Comments for Orgtopia

Comment on Critical Chain Project Management – Part 1 by Critical Chain Project Management Reduces Project Lead Time

Critical Chain Project Management Reduces Project Lead Time — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:37:13 +0000

[...] Critical Chain Project Management – Part 1 [...]

Comment on Building Effective Teams – Part 1 by Daniele Manganaro

Daniele Manganaro — Wed, 12 May 2010 06:50:40 +0000

Hi Dave, I totally agree with you when you say that building the team is one of the most important PM activities. As far as my previous experience is concerned I can say that after work and unformal get togehter activities helped me to build a stronger relationship with my team (dard turnament, beer after work and pic-nic in the weekend). As you said it is not easy and it takes a big effort, especially when you don’t really like some of the people of the group.. but who said that the PM work is easy? P.S. I passed the exam by the way

Comment on Time Management – Ensuring Important But Not Urgent Things Get Done. by Brad Peyton

Brad Peyton — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 15:51:55 +0000

A great method of ensuring “important but not urgent” activities get completed is to book time out for them in advance of actually taking the time to do them. By this methodology, if something more urgent crops up in the midst of you working away on that item, you simply pick another time to work on it. As this repeats, keep track of how many times you’ve re-scheduled. If it gets to 2-3 more repeats, don’t allow anything else to take priority. Just get it done!

The second pointer I would give is to ensure you’ve broken down big activities into a step-by-step plan, with achievable component parts. For a year’s worth of goals, draw yourself up a plan with milestones for interim completion. If you’re sitting down in January to plan for the year, make sure you personally commit to yourself to have half of the goals done by July and then schedule your first batch of goals, in piece meal fashion, with plenty of slippage buffer in there in case your urgent activities wreak havoc with your plans.

For example:
If you have 6 goals for the year, make sure you schedule one each month (Feb, Mar, Apr, etc.), with an interim checkpoint for 3 to be completed by July and a final checkpoint in November. By this means, you will benefit by having both interim targets for each step and a greater, over-arching pair of personal milestones that will add up to you succeeding in your long-term goals.

Without fore-planning, these types of activities are rarely re-visited and you would find yourself dissatisfied at the end of the year, with only 1 or 2 of the 6 goals met.

Comment on Differences between Prince2, ITIL and PMI by Jay

Jay — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:32:39 +0000

That is a good explanation on the differences between ITIL, Prince2 and PMP. I work for Firebrand Training and we offer accelerated project management and ITIL courses. Your readers might be interested in getting ITIL, Prince2 and PMP certified and I’m attaching the links here.

Prince2:
http://www.firebrandtraining.co.uk/courses/management/prince2.asp

ITIL:
http://www.firebrandtraining.co.uk/courses/management/ITIL_foundation/itil.asp

PMP:
http://www.firebrandtraining.co.uk/courses/pmi/pmp.asp

Scrum Training:
http://www.firebrandtraining.co.uk/courses/scrum/certified-scrum-master

Many Thanks

Comment on Why Prince2’s Quality Management Process is Flawed by David Hinde

David Hinde — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:55:54 +0000

Hi Chris & Adamantious,

Thanks for taking the time to leave some comments. I think you both make good points.
With Chris’s point – I agree. Getting away from defining a solution is the key to getting requirements. I think this gets more difficult in ground-breaking projects as we use old ideas and ways of doing things as a reference to asking for what we want. E.g. if I’d never heard of an internal combustion engine I would be more focused on what horses can do for me!
With Adamantious’s point – I sort of agree! I think the problem can be assuming that the project is not of a ground breaking nature and setting specific requirements in terms of quality gates or acceptance criteria. But then this constrains the direction to some extent – what happens if a very innovative solution comes along that doesn’t fit the quality gate?
I think both your comments have inspired me to look at this subject in a deeper way – I’ll write another blog post soon about requirements capture and will look forward to more feedback from you guys on it
Kind regards
David

Comment on Why Prince2’s Quality Management Process is Flawed by Adamantios Milas

Adamantios Milas — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:51:37 +0000

David,
the point you make about quality and it’s definition in relation to projects needs a little bit more elaboration.
If we are talking about a new product like iPhone or Ford model T then yes you are right. But if the project is about changing an existing business or product then customer is the one who describes and puts the quality gates or acceptance criteria. He, by deciding to move on with the project knows what are the requirements and the expectations of the change.

Comment on Estimating the Distance to the Moon using the Delphi Technique by Terence

Terence — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:22:02 +0000

I think this is the part of the course I remember best. It was a solid introduction to the Delphi technique – one that is tough to forget (especially given that one sticky note was somewhere near Camden Market!). Fantastic tool and an excellent way to achieve a consensus.

Comment on Five Best Management Books of 2009 by Xavier

Xavier — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:37:10 +0000

Will try to get one of these for xmas

Comment on Why Prince2’s Quality Management Process is Flawed by Chris Collins

Chris Collins — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:45:30 +0000

David,
The comment by Henry Ford about why he didn’t consult with users completely missed the point. Instead of asking what users wanted he should have been asking “What problems do you have?” to which they would probably have replied “It takes too long to get from A to B”. By letting users choose too much of the solution by-passes the analysts specialist knowledge, and also negates any intuitive ideas the analyst may have.

Therefore I believe that the acceptance criteria should be related to resolving the problem, not necessarily fitting in with a set of criteria that may limit the solution.

Comment on Estimating the Distance to the Moon using the Delphi Technique by James K

James K — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:43:49 +0000

I was also there, and while initially sceptical, I was totally won over and am looking forward to the next big project where I can try this out – great to have a documented example of this working in action!