Tag: ElephantPM
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How to manage work
This article was written in response to a question from a 3rd year Computer Science student and it uses terms familiar to that domain. However the principles it puts forward are generally applicable and should be useful to any reader. What is “work”? “Work” is a verb, it doing something to create a Deliverable and it…
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How to write a report
I am a management consultant and an important part of my work is writing reports. There are different types of reports but mostly I follow a common process. My target audience for this post is university undergraduates but I hope that others find it useful as well. This the ElephantPM report writing process. Get Organised…
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How to be Productive (part 1): The Action Book
Productivity is not everything but in the long run it is almost everything Paul Kruger In the long run your success at work will be determined by your productivity. Productive people make more stuff, sell more things, impress more people and do better. So how do you become more productive? This series of articles, sponsored…
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Why is it often more difficult to manage a small project than a large one?
Ian Mitchell asks on Linkedin. I have spent the last 20 years a freelance consultant managing small hi-tech projects in large and small organisations. Examples include, satellite communications systems and integration of mail campaigns with data warehouses. Characteristics of small projects, the project manager is assigned 1 – 2 days/week people in your team will frequently also…
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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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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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Leaner Ries’ Pieces and Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
Last night I went to TechHub to see Eric Ries coach 4 start-ups in lean start-up thinking. Eric (32) is a brilliant and inspirational speaker. He had his own successful start-up and then spent a lot of time thinking about why it was successful and following a scientific process of hypothesis – experiment – measurement…
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ElephantPM and lean project management
My core customers are SMEs who are facing organisational challenges arising from growth. One of the challenges that I face is that many SMEs regard project managers in the same way they do dentists – a necessary expense to be incurred when the pain is too great. This makes for difficulties because project management is…
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When would you use PRINCE2?
PRINCE2 is a heavy methodology and may not be suitable for all projects. What do you think?
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How do you eat an elephant?
Project Management in general is a solved problem; the big project management methodologies PRINCE2 and PMBOK contain all the processes necessary to run a project and the best practices to keep everything running smoothly. They can be used to build everything from a nuclear submarine to a banking system. I will refer to PRINCE2 from…
Dr James Bayley 