Tag Archives: Best Practices

New PM Articles for the Week of May 6 – 12

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New project management articles published on the web during the week of May 6 – 12.  Dave and Sandra read all of this stuff so you don’t have to!  Recommended:

  • Tres Roeder explains how to prioritize your stakeholders.
  • Brett Beaubouef explores aligning IT with business objectives.
  • Margaret Meloni reviews a simple and powerful process for conducting lessons learned.
  • Guillermo Solis gets back to the basics, with some pointers on how to manage successful meetings.
  • Esther Derby fills in the blank, “When I feel empowered, I can …”
  • Bruce Benson notes that project management consists primarily of team building.
  • Toby Wolpe explains that failure is acceptable.  In fact, to get good at it, you need to fail more often.
  • Cheri Baker has been talking to a few departing managers who just wanted to be allowed to do the right thing.
  • Toni Bowers, a fellow stickler for good grammar, points out some more mistakes in your resume.  And she didn’t even have to read it!
  • Harrison Smith asserts that, even while LinkedIn and Big Data are great “pull” solutions for recruiters, the resume will never die.
  • Soma Bhattacharya interviews Derek Huether, agile coach and blogger.
  • Paul Culmsee continues his series on powerful questions, with the key focus are question.  Just 23 minutes, safe for work.
  • Roman Pichler builds on user stories to form scenarios and storyboards.
  • Peter Dinham reports that a new survey conducted in Australia blames poor governance for a large number of failed major projects.
  • Mario Trentim argues that the key to maximizing the business benefits of your project portfolio lies in effective sponsorship.
  • Roger Grimes lists eleven signs your IT project is doomed.  Be sure to share this list with your project sponsor!
  • Dave Vellente interviews Kate Parsons of EMC on the success drivers of their SAP implementation, Project Propel.  Ten minutes, safe for work.
  • Michael Wood explains the difference between a framework and a methodology.
  • Kerry Wills was sitting at the airport, so he decided to share some random thoughts on business travel.

Enjoy!

Even Data Needs a Green Mentality

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I just watched an interview with Kate Parson, a Senior Director at EMC.  She was talking about Project Propel, which replaced their two decade-old ERP solution with a nice, shiny new SAP solution.  The part that really caught my attention was her statement that, early in 2012, they had to start deleting tables in their database, because they ran into “an integer limit.”  They had accumulated so many records that even Oracle couldn’t handle them.  Yes, you read that correctly: EMC, provider of massive storage solutions, couldn’t handle the sheer volume of data records they had accumulated.

I make my living moving customers off of old HR, payroll, and benefits administration solutions and onto a nice, shiny new one in the Cloud.  Naturally, a big chunk of every project is moving records from the old solution to the new one.  We always recommend that customers only move “current” records, rather than attempt to load history.  While you need to retain history records for some period of time, they don’t need to be kept commingled with current records, in the system of record.  They can be stored in off-line databases, with restricted access, or as reports, on paper or in PDF format, or any number of other approaches.  But whatever approach you use, at some point those records will need to be destroyed, in accordance with your organization’s record retention policy for that sort of data.  You guys have a record retention policy, right?

We need to adopt a “Green” mentality for data records.  We need to make proper disposal of old records that have come to the end of their useful lives as much a part of system design and maintenance as disaster recovery.  Ensure that you have a plan to move records from on-line to secure off-line storage at some well-defined point.  Ensure you have the ability to later purge them from off-line storage.  Ensure these activities are scheduled as part of the annual operations calendar.

Of course, some records may need to be retained past their normal lives because of a court order, as part of a legal dispute.  And some types of records may be subject to summary analysis as a class or group, rather than a simple look-up (think Lilly Ledbetter or other sorts of class action lawsuits).  This is why your legal counsel should review your record retention policy, to ensure you keep records as long as required, and no longer.  So the selection of the proper storage tool set for history records has to take into account the potential need for these contingencies.  Be sure you understand all possible uses (and customers) for history records before you settle on a storage medium.

The bottom line here is that proper stewardship of the organization’s data records requires a life cycle mentality.  Just as you have a plan to destroy old hard drives (you do, right?), you should have a plan to manage destruction of old data records.  At some point, all of that data quits being an asset, and becomes a liability; legal, technical, or administrative.  Recognize the risks, and treat them as such.

New PM Articles for the Week of April 22 –28

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New project management articles published on the web during the week of April 22 – 28.  Dave and Sandra read all of this stuff so you don’t have to!  Recommended:

  • Tom Hammell applies some of Daniel Kahneman’s work on thinking fast and slow to project management decisions.
  • Elizabeth Harrin concludes her interview with Dr. Wilhelm Kross, on risk communication.
  • Kyle Roozen explains the four-step approach his Scrum team uses to estimate timelines.
  • Donna Reed shares a recording of a presentation by Star Dargin, “Coaching Skills for Project Managers.”
  • Samad Aidane answers a common question, “How do I motivate my team?”  His uncommon answer, “Don’t try.  You don’t need to.”
  • Kailash Awati presents a noir satire of the PMO as the methodology police.
  • Patti Gilchrist takes a look at how the PMO is evolving from process policeman to innovation advocate.
  • Andy Jordan notes that, just as every project needs an issues log, so does every PMO.
  • Bruce Benson figures that a manager who insists on a “personal commitment” to achieve a deadline is probably working with an unrealistic schedule.
  • Brad Egeland suggests that we listen to our team members carefully, rather than uncritically.
  • Margaret Meloni wants you to bring your inner child to work.  Why?  Well, because children ask, “Why?”
  • Cyndee Miller reports from the PMI Global Congress 2013 in Istanbul, where keynote speaker Avinash Chandarana noted, “Culture eats process for lunch.”
  • Robert Bell offers a few more reasons to pull team members from around the globe.
  • Glen Alleman responds to a post on TechWell on Agile and the federal government.
  • Chuck Morton begins a new series on project change management (as opposed to organizational change management, or systems change management).
  • Mike Griffiths has a story of fragmented, part-time teams taking an Agile approach, and succeeding.
  • Soma Bhattacharya has some suggestions about making the transition to Agile methods.
  • Kelsey van Haaster learned a lot about making the transition from non-agile to Agile, by visiting a website devoted to mastering housework.
  • Todd Wilms shares a slide deck with ten leadership lessons he wishes he had learned in his twenties.
  • Patrick Gray looks at the recent controversy (and firings) that grew out of the tweeting of tasteless remarks at a Python developer’s conference.
  • Penelope Trunk has been coaching her husband, the farmer.  Big insight: your approach to dealing with mistakes defines your success.

Enjoy!