Category: Project Management

Let’s look at the focus words we commonly use in our requirements documents. Requirements use many words to signal their focus and intent, such as ‘will’, ‘must’, ‘may’, ‘can’, ‘shall’, or ‘should’. There are some legal ramifications to certain focus words if they appear in a written contract. These concerns may govern what words can […]

As a project manager, I am always looking for an approach to managing my projects that makes excellent sense AND  makes me smile. In future, when managing projects large and small, I intend to act like a Jedi knight and pretend my projects are part of a Star Wars movie. Perhaps I will even get my own light saber! Check out Uncle […]

Projects being what they are, the trade-off decisions across the project life cycle seem to vary considerably. This is especially true with the parameters of the triple constraint – scope, schedule and cost. It does seem as though IT projects are particularly prone to scope reduction before things are complete! I think this is due […]

I read a very interesting survey about IT project success yesterday, done by Scott Ambler.  Check out the details of the survey at http://www.ambysoft.com/surveys/success2007.html.   This is really interesting project data and well worth a look! What really struck me about the survey was the thought that we project managers do not use the correct measures for project success.  […]

In a 2007 CompTIA web survey, nearly 28 percent of the more than 1,000 respondents to the web poll singled out poor communications as the number one cause of IT project failure.  I would take that result one step further and say that poor communications causes most project failures even today, regardless of the project type.   One […]