Supporters of project management templates will try to tell you this is the only way to ensure best practices are embedded in project planning. While templates provide some form of guidelines that ensures information completeness, they have their limitations and drawbacks.
The following list was graciously contributed by Marc Bonnemains, and is from a LinkedIn discussion about project management. The following items are referred to as frameworks and models. Many people distinguish between the two, and might explain that a framework is a structure within which an activity occurs, but a model also describes the functioning [...]
there was a debate for years around whether Project Management is an art or a science. The truth is that neither are correct on their own – it is both. Successful project managers (with a track record of more than one project) typically employ the science stuff (core PM concepts), sometimes religiously. They also harbor [...]
I wrote recently about the difference between senior and junior project managers in terms of decision making. More specifically, I argued that while senior managers focused on potential project difficulties, junior managers were more easily swayed by their project’s plan and its deficiencies. Spotting problem with your plan and being able to foresee difficulties are [...]
Since best practices are implemented to reduce process induced risks, I should audit practices to ensure the process will impact positively on my project results.
Well here’s my view. If project management (or delivering projects successfully, on a more often than not basis) were purely common sense, then the evidence to do with project delivery performance would tell a completely different story. For example, a UK report by the Royal Society of Engineering a few years ago quoted some frightening [...]
In project management, we imply the existence of a strong relationship between experience and good decision making. The question is: What kind of experience? Domain experience or project management experience?
From time to time in my business life, someone will ask, or sometimes say that project management is ‘common sense’, meaning it is just common sense. Often they are making a statement along the lines of ‘what’s all the fuss about this PM stuff, it’s all just common sense isn’t it’? Well, my question is, [...]
Many methods have emerged over the years that are hailed as the greatest and latest way to deliver a project. A good example would be the “scrum” method for delivering IT projects. The scrum concept is implemented in a number of ways, one of which could be to pick groups of requirements which are delivered [...]
The following is definitely not at the “best” end. I recently had to respond to a bid for major customer – in the customer ITT the usual procurement rules were laid down. The ITT had been written in English; by someone who’s native tongue was not. The document was full of inconsistencies, incomplete or vague [...]
Alicia is a freelance IT Project/Program Manager with 19 years of experience deploying international complex projects, 15 of which with IBM Global Services. She is certified in three major Project Management methodologies and author of the highly acclaimed "International Project Management" course
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