Projects Articles

Presented at the PMI 2004 Global Congress — North America on October 25, 2004 in Anaheim, CA.

Provides career advice for IT project managers, whether they wish to leave IT or stay in IT. Reviews employment trends in IT that may force IT project managers to make tough career choices. Based on industry publications and employment trends, as well as my own experience crossing over from IT to business-oriented project management. The raw employment and industry statistics used in the presentation are available for download, as well as the paper and the presentation slides.

Reviews fundamentally difficult scheduling problems, including:

• resource leveling
• representing task dependencies - hard and soft
• managing difficult-to-predict or quickly-changing work assignments
• making schedules easy to maintain during project execution

Focuses on proven techniques and principles, NOT the pros and cons of specific software tools.

Presented at the PMI 2003 Global Congress — North America on September 23, 2003 in Baltimore, MD.

These exercises go with the “Tough Scheduling” paper. They review fundamentally difficult scheduling problems, including:

• resource leveling
• representing task dependencies - hard and soft
• managing difficult-to-predict or quickly-changing work assignments
• making schedules easy to maintain during project execution

Focuses on proven techniques and principles, NOT the pros and cons of specific software tools.

Presented at the PMI 2003 Global Congress — North America on September 23, 2003 in Baltimore, MD.

Task Calendars are one of the most powerful tools available for scheduling special events. Introduced in MS Project 2000, they help project managers precisely schedule certain types of work.

Learn advanced techniques to schedule work that must be performed on a certain schedule. The article builds on “Calendars”, which shows how to schedule work according to resources’ schedules.

Published in Microsoft Project Users Group (MPUG) Newsletter - The Project Network, Volume 7, Issue 2-2003.

Task Calendars are one of the most powerful tools available for scheduling special events. Introduced in MS Project 2000, they help project managers precisely schedule certain types of work.

Learn advanced techniques to schedule work that must be performed on a certain schedule. The article builds on “Calendars”, which shows how to schedule work according to resources’ schedules.

Published in Microsoft Project Users Group (MPUG) Newsletter - The Project Network, Volume 7, Issue 2-2003.

Published in the 2003 PMI NJ Chapter Newsletter.

Experienced project managers rarely have the luxury of only managing their projects. The more project work that your organization performs, the more likely it is that management will want to see consolidated reporting of multiple projects. This article presents a ten-step method to create successful scorecards and benchmarks, to communicate status more effectively. It provides practical, proven tips and techniques for reporting on large, complex endeavors.

Presented at the PMI 2002 Seminars and Symposium on October 7, 2002.

Experienced project managers rarely have the luxury of only managing their projects. The more project work that your organization performs, the more likely it is that management will want to see consolidated reporting of multiple projects. This article presents a ten-step method to create successful scorecards and benchmarks, to communicate status more effectively. It provides practical, proven tips and techniques for reporting on large, complex endeavors.

Microsoft Project is a widely-used scheduling tool. Its quirks and complications are a huge drain of time on the Project Management community. This article discusses four techniques to take back control of your schedule from MS Project, by understanding its default behavior better, and setting up the tool to meet your needs.

Published in the PMI Information Systems SIG newsletter, Third Quarter 2002.

Published in the PMI Information Systems SIG newsletter, Second Quarter 2002.

In March 2002, the IEEE Computer Society introduced an important new certification option for software professionals. This article reviews the new program, explaining the benefits of earning a CSDP as well as some areas of concern for early applicants.

This presentation will describe how to adapt standard, career-guidance tools to Project Management. It is never easy making a career recommendation, but these tools can help make a better-informed, more objective recommendation. Experienced Project Managers can use these tools to better understand their management style, and help predict what assignments and situations may be particularly easy or difficult for them. Core skills like negotiation and mentoring, and personality traits like Introvert/Extrovert are critical to job. Learn how to adapt some time-tested tools to Project Management, to understand yourself better and to guide others more objectively.

Presented at the PMI/NJ 2002 Regional Symposium on May 6th, 2002 in Edison, NJ.