Key stakeholders sometimes apply significant pressure to achieve unrealistic project goals. Pushing back against these requests can rattle the nerves of even the most experienced project manager! And it can be difficult to convince stakeholders to change their objectives or perspectives. What do you do when you can’t change stakeholders’ minds? Adopt a process that […]
The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7) highlights the importance of preparing impacted stakeholders for new processes and tools introduced by projects, so they are not only adopted, but also become a permanent part of the landscape (or until things need to change again). Here are four ways to support the changes that projects bring […]
Not every project is suited to agile techniques. Sound criteria can help you identify whether your projects are good agile candidates. Here are questions you can use to develop your agile qualification criteria: Can you get the right staff? Appropriate technical and business team members must be dedicated to the project. That means that you […]
The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7) talks about navigating complexity to successfully complete the project lifecycle. Although complexity can surface anywhere, there are four main sources of complexity to manage. Here’s an overview of those sources and tips for reducing the impact of complexity on projects. Human behavior. The most significant project complexity comes […]
PMBoK7 places more emphasis on managing positive risks, called opportunities (situations that improve project outcomes.) In the past, this project approach was underutilized, because the tendency is to focus on negative risks (called threats.) Here are PMI’s five approaches to making the most of project opportunities. Exploit. To exploit opportunity, you can take definitive action […]
PMBoK7 talks about maintaining focus on deliverable quality and the processes used to create those deliverables. Here’s an overview of what the Project Management Institute (PMI) refers to as the “dimensions of quality” that PMs must manage. Performance/Conformity. The products we produce need to perform in a way that meets specifications. They also need to […]
The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7) talks about recognizing, evaluating, and responding to system interactions, which means project managers must engage in systems thinking to drive positive project performance. Adding to last week’s list, here are more ways that systems thinking can boost project performance. Turn up the empathy. The best project managers empathize […]
The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7) talks about recognizing, evaluating, and responding to system interactions, which means project managers must engage in systems thinking to drive positive project performance. Here are a few significant systems thinking perspectives that boost project performance. Business change is the goal (not just project completion). Smart organizations close projects […]
Scope creep is an insidious ooze of changes that can sink a project. Robust change management that thoroughly evaluates the merits of proposed scope changes is key to thwarting the creepy scope threat. One place to start is with solid change approval criteria. Typically, change approval criteria evaluates: How scope changes Project costs added or […]
In this edition of Project Pointers, we’ll explore how project managers can focus on delivering value the business, one of the new elements of project delivery in the Project Management Institute’s seventh version of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7.) Here are a few significant ways to deliver value to your business as you […]
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