Project Management Blogs

So much of an organization’s success is tied to project success!  Can you think of any significant organization initiative or improvement that didn’t tie to at least one project?  I’ve worked with many organizations, across diverse industries and globally, and I cannot think of a single example.  Therefore, what could be more important than figuring out how to ensure project success?

You can always spot the project managers who have just received their PMP – they are eager, idealistic, and prone to proclaim at length the necessity for “Change Control” as if it were the cure for all project management evils.  Don’t get me wrong – I am glad that the level of training that new project managers receive is increasing, and I am glad that they are learning that change can derail a project. However, new PMs appear to have a naïve view of how projects work in the real world, and I would like to do my part to correct that.

I use an “erhu” (the two-string Chinese violin) as a training aid in coaching project management to workshop participants. I started to do this while giving PMP certification revision workshops for PMI-Montreal. This is something I have been doing now for more than four years. I have also published a little website on this, in collaboration with Prof Xianghui Liu, a Chinese university professor I met on MySpace [i].

Ask a business analyst (BA) who should define the business need and you might hear that it is the BA’s role to do so. After all, the business need defines the business problem or opportunity, which BAs have to understand in order to recommend appropriate solutions. BAs know that all requirements should link to the business need, so it is important to spend the necessary time to truly understand it.

Let’s go back to the example I gave at the end of my last post. What is wrong with measuring story volatility? On the surface it appears fine. We can see how well the product owner staged the sprint and also how well the team is interpreting stories for execution. For example, if they “signed up” for 10 stories, but only delivered seven because of story (requirement) volatility, then they have a lot of improvement to do…right? Well, that could be the case.