Freebies, Trends, Great Expectations and a Cautionary Tale

Chris Vandersluis agrees with the axiom that ”There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” But he has hunted around and found some tasty snacks in the way of free tools available to project managers. In TANSTAAFL – There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch, he lists some of them and tells you where to find them – and what to beware of.

In Project Portfolio Management Megatrends, Demian Entrekin takes a look at where Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is headed and discusses some of the trends and megatrends that are emerging. While he sees PPM as an established leading edge practice, he says that it is fast becoming a competitive necessity in both the private and public sectors. He details some of the leading trends.

Mention of project management software is usually guaranteed to up the conversational sound level a notch or two. In many cases the expectations are far too high and the challenges within the organization of switching from a functional management process to a project management process. Adrian Pierce tells you What To Expect From Your New Project Management System.

Steve Chamberlin takes a look at the role of spreadsheets in project portfolio management in his article, Spreadsheet: The Most Expensive PPM Tool You Didn’t Pay For, While he extols their value he also adds a cautionary note. Pointing out that the introduction of one spreadsheet can proliferate into a maze of spreadsheets – possibly free but at some point resulting in a lot of unnecessary and unbudgeted expenses.

Kishore Dharmarajan takes a new look at brainstorming. His belief is that the old method of just airing ideas at random needs to be updated, and he’s done that in his book Eightstorm: 8-Step Brainstorming for Innovative Managers. He considers eight different strategies to stimulate your brainstorming sessions.

And, of course, our bloggers, David Barrett, Claude Emond, Mike Lecky and Andrew Miller are back with their individual spins on the whole field of project management. They’re here to be agreed with or challenged – don’t let them away with anything!