PMI continues with its annual publishing of extensions to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). This year they finally published the long awaited Software Extension to the PMBOK Guide Fifth Edition. The extension includes widely accepted practices in managing software projects. The structure of the software extension is the same as the structure of…
Mitch Lacey’s book »The Scrum Field Guide: Practical Advice for Your First Year« is an extremely useful book that helps new Scrum practitioners take the first step from learning about Scrum to actually doing it. The book does not explain the basics of Scrum and its artifacts because it assumes that the reader is well…
All of us who manage IT projects know that risk management is very important. At least that is what they teach us. However, do we really manage risk in the real world, do we pay it enough attention and last but not least, do we even understand the meaning of project risk management? — MonitorPro…
Once again I was invited to participate in PMI’s publication PM Network, this time in their June 2013 issue. I contributed tips about how to be more productive on projects. The article lists ten miscellaneous tips for project managers. One of them was mine, about resolving minor issues by clearing the air via telephone call rather than…
PMI published the newest, fifth edition of the Project Mangement Body of Knowledge or PMBOK, the worldwide recognized project management manual. As with each new edition of the PMBOK there are numerous minor updates. This time, however, there is a major update and that is the addition of a completely new chapter. It deals with…
After more than 20 years in corporate IT consulting environments, I volunteered my project management services to a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Cambodia. Here are some of my experiences of the challenges facing project managers in NGOs and in developing countries in general. NGOs are non-profit organizations that typically function in the areas of social…
In their book Green Project Management authors Richard Maltzman and David Shirley tell us that project managers are inherently green because they constantly strive to decrease costs, increase business value and protect scarce resources. This all contributes to being green. Companies are increasingly more aware of the need to become green and therefore it makes…
When we talk about agile projects and the most popular agile approaches such as Scrum, XP, Lean or Kanban, there is never any mention of specific team member roles that correspond to waterfall projects. For example, where are the specialists, such as system architects, database designers, or business analysts? Are they no longer relevant in…
Project Management Institute (PMI) published the results of a major research in 2009 which confirmed that project management adds value. The result was expected because all of us who are professional project managers believe in its merits. This research was the first of its kind to scientifically prove our beliefs. — GEA Forum Issue 13, september…
Contrary to traditional project management where risk management is an integral and crucial part of the project management process, there is no explicit mention of risk management in popular agile methodologies. This makes us wonder whether we manage risk on agile projects at all. It should make sense that since agile project management differs from…