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Browsing All Posts filed under »Project Management«
2013 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 100,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see […]
Estimate at Completion – Using CPI and SPI Method 5th Edition PMBOK
November 26, 2013 by Dave Kohrell
The Budget at Completion (BAC) is how much the project is supposed to cost when finished. However, during the project it may become clear that the project will not end up costing what it is supposed to cost. The Estimate at Completion (EAC) replaces the BAC for the amount that the project is now believed […]
Earned Value Management – CPI and SPI
November 9, 2013 by Dave Kohrell
Cost Performance Index (CPI) and Schedule Performance Index (SPI) are indicators of how closely accomplished work is on budget and on schedule. CPI shows how many dollars (or other type of currency) worth of work is being accomplished for every dollar spent. SPI shows how the work is progressing compared to the original schedule. The […]
Project Exclusions, Assumptions, and Constraints 5th Edition PMBOK
October 23, 2013 by Dave Kohrell
Project exclusions, assumptions, and constraints (among other information) are included in a Project Scope Statement. They’re also explicitly referenced in the Develop Project Charter, Plan Project Plan and Plan Procurement Management processes. Each of the 47 processes has an implicit reference to exclusions, assumptions and constraints. Here’s a simple example to help you lock in […]
PERT Formula – 5th Edition PMBOK
October 19, 2013 by Dave Kohrell
The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) formula or 3 point estimating is a simple and useful tool for project managers, and those who are planning to take their PMP Exam should have it memorized. There is much more to PERT as a project scheduling and planning technique than this formula, but here we’ll focus […]
PMBOK 5th Edition
February 28, 2013 by Dave Kohrell
Yes, it’s coming this year. 2013. Really soon! But don’t worry we have your back at TAPUniversity. Our blog minions, elves and other noble folk are updating over 300 PMBOK rocking entries for the hefty new PMBOK. Yours truly, David, has seen this rodeo before. Why I remember the very first PMBOK – pdf and […]
Program Management gets real in the Market to Market 2012
October 19, 2012 by Dave Kohrell
Program management involves orchestrating several inter-related projects. Often times a program grows out of a large project. While reflecting upon a wonderful weekend of running with close friends and over 3,000 other friends, covering a distance of 78 miles in teams of six to eight, it dawned on me – that event was a perfect, […]
Dirty Consulting Tricks – Subletting the “talent”
October 9, 2012 by Dave Kohrell
Bait and switch. Pitch the A team and send in the D team. Front load the client engagement up high and deliver low. Three consulting slang terms for subletting talent or substituting in lesser skilled or experienced talent for the one proposed for an engagement. In program and project management the engagements typically involve the […]
Marketing has a New Lean Diet
October 5, 2012 by Ryan Sauer
In today’s economic climate, it’s not uncommon for organizations to drastically cut their marketing budgets in an effort to improve their bottom line. And yet, during this fiscal downturn, the need is even more prevalent to reach consumers, improve branding and broaden market shares. Marketing staff must find ways to identify opportunities in both new […]
Dirty Consultant Tricks – Leaky Faucet of Billable Hours
October 5, 2012 by Dave Kohrell
The leaky faucet, the sieve, the bleeding of billable hours – called different things in different settings they refer to the same concept, a consulting/ contracting company or resource who piles up time and material hours. It’s also one of three dirty consulting tricks I’ve observed first hand in the last few years. The irony […]
Dirty Consultant Tricks – Hiding the Crystal Ball
October 3, 2012 by Dave Kohrell
Nearly four years ago we began the TAPUniversity Blog. It’s been based on a mix of our training and consulting delivery. The first topic was a top 10 things to do for contractors or consultants (or not do). After a round of consulting assignments, in pharmaceutical and insurance, with other consultants alongside me, I observed […]
Meaningful Work – Busy Work
September 27, 2012 by Dave Kohrell
Meaningful Work versus Busy Work was the central theme of a presentation and discussion I shared with the PMI Heartland Professional Development Day on September 17, 2012. The title was “Undercover Agile”. The premise was sorting through what’s meaningful and busy work in daily project management practice. Once sorted, high performance organizations and project managers focus […]
Working in the Weeds
July 31, 2012 by Dave Kohrell
12 months of two consulting project management engagements. Digging in. Pitching in. Working in the weeds! Since 2002 my career has been a blend of “doing” project management, business analysis, faclitation, agile and lean six sigma along with “teaching” those same subjects. The last 12 months has been 95% of the doing. Now that the […]
Function over Form – Don’t go Delores on me!
March 12, 2012 by Dave Kohrell
Over the last several months I had the opportunity to work alongside some wonderful people doing some great things. From time to time a quirk surfaced. I love quirks because they’re opportunities to grow. One quirk I saw I’ll call “Delores Umbridge” – in honor of the character from Harry Potter. Delores was a most […]
Pragnalysis team announce launch of free Requirements Management Software Tool – “ReqLine”
May 16, 2011 by Adrian Reed (UKAdrianReed)
On medium and large scale projects, requirements management can become a difficult overhead. Teams that rely on spreadsheet and word-processing software to create and manage requirements documents often find it difficult to maintain the traceability and inter-dependencies between requirements. We all know the value of tracing, tracking and maintaining our requirements documents, but until now […]
How to Find Where New Process is Really Needed
March 31, 2011 by Michiko Quinones
It’s great to learn new models. I LOVE models. I like to think about how they can be applied, and I get excited about both the predictive ability of models and the capacity for goodness that exists when a model is well executed. But I’ve learned that the reality is that you will never be […]
Project Health Check : 5 serious project warning signs
March 19, 2011 by Adrian Reed (UKAdrianReed)
As experienced change practitioners, I’m sure we’ve all worked on projects that have been difficult. The unfortunate truth is that some projects gain so much momentum, they become “too big to fail”. These projects steamroll their way through organizations, and have a tendency to displace anyone that dares to challenge them. Sometimes when working closely […]
Business Analysis Technique #26 – Scenarios and Use Cases
March 2, 2011 by Dave Kohrell
Several years ago I shared a series of articles in the Rational Edge for IBM that showcased real life applications of use cases and incremental development. Two of those articles focused on replacing a legacy unemployment insurance system. The entire article provides a much more thorough introduction from that example – so take a quick […]
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January 1, 2014 by Dave Kohrell
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