Remember these Ten Costs of Poor Quality It costs money and time to build a quality solution. You may think that it is cheaper to skip many of the quality management steps, but this is usually not the case. It is important to recognize that there is also a cost to having poor quality. These costs […]
Use Pareto Analysis to Solve the Most Important Problems First Pareto analysis can be used when you encounter multiple related problems or a common problem with multiple causes. This technique can be used if there are enough occurrences that you can categorize and count them. In other words, this technique does not work if there is just […]
Agile 101 – Refactoring In a traditional IT development project there is a tendency for one person to write entire programs to implement certain functionality. A developer tends to own the code that she writes. This is not the case with an Agile project. Agile projects build incremental solutions over time. It is very possible, and perhaps […]
The Challenges of Proving the Value of Project Management (part 2 of 2) Last time, I described the challenges of trying to prove the value of project management. However, this does not mean we have to throw up our hands and give up. There are some ways to derive the value. Estimate benefits based on industry […]
The Challenges of Proving the Value of Project Management (part 1 of 2) There are a number of factors that make it difficult to quantify the value of project management to an organization. You can’t precisely compare projects before and after One of the characteristics of projects is that they are all unique. Therefore, […]
Use Milestones to Take a Checkpoint and Validate Your Status A milestone is a scheduling event that signifies the completion of a major deliverable or a set of related deliverables. A milestone, by definition, has duration of zero and no effort. Milestones are great for managers and the sponsor because they provide an opportunity to validate the […]
Estimate Project Costs Across Three Main Categories Once you understand the work of the project you can estimate the resources that will be required to complete the work. Knowing the resources allows you to estimate the costs of the resources to the project. There are three main areas where costs come into play. Labor costs The cost […]
Four Planning Techniques to Save Time on Your Project “Planning” is a very general term. When you say you are planning a project, you are really validating scope, creating a Charter, estimating, creating a schedule, and more. Here are four techniques to use when you plan your projects. They may take a little longer in the […]
Gain More Performance Feedback with a 360 Degree Review Performance reviews can be a stressful time for staff – and managers. It takes a great deal of thought and care to give honest and thorough performance feedback . If you have to deal with negative performance, the anxiety level can be off the scale. Because performance […]
Review Three Techniques to Create a Work Breakdown Structure The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is the first step to create a schedule. The WBS helps break the project work into smaller pieces that help more easily understand the work. Here are three techniques that can help you understand the WBS for your project. 1. Understand the […]
