Implementing Scrum: Challenges

implementing scrum

Organizations that want to make a move to Agile will need to fully understand what is Agile and what challenges are likely to appear on the road to implementing SCRUM. There are a lot of examples where Agile implementations have gone awry and it is costly on so many levels. Implementing SCRUM is not that easy and it…

SCRUM, all you need to know.

scrum

Scrum goes back to 1986. It was first defined as “a flexible, holistic product development strategy where a development team works as a unit to reach a common goal” as opposed to a “traditional, sequential approach” in 1986 by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka in the New Product Development Game. They later argued in The…

PRINCE2, all you need to know!

prince2

PRINCE2 is an established project management framework that is part of the Best Management Practice (BMP) portfolio of frameworks. The BMP family is formed by a large group of management and delivery frameworks that have been constructed from industry best practices covering wide areas of topics such as portfolio, programme, projects and service management. PRINCE2…

Agile Methodologies, here to stay.

agile methodologies

Agile methodologies are becoming a trend in project management and software development. In 2007 a survey between 2250 companies showed that 25% of them were using agile methods. Scrum was confirmed to be the most popular agile methodology. A more recent survey on almost 500 companies showed that 40% of them were using Scrum. Demand…

Project Management Statistics

project management statistics

I love reading project management statistics. They are little snipes of information that can be used to start a conversation with your peers and easily engage. Here is a quick list of project management statistics I have put together: KPMG found ‘…and incredible 70% of organizations have suffered at least one project failure in the prior 12 months and…

Project Management Trends for 2015

project management trends

The project management industry is evolving at a faster rate each year, both in technologies and methodologies. The environment continues to influence how organizations manage projects. Here are some project management trends for 2015 to help you prepare for what’s ahead. Project Management Trends 1.Less Waterfall, more Agile 2015 will bring even more Agile practices…

Six Sigma Project Management

Six Sigma Project Management

Motorola wasn’t about to let the auto industry take all the credit for project management innovation, so decades after Toyota’s introduction of Kanban, the mobile phone company’s engineer Bill Smith created Six Sigma in 1986. It’s a more structured version of Lean than Kanban, one that sets specific stages and adds in more planning to…

Skills a project manager should nurture

project manager

Chapter 9 of a much more comprehensive post Project Management Starting Out Guide. Let’s get right in and discover the areas where an aspiring project manager should focus. Developing the right skills is crucial to your success. Project Manager Skills An innate leader by innate leader, I mean one appointed by their peers, rather than…

The Need for an Effective Project Portfolio Management System

portfolio management

Implementation of projects without a strong priority system linked to strategy creates problems. Three of the most obvious project portfolio management problems are discussed below. A project portfolio management system can go a long way to reduce, or even eliminate, the impact. Portfolio Management key questions How can the implementation gap be narrowed so that…

Develop Project Management SMART Objectives

smart objectives

“There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives”  by George T. Doran was the first reference of the term in the November 1981 issue of Management Review. It focused on the importance of objectives and the difficulty of setting them. The first use of the SMART objectives criteria was by Peter Drucker in his management by objectives concept. SMART…