Do you use late-date constraints? Activity constraints define important dates in the life of the project. But too many constraints make a schedule rigid and not dynamic. Most scheduling software provides the scheduler an assortment of constraints to further define a date’s importance. These dates are typically important milestones in the project including project reviews, […]
What Does A PMO Do?
A PMO is a Project Management Office. It’s a function within an organization that defines the standards for project management. And it can do a whole lot more than that too. The main purpose of a Project Management Office (PMO) is to make sure that projects and programs are run in a repeatable, standardized way. […]
Improper Milestones
Properly placed milestones can guide you through the schedule. But improper milestones may misrepresent the reality of your true schedule situation. Milestones are major markers in the schedule. They either tell you where you’ve been or where you are going. Milestones help to highlight the completion of a phase of work, submittal of deliverables, or […]
How To Ask for More PMO Funding
How to ask for more PMO funding We’ve written before about how to ask for more PMO staff to support your growing organization, but sometimes you need more than just bodies to deliver your strategy. Need More PMO Funding? In this article we’ll look at how to secure more PMO funding. It can be a […]
Scope Risk Analysis
When it comes to project management, beginning well is important and helps the project build momentum. Scope risk, however, may threaten the earliest stages of project work, when scope is defined. Project managers must key in on the triple constraint scope, schedule, and cost throughout the project lifecycle. Of the three, scope risk should be […]
How To Ask for More PMO Staff
Need more PMO staff? There comes a time in the journey for all PMOs that you can’t do more without more PMO staff to support the work. There’s a limit to how agile and lean you can be and still offer a great service to your project management community and the executives. Every PMO is […]
The Inappropriate Use of Lag In Scheduling
Most guidelines allow lag in scheduling. The caveat is the lag must be properly applied as its incorrect use may overstate risk in the schedule. Negative lag is considered never appropriate. Limited use of positive lag is agreeable to most scheduling guidelines, but, again, it must be properly applied. A common misuse of lag is […]
What Is Agile Portfolio Management?
What Is Agile Portfolio Management? Agile and Portfolio Management might not feel like they belong in the same sentence together. Agile is an adaptive, flexible way of managing change that can be used on a large scale or incrementally. Portfolio management is about understanding a suite of change across an organization or division. You need […]
Scheduling and Activity Duration Length
Projects come in all kinds of lengths and sizes. In light of this how long should your activity durations extend? Activity durations should be sized to suit the respective project length. Activity durations that are too short result in schedules that are too detailed and cumbersome. On the other hand activity durations that are too […]
Duration Uncertainty
Are your schedules coming in late? The problem may be as fundamental as duration uncertainty in scheduling. The goal of proficient project managers is strict adherence to the schedule. The duration estimates in scheduling are specific and definitive. This decisiveness of duration estimates is alluring but, in many situations, misleading. This puts the project manager […]