By Carter McNamara on April 4, 2012
Guest post from Alexander Mitnikov. Where does a typical software vendor come from? IT-companies from the USA, the UK, Canada, India and Germany have a substantial representation in the market. However, in search for a suitable project management tool for instance one might bump into some extraordinary countries. Serbian business tool, software from Denmark, Latvian […]
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By Alicia Trelles-Duckett on March 22, 2012
Two years ago I was deploying a high-technology project for a client. It was a worthwhile project, whereby we were going to give sales people the ability to communicate instantly with their developers in Asia. A few weeks into the project, the client’s own Security organization became very interested… and proceeded to shut us down! […]
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By Alicia Trelles-Duckett on February 16, 2012
I was recently teaching a course where the discussion turned to project resourcing, and the problem of people being stretched more thinly than ever. I suggested to the student that maybe her company’s mechanism for “project selection” needed to be revisited with her management, so that the number of projects could be decreased until the […]
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By Alicia Trelles-Duckett on January 19, 2012
Our topic today has nothing to do with an eccentric or detestable person, happily. Although some project managers may not agree, a more prevalent pest to be avoided in projects is “scope creep”: additional scope that creeps in, without anyone in the project team noticing. Before you know it, there is an expectation that the […]
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By Alicia Trelles-Duckett on December 16, 2011
Here is a familiar scenario for some of us who perform projects for customers: a request for some work comes in. We have (or know where to get) the capability, the skills the personnel. Having performed similar work before, we even have references. The catch? Geography. Either the customer, or key performer(s), or the project […]
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By Alicia Trelles-Duckett on November 21, 2011
There are certain skills which are incredibly useful for small businesses. If the business has someone on staff knowledgeable about ‘accounting’ for instance, or ‘taxation’, better decisions can be made consistently in those areas. For example, business equipment would be purchased knowing already in advance what kind of depreciation will leave the business in a […]
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By Alicia Trelles-Duckett on October 15, 2011
Recently, an acquaintance who owns his own business installing industrial valves, remarked how difficult he thought the field of Project Management had become. “Why is there so much paper?” and “Why do the concepts have to be so hard?” (He does have a point, what with Earned Value Analysis…) He indicated that if it weren’t […]
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By Alicia Trelles-Duckett on September 20, 2011
When I started my working life, at IBM, years went by before I had any sub-contractors as part of my project team. We could handle just about every request with in-house skills. Alas, almost 20 years later those days are gone, and the opposite has become the norm. It is nigh on impossible to deploy […]
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By Alicia Trelles-Duckett on August 18, 2011
The following is a guest post by Susan Shearouse, author of Conflict 101. Early morning, the mists rising off the placid river, the crew racing in that long sleek boat, each team member pulling through the strokes in unison, the team leader sitting at the back calling commands. Ahhh, teamwork… What happens when the reality […]
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