It’s a fact: Projects go better with executive support. Study after study shows that active sponsorship is a factor in project success. The more the buy in comes from senior levels in the enterprise, the more likely it is that your projects will deliver against your business case forecasts and achieve the benefits they set […]
Why You Need Project Risk Management Software
Project risk management software is a tool for business that helps you identify, track, manage and close out risks to your projects, programs and portfolio. Normally installed and managed from the PMO, it’s used by project managers and their teams, plus other project delivery professionals in your organization and executives who want to see the […]
5 Tips for Managing Conflict At Work
So much has been written about managing conflict at work. On training courses, when students get to the conflict management part, you can see some of them glaze over or repeat the mantra: Competing, Accommodating, Avoiding, Compromising, Collaborating: the 5 well-know styles for managing a bust up. That’s a problem. Conflict happens because we are […]
Disadvantages of Constraints
The disadvantages of constraints. If you have particular dates in mind for several activities in your schedule you may be tempted to insert constraints to fix the start or finish dates of these activities. Try to avoid this temptation, as constraints come with disadvantages. Constraints are not forbidden in most scheduling guidelines, but their broad […]
Monitoring Schedule Slippage in Microsoft Project
Project progress does not always go according to plan. When a schedule slips you will want a fast way to monitor this schedule slippage in Microsoft Project. The baseline is used as a measure of schedule progress. Microsoft Project has a few features to support monitoring schedule progress against the baseline. The slippage feature, in […]
Primavera P6 Professional File Transfer Requirements
Are you transferring a Primavera P6 schedule file from one counterpart P6 database to another, most likely from subcontractor to customer? If so, then you will want to establish agreed upon file transfer requirements to control project schedules produced or updated by counterparts. Quite often schedules are transferred between primary and subcontractors from one Primavera […]
Are You Receiving Accurate Project Status Reports?
When project managers turn in their weekly or monthly status reports, the real work begins for the Project Management Office. Even if your project management software does a lot of the data crunching for you, there’s still an element of human interaction to review and check the information before consolidated dashboards or reports leave the […]
Microsoft Project and Shading Gantt Chart Time Periods
Have you used the shading calendar feature in Microsoft Project? It is possible in Microsoft Project to shade a time period on the Gantt chart as nonworking time, and not necessarily require Microsoft Project to reschedule tasks around this time period. Sometimes schedulers want to shade nonworking time on the Gantt chart, and still maintain […]
Portfolio Management in Small Companies
“Portfolio management in small companies– that’s something only big firms do, isn’t it?” Not at all! Even small businesses can benefit from taking a portfolio management approach to managing their projects. In fact, you could argue that portfolio management is even more important in smaller companies. In these businesses, taking a risk on the wrong […]
Microsoft Project and Finish No Later Than Constraints
Unfortunately most projects come with deadlines, a fact that is a challenge when building schedule to meet them. Finish No Later Than constraint (FNLT) are helpful in Microsoft Project to stress the importance of meeting a deadline date. Constraints express the importance of a particular date in the life of the project. So when network […]