No question, the project budget is critical. Customer funding is based on it, project success is derived from how closely you manage to it, and without it you can’t perform any work on the engagement. Properly pricing the project – properly estimating the costs that go into the project – is critical for any size […]
We have our project sponsors in the customer organization who have been tasked with getting a new technology installed or process implemented or accounting system built. But this is really often just a champion – someone who has some money and/or power to get things done in the organization. A decision maker and point person. […]
Your customer is critical. And from most project managers’ perspectives, that is the person sitting across from him at the table or the one on the other end of the phone on the status call. That’s right… that is the customer. But what about the customer’s ultimate end user? Where do they fit in? When […]
You know the saying…”Ignorance is bliss.” Really? How’s that working for you? You can claim you didn’t know and if you’re right – really telling the truth – and if you’re not in a position of importance or authority then you can possibly get away with it. But usually, if you’re at the top of […]
Remember, the project customer is not necessarily our friend. But we do want them to be satisfied with our delivery of the project team them. In Part 1 of this two part series, I began discussing the first five of my ten ways to please your project customer – and basically none of these cost […]
Want to make your project customer happy? Want to guarantee they’ll be very satisfied clients throughout the engagement? Ok, you may need to ask someone else because I certainly don’t have the answer for that. If I did I’d be a millionaire several times over by now. But I can tell you that doing the […]
You’ve seen the movies…the hero is facing certain death if he doesn’t figure out which wire to cut to diffuse the bomb and save himself or the girl or whoever. In the end he always cuts the right wire – I think it’s the green one. But the thing is, he’s always taking a risk […]
In this series we’re going to begin a five-parter on some things we can do on our projects to manage smarter, not harder. There are things we do as project managers that are definitely ‘chores’. Things we wish we didn’t have to put so much effort into like today when I’m trying to get a […]
When I was a younger project manager – much younger and more naive – I foolishly thought that every customer that stepped into a project engagement was ready for the project. They knew what they wanted, had the budget in place, a team ready to work on their side, if needed, and pretty much had […]