Posted by godzhesas on 28 March, 2008 14:56

Today I was lucky to stumble on a pretty nice pile of project management advices - 100 Lessons Learned for Project Managers (actually there are 128 of them!).

Here are top 10 of my favourite project management tips from Jerry Madden:

3.The source of most problems is people but damned if they will admit it. Know the people working on your project, so you know what the real weak spots are.
4. Most managers succeed on the strength and skill of their staff.
14. Never ask management to make a decision that you can make. Assume you have the authority to make decisions unless you know there is a document that states unequivocally that you cannot.
16. Never make excuses; instead, present plans of actions to be taken.
21. Not all successful managers are competent and not all failed managers are incompetent. Luck still plays a part in success or failure, but luck favors the competent, hard-working manager.
27. Documentation does not take the place of knowledge. There is a great difference in what is supposed to be, what is thought to have been, and what the reality is. Documents are normally a static picture in time which is outdated rapidly.
29. In case of a failure:

• Make a timeline of events and include everything that is known;
• Put down known facts -- check every theory against them;
• Don't beat the data until it confesses, i.e., know when to stop trying to force-fit a scenario;
• Do not arrive at a conclusion too rapidly. Make sure any deviation from the norm is explained--remember the wrong conclusion is prologue to the next failure;
• Know when to stop.

33. Experience may be fine but testing is better. Knowing something will work never takes the place of proving that it will.
54. All problems are solvable in time, so make sure you have enough schedule contingency -- if you don't, the next project manager that takes your place will.
73. Today one must push the state of the art: be within budget, take risks, not fail, and be on time. Strangely, all these are consistent as long, as the ground rules, such as funding profile and schedule, are established up front and maintained.

What are your favorite project management tips?

  Posted by godzhesas on 25 March, 2008 10:03

Peopleware - Productive Projects and Teams, 2nd edition (ISBN 0-932633-43-9).


You haven't heard about this amazing book? Then definitely buy it or get it from your friends and read it. Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister does a wonderful job, they go straight to the heart of project management and tells you exactly why a company fails or succeeds. My favourite idea from the book is "it's not technology, it's people". This book is one of the classics in software project management; it actually can be used in any other knowledge based industry, not only IT.

I should say that I am embarrassed to say that I read this book only now, when the first edition was released in 1987 and the second in 1999(I've read the second edition). Well you might think that if the original book was written more then twenty years ago, a lot of the things have changed and the book is not actual today anymore. Indeed the technology evolved, a lot has changed, new management methods and theories were created, but what about the people? As you might have guessed from the title, Peopleware is all about the people. And it strikes how precise the authors were, because when you read the book you can find their examples in your daily work life today, more then twenty years later. Of course the book won't do the impact as it might have done ten years ago if you read it today, but never the less it's definitely worth reading. Don't be mistaken that this is another project management methodology, it is not. It is just about people and how they work, why they are effective or not, simple as that :). The authors point out, that the most common managers' mistake - too much concentration on technology, and not enough on the team, teams' well being and motivation.

A couple of interesting quotes from the book:

• "The major problems of our work are not so much technological as sociological in nature."
• "Quality, far beyond that required by the end user, is a means to higher productivity."
• "The manager's function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work"
• "People under time pressure don't work better; they just work faster."
• "People who perform better tend to gravitate towards organizations that provide a better workplace."
• "The ultimate management sin is wasting people's time."

I'd recommend reading this book to any level manager and all of who is related to project team in one or another way. Like I've mentioned the book has a taste of the "80s", but I strongly recommend it.

What do you think about this book? Did you find the new chapters in the second edition useful?

  Posted by godzhesas on 19 March, 2008 13:17

You think that you are qualified enough in project management to get certified? It does not matter whether you have two or five years experience in project management, you will need to study for your certification exams, because different certifications require different level and sometimes areas of knowledge in project management. You can choose from these project management certification programs:

• PMP (Project Management Professional) Certification - certification offered by the Project Management Institute. More info at http://www.pmi.org
• CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management) - another certification offered by Project Management Institute, targeted for entry-level project managers, project team members and graduate students studying project management. More info at http://www.pmi.org
• CompTIA Project+ Certification - globally recognized project management certification from Computing Technology Industry Association. More info at http://certification.comptia.org/project/
• APMC (Advanced Project Management Certification) - another project management certification that helps to learn how to control complex project management issues. More information can be found at http://www.iil.com/apmc/
• MPM (Master Project Manager), CIPM (Certified International Project Manager), PME (Project Manager E-Business) - quality project management certifications offered by AAPM (American Academy of Project Management). See http://www.projectmanagementcertification.org/ for details.
• CPM (Certified Project Manager) - certification by IAPPM (International Association of Project and Program Management) that focuses on practical knowledge and content. Detailed description can found at http://www.iappm.org/why_cpm.htm

Of course these are not all of the certifications available, but I believe these are the best. You might wonder which of these program is the best. Well I am afraid I can't answer that question, only a person that passed all these certifications could compare them and provide us with a trustworthy answer. What do you think is the best project management certification out there?

  Posted by godzhesas on 14 March, 2008 14:37

Everyone of us have their believes about how things should or should not be done, sometimes we follow myths without even knowing and without noticing them. I thought i'd give a couple of project management myths. Enjoy :)

• A good project manager does not DO any work. This a common mistake when people think that to be responsible, to plan and to manage is NOT work :)
• Everything should be managed according to project management methodologies - to know the theory and have some standard procedures is good, but every project is unique, so even if your methods fail, don't panic; trust yourself and your team.
• Customer always knows exactly what he wants. In most of the cases that is why someone hires specialists to do specific job, they want advices and if you are the specialist then you should know what they need. Dealing with customers is a great part of project management and getting the information about what exactly customers want is a form of art, none the less :)
• Plan does not change, look at the plan and you will now everything about the project. Sadly but I don't think yet that there are plans that predict the future. It's nearly impossible to deal with all the issues that might or might not come out at the beginning of the project. And when something goes wrong and you still blindly stick to the plan, you can sunk the whole ship, instead of just slightly changing the direction. Plan is not to predict project future, it's to propose it.
• The more project manager controls the team, the more efficient it is. Team works much better and faster when they are given some freedom when doing the work. Efficiency is much lower when project manager checks every hour if the task was done and if it was done exactly as he wanted. Keep in mind that usually project mangers are not technical specialists.
• Trust must be earned. Without trust any project is doomed, first of all you should trust your team members from the very beginning of the project.
• Project is all the Project Manager should care about. When dedicating all your time to the project (work and free) you actually will do more harm then use. You need your own purpose (apart from the project) in order to stay motivated and effective.

There are a lot more to myths then that, what project management myths do you know?

  Posted by godzhesas on 12 March, 2008 11:56

First of all, Comindwork is a project management, collaboration and knowledge sharing system. There are lots of ways how users can use Comindwork. Software development and bug tracking can't live without each other. So let's take a look how Comindwork fits to be used as a bug tracking system (when talking about other industries, then software development, it can be referred to issue tracking).


One of the biggest mistakes a programmer can make is to think that he can remember all the bugs, or note them down. No that won't work, we need a real database that records real facts about the bugs like time, severity, description, attachments, requestor, responsible person to fix the bug, project, etc. Usually bug lifecycle is tracked through it's status.

Comindwork manages bugs with ease. Let's take a look at the main things to pay attention when managing bugs with Comindwork (check our quick tour for screenshots):

• select type of the bug (request for info, enhancement, defect) - this will give valuable basic information for the responsible person;
• select priority (1- Process Immediately, 2- Give High Attention, 3 -Normal Queue, 4- Minor) - where 1 is highest priority;
• select state - you can choose from 3 main types: submitted, active and resolved;
• select visibility and permissions - this is very important because usually there are a lot restrictions in projects who can see what, this is easily managed in Comindwork;
• select target date - when the bug needs to be fixed;
• add description - write steps to reproduce, screenshots and any other info you think needed; this can be edited later if needed;
• select the responsible person and submit the bug. The person who is responsible then will be notified by email, and he is instantly notified through the project RSS feed.

When the bug is resolved, the responsible person sets the state to resolved and passes the bug to the requestor. Later you can easily find the bugs using Comindwork powerful search engine.

Of course in the free version there aren't customizable fields that we could add to particular projects yet, but please keep in mind that bug tracking (issue tracking) is just one of many features available for free. So start Comindworking today! Use, manage, collaborate, share, give feedbacks and help us to make Comindwork better! :)

  Posted by godzhesas on 06 March, 2008 11:54

I quess when you read stuff related to project management you find a lot of abbreviations, so i decided to gather some and share with you. Here are the first 15:

1. WBS - Work Breakdown Structure: fundamental project management technique for projects scope definition and organization uses hierarchical tree structure.
2. EVA - Economic Value Added: financial performance method to calculate the true profit of the company.
3. BCWP - Budget Cost of Work Performed: measures the budgeted cost of work that has actually been performed up to date.
4. ACWP - Actual Cost of Works Performed: total cost of work completed up to date.
5. TM - Time Management. You can see my previous post.
6. PSI - Probability of Success Indicator: a concept used in the book "How to Run Successful Projects III: The Silver Bullet" by Fergus O'Connell.
7. PMBOK - Project Management Body Of Knowledge: term describing knowledge in the field of project management.
8. XP - Extreme Programming: software engineering methodology (a form of agile software development).
9. RUP - Rational Unified Process: iterative software development process.
10. 7P - Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People Process, Physical evidence: or the so called Extended Marketing Mix.
11. PO - Purchase Order: written sales contract between buyer and seller indicating services, payment terms, delivery dates etc.
12. SLA - Service Level Agreement: a part of a service contract, where the level of contract is formally defined.
13. RFP/RFQ - Request For Proposal/Quotation
14. NDA - Non-Disclosure Agreement: as well know as a confidentiality agreement.
15. TCO - Total Cost of Ownership: how much it actually costs, direct and indirect costs.

Hope this will make thing a bit easier for you ;) Wait for other 15 soon, untill then - keep yourself and your team managed with Comindwork! :)

  Posted by godzhesas on 03 March, 2008 09:39

"The urgent problems are seldom the important ones." - Dwight D. Eisenhower.


As I Have promised in my previous post about time management, here is one of the most popular urgency/importance matrix models, or the so called “Eisenhower Matrix”:

	URGENT	NOT URGENT
	I	II
I M P O R T A N T	Dealing with crisis Deadlines Urgent tasks Phone calls, that can't be delayed	New projects planning Achievments and results Coordinating and communicating Alternative projects and opportunities Training
	III	IV
N OT I M P O R T A N T	Ordinary phone calls General meetings Other peoples messes Interruptions, junk mail	Chatting with coworkers Some mail, phone calls Routine work Relaxation

People that stream to be successful usually avoid doing things from third and fourth quadrants

First quadrant – if you live according to these rules, it can result in a stress and personal crisis. It’s even worse because in the long run you can’t live without it and you become what people call workaholic J So if at the end of the day you don’t want to stop working, you should really think twice about the way you live, the way you manage your time.

Second quadrant – you control the situation. You are the leader, you influence decisions, work methods, priorities. There is enough time for your relationships with coworkers, plan and prevent crisis.

Third quadrant – short term focus. Usually people that fall into this quadrant think that there work is extremely important and urgent, when in real life it is not, they just waste a lot of time for long phone calls, emails etc.

Fourth quadrant - what we can call time wasting. You are not getting paid to play online games or read news for a couple hours a day.

So you manage the time? or the time manages you? It's all up to us :). I hope Comindwork will help you to be more successful!