Honorable Leadership

As disciplined thinkers, most project managers relegate curses to the superstitious realm. Yet at times (when no one is looking) they succumb to the thought that their organization's projects just seem to be cursed. Despite careful planning and gallant efforts nothing seems to move their projects forward. They've followed all of the recommendations espoused by the project management experts and in some cases they've established large Project Management Offices (PMOs), but to no avail. Some unseen force seems to have taken hold of their projects and nothing seems to rid the organization of its poor track record in managing its projects. When it comes to project management the organization appears to be cursed.

Project Management is more of an art than a science. Be wary of the consulting firm that says they can get things done "on time" and "on budget". That is NOT what project management is ultimately about. Project Management consists of managing the activities of a project to ensure that...

1. The project is worth doing and the organization committed to accomplishing it
   
2. Stakeholders requirements are defined and differences resolved at the outset
3. The organization is capable of doing the project
   
4. Expectations are set, monitored and influenced
5. A reasonable schedule is created and monitored
   
6. Resources are adequately procured and deployed
7. Risks are identified and managed

Of course there are a ton of other activities. But if your projects are not going well and you have project management processes in place, odds are that you need help with items one through four. Give me a call to discuss any challenges you may have.

I was recently teaching a project management class when a student asked me about project management templates. There are a lot of templates out there. Some good. Some not so good. I came across Method123's Project Management Methodology (MPMM) and decided to take it for a test drive. The tool itself is fairly easy to use and very intuitive. For a novice project manager or an organization that is just starting down the path of implementing project management, MPMM would be very helpful.

The interface is easy to understand and there are a lot of online help files, including a video tutorial. The tool itself gives the end user a really good primer on project management. The designers followed the Project Management Institute's (PMI) methodology for the most part and if you're familiar with PMI you'll recognize the Initiation, Planning, Executing and Closing phases. The tool is great in that it provides quite a bit of explanation and documentation concerning project management.

As far as templates go, there are a lot, and they are robust. You can easily open the template and modify if for your own use. The templates cover a lot of detail and after looking at a handful of them, I can say Method123 covered their bases pretty well. What I especially liked was how easy it was to modify them. You can even update the corporate logo globally so that you don't have to do them one by one.

Overall I was impressed with this product. Just as a disclaimer, I did sign up to be an affiliate for them, so if you purchase this through me, I will get a small commission. But, don't take my word for it. You can download ot for free and have a free two week trial. I was literally up and running within 10 minutes of installing the product.