Project Hero Blog - Weekly Best Practices and Tips

Many introductory courses that include information about budgeting for project managers discuss the idea that a project budget may have to be time based.  That is, the expenditures are divided over weeks, months, or quarters to show how spending will occur over the course of the project.  But the project budgets in an organization only tell a part of the story.  Budgets are about when we will be m...

[Note: Beginning with last week's article and continuing forward, in addition to tagging articles with knowledge areas, we will be adding new tags for business, people, and technical (including process). We will update past articles over time. This will align content with the new PMP®​​ exam content areas, which in turn, align with the PMI talent triangle areas - Leadership, Technical Project Mana...

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 shared understanding of the work.  As a result, the team may defer user stories' implementation and waste time witho...

Use these six important tools to keep your project on budget:

1. Contracts: Contracts, whether formal or informal (e.g., MOU), can reveal what aspects of the project are most important. Incentive clauses in contracts can keep everyone on the same page.
2. Reviews: Short interval reviews, such as status reports, should include cost variance analysis. Long interval reviews can provide information abou
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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...

For the next few weeks, I'd like to take a closer look at initiating projects, with special attention to costs. This is an area of weakness for many who jump in to do work before looking at the consequences or rewards. Rather than use a microscope, you need a telescope to see to the far and of the project. We'll focus on costs, but once again, there are many other factors that must be analyzed.

T...

When selecting any resource of any type for a project, always keep in mind the automatic selection of the "cheapest" won't always be the least expensive option. This is why we have competitive bidding for major contracts -- we get a peek at the other dimensions. Does the resource meet our needs? Will our requirements be met? Will quality meet our standards?

Let's suppose we can choose between 3 "...