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Presented at the PMI North America Congress in Atlanta, Georgia on October 8, 2007. Paper available on this site. Explains key financial terms, including return on investment, time value of money, payback period, and first-to-market advantage. Applies these financial concepts to sample projects, to help project managers understand the business impact of schedule changes.
second in a series on MS Project, this article describes three alternate methods to build a project schedule. Many project managers stick to a single tried-and-true method, but everyone has options; they can use dependencies and other tools to create a resource-leveled schedule.
Published in the PMI Information Systems SIG newsletter, First Quarter 2003.
It is time to put project management on the agenda of the board meetings for your organization. Traditionally project management has been a tool for scheduling, planning, and execution. It brings efficiency and predictability to organizations that embrace it. Usually it is adopted by mid-level management to optimize one or two department’s activities. Learn about how the President and CEO of a 400-employee company have made project management their core method to execute their Strategic Plan. Project management is ready for the board room. Learn ways to bring it to the attention of senior managers.
To help create consistent, high-quality schedules, organizations may create standards for schedules. These standards help all project managers follow similar principles when creating a new schedule, making them easier to integrate into a portfolio and easier to manage overall. Standards can also help ensure that newer project managers do not repeat common mistakes made by the organization in the past.
This article provides sample standards, and advice on how to customize them to an organization’s practices and needs.
Describes the use of a red-yellow-green status report at a particular company, and some best practices for this popular report format.
Published in early 2006 in the PMI New York City Chapter e-newsletter.
Describes the key decisions of one 400-person company implementing project management across the enterprise, including IT and all insurance business units. Many project management techniques were designed to help the largest organizations and the largest projects. This paper examines which of them work well in smaller organizations.
To be presented at the 2006 PMI College of Scheduling Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida between April 23 and April 26, 2006.
key financial terms, including return on investment, time value of money, payback period, and first-to-market advantage. Applies these financial concepts to sample projects, to help project managers understand the business impact of schedule changes.
Presented at the 2006 PMI College of Scheduling Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida between April 23 and April 26, 2006. Also presented at the PMI North America Congress in Atlanta, Georgia on October 8, 2007.
Addresses the question about whether it is better to model a schedule with only full-time assignments or part-time assignments for resources. Reviews pros and cons of different solutions, and points out critical mistakes schedulers can make when assigning part-time, concurrent work.
Experienced schedulers build their schedules carefully, using dependencies, calendars, and other tools to build a model of their project. Delays are useful, little-used tools to adjust dates for resource leveling and other purposes. Unlike fixed-date constraints, they help build schedules that react gracefully to change. Proper use of delays can eliminate all unnecessary fixed dates from a schedule.
Published in the PMI Information Systems SIG newsletter, Fourth Quarter 2004 and in newsletter of MPA, the Official Industry Association for Microsoft® Office Project, “The Project Network” Volume 9, Issue 1-2005.
Reviews fundamentally difficult scheduling problems, including:
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.
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