Category: ElephantPM
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Books about “Requirements Management”
In the frothy drive to all things “agile” formal requirements management is often forgotten. Requirements management is core to the waterfall/spiral development process but is often overlooked by agile teams. I believe that requirements management is a professional discipline that should be considered on a par with software programming and test. To my mind the…
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Who cleans the toilets at Valve Corporation?
There is recently been some press coverage of Valve Corporation which famously has no bosses. As a management consultant I spent most of my working days putting in hierarchal management systems to support a company’s growth. Therefore I am very interested in Valve’s management model. Valve is a very successful company, therefore the question naturally…
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SCRUM, PRINCE2 and ElephantPM
I have received several questions recently about how agile project management methodologies such as SCRUM can be used with deliverable-centric methodologies such as PRINCE2 or ElephantPM. ElephantPM is similar to PRINCE2 but is tailored for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). Whereas ElephantPM is a generic methodology that can be used for almost any project,…
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Choosing Manual Scheduled or Autoscheduled in Microsoft Project
A Microsoft Project task has many options and I am often asked how to choose the correct ones, Task Mode can be, “Auto Scheduled” or “Manual Scheduled” and task Type can be “Fixed Work”, “Fixed Units” or “Fixed Duration”. and Auto Scheduled tasks can be Effort Driven (or not) You can display these parameters for…
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PyCon tweet proves email is not worst form of communication
I have long thought that email was the worst form of communication; primarily because it involves no real conversation, only the author giving his views to the recipient. But Adria Richards, who in her own words is a “Joan of Arc” like figure has proved me wrong. The feminist Ms Richards was offended by the…
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How to build a 100 m skyscraper in 30 days
In the past I worked in project management in the construction industry and having seen the traditional process I find the idea of modular and factory building very attractive. Here is a video from a leading Chinese exponent. It is also a really interesting example of business model design. Mr Broad made air conditioning systems…
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The future of printed books, Will Gutenburg laugh last
I am writing a book this year on the ElephantPM project management system and I am presently trying to decide whether it should be available as an eBook. This is an informative article, Will Gutenberg laugh last? It has been taken on faith by many, including your benighted scribe, that the future of book publishing…
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Add Snagit printer to your workflow
I have just found out that Snagit printer can be of great benefit to project managers. As a project manager document control is a big part of what I do. Final versions of documents are always PDFs. One common problem is combining information from different Microsoft Office applications. Although pasting from Excel to Word has…
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Accessible Software – the Consultant’s version
This my personal blog rather than my company blog. Professionally, I help organisations implement process changes, particularly in the areas of project and process management. The indulgence of a personal blog is that I can present my views in a more straightforward style however my last post drew negative comments from part of its intended…
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Lean software development: Minimum Marketable Feature and Minimum Viable Product
In an earlier post I talked about Eric Reis’ game changing book The Lean Start-up and Minimum Viable Product. This excellent blog post from Jeff Patton provides another layer of detail. [Agile] Stories must be minimal marketable features The term “minimal marketable feature” was first used in the book Software by Numbers. This book placed…
Dr James Bayley 