Project Hero Blog - Weekly Best Practices and Tips

The first month of a new year has already past - time flies by!  Perhaps as part of your New Year's resolutions you have decided to acquire new skills or take your career in a different direction.  Now is a great time to get started with project management.

Just a few years ago, Project...

COVID-19 has brought about a lot of change; however, some things remain constant.  In a more competitive environment, with constant change and fewer available resources, the skill of project management is now as important as ever. Projects must be more successful and deliver on their...

The definition of a project includes having a start and an end date, making a project a temporary endeavor.  Even though more flexibility is required for agile projects, senior management may still have an expectation of some form of high level schedule so other projects in the organization...

While agile methods may not fit every project, every project that uses agile automatically gets a boost in customer experience, satisfaction, and engagement.  This is a substantial benefit that most businesses crave!  Check out these  5 ways that agile, if done correctly, can...

Let's face it.  Estimation is a necessary evil for all projects.  Having good estimates helps to mitigate time and cost risks and better enables us to deliver successful projects.  While the agile environment may have more flexibility, most organizations cannot tolerate...

2020 has certainly been a year to be remembered, and perhaps maybe forgotten.  It has created new working habits and patterns that are likely to stay with us for years to come.  Some with online business models remain largely unaffected.  Others have had to scramble and get quickly...

I'm dreaming of an agile New Year
Just like the teams I used to know.
Where the backlogs glisten
And product owners listen
To hear improvement in the retro, oh, the retro.

I said I'm dreaming of an agile New Year
With every user story I write.
May your stand-ups be merry and hustle
And may all...

As an agile project manager, you may need to conduct requirements elicitation or work with a BA team that performs elicitation.  Either way, you will need some familiarity with the common forms of agile requirements.  As with all projects, requirements are an important element for...

Holding the project team and others accountable for completing their work is an important skill for a project manager.  It is especially important for agile and other less traditional project management methods where the team is largely self-organizing and self-managing.

To help the agile...

With a growing number of organizations shifting to agile methods for projects, those in the traditional project management role may want to consider how to transition from predictive to agile projects.  In the future, the best project managers will operate more flexibly and manage projects...

Effective sprint planning is essential for the success of any agile project.  The agile project manager should ensure every iteration delivers the highest possible value to customers to stay true to agile values.  Without effective planning, the team will not start the sprint with a...

"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...