Last week I looked at the advantages and disadvantages of the ‘make or buy’decision. Remember, the ‘make or buy’ decision is where you decide if it’s better to do the task or make the product in-house or whether you should contract with a vendor to do it for you. There are pros and cons of doing both – but how do you decide for any particular deliverable on your project what the right thing is for you? That’s where you need a process to determine whether making or buying is the right route forward. Here’s an easy 5 step approach that you can use in your procurement discussions.

Phew! The project you just finished is over and now you can breathe a sigh of relief, and you. While most project managers are usually eager to begin the next project, there are still some outstanding steps to take on closing out your previous project before beginning the next one. Properly closing out all projects after completion is ensuring correct project management.

In this story, the project manager, Thania Olivier, shared how the complexities of a project spanning across different continents, different time zones and different cultures to develop a new Forecasting system for the international Shipping giant, Maersk, were overcome. The project goal was to provide an electronic system to forecast and plan Maersk’s shipping schedules and cargo loading. The development team needed to understand a myriad of information for the cube to be developed. This included international port laws, time-zones, currencies, and the algorithms required behind the scene to create system intelligence that would enable Logistics Managers to accurately forecast, plan and schedule.

“Begin with the End in Mind.”  This is a quote from Stephen Covey and it is Habit # 2 of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  I was recently reminded of this quote by a post on Twitter and it struck me…this is key thinking for Project Managers and, in fact, all business professionals who have responsibility for success in some facet of their existence.  Begin with the end in mind.

If you determine that you will not be able to meet the promises you made in the project plan or if a key stakeholder wants you to change the plan—that is, add features or functions to the final deliverable, add a new deliverable, shorten the schedule, reduce the budget - then you’ll need to employ your change-management process. 

Programme Manager (or Program Manager, if you’re on the other side of the pond to me), is the key person for “setting up of the programme through to delivery of the new capabilities and realisation of benefits,” according to the MSP guide.  That’s a lot of responsibility.  But what does it actually involve?