Best Practice

Project management best practice reminds us that if we successfully initiate, plan, execute, monitor, control and close out our projects, our metrics will illustrate improved results.

The customer wants new work to be done on the project that isn't currently part of the scope. Or perhaps the project hasn't started yet. You're still putting time and energy into creating your master schedule - building solid work estimates that will turn into timeframes of effort.

The recent shutdown of the US government aside, we all have the vision that government entities are bloated units with either unlimited funds to spend on projects or little oversight to know when they’ve spent too much. Right? Remember the $500 hammer concept?

The mnemonic READY is useful when creating a project proposal. It provides a useful memory aid to help ensure your proposal is relevant, engaging, authoritative, directional and yield optimised. This article describes how to write a compelling and well thought out proposal that will be difficult to ignore.

Clichés are funny. We don't like to hear them, but we often use them in everyday conversation. Clichés are a useful way to make a point because the meaning of them is understood universally, even if they are not always entirely accurate. Just because something is a cliché doesn't mean it can, or should be, ignored. Here are six clichés we can use to help us become better project managers.

There are many reasons to redesign your website. The most common are, keeping pace with changes in web technology to meet visitor expectations, and changes in the way you wish to promote your organisation and brands. What follows are some of the common pitfalls of website redesign projects.

According to the Standish Group Chaos Report 2009, only 32% of software projects are successful, 44% challenged (that is cost overruns, budget overruns or content deficiencies) and 24% failed, the highest failure rate in a decade. So failure rates in the IT industry are still far too high. What can we do about it? A good starting point is by addressing some of the key reasons software projects fail.

Managing software projects is difficult under the best circumstances. The project manager must balance competing stakeholder interests against the constraints of limited resources and time, ever-changing technologies, and unachievable demands from unreasonable people. Project management is people management, technology management, business management, risk management, and expectation management. It's a juggling act, with too many balls in the air at once.

It happens all too frequently. Everyone read the Creative Brief and gave their sign-off. The design team was selected because they had the most experience in your industry. The project schedule had plenty of padding built into it. But your web or graphic design project is nowhere close to final and you're a month past the deadline. How does this happen? Following are seven common causes for a design project to get held up, and suggestions to help you meet your deadline.

Software development projects are usually approached using one of two methods: waterfall or agile. Both have pros and cons, and each method has its advocates who espouse the value of their chosen approach. In this article, I'll look at both methods to understand the circumstances in which to use either a waterfall or agile approach. I'll answer the question, How should I approach my software development project?

As a project manager, you are ultimately responsible for delivering a successful project. The buck stops with you, so it is in your interest to make sure relevant tools and techniques are used to make this happen. Some of the following may sound obvious, but I encounter these basic mistakes month in month out, with project managers left scratching their heads wondering where it all went wrong.

Project-based organisations have become more familiar over the last two decades, meaning the work they do is split into programmes of projects designed to deliver their organisational strategy. Good management of these projects is essential to success.

There is often a misconception that managing an IT project is difficult. Avoiding the common pitfalls of IT project management is not rocket science, it is simply a case of taking some practical measures. This article identifies five killer mistakes of project management and their solutions.