All Journal Entries
Milestone Controlling: Milestone Trend Analysis
The old proverb that a picture says a thousands words is also true for milestone controlling. The milestone trend analysis (MTA), a both simple and at the same time powerful tool visualizes milestones in a date grid making it possible to spot delays, trends and even to make "visual" forecasts of future milestone dates. read more
Project Leadership in a Financial Crisis?
The current financial crisis and the banking fiasco reminded me that especially in times like this, effective project leadership and controlling can make a significant difference. Let's take a look at at some of the dos and don'ts... read more
Milestone Controlling: Why, What, When and How?
In an earlier post we concluded that milestones are a very important concept in project planning. The same is of course also true for monitoring and controlling. By keeping track of your milestones you control what has been achieved and how much more time it will take to finish a certain part of your project. read more
Introducing "Resources": Report Plug-ins for Onepoint
My vacation week is nearly over, but I have not been lazy this time ;-). As you might have already discovered, there is a new area called "Resources" - so let me tell you a little bit about it... read more
Under The Hood: Improved Comments
As I am currently enjoying a short one-week vacation, I decided to improve the Task 1 website a little bit. The first thing I updated is the commenting feature; mainly, by adding a new spam-blocker... read more
Onepoint Project: Planned Activities vs. Ad Hoc Tasks
When talking to potential as well as to existing clients lately, I came across one more common misunderstanding when starting with Onepoint Project: You cannot create new planned activities in "My Tasks"; instead,... read more
Onepoint Project: Traps & Pitfalls
Even though Onepoint Project is known to be really easy to use and quick to learn, there are still some "traps & pitfalls" you can run into. Since it just happened to a potential client of mine, I thought it was time to blog about it... :-) read more
More Controlling: Standard PMI/PMBOK Terms
Let's round up the resource and cost controlling topic by taking a quick look at what standard terms the well-known PMBOK Guide defines regarding "Cost Control: Tools and Techniques" ;-). read more
Basic Project Cost Controlling
Project cost controlling is done the same way as project resource controlling. If you are working mostly with human resources, even the deviations between baseline and projection will actually be quite close to each other. read more
Checklists for the Controlling-Cycle ("Inspired" by David Allen)
The not so good thing: I am currently in bed, because I caught the flu. The good thing about this: I managed to finish David Allen's "Getting Things Done" which reminded me about the value of checklists in project controlling... read more
Project Resource Controlling: How To
In February I had too much to do with resource controlling myself in order to being able to write about it ;-). However, things are shifting back to normal (at least a little bit), so let's take a look at the basics of project resource controlling. read more
Project Controlling: Goals, Deliverables, Progress and Quality
One of my New Year's resolutions: Back to project monitoring and controlling, our main topic stream ;-). Let's start with content-wise controlling, i.e., what has been achieved and how are we progressing? read more
Impressions from the Gartner PPM-Summit
Once more slightly off topic, but I thought you might find this interesting. These are just some impressions from the Gartner Project and Portfolio Management Summit that took place two weeks ago in Prag. read more
Onepoint Project in 200 Words
At the Systems tradeshow last week I was asked by one of the visitors of our booth why I have never really blogged about Onepoint Project and, anyway, why another project management tool...? read more
Monitoring and Controlling: First Steps
After our brief detour into pecha-kucha we will take a look at the basics of monitoring and controlling. In addition, I will answer the question of a friend of mine (who was "too shy" to post a comment ;-) about the difference between monitoring and controlling. read more
pecha-kucha for Project Status Meetings?
When browsing through Wired Magazine I came across a short article about "pecha-kucha" - a kind of simple set of presentation rules originating recently from Japan: I was wondering if pucha-kucha could be used to speed up project status meetings. read more
Why Project Monitoring & Controlling?
Creating and maintaining the project plan is an important part of project leadership. However, constantly monitoring a project's "health" and regularly controlling a project's overall status is vital for ensuring the successful implementation of the project plan. read more
Wrap Up: My Way of Planning
I thought that before going on to topics such as project monitoring and controlling, let's take a brief look back at what we have covered so far. Summing up what we have learned about project planning should make it easier to "jump" into the upcoming more advanced topics. read more
Planning Project Costs
For many project managers project cost planning is some kind of "black magic". The major reason for this is probably that there are very few general rules. Instead, the personal experience of the project manager is the most valuable ingredient. read more
Milestones Revisited
People told me that they liked the article about milestones, but they would like some more examples for what milestones can be used. So I have tried to summarize some example applications for milestones including the ones suggested in Melanie's and Christian's comments. read more
About Milestones
Until recently, I thought that the concept of a milestone is basically self-explaining, but it seems that I was wrong. On two different occasions, I was told that even trained project managers sometimes cannot tell the difference between an activity and a milestone. read more
Activity Scheduling Basics
Scheduling planned activities is the "art" of concretely planning activities in the time dimension, i.e., adding concrete start and finish dates to your project plan. Today we will look at the basic dos and don'ts around activity scheduling. read more
How to Accurately Estimate Effort
One of the most controversial topics in project leadership is how to accurately estimate planned activities. The major reason for this is simple: You are dealing with human beings and not with machines. And if you didn't know it yet: Humans are not always predictable ;-). read more
Merry Christmas
I wanted to post another article before December 24, but there was simply too much going on and way too little time. Therefore, I simply wish you a Merry Christmas and happy holidays! read more
Resource Planning: The Basics
So you know what you want to achieve, you potentially also already have a simple work plan of some kind and suddenly, your boss assigns you a number of team members to your project - what now? Let's take a look at the basics on how to practically assign resources to planned activities. read more
Creating a Work Breakdown Structure
Once we know what we want to achieve (our goals), we can start thinking about how to achieve it (our work plan). In my opinion, the best way to create a work plan is to develop a work breakdown structure (WBS): It is a simple, but powerful tool helping you to keep track of your goals. read more
Starting with a Mind Map
There are many ways to start planning a project: The possibly worst way is to start with the schedule, since you will quickly get lost in details. The most organized way is a work breakdown structure (WBS), but if you are still in the conception phase, why not simply start with a mind map? read more
How to Start a Project
Successful projects need an explicit project start - some kind of kick-off meeting or workshop where you decide and communicate the project's goals, who is responsible for what, etc. If there is no "formal" project start you will see that things will get fuzzy pretty fast... read more
Is There an Ideal Team Size?
Well, though there might not be the specific magical number, it is (or at least should be) common knowledge that small project teams typically outperform larger ones: So the general rule is to keep project teams small. You especially have to be careful with your expectations when growing a team. read more
What Is A Project, Really?
This question may sound very academic - but in fact it is not: A lot of project managers seem to constantly forget about what makes a project a project with sometimes dramatic outcomes. read more
Be Willing to Make Decisions (Fast)
If there is a single thing which distinguishes a project leader from a project administrator then it is his or her ability and willingness to make decisions. It also makes sense to make decisions as fast as possible, because until a decision was made you will be traveling in a rudderless boat. read more
Introducing "task1"
This is the very first time I am writing something into my very first blog - and it feels great. I have written a number of articles (mainly in IT journals), but this feels different: It's more dynamic, it's faster, it's more to the pulse of this time. I am eager to start... :-) read more