Talking about successful projects, one aspect that comes to everyone’s mind is leadership skill needed to drive the project. When we talk of leadership skills, we normally attribute it to senior management at the programme or organisational level. What we do not realise is that leadership is actually required or rather necessary at all levels …
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We all talk about successful projects and discuss mostly on pointers to make our project successful. However, what if a project is already in a difficult situation? For such projects, there are some common but yet critical steps that can be taken to help revive the project back. Projects commonly suffer from delays in …
Having discussed about the importance of project management processes in Agile Scrum in my previous blog, let us now look at the reasons why Scrum projects fail and then we shall look at the approach to solve these problems to help achieve successful Agile Scrum projects. Re-iterating some key points on Agile Scrum… We now …
Having discussed about the importance of project management processes in Agile Scrum in my previous blog, let us look at 5 key Agile myths due to which scrum projects fail. As discussed earlier, for many who are implementing Agile, they feel as if they have found a panacea to all project related problems. It seems …
One of the major concerns across many organisations is whether to go for Agile or Waterfall methodology. Most of the project managers higher up in the corporate ladder have to take this decision. And this becomes more difficult when one has the pressure to deliver a successful project at the end. Thankfully, there are certain …
It is easy to list the processes involved in managing the scope of a project. 1) Collecting Requirements 2) Defining the scope 3) Creating and base lining the WBS – re-base lining whenever there is relevant/ agreed scope changes with clear impact on time and cost. 4) Controlling the scope through integrated change control. 5) …
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, …
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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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