What CEOs Must Demand To Compete and Collaborate in 2005 - Part 2 by Russell D. Archibald, PMP, PMI Fellow

This paper is intended to provide chief executive officers (CEOs) and other senior executives with the understanding of what they must demand regarding project management within their organizations, today and in coming years, to compete and collaborate effectively within the realities of the Internet Age. It is also intended for use by project management professionals at all levels to communicate with their senior managers and convey to them the direction that the development of the project management discipline should be headed. The need is explored to simultaneously compete and collaborate in response to the challenges posed by the phenomena of the Internet and World Wide Web, together with ways that are open to the CEO to unleash the full power of project management to satisfy that need. The important linkage is illustrated between the organization’s mission, its business strategies, and the execution of those strategies through effective management of both the project portfolios and individual programs and projects. The underlying principles and practices of modern, integrated project management are presented in a manner that hopefully makes sense to CEOs and other senior executives, and the performance level that can be demanded for each of these principles and practices is presented as bench marks for the CEO to measure against.

This insightful paper by Russ Archibald is being published in three parts. Part 1 was published in the March-April edition of PM World Today: What CEOs Must Demand To Compete and Collaborate in 2005 – Part 1 Read the full text of part 2 at: What CEOs Must Demand to Compete and Collaborate in 2005 – Part 2

Part 3 will be published in the July-August edition of PM World Today.

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Project Management: Saving Time and Saving Money
by Curt Finch

The phrase 'time is fleeting' has never been more relevant than today as project managers and their staff confront overwhelming demands on their time. Time is as critical as money, and often more so. Yet, many companies are not accustomed to allocating and investing it with the same level of care as they would with more traditional assets.

Most project managers that 'get it' know that time must be managed, accounted for and invested in ways that maximize return. But this is often easier said than done as companies seldom possess the right processes and infrastructure to make the most of time resources.

They often confuse the core business process of time-resource allocation with simple timesheets or “time management calendars.” This is as dangerous as confusing a simple check register with a company's capital investment strategy.

Read the full text at Project Management: Saving Time and Saving Money

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How to Gather Business Requirements & Build Trust
by Elizabeth Larson, PMP, & Richard Larson, PMP

One of the most difficult phases in project management is gathering business requirements from stakeholders. Requirements are often vague because it is difficult for customers to articulate their needs before they see the end product. When business customers and the project team have a relationship built on trust, they can work together more quickly to produce a product of value to the organization.

This article explores various ways to build trust in order to gather business requirements more quickly and accurately.

Read the full text at How to Gather Business Requirements & Build Trust

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The Black Pen Concept: How to Manage Project Relationships and Have the Customer Asking for More
by Rob Zanfardino

Over the last 20 years as a Project Manager, Senior Project Manager, and Program Manager I have witnessed the changing role the project manager / project team plays in the project cycle. It has ranged from being the most technical to being the one who has a better understanding of the business rules than even the business stakeholders. However there has always been one constant that has existed but never spoken of in any detail, managing relationships.

Whatever background you come from, managing relationships will be your primary responsibility as a project manager. This is becoming more apparent as the project manager is asked to become more involved in “Up Selling”. Up selling simply put is the act of contributing to the sales process by non sales type individuals like the project manager who can suggest new projects to the customer while currently working on the existing one. This is the main reason more than anything else that a great project leader does not need to be the most technical asset on the project but he / she must be the best relationship builder.

Read the full text at The Black Pen Concept

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Inexpensive Project Management Tools
by Andy McDonald

If you sit down to plan a project, you’re really just trying to find the answers to some pretty simple questions:

To help us ponder these questions when we’re planning and monitoring our projects, we can make use of any number of project management software programs. Most of them can answer these questions, with one of the most popular being Microsoft Project (MS Project). MS Project can do all of the basics mentioned above, plus a whole lot more. The question is, “How many of us actually use the ‘whole lot more’ that MS Project and similar programs offer at a premium price?” Well, usually those involved in medium/large IT or construction projects, but for every one person working on these medium to large projects, there are plenty working on smaller projects (say less than 100 tasks). For this latter group, it can be pretty annoying knowing that you’ve bought a Rolls Royce, when all you really needed was a Mini Cooper.

Read the full text at Inexpensive Project Management Tools

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