In This Issue:
From the Editor
Requirements for Requirements by Kent McDonald
Site Highlights
With Every Order, You Get a New Pony
OK, Seriously... Where's Our Pony?
A Trillion Here, a Trillion There...
Keeping It All Together
I'll See Your Week and Raise You a Month
May Premium Subscriber Survey Results
How-To Course: Planning the Project When Things Are Uncertain
Burning Questions
Does Anyone Have a Map?
Dollars and Sense
Project Practitioners
Where's ProjectConnections?
Corporate Subscriptions and Licensing
From the Editor
Have you ever looked around and wondered what you've gotten into? Yeah, we've been there. Planning and estimating for projects that have never been done before, picking a software tool you'll have to live with for the next 3-5 years, reporting cost and budget performance without losing hours of your life .... So what's the right way to cope with this uncertainty? It depends! This week we've added new resources (and highlighted some old favorites) to help you narrow down the possibilities and pick the approach that's right for your team, your needs, your organization. Sometimes, it's not about what's asked for as much as what's really needed.Premium Poll Results: Our June course and content pieces are announced below in our Site Highlights. Plus, there's still time for subscribers to download our May course release. You can get to it below, or from the Premium Home Page on the site.
Featured Article
Requirements for Requirements
by Kent McDonald
This week I found myself in a conversation that seemed surreal at the time. A data analyst had just suggested that we add a business requirement to capture metadata for all the data elements being added on a data warehouse project. Put another way, she was suggesting that we create a requirement to capture data about data that are requirements. Once I wrapped my brain around why someone would suggest identifying a requirement to identify requirements, I realized it was worth discussing the concept for a couple of minutes. It gave me an opportunity to discuss when to create requirements for a deliverable, as well as the various forms requirements can take.
Read more »
Site Highlights
With Every Order, You Get a New Pony – Project Management Software Tools Evaluation – PREMIUMWill that new software tool take you to new levels of efficiency, or just take up time and money? This checklist helps you make that evaluation and get to a short list of candidates. You'll be able to document the features important to your PM process and keep track of which software packages have which features. It also helps capture comments on different packages, for later review with your selection committee. Clever marketing promises and add-ons don't matter if the software doesn't match your group's most important needs.
NEW – OK, Seriously ... Where's Our Pony? – Getting the Most Out of That PM Tool – PREMIUM
The new PM tool you invested in was supposed to solve problems, ensure team harmony, and usher in a new era of interdepartmental peace and prosperity. So after all these months, where's the pony? You may need to do some digging to be sure you've unearthed your tool's true potential, and that you aren't burying your teams in the process. This detailed checklist and guideline will help you ensure your people are using PM tools wisely, and that management is truly getting the information they need, while watching for key warning signals that tool maintenance has become a project unto itself. Someone hand me a shovel ...
A Trillion Here, a Trillion There ... Implementing an Enterprise Portfolio Management System – MEMBER
What does it really take to enjoy a successful PPM installation? According to this case study, perseverance, patience, and a vision of the future. (Of course, trillions would never hurt.) Review one company's processes and lessons learned in this detailed case study, which includes things like process requirements, training gotchas, and how to recruit executive support. Community-submitted experiences and best practices are included, for broad coverage of the topic. In the end, it's not all about the money.
Keeping It All Together – Department- and Project-Level WBS – PREMIUM
Managing multiple projects across a business group is easier if you know how the milestones impact each other and when your resources could be overloaded. What better tool than the one we already use to track complex resource interactions and deadlines on projects? This MS Project WBS file shows how one department manager kept track of the departmental portfolio. It includes cross-functional manufacturing and support activities, so it's a nice overview of how different departments impact each other, and should provide inspiration for your own high-level work plans.
I'll See Your Week and Raise You a Month – Agile Technique Brief: Estimating – PREMIUM
How do you decide how long something will take when you still don't understand all the work required to create it? Agile methodologies draw on a remarkable, and remarkably fun, heuristic method: Planning Poker. Don't be too quick to dismiss it as corny or Agile-only; this method (or something like it) can help you break a logjam and arrive at a group consensus -- a team-owned "best guess" -- even if most of your information discovery hasn't been done yet.
NEW – May Premium Subscriber Survey Results
Want to see the full results? Check them out on our Premium Page. Meanwhile, here are the winners for May (to be released in June):
- June course release: Putting a Stop to Endless Requirements Gathering
- June resource release: Configuration Management Plan
Monthly Premium How-To Course
REMINDER – Downloadable Course – Planning the Project When Things Are Uncertain – 1 PDU – PREMIUMThere's still time to get your copy of this month's how-to course. We'll be putting up the next monthly special for Premium subscribers in a couple of weeks, so check this one out now! Category-3 PDU credit is available for paid Premium subscribers.
How can you possibly plan and manage a project when you don't know how long it will take to finish? Iterative development methods can help. This 35-minute session, presented by Michael Aucoin, President of Leading Edge Management explores these iterative tools like spiral development and time-boxing, so you and your team can face uncertainty with confidence. PDU credit available for paid Premium subscribers (exercise required).
Stay tuned in June for our next course: Putting a Stop to Endless Requirements Gathering
Burning Questions
NEW – Does Anyone Have a Map? – How should I plan a project in an unfamiliar business domain? – PREMIUMQ: I've been assigned a critical project that will impact our entire organization. I'm excited about the challenge, but I'm not familiar with this business domain. How should I plan this new project?
A: This is definitely a place to marry your knowledge of project management with specific knowledge and support from your internal Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). Our first and strongest recommendation is to immediately engage heavily with SMEs inside your company who specialize in the affected issues. Read more »
NEW – Dollars and Sense – How can I track costs vs. budget and make a reasonable comparison? – PREMIUM
Q: We need some way to keep our project team accountable to the project sponsors and stakeholders in status reports and meetings, but we don't want to go crazy doing it. How can I track our actual project costs and compare them to the project budget in a way that makes sense?
A: Many industries and government programs use Earned Value methodology to do this. Earned Value systems calculate variances in schedule and cost for both budgeted and actual performance. However, this level of detail isn't appropriate to all projects or organizations. Unless you have regulatory or contractual demands that dictate measurements, we suggest you to keep thing simple to start, and let the situation drive further complexity. Read more »
Project Practitioners
Niel Nickolaisen has some great advice for Getting Control of Charge-Backs. Not the kind that come with credit card sales -- charge-back of IT services to various business units. The allocation his team came up with is a great example of providing what's needed, not what's requested, so that everyone comes out a winner.Alfonso Bucero outlines his take on The Crucial Role of Project Portfolio Management and the steps necessary to establish and improve project portfolios. If you're getting ready to take this important step, don't neglect this advice.
Margaret de Haan is requesting your input regarding two competing trains of thought on hiring Software Development PMs: the business track and the technical track. Does it matter whether or not software PMs can produce code? See what she has to say, and share your thoughts.
Mike Aucoin explains what PMs have in common with Grok the Neanderthal (it's not what you think!) and how we can avoid triggering the infamous fight-or-flight reflex when trying to help a colleague. Do you react to the office know-it-all by throwing verbal spears?
You've hired a great PM, and they've demonstrated their acumen on several projects in varying circumstances. It's time to turn over the reins. Ann Drinkwater reminds us what a savvy PM should be able to do (on their own), and how we as PMs can ensure our voice is heard and our knowledge applied.
Where's ProjectConnections?
Carl Pritchard is heading to sea in August for his 2010 PDUs Seminar @ Sea. "Managing Multiple Projects: Coping with the Challenges of Competing Priorities" will set sail from Orlando on August 19 for a 3-day cruise in the Bahamas, racking up PDUs the whole way. Preliminary registration is due June 15. For more details, check out the cruise website at http://www.traveling4fun.com/events.htm.Corporate Subscriptions and Licensing
Want your team members to have their own access to templates and how-to resources for their project work? Need to share documents and deliverables beyond your project team? We make it easier with affordable corporate subscriptions and licensing. Detailed information regarding corporate options is available online. Give your whole team, or even the entire organization, cost-effective access to our comprehensive online library of resources. You already know how helpful it's been for you. Now it's time to share with everyone else. Find out more »Not sure if corporate terms apply to you? Check out our licensing terms at the top of our Terms of Service page, in refreshingly ordinary, everyday English.