The Project Coach

For those of my PMP friends and colleagues who are firmly immersed in the waterfall way of doing things but who are hearing more and more about agile and scrum and wondering what all the fuss is about, I thought it might be a good idea to write a series of articles comparing and contrasting the two approaches.  I’d like to start by stating that I am very much a fan of agile and scrum and believe that the traditional PMI methodology, when practiced in a sensible manner and the agile scrum approach have more in common than you would think. At the end of the day the purpose of both is the same – to get work done well.  › Continue reading…

In our previous 2 articles, we’ve discussed how business requirements should originate in a cascading manner from goals and objectives, to assist in assigning their relative priorities.  We also reviewed tools that can be leveraged to help us remember the different areas or categories of requirements to capture.  But now let’s step back and consider, just what is a requirement anyway, and what is it not?  › Continue reading…

In her blog last week , Cindy Vandersleen talked about the challenges of gathering requirements and how the devil is always in the details.  I think many people would agree with this assessment; I know I do.  My best practice for gathering a comprehensive set of project requirements is to build a Requirements Template, and this week I’d like to share with you some tips for creating a model that your organization can use again and again to collect a comprehensive set of requirements and manage scope creep from the word “GO”.  › Continue reading…

There have been many articles written about requirements development from many perspectives.  I happen to believe this is one of the hardest tasks of any project, and one of the key contributors to scope creep.  As the initial scope statement is defined, everyone believes they understand it.  But the devil is always in the details.  As detailed requirements are elaborated from the scope definition, the misunderstandings emerge and the estimates in time and resources get blown.  Now as project manager you are faced with the all too familiar triple constraint dance of getting permission to add more resources, or time, or reducing some of the requirements. › Continue reading…

Some people think of those 3 letters and hold up the sign of the cross as if to ward off vampires.  For some reason this seems to be one of those areas of project management work that meets with more resistance than most from beginning practitioners.  I’m often asked “Do we really need to go to all the trouble of creating one of those?” There seems to be confusion about what a WBS is and why anyone would need one, and generally speaking a lot of fear about the effort involved to prepare one.  › Continue reading…

My New Year’s Resolution is to focus on creativity this year.  Even though today is only December 31, there is no time like the present!  So, let’s get started. 

For the next few weeks, I will be blogging about how we, as project managers, can help our project teams think more creatively.  In my last blog, I looked at the systems and causes of teams that are in a creativity crisis.  Today, I offer the first technique for helping your team break out of a creativity rut.  I will follow with many more techniques over the next several weeks.  › Continue reading…

In PMI’s (Project Management Institute’s) Project Management Body of Knowledge or PMBOK – which is the bible of project management, there are 9 knowledge areas discussed– Integration, Scope, Time, Cost, Quality, Human Resources, Communications, Risk, and Procurement.  Anyone who has studied for their PMP certification knows these well – ad nauseum even, and knows that the PMBOK discusses these with equal weight.  Indeed, PMI loves all of her knowledge area “children” equally, but out in the real world there is one that I believe deserves your extra undivided attention and that is scope.  › Continue reading…