Being able to efficiently and effectively diagnose the health of an organization’s portfolio of contracts takes time and persistence. Earned Value Management (EVM), a project management technique for measuring project performance and progress, makes it possible. However, those in the federal sector, including EVM experts, need to do more to communicate its value for increased …
Continue reading “EVM – Communicating its value to the “big A” acquisition community”
“Quality” may be one of the more over-used and least-thought-about words in our business vernacular. We’ve gone through cycles where we used different terms to characterize our attempts to “do” quality better. Remember Total Quality Management? How about the focus on ISO 9000? And more recently, “Six Sigma,” “Lean,” and “Agile” have emerged as concepts …
Continue reading “What Is Quality and How Is It Achieved In a Service Environment? – Part One”
We’ve all been part of a teleconference, with some people in the room and others on the phone. Dialing in, it can be difficult to hear, or follow the proceedings, or make ourselves heard. In the room, it can be frustrating when those on the phone fall behind, speak over top of one another, or …
Continue reading “Meeting by Phone? 10 Basics for Better Project Management Teleconferences”
Integrity just completed relocation to an expanded new headquarters this week, custom-built to meet the needs and goals of the business in 2015 and beyond. Like any major project, it involved complex planning, thousands of individual decisions, and frequent deadlines that had to be met to move on to the next phase, and ultimately project …
Continue reading “Milestone Decisions: Checkpoints for Acquisition Success”
You landed on a great project team and were asked to prepare the Project Management Plan. Even though you’ve executed or implemented project management plans, you never actually prepared a project management plan. Where do you start? What elements belong in the project management plan? Let’s start with some basics. Is a “project management plan” …
It’s the time of year when many of us take stock of the last 12 months and vow to improve next year. We will be smarter, more organized, perhaps even try something new. The numerous Integrity Matters articles written by our on-the-ground experts in 2014 provide a leg up for the New Year. They contain …
Continue reading “Acquisition and Program Management Tools for 2015”
As a Program Manager, have you noticed a trend that your program keeps on repeating the same lessons learned or mistakes? As a program, when completing a yearly reporting requirement, do you hear yourself stating to your staff that we did not complete x, y, or z in order to fulfill our operational requirements? If …
Imagine you’re an analyst who has recently joined a project team. Your job duties include generating large, complex program documents on tight deadlines. Producing poor quality deliverables will put your stakeholder’s schedule and budget at risk. You know accomplishing this task will require the input of various team members, many of whom are scattered across …
Continue reading “Best Collaboration Tools for Project Teams”
You manage or are part of a project and decide to add additional features or functionality to the product or service you provide. You think it will please the customer and make the team look good. But what if it slows the project, adds costs or isn’t what’s needed? There is a proper and an …
Congratulations! It’s your first day at your new job as a Program Manager (PM). The last few days have been a whirlwind. You got the call from your director that you had been selected to replace the PM for one of the smaller programs in the portfolio. The previous PM had been reassigned and you …
Continue reading “How an Integrated Master Schedule Can Avert Program Management Disaster”
