“Done” « A PM's workshop

Prince2 templates – PBS – Calibrating tools

By Eugenio, on November 17th, 2009

Available templates
Product Breakdown Structure
Calibrating tools

The PMO could be a source of risk. Especially when the good willingness does not include a greater dose of humility in listening and screening what the people feel about the project.

Tackling the “scope creep”

The pure fact of having set one or more processes for checking that every effort is spent [...]

Cultural uniformity

By Eugenio, on August 27th, 2009

A slide rule

When the project involves different countries (either for production or implementation) the richness of different cultures is a huge capital that offers some challenges. Some of them are of logistical nature and could hamper communications.

Assuming the same mindset

When the project is completed within the same geographical area (city) and most of the [...]

History and Learned Lessons – different sources for Risk Management

By Eugenio, on August 20th, 2009

“Lesson Learned” provide the whole scenario. Avoiding carefully the “blame game”, people and situations shall be analyzed in view of the results, which shall be framed into the existing conditions.
Risk management needs a “scientific” approach. It has to supply reliable facts and figures highlighting the logic that produced them. These elements come from the “Learned [...]

Applying Kaizen principles to communication

By Eugenio, on August 12th, 2009

Symbols are powerful communication tools

What can “Lean Management” offer for improving communication?

It would be a pretension to present myself as a “lean” expert. My knowledge and experience on this subject is at its very beginning, after a long period of bafflement. My doubts were focused on the difficulties of translating principles conceived for the [...]

Measuring risks, finding the correct metric(s)

By Eugenio, on July 31st, 2009

Splitting time is a form of art

“What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

Mutual trust is a wonderful target, but it is a difficult standard to be maintained during all project’s time. At a lower level it is necessary to share some easy to [...]

What “done” can be defined.

By Eugenio, on July 29th, 2009

Where to cut

In my post, following a thread created by Craig Brown and developed by Glen Allen, I closed it confessing my difficult to offer a clean definition of what can be defined as “done”. In my mind there is the “Prince2” definition that sounds:

“Everything that has passed the tests based on stately accepted [...]

Milestones and risk management

By Eugenio, on July 27th, 2009

Titanic in dock

Thanks Craig. You got right about the need for frequent and more specialized controls.

By the way, originally “milestones” (in the Roman roads) were set every mile (0.91% of the Imperial mile). Every day-long leg (15-18 miles) there were structures serving both passengers (divided by categories) and animals. An interesting point was that [...]

Risk contracts in Business Case

By Eugenio, on July 23rd, 2009

Finding the right connections

In the Business Case, Risks are future occurrences that could reduce the ability to respect Costs and Timescale (and Performance).

The risks are shaped by “Options” and the resources needed for reducing their impacts should be found within the “Benefits Expected”. If the strategy for tackling a risk is based on its [...]