PMFORUM Breaking News

Project Management for Mere Mortals is a new book by Claudia Bacca, PMP, recently published by Addison-Wesley Professional publishers in the USA. In the book, Ms. Bacca offers the following top ten tips:

1. Be clear about the business result that your project has been commissioned to produce.


2. Plan the work the best way to get it done, then crash and fast track to get to the requested date.


3. As you complete an iteration of planning be sure to desk test this iteration against the previous iteration to verify you are still in scope.


4. Build completion criteria for each task. Completion criteria will keep both the project manager and the person working the task clear about what done looks like.


5. Team norms will help your team work together effectively.


6. The effect of taking on a change request is not always equal to the number of days provided in the estimate. Be aware of the incremental effect.


7. Build cost estimates for every task regardless of whether you are held accountable for a budget or not. You need the practice and later you can use these figures for Earned Value Management.


8. Calculate the cost of quality at the end of the planning phase and several times during the execution of the project. Doing this will help hone your skills to deliver a better quality project.


9. Build an effective plan to work with your executives the same way you work with your team.


10. Have an attitude of success. It’s contagious.

Also available to compliment her new book is a packaged LiveLessons video workshop by Claudia Bacca, which contains 17 sessions covering 7+ hours of project management training.

Claudia Bacca, PMP, PMI Certified OPM3® Assessor/Consultant, is an independent project management consultant, trainer and lecturer. She has lectured at private venues and PMI chapters across the world. Bacca has more than 20 years of project management experience and serves on the leadership team that produced the Project Management Maturity OPM3 standard. She contributed to Kim Heldman’s best-seller PMP: Project Management Professional Study Guide, and also served as its technical editor. She is coauthor of the PMP Project Management Professional Study Guide Deluxe Edition. Project Management for Mere Mortals, list price $44.99, published by Addison-Wesley Professional, ISBN 0-321-42345-3, is available through most book stores