Productivity Is Not About People – Weekly Project Management Roundup

Productivity Is Not About People

This is what Luke Kanies has to say about productivity. Luke is founder of Puppet, software product that automates configuration and management of IT applications. Put simply, often we hear these days, automation is taking away lot of jobs. Puppet kind of software products are exactly what is happening behind the curtains.

Luke takes a different view about lean manufacturing when compared to software development. In lean manufacturing the input and output is precisely measured, whereas in software development (and you may want to relate it to other industries as well), it is difficult to measure the discreteness and outcome.

Let me quote following statement from his post.

Toyota showed decades ago ensuring everyone is busy all the team is a great way to lower productivity. Yeah, you read that right. Lower. If you can’t shut the factory down (thus making everyone idle), you can’t fix problems at their source, which means every car you make is broken in the same way.

Let’s look at other articles in this weekly round up.

Why Projects Fail?

We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.

Saverio Losito, in this article enlist the reasons of failure and success of IT projects based on the survey conducted in UK to identify major reasons/causes of failure of IT projects in financial sector. Based on the interviews, interactions, the criterions identified for project failure were

• missed deadlines (75%)
• exceeded budget (55%)
• poor communications (40%)
• inability to meet project requirements (37%).

Whereas the primary success criterions identified were

• meeting milestones (51%)
• maintaining the required quality levels (32%)
• meeting the budget (31%)

The top four elements identified as causes of project failure were

• Bad communications between relevant parties – 57%
• Lack of planning of scheduling, resources and activities – 39%
• No quality control – 35%
• Milestones not being met – 34%

The author has emphasised bad communication as a primary reason and delved further and listed forms of poor communication. It is interesting to read the forms of poor communication.

6 Ways One Can Have the Most Effective Project Management Office (PMO)

ZilicusPM blog post about Project Management Office (PMO), and how to make PMO most effective. Firstly this article identifies the factors that contributes toward success or failure of PMO: such as PMO goals, support of executive leadership, capable PMO lead, etc.

In order to have the most effective PMO, primary stakeholders have to answer certain questions and ensure right people. Here is the list

• Assess the exact need of & opportunities for PMO
• Getting right PMO lead to drive PMO as a sustainable activity
• Getting a long term buy-in from executives to establish PMO as a business function
• Collaborate, communicate about PMO policies, processes, benefits, trust
• Always think ahead of the curve: early warning, adoption traction
• Keep the morale high for PMO team, participating PMs & project leads

Additional readings about project management, leadership

• Case Study: What Happens When Project Team Has Dual Reporting
• Avoid These 10 Most Common Mistakes That Leads to Project Failure
• Back2Basics: Ultimate Project Management Guide: Project Planning
• 8 Reasons to Decide Whether Your Organization Needs Project Management Office
• Compare the best project management software 

Your life can be become easier with the right project management system. ZilicusPM is the right PM tool for you and your team. Get started now.

Do you know ZilicusPM project management software offers comprehensive project planning, project tracking, project collaboration capabilities such as

• Gantt Chart
• Time Tracking
• Budgeting and Cost Management
• Resource Planning and Management
• Issue Tracking
• Risk Management
• Change Management
• Meeting Management
• Stakeholder Management
• Project Portfolio Management
• Project Reporting
• Document Management to help you manage and deliver projects better?

About Zilicus

Zilicus offers the best project portfolio management tool ZilicusPM, with robust project management tools capabilities and easy ways to track project management KPI,

Know more about project portfolio management, Gantt chart, best project management tool, project management office, project management tips, project planning guide, project risk management, project scope management, effective project management, project manager guides and know more about Project Portfolio Management Software, Project Management Software Guide.