Category Archives: Articles

PM Tip of the Day – 02.08.2013

Document any assumptions you make in planning, then revisit those assumptions periodically, to verify that they are still true.

by Rita Mulcahy

PM Tip of the Day – 01.08.2013

Stop now and write down the most important things that need to be communicated properly on your project.

by Rita Mulcahy

PM Tip of the Day – 31.07.2013

Make sure you have identified all the requirements on your project. During a meeting, ask a few stakeholders to write down two requirements that the person next to him or her has.

by Rita Mulcahy

PM Tip of the Day – 30.07.2013

Remember that a supplier wants to make money and the buyer wants the project completed on time. A project manager must keep these differing objectives in mind.

by Rita Mulcahy

PM Tip of the Day – 29.07.2013

Ask your customer to define quality. You need to know this definition in order to develop an appropriate quality management plan.

by Rita Mulcahy

PM Tip of the Day – 26.07.2013

Make use of templates developed for previous, similar projects to make the procurement process faster and easier.

by Rita Mulcahy

PM Tip of the Day – 25.07.2013

One of the main complaints of team members is unclear responsibilities. Have you explained to your team members all the work that they will need to do, including reporting and meeting requirements?

by Rita Mulcahy

Project Management consists of applying specific knowledge, capabilities, tools and techniques towards project activities that have defined objectives, scope and requirements with respect to time, cost, quality and performance parameters. Time, cost, quality and performance are project constraints.

For me – Project management is an area of common sense of realism, in which all project elements relate to one another.  It is the domain of the Good Keeper, just to paraphrase a well-known game of my childhood.  Building a project must be done responsibly, taking into account all the factors that can influence it. Mistakes will have undesirable effects sooner or later, and the more their remediation will be sooner, so it will be much better.

One cannot accelerate project work without implications in cost for example; new requirements cannot be added without impact in time and cost, a cost decrease cannot be done without impacting scope and time… and so on.

If we can describe clearly the purpose, if we can do realistic planning in line with the effort required to achieve the project objectives, if we know what to expect clearly as possible, and if we stick to the plan – we have the ingredients of a successful project, because, as you know: He, who does not plan, actually plans to fail.

Here are some common-sense questions that one should ask himself as project manager: What must be done? How? Until when?  Under what conditions? What do I need? What does this imply? And so on … He, who steers the project, must know what he is doing.

I cannot, but think of a specific joke – that the typical manager knows the concept of ​​the triple constraints related to cost, time, and purpose – hence he will consider that nine women can make a baby in one month…

…and since we are talking about constraints – let’s try to visualize them as the legs of a chair that must stand. When one of these legs is disproportionate to the other, problems appear. Is there such a thing as a balanced project? Or the necessity and constraints make a project ambitious and sometimes just unrealistic…?

…I’m thinking about the quality of project approach in the private sector by comparison with the state sector – but I stop now, as not to draw the article towards the current political environment.

I cannot, but observe in our country the urgent need for successful projects, both in the private and in the state sector. We do not perform well as managers. It is so hard to do projects by the book? Quality costs too much? We lack discipline? The environment / system does not allow for this?

By the way: can you name a truly successful project in Romania?

Even though you may not realize, project management is present, in one form or another in our lives. I wonder if any of our lives is a project in whose ‘team’ we play various roles, from sponsor, PM, team member? And sometimes do we not play the role of SBE (Subject Matter Expert) in the lives of others when we offer our opinion on various issues?

Tell me Mr. Project Manager – how is your project going…?

PM Tip of the Day – 24.07.2013

Add time and/or cost reserves to the project to account for the known risks identified in the estimates. The amount of time or cost is calculated based on information about the project. It is not arbitrarily added as a pad for estimates.

by Rita Mulcahy

PM Tip of the Day – 23.07.2013

Remember, to estimate well, you need to complete the project charter and the project scope statement, identify the team and complete a WBS. Have you done this for your current project? If not, how can your estimates be realistic?

by Rita Mulcahy