If you look at a WBS activity and determine that it needs to be broken down to another level, the original activity becomes known as a “summary” level. A summary activity does not have any work or hours specifically associated with it. It represents a logical roll-up of the activities that are under it. …
One way to supplement quantifiable metrics is with client satisfaction surveys. For instance, instead of trying to measure the exact response time of an application against some service-level standard, you could simply ask your main users how satisfied they were with the application response time. …
Building quality steps in the schedule adds a certain amount of effort and cost to the project. However, these incremental costs will be rewarded with shorter timelines and reduced costs throughout the life cycle of the solution. Examples of the cost of quality include: …
Morale problems don’t happen overnight, and they cannot be resolved overnight. Typically, the complete causes and remedies are out of your control. However, as the project manager, there are some things that are within your control. Regardless of how much you can do, if the group sees you trying to help, they will feel better as well. …
One of the common responsibilities of all managers is the management of people and the management of work (if you don’t do either, you are not really a manager). All managers need to have timely, relevant and accurate information so that they can manage their people and work effectively. The trick, of course, is to know how much information you need, and at what level. …
Manage the Work at a High-Level or Low-Level Based on the SituationRead More »
The way projects are structured is directly related to the way the entire organization is structured. There are three major organization structures to manage work and people. …
Sometimes the project manager can get too comfortable (or too uncomfortable) in how the project is progressing. In many cases, it makes sense to have an outside party come in to evaluate the project management processes being utilized and double-check that the project is progressing as expected. This “outside party” could be any qualified person outside of the project manager. …
Use a Project Audit to Validate Your Schedule and Budget StatusRead More »
By Samer H Skaik
Organizations have realized that deep understanding of management theory and practice is a must to ensure continuous improvement to their operations. Management theories were solely or primarily adopted in organizations to help get the job done and find ways to efficiently manage the organization and enhance financial rewards (Grey, 2005). …
When you manage the schedule and budget, you normally do not need to be accurate to the minute or to the dollar. You also do not want make all kinds of proactive changes if your project is a day over deadline one week and a day ahead of schedule the next. …
It is hard to define product or service quality at a high level because the term “quality” is nebulous and means different things to different people. You must take the time to define the lower-level characteristics of quality for each specific service or deliverable. If you want to ensure that a service or product meets the customer’s expectations of quality, you have to understand the underlying characteristics of quality. …
Understand the Characteristics of Quality for Your ProjectRead More »
The process of creating the Project Charter, schedule and budget may take a long time and may be very complicated. Therefore, the work should not be left unorganized, for the same reasons that you are building the schedule for the project to begin with. Immediately after being assigned, the project manager should create a short-term schedule to plan and guide the initial activities. …
Create a Short-Term Schedule to Guide the Definition and Planning ProcessesRead More »
Projects, especially larger ones, are never executed exactly as they are planned. Some activities finish early. Some finish late. Sometimes it is not easy to know if you are ahead of schedule or behind. Likewise, sometimes it is hard to know whether you are under budget or not. …
Consider Earned Value Management for Understanding Schedule and Budget StatusRead More »
