Are you a Slave to the Project Management Process?

Interesting concept!

A Free Range Project Manager™ has the power to use his or her judgment to circumvent the project management process when it makes sense to do so.

Check out the LinkedIn group titled Free Range Project Managers ™ with SebaSolutiuons and Dr. James T. Brown.

Looking forward to some exciting discussions here with this group. Be sure to join and share your thoughts.

Al

Al Senzamici, PMP

Program Manager

ImageSource, Inc.

  

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 – Interesting Article for SharePoint Administrators

If you want a high level look at Microsoft SharePoint 2013 and some expected updates and how they will affect various roles within your organization you need to check out this article. It is a 4 part series on Microsoft SharePoint 2013. Part 1 is for Administrators.

35,000 Foot View of SharePoint 2013 for Administrators

Brian Alderman’s previous publications include Windows 2000 Professional and SQL Server 2000 Administration. He is an active speaker at SharePoint Industry conferences including SharePoint Saturday’s and the SharePoint Best Practices Conference.

Al Senzamici, PMP
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

   

Project Planning Horizon – Do you have One?

Dr. James T. Brown has another good piece of advice to share with us project managers.

He states that “every organization should establish a target project planning horizon based on the kinds of projects, customers, deliverables and services they provide.  It is essential to minimize time planning schedule details when there is a high degree of uncertainty”.

Check out his short video on this and let us know what you think. Do you have or use a planning horizon?

What is your project’s planning horizon? – Seba Solutions 

Dr. Brown has been the keynote speaker at ImageSource’s Nexus event for the past few years and has received rave reviews for his training classes and his keynote address.

Al Senzamici, PMP
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

   

Project Estimating

As Project Managers we are involved in providing project estimates almost all the time. I have recently been working on a lot of project estimates.

While reading some of my favorite authors articles I found this article, “What Causes Bad Estimates…And What You Can Do About It” by Dr. James T. Brown both relevant and timely.

I would love to hear what others think about the practice of providing estimates.

Do you give in to the pressure to underestimate the project so the project is either sold or moves forward or do you stand your ground and communicate what it actually takes to make the project successful?

Al Senzamici, PMP
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

   

Effective Project Management: Requires Leadership & Management Skills

For a project manager to be effective he/she needs to be able to both lead and manage. Leadership and Management are not the same. However, they must complement each other if you are to be successful. So how are they different?

Management 

Management generally focuses on the work aspects of the project. When we manage something we typically deal with work and work activities. Managing focuses on items such as:

• Plans – project, risk, contingency, assumptions, scope, change, communication
• Resource Allocation – physical & people
• Time/schedule
• Costs/budgets
• Monitoring and Controlling
• Coordinating
• Directing
• Conflict
• Decision Making
• Problem Solving

Leadership

Leadership generally focuses on the people aspects of the project. When we lead we focus more on items such as:

• Vision/goals
• Stakeholders
• Teamwork & Team Building
• Persuasion
• Inspiration & Motivation
• Relationship Building
• Communications
• Counseling & Coaching
• Instructing & Teaching
• Mentoring & Guiding

An effective project manager will need to be able to apply both managerial and leadership skills.

Al Senzamici, PMP
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

   

RM Speak

Your company, or if you’re a consultant – the company you’re consulting for will most likely be sued at some time given today’s litigious environment.  In your role as an ECM project manager – are you knowledgeable and able to include E-discovery, document retention, disposition, etc. in your ECM project requirements to mitigate the risks of such a lawsuit?

Today’s discussion is going to branch out from content management to touch upon the area of records management.  You should expect that for the majority of projects – you will likely have to explain the difference between the two to many of your stakeholders.  Records management came from a small $15 million per year business in 2000 to now being included as part of most ECM software offerings.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? - A document for the most part is information stored on paper or on scanned images or electronically.  Documents can be updated or revised.  Records however are documents that are recognized as complete and as such are unchangeable. It is important to remember that not all documents become records.

If you’re not familiar with Records Management ‘speak’ – then I’d recommend AIIM’s (Association for Information and Image Management) certification course on Electronic Records Management (ERM).  Since 90% of all records are electronic – this is a good place to start.  AIIM offers 3 different levels of certification – practitioner, specialist and master.  You can find all the information on ERM certification at:
http://www.aiim.org/Training/ERM-Electronic-Records-Management-Course

For a quick analysis on where your organization is with regards to records management best practices – I’d suggest taking a look at ARMA’s (Association of Records Managers and Administrators) Governance Matury Model – GARP®  (Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles).  The GARP model will give you a picture of where your organization is in regards to records and information governance. There are eight different principles including: Accountability, Transparency, Integrity, Protection, Compliance, Availability, Retention and Disposition.  Each of these principles of records/information management are evaluated at 5 different levels.  When you’ve had a chance to look at the model, you can better assess risks and opportunities for improvement in records management that may impact how you proceed with your ECM project(s).  For more information on the GARP maturity model, see:
http://www.arma.org/garp/metrics.cfm
.

You WILL increase your value as an ECM project manager by becoming fluent in RM speak and more importantly being able to integrate records management requirements into ECM projects.

Steve Kissinger, PMP

ImageSource, Inc

 

 

Catch Dr. James Brown at Nexus

Just a quick note for PM’s in the Pacific Northwest.  Dr. James Brown is conducting a class on conflict management at the Nexus conference in Seattle (Bellevue, WA) on Wednesday, November 2^nd.  I’ve been doing project and program management all over the world for the better part of 15 years and this guy is worth checking out.  Yes he has a PhD, is a published author, worked for NASA and all of that, but more importantly, he knows his subject matter as good or better than anyone in the business.  His teaching methodology and project management philosophy achieve the right balance between ‘the book’, best practices and common sense.  He also has a strong focus on human behavior and what that means in the context of project management. There are teachers and speakers, and then there are the people that you make sure to see every time they are in town.  Dr. Brown is one of the latter.  I encourage you to take the opportunity to go see him and take his class at the Nexus conference.

 

Gene Echkart
Program Manager
ImageSource Inc.