Project Management
The Five Easy Pieces of a Data Project
You’ve decided that a project is worth doing. What to do next? As a non-technical executive, you want to know what you’re signing up for. As non-technical executive, you can’t care about the technical details. But you need to know…
What executives need to do for successful projects
You as the executive are key to your team’s project success. Not the technology you choose. Or the exact skills of the team. But you. I’ve worked with a lot of different executives. Here’s what successful project leaders do:
Project Leadership vs Project Management
Project management vs project leadership Most folks have an idea about what a project manager does. But maybe don’t know what a project leader is about. Project management tells you what needs to get done to make your project work….
Change projects vs maintain projects
A project can mean a lot of things. But in my world of data and software, I like to distinguish between maintain project and change projects. Change projects start with the assumption that things as they are don’t work. We can’t…
You get what you need.
“Do you really need this data?” is a useless question Because 99 times out of 100 you’ll get a yes. Even if that data was used once three years ago to answer an audit question. Or it helped satisfy a…
I’m sure you have a good reason for acting that way.
But the best reason won’t save you. You know you should test. You know you can’t overhaul your major system in two months and not expect to have problems. You know people have limits and lives that need to be…
A Rose by any other name would be confusing
Names are just names. But if you called a rose a daisy, it would confuse people. If you’re going to succeed, you need to get your terms straight. If some folks talk about available inventory and others open inventory, I…
How to avoid unnecessary projects
I like running projects. But projects are a lot of work and shouldn’t be started for the wrong reason. Not liking your current software is not a good reason. Before you go replacing your current stuff, ask yourself: When was…
Those Jeans don’t make you look fat
Do these jeans make me look fat? Can you answer yes to these 500 questions about your software? When you ask impossible questions, you share the blame you receive less than truthful answers. I’ve implemented software, sold software, bought software,…
Task order matters
Imagine you had a GPS. That gave you all the correct turns. But not in the right order. Not helpful. A lot of project management software is kind of like that GPS. Lists and list of tasks but no apparent…