Project Management Information Systems

On this page: A friend of mine recently bought a new carbon fibre racing bike which is 5kg lighter than his previous model. As he explained the various wonders of the new machine to me, I could not help but reflect on his Guinness-sponsored girth and wondered if losing 5kg in weight would not have […]

In Software Project Management, Time is Money

On this page: The nice thing about software development projects is that the project manager rarely has to worry directly about the budget. If the developers you need for the team are already on your staff, you just require a clear idea of how long you will need these people for. In other words, time is the […]

Are we There Yet? (Free Checklist!)

It seems like an obvious question, but when is the execution of a project finished? People with project management certification will cry that it is only finished when the customer has signed off that the deliverables are acceptable. While this is the right answer, real world projects often have very unclear endings. On this page: […]

Creating a SIPOC Model | Velopi

If you are preparing for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam, you may have stumbled upon the SIPOC model as you tried to understand the Plan Quality Management process in section 8.1. of the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). SIPOC stands for Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, Outputs, Customers and is used in the PMBOK® Guide to place […]

Project Management: Finding out Why

Anyone who listens to the news will be familiar with government ministers ordering enquiries into events in their departments “so that this will not happen again”. There is never a goal of finding out who caused the problem and holding them accountable. The result of this sort of analysis is weighty standard operating procedures, because […]

The Benefits of a Project Management Office | Velopi

On this page: Companies that find themselves chartering large projects on a regular basis often consider establishing a Project Management Office (PMO) in order to improve the management of these projects. Unfortunately, a PMO is not a clearly defined concept and even Project Management Professionals (PMPs)® struggle to provide a well-established template for such an office. […]

The Project Manager’s Power and Influence

Probably the first thing you learn on any Project Management Professional (PMP)© exam preparation course is that all projects have some unique aspect to them. Often that unique aspect relates to the performing organization itself, or the team members involved. So a project manager might move from one company to another and be asked to manage […]

Estimating Techniques for Project Management

In a previous article, we offered advice to newcomers to project work: record how long it takes you to do typical project tasks. Here, we will show how that idea relates to the estimating techniques given in the Project Management Institute’s Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) and we will review those techniques. […]

Keeping Minutes, Wasting Hours

When all is said and done, more is said than done. Many meetings can be summed up like this. They can be extremely tedious and quite unproductive. Many managers simply do not appreciate the cost of meetings and, because of this, do not strive to ensure they get a return on investment. For Project Managers […]

Group Decision Making | Velopi

As any PMP© will tell you (and any PMP© exam student should tell you) decision-making is needed in several project management processes. It will be a very good PMP© who will be able to recite which processes these are, because there are fifteen in total. On this page: The Role of the Project in Decision-Making Of course, the […]