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Browsing Archives of Author »David Kohrell«
2010 in review
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats. About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was […]
Request For Quotation (RFQ)
July 27, 2010
A Request For Quotation is a seller selection process where the buyer knows what they need and specifies quantity, terms, even target price. It is a companion, complimentary seller/vendor selection tool to the Request For Proposal. You might use a RFQ at your work place and not even realize it. For example purchasing 100 copies […]
Constructive Dismissal
May 20, 2010
Barney always smelled bad, nobody could read his writing, and his team members found it creepy how he stared at their cell phones. Peter is the project manager whose team includes Barney and ten other people. Peter wants to get rid of Barney, but doesn’t want to fire him. Instead, Peter decides to enlist the […]
Q1 + Q2 = H1
May 19, 2010
Project managers that work with cost management and budgeting are probably already very familiar with their organization’s fiscal year (FY). The fiscal year is broken into quarters (which are time periods of three months each since there are twelve months in a year). The first quarter is abbreviated Q1, the second Q2, and so on. […]
Values of the IIBA
May 18, 2010
We’ve posted a number of well-read entries on the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) code of ethics, and today we turn our attention to the International Institute of Business Analysis’s (IIBA) values. A copy of their values can be found at http://www.theiiba.org/Content/NavigationMenu/About/GuidingPrinciples/IIBA_Values_2010.pdf. The four core values of the IIBA are: Respect, Integrity, Shared Vision, and Innovation. […]
PMPs Make More Pay
May 17, 2010
The Project Management Institute has made available its PMI® Project Management Salary Survey – Sixth Edition. One may purchase the survey results at www.pmi.org/Resources/Pages/Project-Management-Salary-Survey.aspx for $150 for non-members of PMI. PMI’s publication, PMI Today, provides an overview of the survey results. It includes the statement that “in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, France, […]
Triple Bottom Line
May 14, 2010
The Triple Bottom Line (TBL) expands the concept that an organization’s success should be measured solely in terms of monetary profit. In addition to the bottom line of financial performance, two more bottom lines are added—that of social and environmental. The phrase originated from British environmentalist John Elkington, who is an active advocate of corporate […]
New Knowledge Assessments at PMI
May 13, 2010
The Project Management Institute (PMI) has recently made three knowledge assessments available through Prometric. These assessments are based on PMI’s standards, but PMI claims that they are not meant to predict performance on their certification exams (such as the Project Management Professional (PMP®)). The three assessment areas are Project Management, Program Management, and Portfolio Management. […]
Higher Value Placed on Certifications
May 12, 2010
Good news for project managers who have earned their PMP®! It’s also an incentive for project managers who are considering becoming certified. The Wall Street Journal recently published an article indicating that increasing value is being placed upon having earned a certification such as the PMP. The article quotes the Project Management Institute (PMI) as […]
Design to Cost
May 11, 2010
A product development term, Design to Cost (DTC) is an approach that places cost constraints on the product’s design in order to create a product that is affordable for consumers. Much of what the final product will cost is tied into the design at its inception. Although the concept is simple, there can be much […]
Organization Structure on the PMP Exam
May 10, 2010
One of the most common questions I receive from those studying for their PMP® Exam is how to distinguish between the different types of organizational structures. There are three main types of organizations—Functional, Matrix, and Projectized. An organization that has more than one of these types (perhaps across different departments, locations, or teams) is called […]
Who Are the Project Makers?
May 7, 2010
There’s Project Managers and then there are Project Makers. These are people who do more than manage a project that has been assigned to them. A Project Maker has even more responsibility from beginning to end for the successful outcome of a project than does a Project Manager. Wideman’s Comparative Glossary states that a Project […]
Progress Payment
May 6, 2010
For large, long-term projects especially, rather than pay the contractor the full payment when the project is complete, partial payments may be made throughout the duration of the project. These partial payments are called Progress Payments. They typically are tied to certain stages of progress or milestones. For example, for a construction project to build […]
Professional Services Project
May 5, 2010
Projects can be classified in different ways, and one common distinction is a Professional Services Project. These projects do not have traditional, physical products as their primary deliverable. Rather, the deliverable is intellectual in nature such as a scientific article, process documentation, or software. The PMBOK® (4th Ed.) defines a project as “a temporary endeavor […]
Risk Treatment
May 4, 2010
Selecting how to respond to specific risks is called Risk Treatment. This may also include writing a plan and actually implementing these responses. Risk Treatment is not a term found in the fourth-edition PMBOK® but the concept is there nonetheless. The PMBOK’s Plan Risk Responses process is where one selects how to respond to individual […]
NIH Syndrome
May 3, 2010
The Not Invented Here (NIH) Syndrome is observed across many realms—not just project management. NIH Syndrome manifests itself as an avoidance to use certain products or ideas because of their origin (with this origin being something other than one’s own). Now if an individual or organization is truly the best at something, than it makes […]
Hanging Activity
April 30, 2010
This is what happens in old Western movies when the good cowboys apprehend the bad guys and justice is served. It’s also a scheduling term used in project management. Imagine a project schedule network diagram. For all but the smallest projects, there will be various paths of activities. These paths represent logical sequences of activities […]
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