Tips and Techniques - September 2006

 

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How to Increase Profitability with Project Accounting

By Curt Finch

 

Why Project Accounting?

The era of manufacturing and farming is giving way to one of knowledge work. This is old news in the USA.   But, in our lifetime, the changes that the developed world is undergoing will be visited on the vast majority of humanity. Nearly everyone will be some sort of knowledge worker.

Accounting for Knowledge Workers in the New Millennium

Out of the human race's 30 millennia history, only in the last 50 years have we seen the cost of knowledge workers rise to be a significant portion of the economy. In 2003, 48% of the U.S. workforce fell into the knowledge worker category. These numbers are growing and in our lifetime will encompass the majority of workers globally. Think about what your parents and grandparents did for a living.  Chances are they were farmers or factory workers for at least a portion of their careers, not knowledge workers.  Demand for project and portfolio management (PPM) solutions, which often incorporate some project accounting abilities, is growing at 11% annually.

 

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About the Author:



Curt Finch

Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx (http://pr.journyx.com), a provider of free Web-based software located in Austin, Texas, USA that automates billing, payroll & project management by tracking time, expenses and mileage. Finch is a software industry veteran. In 1997, Curt created the world's first Internet-based timesheet application and the foundation for the current Journyx product offering. Curt has managed development teams creating enterprise-level software solutions since 1985, with a focus on distributed workforce management.  In 1992, Finch led the team porting Tivoli's product line to the AIX operating system, which led to the company's acquisition by IBM.  As a member of the executive team, Curt helped launch The Kernel Group (TKG), a venture-backed firm that grew to 50 employees and $7.5 million in sales during his tenure. Curt has a B.S. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech University in the USA.  Curt Finch can be reached at curt@journyx.com.

 

 

 

Project Reporting - Risks vs. Problems

By Daniel Galorath

Reporting of project risks to management and project stakeholders should occur at a predetermined frequency based on priority, time to impact, and potential influence on the project should they transition to problems. Effective reporting results in timely mitigation of high priority risks.  Project risks must be reported so that appropriate action can be taken. An effective reporting structure should focus on reporting problems so that they can be effectively resolved. The reporting structure should be actively maintained and regularly reviewed to allow the project staff to focus on the risks with the highest impacts.

Read the full text of Project Reporting - Risks vs. Problems

About the Author:



Daniel Galorath

Daniel D. Galorath has over 35 years of experience in the software industry where he has solved a variety of management, costing, systems, and software problems, and performed all aspects of software development and management. Mr. Galorath is founder and president of Galorath Incorporated, maker of the SEER® suite of estimation tools.  Mr. Galorath is one of the principal developers of the SEER-SEM™ Software Estimation Model. Mr. Galorath completed his undergraduate work and MBA from California State Universities. He is a member of the International Society of Parametric Analysis (ISPA), Society of Cost Estimation and Analysis (SCEA), IEEE, the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG), and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). He was honored with the Freiman Award, recognizing his long-term contributions to the field of parametric analysis. Mr. Galorath teaches courses in software cost, schedule, and risk analysis; software project management; software engineering; systems architecture, and other related topics. He has lectured internationally and is the author of many papers about software project management. Mr. Galorath can be reached at info@galorath.com. His website is www.galorath.com

 

 

 

Managing People's Threshold of Pain

By Robert Posener

A feature of the IT industry is its high staff turnover in comparison to most other industries. Part of the blame for this can be attributed to the shortage of technical staff.  However, a large proportion of the blame is attributed to poor management.

Many managers fail to recognise there is such a thing as a "Threshold of Pain".  Employees do not leave their current employer just because they are asked to do something which they find distasteful.  Nor do they leave just because they are asked to work in an environment which is distasteful.  They leave because the cumulative effect of these items of pain pushes them over their Threshold of Pain.  In other words... the manager expects the employee to survive more stress than he or she can handle.

Read the full text of Managing People's Threshold of Pain

About the Author:



Robert Posener

Mr. Robert Posener, PMP, is an International Correspondent for www.pmforum.org based in Sydney, Australia.  Mr. Posener is also founder and Managing Director of PMComplete Pty Ltd, a project management professional services company in Australia.   For the last 30 years, Robert has managed projects for computer hardware, software and technology companies in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Hong Kong and USA.  Rob can be reached at robert.posener@pmcomplete.com.au.  More information about Robert Posener can be found at www.pmforum.org/pm forum team.

 

 


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