Archive for category project management
Top Professional Services Management Challenges – Part 1
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in IT Management, Management, Professional Services Automation, project management, workforce management on September 3rd, 2010
We discussed this topic in a meeting I had with a few senior people from various high tech companies. It was good to exchanges notes and see that many mid-sized high tech/software companies have experienced similar challenges with their service teams.
Please share your experiences with the management of your professional services teams. I will collect your feedback and report back to everyone with some comments and recomemndations in a part 2 of this post.
You can read the entire article at this PSVillage link.
How successful companies speak and think has not really changed
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in Current Affairs, Globalization, The Global Economy, project management on May 6th, 2010
It is easy to spot them, the companies that have started their decent. If you hear words like:
- We are still recovering from the recession; we cannot invest
- We only want to do the basics; we cannot afford to do more
- Our management team is cutting all costs; everything non-essential has to go
…
On the other hand, with companies on the rise you hear words like:
- We want to substantially increase productivity, we are ready to make the investment, what does it take?
- The basics are not enough. We want to do more. We want the most advanced tools so we can compete more effectively
- We want to leverage our existing investments but our management team is looking to invest in game changers
- What are some best practices you recommend?
Companies that take risks, make investments in good or bad times and stick with them all the way, and empower their employees to think about, find and implement game changers win. Those who start “restructuring”, “right-sizing”, “focusing on essentials only” “leave projects unfinished” don’t do very well.
Hundreds of prospects and customers later. The pattern is undeniable.
Why Generational Profiling Is Bad Management
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in Generational Trends, Globalization, project management, workforce management on May 5th, 2010
Here is an interesting perspective on the Generation X, Y and Z at work talk we have all heard lately. Some excerpts:
Would you characterize your employees by gender, age, race, religion, or in any other way when it comes to managing them and enabling them to be successful at their jobs? Of course not. And I’m not talking about verbally or publicly. I’m talking about when you sit down to do their review, determine their raise, have a one-on-one, or interview them, would you take any of that stuff into account? Again, of course not.
You know why? Because there are at least a dozen more important and relevant factors, like job performance, experience, knowledge, team work, etc. The only profiling I’m aware of in the real business world has to do with multinational companies managing workforces in other countries where employment law, compensation, and culture are different. To me, that makes sense.
But profiling groups by generation is ridiculous, no matter what the management researchers and gurus say. Not to mention that it’s dehumanizing.
I somewhat agree with Steve Tobak’s observations in that some of this generation talk is overblown and its importance exaggerated. However, from our own experience at Tenrox younger generations have very different expectations. When it comes to recognition, rewards, raises and bonuses, of course you look at job performance, experience, knowledge and other such factors to determine what is appropriate. But everyone does not feel appreciated or get motivated the same way. For some, an equivalent valued gift, a few extra days off, a paid vacation works better than a cash bonus or a raise. We try to take such things into account when communicating with or rewarding our team members; and yes, the employee’s generation plays an important role in how we approach such discussions.
Gartner Highlights Key Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 2010 and Beyond
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in Automation and Collaboration, Cloud computing, Current Affairs, Enterprise Software, IT Management, project management, software as a service on January 21st, 2010
Here are Gartner’s predictions for the coming years in IT:
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1278413
The most interesting one is “By 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets”. The argument they make is that essentially more and more organizations will use cloud computing and refrain from buying their own equipment. Also, more and more users will access corporate data using personal mobile communications and their own laptops. In other words the company will own and control less hardware; the equipment will all be owned and managed by third parties.
This is a surprising and rather aggressive prediction. I agree with the trend and I can see a future in which IT departments focus a lot more on strategic initiatives rather than managing now commoditized IT equipment and infrastructure. Cloud computing is radically transforming the IT function and will have a major unquestionable impact on IT budgets and how IT is perceived within the organization. But 2012 is awfully close. I do not think the transformation will occur so quickly.
The Laws of Simplicity
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in Automation and Collaboration, Enterprise Software, project management, project management software, project workforce management on January 20th, 2010
In these prior blog posts:
Occam’s Principle Applied to IT Investments
I outlined how Occam’s Razor principle could apply to product design and IT investments. I recently stumbled on to the writings of John Maeda who has authored a book on the laws of simplicity. A summary of the laws can be found here:
http://lawsofsimplicity.com/category/keys?order=ASC
A review of the laws is a good refresher for anyone in charge of project management, new product development and software design. The last law states: Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful. This is actually Occam’s principle which I described and provided some examples for in the above mentioned posts. In fact as John Maeda mentions in his book and on his website Occam’s principle is really an encapsulation of the first nine laws.
Interview with Microsoft Project’s Seth Patton
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in Enterprise Software, project management, project management software, project workforce management on December 9th, 2009
Here is an interesting interview with a marketing director at Microsoft Project regarding their product roadmap and strategy.
http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/500/interview-with-microsoft%E2%80%99s-seth-patton/
I guess Seth has not kept up to date with technology trends all that much. If Microsoft’s strategy is to try and drive out independent software vendors (ISV) they are not going to do all that well with their customers or partners. With Software as a Service and cloud computing, best of breed is a clear hands down winner in this market. Just look at the huge success stories of salesforce.com, RightNow, Taleo, and Success Factors all of which are SaaS offerings; there are so many more SaaS and cloud winners out there. I think Microsoft is better off focusing on strengthening its ISV partnership base instead of alienating them with this kind of thinking and interviews. This is not forward thinking.
Here is another interesting exchange in the interview:
While PPM products, Microsoft’s included, contain many of the functions needed by professional services firms, they are still some key functions not available within Project just yet. These include: client billing; dedicated time entry for vendor, client, contractors, etc.; two-way interfaces with payroll systems; proposal tools; and, more. Nonetheless, Seth reminded me that thousands of Microsoft partners are service firms as well as users of Project in client work.
This sounds a lot like the old we have it all ERP type of talk. Well then I guess customers should wait another 10 years for Microsoft to develop these and other capabilities. Or customize the heck out of Microsoft Project to fulfill the gaps they perceive in the solution and to get what they need like these other companies he mentions have.
I still remember the first time I read a brochure from one of these large vendors. The brochure said they do everything under the sun. I got the same impression with virtually every release of Microsoft Project. To this day, all of these products have only fallen behind more, become more bloated, more complicated, and more out of touch with what customers really need.
A Sincere Apology
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in Good Books and Articles, Human Resources for Project Managers, project management, project workforce management, workforce management on November 30th, 2009
In the fifteen years I have been with Tenrox I have seen two kinds of people managing businesses and running projects:
- Type 1: A person who apologizes for his or her own mistakes and accepts the mistakes of others
- Type 0: One who never says sorry, denies everything
Like most companies we have both types of people at Tenrox. Thankfully we have more type ones than zeros. Recently, there has been a huge surge in customer activity and we need everyone at Tenrox to be at the top of their game these days to try and serve every single one of our users.
A few days ago I had to talk to a type 0 project manager regarding some of the issues we have with his performance, the projects he manages, his overall approach to the challenges we have, and how important he is given the current resource crunch.
As usual, his automatic patterns kicked in. I got the “It is just your impression”, “but you don’t understand”, “no this is not true”, “you are wrong” … types of responses. This is a hard working person with good intentions and reasonable abilities. Unfortunately, his inability to take responsibility for any mistakes, wholeheartedly apologize for them, and his constant slippery denials virtually guarantee that he will always be nothing more than a second rate mediocre consultant or project manager, at best.
I sometimes call myself the Chief Mistake Officer at Tenrox followed by a list of my personal and professional mistakes just in the last twelve months to try and convey how important it is for everyone to take chances, innovate and get out of their comfort zone … but none of that is any good if we don’t have the capacity to sincerely apologize and to accept our mistakes.
Here is a very nice article on the power of apology: http://ccr.byu.edu/content/power-apology.
I hope more of our team members adopt this mindset.
Scrum Project Management
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in Automation and Collaboration, project management on September 24th, 2009
Here is an amazingly good video that describes the Scrum development methodology in less than ten minutes. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get a quick and effective introduction to a new and now proven project management and software development methodology. We have started to use scrum in some of our R&D projects. We decided to use Agile/scrum to develop two new product modules that require a highly iterative creative approach. We continue to use traditional PMBOK type project management for feature enhancements and core product development. After some debate we concluded it is better to initially apply Scrum to “blue sky” type R&D projects. What we learn from these new projects can then be applied to our feature enhancement and core product development efforts. I will be able to share our experiences regarding these new methodologies in about six months when we are closer to the end of these pilot projects.
The 2009 Chaos Report – Is Project Success Really that Rare?
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in Enterprise Software, Good Books and Articles, Project-Based Solutions, project management on August 10th, 2009
The Standish Group released its widely quoted report (available for purchase here) on project success in April 2009. The latest report is based on a survey of more than 300 organizations and 30 interviews. A summary of the findings is shown in the figure below.
The news is not very positive. According to this report the number of IT projects that failed has actually increased since 2006, successful projects are also alarmingly harder to find. Here is a far smaller and less official survey on software project success rates.
From our own experience and all the anecdotal evidence I have gathered projects are often late and over budget but they are mostly successful. In my opinion the Standish Group’s survey is overly pessimistic on the success rate of IT projects. I find nothing on the Internet that explains Standish Group’s survey approach or confirms these findings. It would be better if they provided more details as to how they assess project success and how they can backup their claim of a negative trend in worldwide IT project performance.
The report did not highlight any new reasons for the higher project failure rates. There are many more capable and highly qualified project managers today than in 2006, there are better tools, an abundance of easily accessible information on project management lifecycles and methodologies, and better collaboration between all project contributors/stakeholders. I simply cannot see how the end results can be this bad.
Unlocking the cloud
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in Enterprise Software, project management, project workforce management on June 16th, 2009
Here is an interesting perspective on cloud computing from the Economist. The article contends that customers subscribing to an on-demand service should be wary of data ownership and the data migration difficulties they will face when moving their data from one SaaS (software as a service) vendor to another. The author positions open source as a liberating technology and sees cloud computing as new attempt by software vendors to lock-in customers.
This is the first time I ever heard anyone argue against cloud computing. To tout on-premise open source systems as liberating technologies and to call SaaS and cloud computing as a step back is simply out of touch with what is occurring in the marketplace. At the heart of its argument against cloud computing is the lack of standards for moving data from one service provider to another. However, the same can be said for migrating data from one on-premise solution to another, whether open-source or not. For example, have you ever tried moving data from an Oracle application into a Microsoft or SAP application? No common standards exist today that would automate the migration of any form of enterprise data from one solution provider to another.
However, the process of importing data has become a relatively painless, inexpensive and a low risk activity for most forms of data. Data in most modern enterprise applications (on-premise or on-demand) is represented in XML or can easily be exported to XML, now a ubiquitous standard for data representation and data exchange. Using XML, just about every cloud service provider (and even legacy application providers) have the tools and the expertise to migrate data from the customer’s current formats and systems. There may of course be some minor challenges to overcome and the migration may require investment in a few days of consulting services but I do not at all see how data migration results in vendor lock-in.
One thing that customers need to make sure of is data ownership. Tenrox project management software and workforce management customers own their data, whether they are on-demand or on-premise. This assures our customers that they are totally free to move to another service provider.
Cloud computing has tremendous benefits for the customer. The service provider takes care of all the details of software maintenance, bug fixing, data backups, 24/7 availability, 99.9% up time, data security audits and certifications, bandwidth, worldwide access, and much more. This frees internal IT to spend time on more strategic work such as IT project portfolio and resource optimizations, data analysis, portal/report development, and activities that are directly related to the company’s core business.
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