Is Project Management a Core Skill and No Longer a Niche Capability?

“A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.” English Proverb

Project management is fast becoming the preferred way for companies to get things done. In the global economy project management will make a company more competitive than the traditional methods of managing work.

So, for all managers there is now the need to understand the dynamics of projects together with the skill and process of project management in order to make the most out of their organization’s investments.

The Question

Is Project Management therefore no longer a niche capability, a home of project management office members and external contractors; is it now a core skill that all executives and senior management need to understand?

In a recent survey conducted by me, Peter Taylor (www.thelazyprojectmanager.com) through a LinkedIn survey (poll), That very question was asked, ‘Is Project Management a core skill and no longer a niche capability?’ to see what a wider community of business people think.

347 people responded to the survey and I am grateful for their time and consideration, as well as the follow up comments that many people left for me to review.

Anyway these are the results:

Read more »

Measuring Project Progress

The post is made possible by the great people at Seavus, creators of online Project Management tools such as ProjectOffice.net, Project Viewer, and Project Planner.  Please visit their site for more information.

A section of Eric Verzuh’s book “The Portable MBA in Project Management” provides the basis for much of this article.

Measuring Progress

The key to finishing a project on time and on budget is to start out that way and stay on track throughout the project. When project managers start with challenging schedules and then fall behind, even by a little, they spend the rest of the project trying to catch up. Other projects, however, seem to have a self-correcting process built into them; if they fall behind a little, the problem is quickly identified and dealt with immediately. Progress measurements are the tools we use to identify problems when they are small and there is still time to catch up. Because cost and schedule progress comprise two-thirds of the cost-schedule-quality equilibrium, they are the primary focus of progress measurement. Read more »

Maintaining Project Control

This post is made possible by the great people at Seavus, creators of online Project Management tools such as ProjectOffice.net, Project Viewer, and Project Planner.  Please visit their site for more information.

Information for this article is based on a section of Eric Verzuh’s book entited “The Portable MBA in Project Management.”

The Control Process

The project control process is designed to spot problems early, while they are still small enough to correct. It is an iterative feedback loop in which the project manager uses measurement and testing to evaluate deviations from the plan as to cost, schedule, quality, and risk. These deviations may or may not result in corrective action. The key is to monitor closely enough and often enough to spot such deviations before they get out of control. There are five steps in the project control process: Read more »

Project Management Templates

Over the past several couple of weeks I’ve discussed many project management-related templates and documents that are commonly used. And along the way over the past 10 months there have been a few other templates and documents discussed.

In an attempt to provide a one-stop document to link to all those templates and documents discussed so far, I’m going to pull them all into this article as a list with available links. Hopefully, having the accumulated list available in one place will be helpful to our readers.

Again, not all of these will be links to templates…some will merely be links to documents that have been discussed in greater detail in previous articles.

• Statement of Work
• Project Status Report
• Communication Plan
• Communication Plan
• Risk Management Plan
• Lessons Learned
• Lessons Learned
• Requirements Traceability Matrix
• Market Analysis
• Project Management Methodology
• Quality Management Plan
• Project Request Document
• Project Charter Document
• Business Case Document
• Change Order Request
• Change Order Request
• Resource Request
• Onsite Visit Progress Report
• Procurement Plan
• Lessons Learned Survey
• Disaster Recover Plan

Summary

As discussed in most of these articles, if having the actual template in a Word doc format would be helpful, just let me know and I’ll be happy to send it to you if I have it. In some cases, I may be able to send you an actual example document from a real project allowing you to better see how I’ve populated some of the information with meaningful data. I’ll revise and republish this article as I make more templates and documents on these and similar topics available that I think would be useful to our readers.

The Project Quality Assurance Role

Quality Assurance is often seen as an integral function that monitors and coordinates the quality used within the project management life cycle by evaluating the processes and procedures. Quality control, on the other hand, can be seen as a focused area (such as software testing) that compares the product to the specification or plan, with a focus of detecting and remediating errors or anomalies.

Therefore, the Quality Assurance role is a critical factor in the success of the overall project as it is focused on key quality functions throughout an engagement. In his book “Project Management Nation,” Jason Charvat identifies the following key duties for the role of quality assurance throughout the project management life cycle.

The Role of QA on the Project

The person who is responsible for QA has many duties and responsibilities. The following section lists many of the things that a QA person would be expected to do.

• Participate in the change management process to assess the risk of putting fixes into the environment during acceptance testing.
• Assist the test team in isolating the source of discrepancies between expected and actual test results. If the error is in software design, thoroughly analyze the ramifications of any design changes. Design diagrams and structure charts before proceeding with corrections to code.
• Complete preparations for acceptance testing, including the establishment of the acceptance test environment. Unlike system testing, acceptance testing always takes place in the targeted environment. It is therefore extremely important to schedule computer resources well in advance.
• Check the simulated data to ensure that required test data have been produced.
• Obtain expected results from the acceptance test plan and review them for completeness.
• Calculate any missing expected results.
• Be certain that the introduction of new load modules is according to test configuration management procedures. When a new, corrected load module is received, first rerun tests that previously failed because of software errors. If these tests succeed, proceed with regression testing.
• Analyze and report test results. Evaluate test results as soon as possible after execution. Wherever possible, use automated tools in the analysis process. Record analysis procedures and keep all relevant materials. Remember that records and reports should give complete accounts of the procedures followed. If a test cannot be evaluated, note the fact and report the reasons for it.
• Compare all test results with expected results and note that all defects are documented, regardless of how minor they appear or whether they will be corrected.