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As a discipline, project management has evolved significantly over the last couple of decades, thanks to the standards, methodologies, research, case studies, best practices, and software solutions. Organizations have invested in improving systems, processes, and tools for enabling project management. The adoption of project management ‘in spirit’ is far from satisfactory. A majority of professionals … Read more

In today’s professional world, is it possible to imagine a day at work without a meeting? If you are a project manager, could you visualize a day without meetings? Most probably, the answer, in either case, would be a ‘no’! Not exciting enough?  I hear you. How about a project manager managing two projects simultaneously … Read more

Project and Program Management is about executing initiatives flawlessly. Governance is about ensuring that the right projects and programs are delivered right. Depending on the organizational maturity, one would expect structures, processes, and tools in place to manage projects, programs, and portfolios. Structures include committees, boards, and teams along with relevant hierarchy to facilitate appropriate … Read more

Imagine a project that your enterprise is executing for an external customer. The contract has a combination of payment terms with some deliverables being fixed price, some being time & material. On top of it, projects have specific milestones that trigger these payments from the customer. Now let us add another dimension here. Irrespective of … Read more

The professional world of project, program, and portfolio management has seen unprecedented changes in a matter of two decades. Not every move has been excellent! Of course, the corporate world has (hopefully) learned its lessons too. In the past, when people worked on projects, it was just project management, and they were project managers. There … Read more

Since the advent of modern management, organizations and professionals have experienced profound satisfaction and joy in their ability to churn reports. Management ‘gurus’ played their part in pushing the need for these reports. It started with our good old and humble Microsoft Excel, and PowerPoint-based graphs and pie-charts. Creating and sending an excellent looking report … Read more

As a professional, you may work on different assignments at your organization. Some of them could be projects while some could be regular operational assignments. More the number of jobs you work on, more the number of tasks that you are responsible for managing. Each of these engagements has different levels of complexity, urgency, and … Read more

With tough business environment demanding faster execution and turnaround, organizations are taking short-cuts for planning and monitoring the projects. While these might reduce planning time, they might introduce the elements which could increase project efforts and thereby the costs. Project plans could be simple but they need to be at an appropriate level of detail. … Read more

One of the terms used very often by project management practitioners globally is ‘best practices.’ It may be surprising to note that project management itself was considered a best practice about a decade or two ago. Project Management has significantly matured since then. At the drop of a hat, professionals throw umpteen references to best … Read more

The Scenario A project manager is working on a project to develop a product/service in the retail domain. Two of its company’s competitors are also competing to get the product/service out on the market as soon as possible. Clearly, the first entrant would have a significant advantage. The originally planned project duration was 8 months. … Read more