When the fifth revision is made to the blueprints, the electricians and plumbers may still be working from the third version, and the roofers from the first version. At this point, someone is bound to notice that the chimney and the fireplace are on different sides of the house. Configuration management prevents disasters like these…
Master Your Change Management Process Using This Workflow
Every kind of project faces changes. During a kitchen remodel, the customers might change their minds about appliances, or a certain type of window might be unavailable. During a software development project, the competition might release a product with some exciting new features, forcing the development team to add these features as well. The specific…
Stressed When Communicating With Management and Customers? No More!
Communicating with management and customers plays an important part in project success. These words are worth repeating: “Successful projects meet stakeholder expectations.” This mantra for project managers bears repeating, with this addendum: Of all the stakeholders to satisfy, customers and management top the list. The communication plan should detail the strategy not only for informing…
How To Handle Your Project Team Communication
This is the first part of a series of articles on controlling a project. If you found this article through search engines I would encourage you to take a look at the whole series here. Now lets move to the subject at hand. Project team communication within members has these four major needs: Responsibility. Each…
How to Establish Project Control Through Effective Communication
Establishing project control involves discovering and solving problems while they are still small, measuring progress, and ensuring continued agreement on goals and expectations. The key to accomplishing all these things is communication—making sure that the right people have the right information at the right time. Strong communication among all stakeholders is what allows a project…
The Building Blocks for Writing a Proper Status Report
One of the most important pieces of project management is communicating about the status of your project. The status report can be an effective tool to help you communicate with others, near or far, about the timeline, budget, progress, and other details during the lifetime of your project. The status report also help you to…
11 Proactive Ways to Enlist Cooperation on Your Project
It is rare for a project of any size not to rely on at least one person or group outside your department or even your company. Even in a minor role, these external players have the potential to loom large if they fall behind schedule. So you must be proactive to enlist cooperation on your…
Gain Perspective: Identify Project Stakeholders (Project Sponsor)
Stakeholder roles: Project Sponsor Many projects are organizational anomalies. They cross department and corporate boundaries; they staff up for short periods, then disband; they may span a portion of a budget cycle while drawing funding from multiple groups within a company. The temporary, ad-hoc nature of projects can create major problems for project managers because…
Gain Perspective: Identify Project Stakeholders (The Customer)
Stakeholder roles: The Customer Whenever a project exists, somebody will be paying for it. And whoever pays usually gets the first and last word on product description, budget, and the criteria by which success will be measured. Although other stakeholders may try to squeeze in extra requirements, the final say on the product will come…
Gain Perspective: Identify Project Stakeholders (Project Manager and Team)
Stakeholder roles: Project Manager What does a project manager contribute to the project? Magic, or, more precisely, practical magic. Just as a symphony conductor directs the orchestra to bring out the magic in the music, the project manager must keep all the disparate groups in a project moving in harmony. Whether he or she is…