PracticalPMJournal.com

Welcome to Practical PM Journal

The Practical PM Journal contains a wealth of information gained by project managers during the various phases of real projects. A community of project managers reveal the successes, failures and mitigation steps experienced in the practice of professional project management.

Topics cover all aspects of project management including:
- The five process groups: Initiation, Planning, Executing, Controlling and Monitoring and Closing
- The nine knowledge areas: Integration, Scope, Schedule, Costing, Quality, HR, Communications, Risk and Procurement
- Other related topics such as Operational improvement and program management

Active community members have the right to have at least one article per year published in the journal. The knowledge conveyed is of real value to other project managers as it offers the opportunity to avoid project trouble, gain efficiency, control schedules and more.

Project management professionals earn 1 PDU credit per hour of approved activity. Reading the Practical PM Journal articles, writing an article and discussing project management issues are all examples of valid PDU earning activities.

Comments are welcome on the posts found at Practical PM Journal. They must pertain to the project management topic. Spam comments will not be accepted. You are welcome to reference web sites that are related to the topic. You may also include an author link. Your information will not be shared with any third parties.

Giving and Taking Criticism

Many people find it hard to both give and take criticism. Those who have been brought up in an environment where they have been subjected to a lot of criticism from parents, siblings or peers can find it hardest of all. Many people lack confidence, especially those whom seem the most confident and this will also make it hard to take criticism constructively rather than defensively. A lack of self confidence can make it equally difficult to provide negative feedback to others because of a fear of offending the other party or of their rejection. Healthy assertiveness skills require the ability to be able to give and take criticism objectively, it’s not an easy thing to learn especially if we have been through a lifetime of building and reaffirming bad habits, but is something almost everyone can work on. The benefits are great, you will be able to express yourself clearly and learn from your mistakes if you are not habitually defending your own short comings. We all have them even though it’s hard to admit it.

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Four Questions About Contract Management Answered

There are some key aspects that every business—big or small—needs to succeed. Some of these are organization, tracking/monitoring systems and analytical tools. If your company has trouble in one, or all, of these categories, contract management can help. Here are some common questions about contract management and their answers, which can help you realize which management program is right for your company’s needs.

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How to Wisely Conduct Business via Text Messages

With smartphones, the lines of business communication are more open than ever. If you need to get a hold of a business contact, you can call them or email them, and it usually won’t be long before they receive your message, if they don’t get it immediately. In addition, almost everyone uses text messages on their phone, and it’s a safe bet your business contacts do, too. But does that mean you should take care of important business communication that way? It’s probably not uncommon for you to communicate via text messages. If you’re going to conduct business with texting, here are some tips to do so wisely.

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How To Wrap Up A Project

The PMI standards specify that a project is not completely finished until the close project process is completed. In the formal sense, this is the correct procedure. Unfortunately, real life projects are sometimes somewhat different. There may be unintended issues that prolong the implementation of the project. Stakeholders may insist that additional features must be delivered with the current project. These adjustments to standard project close out are generally costly, time consuming and wrong.

If you are faced with pressure from stakeholders to keep a project active when you know that it should be wrapped up, you can still salvage the situation. The final closing process should be completed. A summary document should be created. The contractors should be released from the project. If the project is over, but is being extended unnaturally, the standard close process can still be performed. The project manager has the responsibility to formally close the project. All activity or influence to extend the project can be declared to be part of either another phase of the project or of an operational exercise.

Some organizations assemble project teams and find that the level of productivity is greater than other staff groups. Such a team may find that their project is extended merely because the organization is taking advantage of the team’s ability to complete work. There may be a need for such productivity and it certainly can save the organization money. Still, such extended project work violates the original project plan. While there can be advantages gained by keeping the team together, good practice would insist that proper credit should be given to the team. This would include the ability to close out completed projects when appropriate. Future work by the team could be assigned to new projects, to operational work or even to additional phases of the first project.

Project managers should always remember the PMI standards that specify proper project lifecycles. This includes project close out. A project must end or it cannot rightly be called a project. In order to keep order in a team, there may be value in performing the close project process even if the exercise is somewhat internal to the project team. The ideal situation occurs when all stakeholders agree that a project is finished, but project managers must sometimes implement closure themselves.

What are the Main Risks in Undertaking a Project and How Can They Be Successfully Managed?

Let’s think a minute about what a project actually is. Consider a business wants to transform itself from where it is currently, to a beneficial future state. It has to be a beneficial future state, as at the ‘driving force’ of a project is its Business Case – and would a business ever change to make them worse off? Even if a business has to change to meet legislation, there is still a beneficial future state – usually expressed in terms of penalty avoidance. So, a business wants to change.

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December 10, 2011

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