Project Hero Blog - Weekly Best Practices and Tips

Moving forward ten years, I found myself as a program manager responsible for several projects related to a $10M+ Unix rollout. A colleague was responsible for the procurement and hardware side of the operations while I was tasked with getting a workstation into the hands of 400 developers in 16 locations. Each had to be trained on the basic services of their workstation, they had to receive...

Back in the early 80s, when corporations like IBM and Univac were mainframe giants, it took the typical systems team 3-5 years to produce a new compiler. It was during that time I took on a project to finish where some R&D left off. The goal: produce a compiler, assembler, and linkage editor for a family of computers in use in the world’s largest private computer network. This was...

This week someone emailed me and asked me how I create templates for my pre-written software (PeopleSoft, Clarify, Siebel, INFORM, etc.) engagements, so I thought I would share the thinking and one of its products this week. First, let’s look at why I create them.

Effective consultants have tools that enable them to repeat engagements and bring value to customers while integrating new and...

The Oz Principle was initially released around 1994, but the authors (Craig Hickman, Tom Smith, and Roger Connors) felt an update was required in 2004 and also have a few sequel works that are much newer (Journey to the Emerald City, How Did That Happen?).  These books build on their original key principle – accountability.  In leadership roles such as Project Management,...

You arrive at work on Monday morning and find that your key software engineer did not show up.  You subsequently learn that he was arrested over the weekend for tax evasion for the past eight years.  The week is tense, and you hope you will get your key engineer back – after all, he should be able to make bail and get out of jail.

So he makes bail and returns for a week. ...