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I’ve seen a few projects where customers said they didn’t need contingency, because they decided to adjust the budget as changes happen.
How does this sound to you?
To me, this sounds pretty bad, because there is an important distinction between adjusting the budget based on change requests and consuming...
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If projects were completely predictable, there would be no need for risk management. Everything could be planned and executed according to plan. However, we know better. Unexpected things happen, disrupt the original plans and cause time and cost overruns. In IT projects, these overruns are far too common...
Posted to
Navigate Into Success
by
Navigate Into Success
on
Thu, Apr 30 2009
Filed under:
Filed under: Project management, Risk, Risk management, Quality, Budget, Contingency, Reserve, Impact, Exposure, Probability
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Project plan. A fancy term we all like to use. But believe it or not, most of us don’t even know what a project plan really is.
I don’t know why, how and when it came to be that in IT we started using the term project plan, but whatever the origin, the term we [...] Read More...
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Take that project you are currently running, and imagine, just for a second, that it came with only 3% budget overrun. Most of people in software industry would call it wild success.
In motion picture industry, however, trampling measly 2% or 3% over initial budget would be considered a failure.
While...
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Many project management authorities assert that from project management stance all projects are equal. I dare saying that some projects are more equal than others.
In my last post, I argued why I believe software (and ERP) projects are different. But something came to my mind today, and it’s really an...
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“Software projects are no different from other projects”.
This statement is being repeated over and over at project management courses and seminars, even endorsed in books.
It’s true that software (and ERP implementation, as a subset of software) projects have many traits in common with projects in other...
Posted to
Navigate Into Success
by
Navigate Into Success
on
Mon, Apr 6 2009
Filed under:
Filed under: Implementation, ERP, Project management, PMBOK, Risk, Success, Time, Cost, Scope, Contingency, Schedule
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Prescriptive methodologies, such as Sure Step, are double-edged swords. They are aimed at increasing repeatability, consistency, traceability, manageability and more of your projects, yet they seemingly increase overhead and contribute to an inflated project price tag.
As a result, companies sometimes...
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According to Standish Group, top causes of failed IT project are these: lack of end-user engagement,
unclear specification,
changes in scope,
lack of management support,
lack of planning,
unrealistic and unclear goals. I haven’t seen too many failed Microsoft Dynamics NAV implementation projects, but...
Posted to
Navigate Into Success
by
Navigate Into Success
on
Thu, Feb 26 2009
Filed under:
Filed under: Implementation, Best practices, Project management, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Risk, Success, Failure, Project scope, Project, Planning, Standish Group
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Last week I participated in a discussion about budgets and whether you should ask your potential customers their budget. It made me think: how often do customers reveal their project budgets before the consultants bid?
From my personal experience—not too often. What a waste! Of time, money, and opportunity...
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(A short, almost pointless rant about PMBOK vs. Sure Step nonsense) Once, while preparing an important RFP response, a partner told me they don’t use Sure Step because they use PMI methodology. This made my toenails curl up—when people tell me they are using PMI methodology, they in fact tell me they...
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In August 2006 after I just started in my job at ISS I wrote about my worries about Finding the right model for our global Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution. Since then 2.5 years has gone by, so I thought it was on time to write a little about what has happened since then. One Global Database The model...
Posted to
DynamicsUser.net : Erik's Blog about Dynamics
by
Erik P. Ernst
on
Mon, Jan 5 2009
Filed under:
Filed under: infrastructure, Citrix, Thailand, global database, global core, ISS, Dynamics NAV, Philippines, Reporting Services, Mexico, India, Taiwan, NAV 4.0 SP3, BI, NAV 5.0, Project Management, International Projects, Implementation Methodology, Multi-Site, Polan, Japan
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First a Happy New Year 2009 to all the readers and members. 2008 has been a year of big surprises. Who would have thougth that a world wide financial crisis would hit when the year started out? Who believed that a the citizens of the USA would have elected their first black president? And who believed...
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(A short rant about eye-contact-based specifications.) In short, there is no such things as an eye-contact-based specification. And for a reason.
While kicking-off of a project, we had a discussion with the customer about the change management approach, and specification detail. I was insisting on documenting...
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I've just read this Blog Entry http://navpm.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!1094F6BBCB23D134!193.entry written by Selena B. Jensen from Microsoft, who is the Product Manager for Dynamics NAV's Job Module. It's a very interesting article, which is actually based on a meeting she had with me and some...