The next time when you make cookies, just observe the processes involved in it. And you will realize that it is nothing different from the processes we follow in project management. 1) Initiating process: It all starts from Needs. This is where you decide what you need. You research on what and how you want to …
Program and Project managers are always at the edge of their seat when it comes to planning. In a common release cycle, while one release cycle is coming to a close, the next one is already in execution phase, while one needs to look into the planning aspects of the forthcoming release. So, a program …
You may be focused on your Agile processes, tools and techniques. But, all this may not be delivering the right value to the customer. At the end of the day, it’s the customer who has to be benefit from the deliveries made through iterations and Release delivery. If we re-look at the traditional Iron triangle, …
Read more “Is your Agile project focused on delivering the right value?”
The Time value of money for projects is calculated not only in terms of money, but also in terms of: Return on Investment (RoI) Customer satisfaction Employee satisfaction Innovation Rate Customer Usage Customer retention …
Read more “Forecasting the Financial Stability of the Project”
All Agile methodologies mostly share the same philosophy expressed in the Agile manifesto, but they differ in terms of the practices, processes and techniques. The Agile Manifesto was signed on Feb 2001 by 17 leading software developers, where the idea is to uncover better ways of developing software through execution and helping or enabling others …
Some projects are very critical from the point of view of – Customer expectations – An early adopter going live who would take a decision on whether to invest in your product or services, or – Existing customer who could be a major bread earner for your company or having strong political clout. In such …
The other day, one of the project managers posed an interesting question: If we plan well in ahead, are we still agile? And the subsequent reasoning was: In Agile, we don’t need to plan in the real sense. I resolved his doubts and also thought of sharing the wisdom with the world. First …
Here are 3 quick and effective tips for successful projects based on my experience in handling projects. These tips are applicable for almost all type of projects irrespective of whether they are small, medium or large. What can vary is the level and magnitude to which you apply these tips. Alignment to the vision: Most …
You have completed a few Sprint cycles in the past 5 months, in your project execution to deliver a project or a product. Your features are almost 50% complete. You have yet another 5 sprints to go. Your sprint cycles are of 1 month each. The team is at the peak of its performance. However …
Read more “Having ‘Mini-waterfalls’ in your Sprints? Fine tune your Team Collaboration”
A fundamental question asked very often is what is Project Success? When do you say that a project is really successful. Many a times, you complete a project and realize that it did not add any value to the business and was shelved. Would it be still termed as a successful project? The team would …
A project kickoff is extremely useful to ensure that all the stakeholders are aligned to the project right during the beginning of the project itself. Hence, if utilized well, it can reap many benefits during the course of the project. So, while doing a project kick off, be aware that it can be very crucial …
Read more “4 Key points to take care during a Project Kickoff”
Most of the time, we face this question while tracking our projects. “Are the team members really working on the project so as to complete the deliverables on time?” If not all, the doubt comes when we observe a couple of team members giving a positive status but we do not see substantial progress in …
We all manage risks in a project and ensure we track them in every review meeting. We perform Risk analysis and come up with appropriate risk response strategies to mitigate or avoid them. But how often do we realize that risks can be positive as well. We call them opportunities. Way back in the earlier …
Project Governance provides the project team with the overall structure, processes and tools that help the team to deliver the project successfully. Though it may look similar to an organizational governance, but is distinct in the sense that it aligns with the overall organizational governance to help provide governance to the projects to help ensure …
Are you facing problems in managing stakeholders? Here are 5 tips to help you manage them better. But before that let us understand and clarify what we mean by a stakeholder. As per the PMBOK 5, a stakeholder is an individual, group, or organisation who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be …
Image by Ronald Carreño from Pixabay Link to the summarized video presentation: You just completed a sprint and you as a program/project manager know that there is a lot that can be learnt from the just completed sprint. That’s were a retrospective meeting helps. If you are clueless about how to do a retrospective, here are some tips …
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All that begins well…. ends well. How often we find this saying true. A task started well, normally ends up well, inspite of so many hurdle it faces. The same thing applies to projects as well. It is important to take care of a few things while initiating a project. And one important and key …
Read more “Struggling to Create a Project Charter? Key pointers to help you prepare one”
How a project is managed depends a lot on how much control a project manager has on the project and that relates with the type of Organisation in which the project manager is working. There are different types of Organisations, namely: 1) Functional Organisation: In this kind of Organisation, the project team members report to …
We all follow Project Management processes in our projects. Mostly, they are tailored to meet the requirements of the project. Some projects need tighter control and more stringent processes that might have been mandated in the contract, while some need processes sufficient to self manage and execute the project to meet the deadlines and quality …
Read more “Top 5 Reasons why we need Project Management Processes”
I have seen many project managers use “To do” list in their project plan activities or tasks, and often inter use these two terms… Here is a quick clarification between the two. Project Activity or Task A project plan activity is normally derived from the work packages (the smallest unit in work breakdown structure that …
Read more “Confused between “Project Activity” and “To do” List? Here is the solution”
Most Agile Scrum projects start of well with a high velocity, highly motivated team and fast paced deliverables. But then down the line it all seems to recede. However, here the problem is not with the team, culture or morale. They would presumably be in the right place since the whole purpose was being met …
Read more “6 Engineering practices to get better results in Agile Scrum”
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