Project Hero Blog - Weekly Best Practices and Tips

"We've got three R's we're going to talk about today
We've got to learn to
Reduce, reuse, recycle"

- Jack Johnson

While often thought of as a "lean" process, agile projects can be full of waste. This waste can lead to increased project time and cost, lower productivity, and a failure to deliver the value customers may be expecting.

The agile project manager must learn to manage and control the...

Most agile projects rely on iterations; typically three week periods sometimes referred to as sprints.  Each sprint incorporates four agile events, formerly referred to as ceremonies, that help keep the project on track.  One event is scheduled daily, and the remainder is at the end of each sprint.  These events are:

• Daily stand-up meeting: Every day, the full team (facilitator,...

As an agile project manager, you will need to change your mindset to succeed.  Your role and your team and stakeholders' roles will be different from what they would be in predictive (waterfall) projects.  How you manage will need to be different too.

Here are 6 tips to help you adjust:

1. Agile teams are largely self-organizing, so you will no longer drive the work and monitor the...

In any project, there are four primary development life cycles. A fifth, hybrid, is any combination of these four.  These are for the phases of the projects which produce the product, service, or other results.

This chart breaks them down by the uses and attributes of the project activities and deliveries:

The critical difference is that agile projects produce deliverables over...

Organizations face the temptation to call everything a project. Then, they apply a project manager and a lot of overhead to manage them. So while the formal definition of a project includes "temporary" and "produces a unique result," smart managers apply some additional rules.  These may consist of complexity, the budget amount,  team size, or a combination to determine if an actual...

With the widespread recognition of project management as a valuable organizational core competency, the current economic climate, and the continued challenges of doing more with less, I continue to observe more and more project managers that have been bestowed the title (either by themselves, by the work they do, or by their managers) without the proper support and training to truly fulfill the...

The most productive meetings result in decisions and actions.  Recording the decisions and actions in meeting minutes creates a useful accountability tool.  Minutes can also keep those unable to attend informed of results.  Good minutes are both easy to develop and ensure an accurate record of decisions and actions.

Here are seven tips for creating better meeting minutes:

1. Use a...

Video conferencing, especially from home, has become a new norm.  Here are six tips to improve your virtual meetings.

1. Start on time. Unlike an office setting, people aren't walking to the meeting and collecting attendees on the way. Especially if you are the host, be sure to be on time. I usually suggest that everyone start to sign on to the meeting about 5-10 minutes ahead.  The...

Project management can be a demanding role.  Use these time management tips to manage time more effectively, from day-to-day and month-to-month.

1. Know When You are Most Productive. The first step in effectively managing time is to know when you are the most productive.  This time is when you feel more energized and creative.  Are you a morning or afternoon person? This time is...

I often get asked whether project management best practices used for large projects are applicable to smaller projects. This fundamental question is one that all project managers must face when managing small projects. Utilizing the best practices on a small project can be done without creating too much paperwork or overhead.

The best practices are the things that countless project managers...