We all want to deliver successful projects. That’s why we became project managers, after all. But sometimes the right thing to do is to stop a project. When is this the right choice? 1. Too expensive Maybe the costs weren’t estimated correctly at the beginning. Maybe a supplier has hiked their prices dramatically. Maybe it … Read more
Quality is an odd thing. What we mean by it varies by situation, by product, by person. It can be very difficult to know what someone means by quality when they talk about it. For example, two people could ask for high quality clothes. For one person, this may mean durable work wear, strong enough … Read more
Last week, I ran a little mini-series about the role of risk not only in projects, but in a business. This is just a quick round up post, making it easier to find the three parts of the series. In Part 1 we talked about how much I liked risk, and why you should too. … Read more
On Wednesday, I told you all how wonderful risk is. Yesterday, I talked about the two different types of risk a project can face, and why a business should be happy to embrace one of them. But should project managers be happy about this type of risk? Well… it depends. As I said yesterday, the … Read more
Yesterday, I told you all how wonderful risk is. But it is fair to say that most of us work very hard to get rid of risk from our projects. Why this difference? Well, I think it is because there are two broad types of risks in a project. The first type is one that … Read more
Risk is the absolute best thing you can have in your project. Yes, you read that right. I’m a project manager who craves risk, who wants risky projects. I feel like I should start a support group: “Hi, my name is Trevor. I am a project manager and I like risks”. But my group wouldn’t … Read more
We all know that the purpose of a project is to deliver some sort of benefit to the business. For many projects, the real benefit is that the end result is being sold. But what about projects that are purely internal? What about projects that are trying to change the business? I’ve run across a … Read more
So, the latest Standish Report is out. The figures in it are depressingly familiar. More projects are failing. Only about a third of projects are succeeding – on time, on budget, on scope. Now, there are a lot of reasons to be dubious about the CHAOS report statistics. The categories are fairly vague, and don’t … Read more
Projects are temporary, by their very nature. That means all of us are going to have to close down our projects. But this is part of project management that is too often neglected. So what are we actually trying to achieve? When a project approaches the end of its work (or when a decision is … Read more
Estimating how much work there is in the project, and how long each part of it will take, is a vital skill in project management. You can’t sensibly manage a project without having at least some idea of how long you think each piece of work will take! But, of course, it’s practically impossible to … Read more
