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IT-Business Articles, Tutorials & Webcasts
Project Management
Project
Maps Minimize Risk
As technology's role in business operations increases,
careful management of IT projects becomes more critical.
Risk management is key. At InformationWeek.com
Writing
Effective Project Proposals
At some time, every manager is told to prepare a proposal
for a major new IT project or initiative. First time
proposal writers wrestle with the same questions: How do I
get started? How should it be organized? What should be in
it? Through helpful tips, and suggestions, this tutorial
will answer these questions and more. From Resource
Management Systems, Inc.
Project
Managers Learn Value Of Business Skills
As the scope of IT projects increases to include an
organization's partners and suppliers, IT project managers
are learning that business skills are essential. This
article discusses why one research organization predicts
that PMs business skills could be more important than
technical skills by 2002. From InformationWeek Magazine
Study:
Many Major IT Projects Still Fail
Even though IT leaders have greatly improved the level of
strategic value they add to a company, three out of every 10
major IT projects still fail, according to a new study. At EarthWeb.com
Better
IT Project Management: Get Smart
To build better IT projects, start by building a better
project manager. At CFO.com
When
Bad Things Happen to Good Projects
HP's project managers knew what could go wrong with their
ERP rollout. They just didn't plan for so much of it to
happen at once. Sidebar: Three Steps To A Business
Contingency Plan. At CIO.com
Project
Health ? Should We Keep on Investing?
Overall, failure is more prevalent in IT projects than
success. Although hidden from the public, failure rates of
70 to 80 percent are not unusual. Giga Information Group,
for example, reports that successful (on time, on budget)
projects amount to only 28 percent. At DMReview.com
Case
Study: PM Success Takes More Than Software
Bell Helicopter had the project management software, but
what it really needed was a consistent, companywide strategy
for planning, implementing and measuring the progress of IT
projects. At CIOUpdate.com
Project
Triage
Rapid growth forced the Visiting Nurse Service of New York
to develop a customized value methodology that has helped
bring projects and goals into focus. At CIO.com
Stop
Something
It's a lot harder to stop a project than to start one. But
for the sake of your employees and your business, maybe
that's what you should think about doing. Due to lack of
resources, many managers and employees in companies are
grossly overloaded and can't possibly finish every project
or program that has been started. At DarwinMag.com
IT
Project Planning: Adult Supervision Required
Too many companies investing a lot of money on IT
initiatives that don't meet the minimum daily requirement
for common sense. It's not that the ideas are bad—in fact,
most of them aren't. But they are not well thought out. Why
is it so important to quantify the payback of IT projects.
From CIO Magazine
Juggling
for Dollars
The importance of project plans and proposals linked to
resource requirements, implementation of a project
management approach, and related issues. From CIO Magazine
Post-Mortems
Key to Successful Future Projects
Whether it's called close-out, an after-action report, or a
post-mortem, what you do after a project is complete is
paramount to the success of all projects down the road. At CIOUpdate.com
Don't
Stop Thinking About the Value
CIOs know that project implementation success rates are
woefully low. So once a project comes in on time and under
budget, CIOs think they've won the battle and can move on.
Wrong. Here are some strategies for wresting value from
systems long after they've gone live. At CIO.com
Sizing
Up The Integrators
Survey results: "Do IT managers who line up products,
services, or consulting engagements want to work with the
biggest and best-known systems integrators--or do they
prefer more 'average'-size companies?" From
InformationWeek Magazine
Anatomy
of a Failure
The inside story of a fattaly flawed data warehouse project
-- lessons learned. From CIO Magazine
Get
Your IT Project Funded - 5 Steps to Improve the Odds
Developing project justifications on very short notice is no
easy task; yet, many IT professionals find themselves
needing to do just that. Getting the funding you need to
carry out important work means submitting proposals that
contain the key information decision-makers need and want.
This five-step approach will help you complete effective
justifications under even severe time constraints--the
calling card of a professional. From Resource Management
Systems, Inc.
Tough
Decisions
IT project selection has many pitfalls. Get it wrong and
your IT portfolio can become a nightmare. Here are some
warning signs and solutions to help you improve your
process. At CIO.com
No
Time For Quality Trade-Offs
As business shifts to Internet time, top executives are
pressuring their application development teams to build big,
top-notch systems faster. They don't have that trade-off
between time and quality anymore. Today's paradox is: How do
you build software faster and make it higher quality at the
same time? From InformationWeek Magazine
The
Anatomy of a Design Document, Part 1: Documentation
Guidelines for the Concept and Proposal
The purpose of design documentation is to express the vision
for an application, describe the contents, and present a
plan for implementation. Although discussed in terms of game
design, the concepts and techniques are useful for any
application. A good primer! From Gamasutra
The
Anatomy of a Design Document, Part 2: Documentation
Guidelines for the Functional and Technical Specifications
Did you ever look at one of those huge design documents that
barely fit into a four-inch thick, three-ring binder? You
assume that by its page count that it must be good. Well,
having read some of those design volumes from cover to
cover, I can tell you that size does not matter. They are
often so full of ambiguous and vague fluff that it was
difficult finding the pertinent information. So why does
this happen? The second installment in this useful series.
From Gamasutra
PMO Spelled S.O.S.
With hundreds-of-thousands of lines of "spaghetti
code" to go through and no leadership, process and
policies on how to make changes, this company's developers
were simply spinning their wheels. To make matter worse,
there were no formal guidelines, policies or procedures
within the company to direct its self-taught team of
developers through the myriad of changes needed to fix the
problem. That is when the IT organization decided to set up
a PMO (Program Management Office). .At CIOUpdate.com
Getting
a PMO Out of the Gate
Setting up a program or project management office (PMO) to
oversee company-wide IT initiatives can be a daunting task,
especially when no formal processes currently exist beyond
the individual project manager level. Here's a few tips on
how to make that happen. At CIOUpdate.com
Petite
Portfolio: Managing Small Projects Requires a Careful
Balance of Rigor and Flexibility
Project management experts will tell you that IT departments
are doing a better job than they used to in delivering big
projects on time and within budget. But shift the discussion
to smaller projects -- those valued at $250,000 or less --
and their confidence starts to dwindle. At ComputerWorld.com