Project Hero Blog - Weekly Best Practices and Tips

Once project execution begins, you will need to track your budget regularly. Here are five tips to help you control your budget:

1. Review progress weekly: Update schedule and budget actuals, check for trends, and take corrective actions as required to get back on track. Record the changes so you will learn how to budget better next time.
2. Have a change control process in place: This process...

Starting a project with a proper budget is one of the best ways to be able to manage the budget. Here are five tips for creating a solid budget:

1. Develop a deep understanding of project requirements: Know what the stakeholders really need and want so your budget is stronger. Don't forget to do a WBS with the team too.
2. Work from the effort, not duration: Task level of effort is a better gauge of...

Risk management is not a one-time event. During the course of a project, good project managers continue to help the team focus on monitoring risks and repeating the processes of identification and analysis as the project changes. Here are five tips for helping team members maintain their focus:

1. Encourage open and transparent communication about risk.
2. Remind the stakeholders that risks aren't...

Risks are both threats and opportunities which can hinder or help project success. Proper risk management can save you from later firefights to bring things back under control. Here are five tips to improve risk management and/or reduce project risks:

1. Don't skip or skimp on risk management. Larger and more complex projects need to have more robust processes that begin to examine risks earlier...

Most Agile projects consist of one or more sprints. The Agile project manager can play an important role in aiding sprint planning. Here are 5 tips to be sure each sprint is as effective as possible.

1. Begin with the end in mind: work with the business or product owner to set a theme or goal for each sprint to keep the team focused.
2. Carefully prioritize: be sure every story for the sprint...

As a project leader, it's critically important to be earnest - have an intense conviction and confidence in the plan. Staying calm and confident is reassuring to the team, sponsor,  and stakeholders alike.  The team will take their cues from you, follow your lead, and rise to meet any challenges or setbacks positively.  Whether you are looking at the Inc. list, the Forbes list,...

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,...