Problems on the internet

In the last few days a message headed "WASHINGTON (AP) — For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections this summer" has been doing the rounds.

Go with the flow or fight the change?

In praise of scribes

Johannes Gutenberg's printing press was first used around 1440 AD.

Gutenberg's press

What Makes 100%? (A bit of fun)

What does it mean to give more than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%?

Project and Programme Management #10: Resources and Levelling

The first thing to say about this topic is that it is one of the most difficult parts of project planning because often the information you need is hard to obtain.

Project and Programme Management #09: Activity Network

Last time I described how to create a product breakdown structure. The next thing to do is to define how the products are linked together using an activity network.

Project and Programme Management #08: Product Breakdown Structure

So far in looking at the Business Case I have covered the why and who – let’s move on to look at the what and when.

Project and Programme Management #07: Project Board and Team

In my last article I looked at stakeholder analysis as a means of identifying the key people that you need to communicate with in your project: part of the “who” in a business case. The business case also needs to consider a more detail a subset of the “who”: those responsible for actually doing the project work. This splits into two groups: those responsible for the decision-making and those responsible for delivering the project’s products or outputs. If you use a formal project management methodology like PRINCE2, the former will be the project board and the latter the project team. The project manager forms a bridge between them.

Project and Programme Management #06: Stakeholders

My last article covered the justification section of the business case: the “why”. This article moves on to look at the “who” and introduces stakeholder management.

Project and Programme Management #05: Justification

If you have read the previous posts in this project management series, you’ll know that the starting point for a business case is some kind of assessment of the complexity of your project. Not only does this give you an idea of how detailed your business case must be, but it provides some of the information that you can use and expand upon in your business case.

Project and Programme Management #04: Project assessment

When you are preparing to write a business case, you need to have some idea of the size and complexity of your project, to give you a guide as to how much work needs to go into the business case (and subsequent project management). One or two pages may be sufficient for a “new garden shed”, but a lot more detail and analysis is needed for “a new office building”.