Effective Project Management in Easy Steps

This week on Project Management Paradise, Johnny Beirne speaks with John Carroll about “Effective Project Management in Easy Steps”.

Overview

John has written 11 books on topics including Project Management, Program and Portfolio Management, Time Management, and The Agile Methodology.

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Excerpts from Episode 5 – Effective Project Management in Easy Steps

One of the most important lessons learned over the years is that we should not focus on the ‘methodology’ but focus on actually running the project. The methodology should just provide the backdrop. The second lesson is to ensure a good ‘Project Sponsor’ who is sufficiently senior in the organisation and is therefore able to fix problems for you.

It is expected that not only IT projects but more generic projects will move from the old ‘Waterfall Technology’ to ‘Agile Platform in the future. The reason being that when using ‘Waterfall’ the Project Manager receives a requirement sheet off which you develop the project and when you deliver the completed project to the customer – it might not be what s/he expected owing to some misunderstanding. The beauty of ‘Agile’ on the other hand is that you can develop it piece by piece and get feedback in stages – which then can be enhanced and polished. ‘Agile’ also benefits from the 80/20 principle wherein 80% of the benefits come from the first 20% of the work. It is possible to review after the first 20% is done what more actually needs to be done to achieve the Project objectives.

Show Notes

Connect with John on LinkedIn.

Further Insights

Learn more about Cora Systems PPM Tool here.

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