Freelance or Interim PMO & Project Manager

Mar22018 by adminNo Comments

Do you know how to create a successful work breakdown structure?

Projects

As we all know, no matter how big the task you can get on top of it by organising it into manageable chunks. If you are struggling to work out how to organise the tasks within your project, an effective work breakdown structure (WBS, found in the APM Body of Knowledge and the PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition) helps you to work out how to arrange each piece of work, and helps you regain control. It breaks down key project deliverables into smaller, more digestible chunks as part of a hierarchical framework, so you can see what needs to be achieved each step of the way. As you can see, a WBS comprises of inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs: Inputs This could include any of the following: A project scope…

Sep252017 by adminNo Comments

From zero to PMO in thirty days

Home Page, Projects

Abstract Are your projects out of control? Is it difficult to determine the status of your most important projects? Is the status of all your projects “in progress?” Are the scopes of your projects in line with your strategic objectives? Are your estimating processes non-existent or totally dependent on a few key “experts?” Are you managing your resources effectively? Not even sure of what questions to ask? The maybe the answer for your organization is a Project Management Office (PMO) or if you already have one, then maybe you need a fresh look at your current one. This paper will provide a 30 day plan for implementing a Project Management Office for your organization. Invest 30 days to provide a structure that can serve your organization for years. (more…)

Sep252017 by adminNo Comments

Key Steps to Implement a Project Management Office

Home Page, Projects

What Is a PMO? A PMO is a centralised, co-ordinating body within an organisation (or project) that provides a focal point for the field of project management. It can identify and address project management issues to support and facilitate the achievement of organisational project outcomes. What Are the Benefits of Having a PMO? According to Gartner (2008), investments in a Project Management Office (PMO) as a work management discipline can provide common planning and reporting processes and bring structure and support to evaluating, justifying, defining, planning, tracking and executing projects. It also encourages the resolution of conflicts caused by limited resources and other constraints. We've all seen renegade projects that seem to run according to their own agenda. A PMO can help organisations create effective control and oversight of projects…

Aug92017 by adminNo Comments

Process! That’s how we get things done around here!

Home Page, Projects

While virtually every leader professes to understand and believe in the importance of process, we know from client data that over 70% of all business problems relate to process deficiencies of some type. Most processes are undefined, complicated, not consistently followed, not measured, and loaded with non value-added activities. Leadership often reacts to these broken processes by adding reviews, approvals, and more complexity, while missing the underlying causes of performance shortfalls. When we press for details of leadership’s understanding, we quickly discover that many don’t know the basic process structure under their command and the essential customer – supplier relationships that exist in all organizations. Given this background, I offer following the essential reasons that all leaders should embrace process in running their organizations. Why All Leaders Should Embrace Process…

Nov212016 by adminNo Comments

A digital transformation checklist

Home Page, Projects, Strategy

The market is filled with great insights on successful digital transformations. A recent report from McKinsey weighs the risks and benefits. Another, from MIT Sloan Management Review, compares digitally mature organisations with those still digitally adolescent. As with most adolescents, those less mature are noisier and messier, with the promise of better things to come! Where should you start when assessing the opportunities and risks for your organisation? In particular, what are the balance points, for and against, digital transformation? What is the expected speed of any such change? How do you plan? (Can you plan?) Here’s a high-level checklist — factors that influence success when driving a digital transformation: Complexity v. Benefits: be clear about what you seek from a digital transformation for your organisation. Consider what such a…

Oct202016 by adminNo Comments

5 ways to think big, any day of the week

Home Page, Projects

"How do I make sure I’m thinking about the big picture, when I’m always working on a lot of small things that seem to take up all my time?” This was a question a product manager once asked me when she felt lost in the weeds, and one you may have asked yourself. How can you empower yourself to step back and look at the big picture so you can lead your team more effectively? Here are some highlights of strategies that have worked for me, and you might consider: Allocate time to thinking If you allow yourself to just do what’s next on your to-do list, you’ll never find the time to think about the big picture–there will always be something that feels more urgent. Block off time on…

Oct182016 by adminNo Comments

10 Tips For Giving Effective Virtual Presentations

Me, Projects, Strategy

What to know before you go live. Presenting online? Try these suggestions to improve your results. | Illustration by Tricia Seibold As audiences go global and you need to reach more people through technology (including webinars, conference calls and teleconference), you must consider the challenges to connecting with a virtual audience. Here I pinpoint 10 valuable best practices to ensure you communicate successfully. 1. Be Brief Audiences begin to lose attention after roughly 10 minutes of hearing from the same presenter. If you have more than 10 minutes of content, use interactive activities to keep your audience engaged (for example, take a poll, give quizzes, or ask audience members for their opinions via chat). 2. Be Simple Keep slides simple — avoid too many words, graphics and animation features. Less…

Oct92016 by adminNo Comments

WHAT DOES A PMO DO?

Home Page, Projects, Strategy

Program and Project Management Offices (PMOs) have been in the news. OK, you won’t have read about this in your daily paper, but in the UK the PMOSIG became incorporated as the Association for Project Management’s 13th specific interest group a couple of years back. While PMOs have been around for a long time, this was a big step forward for the recognition of the work they do. And they do a lot more than just produce reports. The role of a PMO A PMO is the backbone of a successful project management approach at an organization. It is a function that provides decision support information, although it doesn’t make any decisions itself. A PMO underpins the project delivery mechanisms by ensuring that all business change in an organization is managed…

Sep232016 by adminNo Comments

Kotters 8-Step Change Management Model

Home Page, Projects

Leadership coach Susanne Madsen channels change management guru John Kotter to offer a method for effective change in your organisation. Here’s a shot of the whiteboard for your reference! In Review Susanne began by introducing us to John Kotter, a recognized authority on leadership and change. He developed an eight-step method to manage change, a process that she shared in the video. It goes as follows: Create urgency Form a powerful coalition Create a vision for change Communicate the vision Remove obstacles Create short-term wins Build on the change Anchor the change It takes work, but anything of value does, and if you’re sure the change is needed then you’re invested and have the tools to see it through. (more…)

Jul132016 by adminNo Comments

ERP Implementation – The Traps.

CRM, Projects

Published on May 6, 2016 Vinay Bansal ERP implementations are littered with tales of lost millions and withdrawals after implementation. Many of the most experienced IT consultancies/ Software Providers have failed. So what are the secrets? What are the traps? This question could produce at least a book, and probably a sequel. Here are a few things the Software Provider is not going to tell you about. They are by no means the most important, but they are missed in many implementations. ERP Systems Most organisations do not understand the costs associated with an ERP system when they first commence the implementation. The benefits are usually well understood. The costs do not surface until well into the implementation - and why should the Software Provider talk to an organisation about the costs and…

Feb82016 by adminNo Comments

Simple service request process

Projects

In smaller projects, a process needs to be established for gathering Service Requests and assigning them to team members based on client priorities. Here's a process that can be used for each request. It stands to reason that smaller projects don't need the same level of project management discipline as larger projects. With a small project, it's easy to define the work, easy to manage the activities, and there usually isn't much work associated with managing risk, quality, communication, scope, etc. In many organizations, a simple service request process is used to manage these small projects. This service request process starts off by defining the work to be done on a simple one- or two-page form — aptly enough called a "Service Request" form. The process for assigning the work…

Jan142016 by adminNo Comments

Three Steps to Issues Management

Home Page, Projects

Issues are large problems that are impeding the progress of the project. Issue Management is the process of identifying and resolving issues within a project. By quickly and efficiently managing issues, you can: Limit the effects of unforeseen events on the project Reduce the time spent administering project issues Greatly improve your chances of project success You can complete the issue management process by taking three simple steps: Step 1: Identify the Issue Any member of the project team may identify a new project issue. An is completed to describe the issue and its impact on the project. The actions required to resolve the issue are also identified. At this point the Project Manager also needs to determine who needs to be involved in resolving the issue. Step 2: Investigate…

Jan132016 by adminNo Comments

How to Plan in an Agile Environment

Home Page, Projects

Have you ever heard something like: “Agile development expects that we can operate quickly, efficiently and effectively without necessarily having an overall strategic plan”? If so, forget it! Why? Try to build a house from the roof and see what happens! Detailed planning is as essential to the effectiveness of Agile as it is to Waterfall. The difference between the two approaches lies in timing. Planning is ongoing in Agile, and its incremental approach allows projects to adapt rapidly to changes. Planning is predictive in Waterfall and the client knows exactly what to expect. Predictive vs Adaptive Projects Predictive projects are the ones in which the needs are not likely to change (at least we wish that they don’t change) and where the work being done can be “somewhat” identified…

Dec232015 by adminNo Comments

MoSCoW Prioritisation

Home Page, Projects

10. MoSCoW Prioritisation 10.1 Introduction In an Atern project where time has been fixed, understanding the relative importance of things is vital to making progress and keeping to deadlines. Prioritisation can be applied to requirements, tasks, products, use cases, user stories, acceptance criteria and tests. MoSCoW is a technique for helping to understand priorities. The letters stand for: Must Have Should Have Could Have Won’t Have this time The reason we use MoSCoW in Atern is that the problem with simply saying that requirements are of High, Medium or Low importance is that the definitions of these priorities are missing. Using MoSCoW means that priorities are specific. The specific use of Must, Should, Could or Won’t Have implies the result of failing to deliver that requirement. 10.2 The MoSCoW Rules…

Nov222015 by adminNo Comments

Microsoft Dynamics, the real ERP alternative to SAP

CRM, Home Page, Projects, Strategy

Last Thursday 19th of November, Microsoft gave at last more details about its new Microsoft Dynamics Ax and since them we can start giving more details about this new revolutionary ERP platform. Cloud based (but later alter mid 2016, also On-Premise), modern HTML5 interface based on Office 365 look and feel, Power BI, Real Time Analytics with On Memory Database Technology, Office 365 & CRM Integration, Machine Learning and much more. This new version present a huge leap in technology but maintaining the proven functionality that have helped thousand of companies along the world to optimise their processes and continue operating in a more challenging and more interconnected economic world. The objective of this post is to focus how Microsoft Dynamics compares to SAP. The other big player on the ERP…

Oct172015 by adminNo Comments

Three Ways You Can Recover From an ERP/CRM Failure

CRM, Home Page, Projects

Recovering from a failing project is an incredibly difficult process. It can require a change in project scope, a hard look at requirements, an introduction of new methodologies and clear project controls. In some extreme situations, the project team and consultants may need to be replaced. After a sobering, no holds barred assessment; the following actions must be taken. Re-examine the ERP Software. Determining if the ERP/CRM software was originally a good fit for the organization is the first step to recovery. The recovery team must determine if the project team evaluated the ERP/CRM options appropriately or chose specific software based on invalid assumptions. While the software is often the immediate culprit, often times it is merely a symptom of the real failure issues: failure to provide adequate change management…

Oct162015 by adminNo Comments

CEOs want CIOs to stop using jargon and focus on business needs

Home Page, Projects, Strategy

Public sector CIOs shouldn’t underestimate the IT literacy of CEOs and need to focus on collaborative working, the organisation's use of data and solving business issues. At a recent workshop, around 20 local government CEOs called on CIOs to “reshape their teams” to suit the future needs of the organisation, said a report by not-for-profit organisation Eduserv. The report – based on the discussions at the workshop – said CEOs are knowledgeable about IT and how it benefits the organisation – but are frustrated with IT teams' use of jargon and business cases. “Sometimes dealing with IT feels like heavy lifting all the time, trying to get behind and beyond the ‘tech speak’,” the report said, quoting one chief executive officer. “Their frustration is with claims coming from IT – either…

Oct82015 by adminNo Comments

Why it’s time to STOP “Adding Value”

CRM, Projects, Strategy

It’s probably the most commonly proposed response to price pressures and commoditisation: if we’re not prepared to cut our prices, we had better add more value for the customer. It’s a reasonable objective, but the sad truth is that most so-called “value-added” strategies simply add cost and complexity without making the offering any more desirable to the customer. In fact, they often have the opposite effect. (more…)

Sep302015 by adminNo Comments

ExpressRoute for Office 365

CRM, Home Page, O365, Projects, Strategy

Announcing general availability of ExpressRoute for Office 365 Azure ExpressRoute for Office 365 enables organizations to establish a private, managed network connection to Office 365 as an alternative to connecting over the Internet. This direct connection offers customers more predictable network performance, an SLA for guaranteed availability and additional data privacy. As more organizations depend on Office 365 for document collaboration and communications, they will come to depend more and more on the network connectivity they have between their users and Office 365. Today we’re pleased to announce that Azure ExpressRoute for Office 365 is now generally available from these network operators: British Telecom Equinix Tata Communications TeleCity Group Verizon You can read about how Microsoft is using ExpressRoute for Office 365 in the Microsoft IT whitepaper, “Optimizing network performance…

Sep232015 by adminNo Comments

5 Business Benefits you can measure from new CRM/ERP systems

CRM, Home Page, Projects, Strategy

ERP-Capabilities Every organization has a different reason to implement a new ERP system. But the most successful ERP implementations are those that coincide with the desire to improve their tangible business benefits. Unfortunately, most organizations have trouble realizing the potential of their new ERP systems and most organizations fail to realize at least half of the business benefits that they expect. The good news? In general, most successful implementations deliver some common benefits. Below are five tangible business benefits that you can achieve with the right focus and expertise: Increased revenues. Top-line revenue growth is the name of the game in today’s relatively weak global economy. Unfortunately, too many organizations leverage ERP software to minimize costs and neglect to capitalize on the opportunities to increase revenue growth. Modules such as CRM…