Most projects have a million things that can go wrong. Because a project is by definition temporary, it is inevitable that the budget and schedule factor prominently in project success. But it is a surprisingly common scenario that project managers think the project is going great because the variables they are concerned with are on track (usually the deadlines and … [Read more...]
Six Sigma was a powerful quality improvement system developed by Motorola that took the world by storm in the early 2000's with high profile adoptions by General Electric, Honeywell, and others. Lean was a manufacturing methodology originated by Toyota, which turned manufacturing on its head by focusing on minimizing idling products (inventory) rather than minimizing … [Read more...]
A Project Deliverable is a product or service that a project produces for its customer, client, or project sponsor. It is the product or service that the project "delivers" to its stakeholders. It can be tangible or intangible, for example, a contractor who is hired to provide a training course provides the course itself back to their client as the project's … [Read more...]
Resource allocation is the process of assigning and scheduling resources to project tasks. Resources are the life blood of project management. Resources are used to carry out the project, and are returned to their owners if not consumed by the project. There are 6 steps to performing a proper resource allocation: Divide the Project into Tasks Assign the … [Read more...]
Like a carpenter without a hammer. Like programmer without a computer. Like a speaker without a microphone. Resource planning is an indispensable component of project management. In fact, it's so important that the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) dedicates a full knowledge area to resource management. In order to effectively manage … [Read more...]
Staying within budget and schedule is one of the project manager's most important jobs. It is not an understatement to say that if you master this one thing, most other things will fall into place. The secret to doing this well is called earned value management. It is one of the foundational processes of project management, as well as a central component of … [Read more...]
I'm staying on the 8th floor of the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel. When I surfed the internet trying to learn about this gorgeous place, to my surprise I ended up finding gruesome ghost stories about Room 873 instead. It's just down the hall from us. In fact, we have to walk past it every time we want to get to the elevator. According to the internet legends, … [Read more...]
As you may be aware, this site has been down for the last few days. On the evening of Tuesday July 28, we were the target of a denial of service attack. This means that a malicious party (hacker) bombards a website with so much traffic that the server fails. Our normal traffic of about 6,000 "hits" per day became about 180,000 in the space of about one hour, and was … [Read more...]
It's always there, always on, and always powerful. Features include: Project Home Page: Keep up to date with all your project information. No second guessing. Project Forums: Make sure your project team is always in the loop. Documents: Keep your documents in a secure, easily accessible place. Document Control: Effortlessly track document reviews and make … [Read more...]
Thanks to all for a great and enjoyable Gas & Oil Expo last month. The draw for the iPad mini was made by my 19 month old son, and the winner was Mr. Jim Little of Greenland Consulting. Greenland Consulting is an oil and gas consulting firm providing the energy and resource sectors with guidance from industry-leading specialists. The winners of the free 12 month … [Read more...]
