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INTERVIEW
PM
Speak
--O Arivazhagan, PMP, SSGB, Interviewed by Amit Singh
Sisodiya, Lakshmi Narayana Kari
"With
more and more projects being outsourced to Indian companies,
managing negative risks or threats in such projects
has turned out to be a challenge to the Project Managers."
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
COVER
STORY
Pipelining
Your Project
-- John
C Goodpasture
Most of the project scheduling is a waterfall finish-to-start
task that is much like a flow along a pipeline and that
is the analogy that this article develops. Measures
can be for the volume, rate of arrival, resources consumed,
date of arrival, etc. Examples include: Writing and
obtaining approval of various documents for design,
test and validation and running tests or inspections
or validation on design, development or production results.
We show how the simple spreadsheet grids of data values
can provide an easily understood tool for measuring
the accumulation of deliverables and earned value along
the pipeline.
© 2007 John C Goodpasture. All Rights Reserved.
IT
PROJECTS
Leaning
towards Lean IT : Maximizing Business Value and Enhancing
Productivity
--Suresh Malladi
Lean approach to project management helps in identifying
the waste in the project life cycle. Eliminating the
non-value- added activities will improve the agility
in addressing the customer expectations and changing
requirements. The sole focus of Lean is the customer
satisfaction and any activity that does not help the
customer is considered as a waste. Organizations have
to map their project value-streams and remove such non-value-added
activities, though they may appear to be beneficial
to the organization. Activities beyond the mere project
life cycle should also be considered and corrected to
create an agile and valuable business partnership with
the customers.
© 2007 Suresh Malladi. All Rights Reserved.
IT
PROJECTS
Role
of Time Boxing in Iterative Software Development Projects
--PS Sarath Chandra
Time
boxing is a simple technique, most frequently used to
supervise and plan time in software development projects.
The best part of time boxing strategy is that it holds
quality aspect as constant and at the same time decreases
scope to meet the schedule without any glitches.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
SPOTLIGHT
Conflict
Management : Challenges for Project Managers
--
NK Senthilkumar
The
goal of this article is to provide project managers
and team members with conflict management information
that can be beneficial both in personal and professional
life. Some people opine that conflict is a topic that
should not be discussed and that any project should
not engage in conflicts for any reasons. But, this may
not be possible because a project involves many stakeholders
and cross functional teams. Hence, conflict management
is one of the essential traits a project manager needs
to run the project.
© 2007 NK Senthil. All Rights Reserved.
PROJECT
TOOL
Applying
Earned Value and Earned Schedule to Project Management
--Walt Lipke
When
should a manager take appropriate action to correct
any project which is not properly carried out? What
should he do? How does a manager know his action is
sufficient? These are age-old questions. A poor outcome
is a definite result if the manager's decision and action
are not appropriate. This article discusses the questions
and the manager's considerations. It concludes with
the description of the decision logic diagram linking
project performance with other factors to the possible
management actions.
© 2007 Walt Lipke. All Rights Reserved.
RISK
MANAGEMENT
Risk
Identification : The Roadmap
--
Sanjoy De
Risk
is inherent in all projects. But the most important
thing is to identify those risks and adopt the risk
mitigation programs accordingly. Unless the risks are
accurately identified, all the subsequent efforts to
control them go in vain. This article focuses on risk
identification and the techniques used to identify those
risks.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
PROJECT
ENVIRONMENT
Project
Estimation : A Practical Approach
--L Ramamirtham and P Srikanth
A
project involves any endeavor undertaken by an organization
for the production of a product or service. Before it
gets commissioned, a project has to pass through various
stages right from the estimation stage. This estimation
involves not only the assessment of the fund requirement
for a project but also its financial viability. The
present article discusses the practical aspects involved
in preparing an estimate for a project. It deals with
important aspects which have to be considered in such
an exercise. It throws light on the blockages in such
a task. The article also provides a practical guide
for the preparation of a project proposal and also various
schedules which need to be included in such a proposal.
© 2007 P Srikanth. All Rights Reserved.
PROJECT
SKILLS
Accidental
Project Manager : Results and Repercussions
--
Annam Anand
In today's competitive environment, accidental project
managers prove to be misfits for lack of expertise.
This leads to continued project failures. This article
highlights some of the skills like leadership, communication,
team building, etc., which are a must for effective
project management.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
PROJECT
STRATEGY
Managing
Small Projects : Do's and Don'ts
--N Vijaya Lakshmi
Small
projects cannot be managed in the same way as large
projects. Small projects need a different approach,
however, with some inputs from standard project management.
This article explores the framework for managing small
projects along with some do's and don'ts.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
PROJECT
INNOVATION
Creativity
: A Strategy to Forge Ahead in PM
-- Siba
Prasad Pothal and Srikanta Kumar Padhi
In
today's complex business world, success belongs to projects
which stay away from the practice of repeating the same
patterns by emphasizing on creativity to reach their
preconceived goals. This article is an attempt to show
a number of technical factors that foster creativity
in different projects. Project leaders who are supple
in thoughts and are confident to go ahead in a new direction,
are the real pioneers of successful projects.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
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