runs from June 6 through June 11. Certification training will be offered and both conferences include many key note addresses, useful classes and numerous working sessions and panels.
Cloud Computing Standardization
Posted by Brad Egeland
This is basically just an opinion article based on what I’m seeing, reading and hearing so take it just for what it is … my thoughts. I believe that the industry is still at least two years away from truly standardizing cloud computing and understanding the full potential, the security issues, and the expenses or cost savings related to cloud computing. What that means is that we would also be a couple of years away from being able to standardize how we offer cloud computing and implement cloud computing with clients on projects with the knowledge that we’re offering the best process possible and that we’re offering a high likelihood of project success due to tried and true practices.
It was interesting to find, when attending a session at Interop 2010 in Las Vegas last month, that a handful of executives from different organizations sitting on a discussion panel on cloud computing all had basically different information and views of what cloud computing meant to their organization. And they definitely had varying degrees of successes and frustrations during and after implementation.
At the end of the day, cloud computing may still mean different things to different people. As of now, there are a variety of things that you can do to actually be computing in the cloud and utilizing cloud services. However, for the project manager or IT consultant, until the industry is able to get a better handle on what those cloud computing services really are and how far reaching the organizational benefits are, it may still be a hard sell with our customers. The keys being security, data safety, and data access.
