Project Hero Blog - Weekly Best Practices and Tips

Studies have shown that roughly 20% of projects fail due to poor communications. Whether you are discussing risk management or just having a meeting, having strong communication skills is critical for project managers. Here are 5 tips for improving those skills:

1. Know your audience. Do a thorough stakeholder analysis to understand communications needs and preferences.
2. Develop a formal communica
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As we've learned from projects like healthcare.gov, Agile isn't always the best method to follow for software development. If we look at its strengths and weaknesses, Agile is not especially well-suited in its pure form for projects with fixed deadlines and fixed scope. It also exhibits limitations in complex projects which require strong integration testing.  So there are other methodologies and ...

If project management feels like it's herding cats, you are probably doing something wrong. Here are 5 steps to avoid the cats:

1. Be sure you develop a definition of success and a clear vision with the project sponsor.
2. Be sure there are clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
3. Do enough planning, so there is a clear plan for the team to follow.
4. Follow the appropriate project and decision-ma
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I usually have to visit a copy shop at least 2-3 times a year to fulfill various needs for PMI meetings and events. This past weekend I had a critical business need to have a small number of copies made and spiral bound for a customer meeting. With FedEx Kinko's being the closest, I dashed off last night to have the copies done. Since I don't frequently visit, this was like a "first visit" all ove...

If we look at the five levels of effective quality management, it's easy to see that proactive (taking preventative measures) is the least expensive way to go.  If clients find problems, or we find the problems just before the project goes to the customer, there is a cost to repair issues, as well as the possibility of other losses, such as loss of reputation or the client.  A solid risk managemen...

They say that 90% of project work is about communications in some form. Others have estimated that meetings can take up around 50% of project communications time. So, make a commitment to follow these five steps to take your meetings from good to GREAT:

Goals: Pre-plan the meeting and determine what goals must be met to achieve meeting success.

Right people: Determine the right set of people to ...

Why do our projects not succeed?

Toward the end of last week, I completed a corporate training for UCSD Extension at a major San Diego/US defense contractor. They were taking the final exam, so I covered some short topics to generate discussion rather than cover new material.  I showed them the results of industry studies by organizations such as Standish Group and Meta Group. I showed them acade...

It’s been a year since the launch of the Accidental Project Manager book. PPC Group, LLC wants to help as many new, aspiring, and “accidental” project managers as possible during the next month. On 12 August 2019, we are launching Accidental Project Manager: The Online Experience. Continuing in the tradition of the book, this new online experiential course develops essential project management ski...

For the last two weeks, we looked at two different ways to evaluate project selections to determine which to work on. This type of activity is often carried out by senior management and not the project manager. The project manager is usually involved once the project charter has been developed. A special form of project charter is the Statement of Work or SOW. Its often associated with a contract ...

Last week we looked at the BCR -- Benefit-Cost Ratio as a way of evaluating a project. This week I'd like to look at a related technique -- Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The purpose of many projects is to introduce a new product or service. Often this new product or service has a later ongoing operation. For example, if you have installed Oracle Financials, there is a need to develop the customiz...