Disqus - Latest Comments for PM Hut

Re: Why Projects Fail

PM Hut — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:40:02 -0000

Not having a project that is used means that the project wasn't on scope, the reason of failure is not really subtle in this case, and failure is, of course, imminent. I have published a while a go an article on why projects fail, the #1 reason in this article is Executive Level Non-Support (Note that I've published a lot of articles on this particular subject, and the failure reasons are always subjective, and never the same). Read it if you have the time (it's short and interesting) and let me know what you think.

Re: FreeAgent Central gets major update

PM Hut — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:42:13 -0000

Free Agent does seem to have a product that is of benefit to Project Managers. I wonder what they're doing to market this product: I'm heavily involved in the Project Management community through my site PM Hut and I've never heard of it.

Re: Pragmatic Marketing Annual Survey - Agile: Part 1

PM Hut — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:46:52 -0000

The demographics are very realistic, I do know for a fact that there are Agile Product Managers in their late twenties out there, whether they're doing a good job or bad job is another story. Experience plays a huge role here because IMO, to be an Agile Product Manager you have to have a solid Project/Product Management experience, as it builds on it.

Re: Are agile PMs Baloney?

PM Hut — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:40:41 -0000

I love it when i read such objective posts on Agile/Scrum. If you think that the Product Manager role is trivial, then what do you think when there are 2 roles, the Product Manager and the Product Owner?

I did publish an article on the role of the product owner/product manager. What's interesting is that the author merged the 2 roles from the get-go (Btw, in case you had the chance to read the article, look at the challenges part).

Re: Getting someone to deal with the web. Don’t deal with it yourself.

PM Hut — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:35:50 -0000

A Project Manager usually handles costing/scheduling. Even in very small companies where roles are a bit foggy the Project Manager is still responsible for the scheduling.

The idea of the integrator is nice, and quite frankly this is the first time I hear about it. From what I understand, the integrator should be educated (if not proficient) about the technologies used. A Project Manager can only have a very basic overview of the technologies used.

An integrator, in my opinion and based on your post, is just another word for team leader, and not really a Project Manager.

Re: Collaborative software company Jive acquires Jotlet, gets better project management » VentureBeat

PM Hut — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:01:33 -0000

It's amazing, almost every day now I learn about a new online Project Management software. I think we're currently moving into the right direction, which is standardization.

Re: Boost Productivity with Timesheet Management Software

PM Hut — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:27:42 -0000

I remember working on a Time and Expense online software (a long time ago), the requirements were very unclear and constantly changing, and Project Management was not the greatest. Needless to say, that project never saw the light.

I do agree with the previous comment about having a comprehensive Project Management tool instead of just going with a part of it.

Re: How I Use Basecamp and Backback In Perfect Harmony

PM Hut — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:46:24 -0000

They should probably merge into one company, or else some other company will create a tool merging the functionalities of both.

I think it's more convenient for a Project Manager to use one tool instead of one.

Re: How To Eat The Elephant: Insight Into How A Complex Problem Can Be Simple.

PM Hut — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:48:52 -0000

I think the 2nd rule "Maintain an actionable list of to-do’s." says it all. Just one action list, immediately accessible, and easily updatable.

Re: Ruminations on Project Completion

PM Hut — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:36:56 -0000

"Google has found that such a structure does not facilitate a high level of productivity and innovation, and has begun to formalize itself into a more rigid version of itself."

Hi, would it be possible to give a reference on the above, I've seen videos about Google's working culture and it amazes me that they're thinking about changing it.

Re: Behance Is Project Management For Hipsters

PM Hut — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:16:59 -0000

Can't see how behance relates to Project Management...

Re: Kicking the bad habits of Software Project Management (VIDEO) - Red Canary

PM Hut — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:15:05 -0000

It's a nice video. I like the part where the developer is showing a sign that his boss (the project manager?) read that a programming language is twice as fast so he bought a copy and cut the schedule in half.

Re: One customer, one service, eight weeks

PM Hut — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 23:46:56 -0000

BT is one of the largest telecom companies in the world. It's impressive that they were able to adopt agile, at least for part of their operations. Historically, Agile is not the easiest thing to implement in traditional/waterfall organizations. I'm wondering how big are the teams involved (and I agree with the previous comment that the team's work was impressive). One of the limitations of agile is that it doesn't work well with larger teams.

Re: Lessons Learned in Communication

PM Hut — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:36:25 -0000

F2F communication is indeed the best (I have published an article about it, the join-up meeting), as for email, the potential of misunderstandings is quite high, that's why it's always good to follow up with an email. There's also the issue where email threads drag on forever. My strategy is to answer emails near the end of the day, this way I will avoid these endless (and nearly always useless) threads.

Re: love your deadlines

PM Hut — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:46:27 -0000

I love Parkinson's law, it applies to everything in life, and you see it all the time when you're a Project Manager. Give someone 2 days to finish a 2 hour task, and it will be finished in 2 days (unless, of course, s/he's new, but you're only new for a couple of months).

Re: Project Management with Trac & SVN

PM Hut — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:40:59 -0000

We avoided subversioning for a while now, and I think we're going to avoid it for the next few years. It does make sense when you're working in a huge company and there are lots of developers working simultaneously, however, for smaller companies with a few developers (like mine) it's not even worth it.

Re: How to embed twitter in your event

PM Hut — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:53:11 -0000

It's amazing to see that twitter's uses are nearly endless. It's also interesting that no real competitor is up for the challenge yet (except for one only targeted for corporate clients, and charges money for the service)...

<abbr></abbr><abbr>PM Huts last blog post..Evaluating CMMI for Quality Project Management: When is it a Good Fit?</abbr>

Re: Get things done with Moreganize

PM Hut — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:35:29 -0000

I'm actually interested in everything that is related to Project Management as I run PM Hut, so I checked both, I think that the first one, GatherGrid, is much easier (though it never sent me the invitation email). I went to Moreganize's website and I didn't know what to do, they say that registration is not required, yet I'm not able to do anything if I'm not registered. From what you've written it looks promising, but it probably should be more user friendly.

<abbr></abbr><abbr>PM Huts last blog post..How Should The Project Management Office (PMO) Be Organized/Staffed?</abbr>

Re: Why I like CitySocialising.com

PM Hut — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:40:40 -0000

This site is excellent for fast networking.

3 things:

- Site is restricted to UK, there's much more potential worldwide.
- Site design looks outdated by today's standards.
- The Interest Groups page is different than what one might expect (I expected to see something like Project Management Group, for example).

<abbr></abbr><abbr>PM Huts last blog post..The Beginning of the End: Defining Project Closure</abbr>

Re: How to treat the new guy

PM Hut — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:58:10 -0000

It's a nice article. I'm wondering though, is it really the job of the Project Manager to welcome new people?

This probably fits more as a task for the Functional Manager, unless the Project Manager is also acting as a Functional Manager (this usually happens in small companies).

Re: 10 Ways to Destroy the Effectiveness of Your Project Management Office (PMO)

PM Hut — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:28:02 -0000

This is an excellent article. I do have a distantly similar musing about the PMO: the PMO Poem.

About #6: "Discourage and eliminate contact with and between project managers." I think a lot of people can relate even more to it when it's "Discourage and eliminate contact between project managers."

<abbr>PM Hut´s last blog post..Is a Career in Project Management Right for You?</abbr>

Re: Project Management, Where Are Thou?

PM Hut — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:36:23 -0000

I have been involved myself in the Telecom industry and I can also tell you that one of the biggest time wasters was the roaming (especially in small operations, where resources are multi-tasking).

Selling Project Management to the client is an excellent idea, the whole thing is about presenting proposals professionally.

Re: Getting Back On Track: Saving Derailed Projects

PM Hut — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:49:08 -0000

Educating the client (Slide #15) is key to managing his/her expectations. IMO, when the client tries to educated the Project Manager, then the Project Manager has already lost.

Re: In Copper Project, Basecamp Has Some Competition

PM Hut — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:19:07 -0000

I believe this is not the only competition that Basecamp is facing, I remember yesterday I read a similar article about a competition from a different company. I still think that online Project Management applications have a long way to go, and I'm sure that the long term leader in this industry has not emerged yet...

Re: 2008/10/21/action-method-online/

PM Hut — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:05:13 -0000

Design is excellent, although I think that the blue/gray combination is now overused (I'm seeing it everywhere).

Now you said it best: "Web-based productivity applications and services are many", and probably they're too many these days (I follow these things as I run PM Hut and I'm telling you there's currently a lot). Again, is the market that big? and how are these companies advertising their products?

The interface is extremely sleek, and the price is very reasonable IMO.

Re: 2009/01/14/colaab/

PM Hut — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:43:59 -0000

I went to their website, clicked on Pricing and Signup, and I got this thing about installing MS SilverLight. Whatever happened to Flash or static HTML? I work in a small company right now < 50 people, and none of us have silver light installed. Most of the employees never heard of it before...

Re: 2009/01/14/colaab/

PM Hut — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:52:09 -0000

Thanks for the explanation. Maybe if more people start building applications using silver light, then more people will start to use it. I, for instance, don't have it installed.

Re: Thymer: Online Project Management Made Simple [50 FREE Invites]

PM Hut — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:27:54 -0000

The functionality of parsing tags, such as @tomorrow @2:50 @tuesday is very cool.

Re: Market7: Project Management and Collaboration for Video Creators

PM Hut — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:07:56 -0000

I wonder how viable is the business model focusing on such a small niche (Project Management for Video Creators).

Re: You Can’t Ignore Web 2.0 If Your Business Is Going to Succeed

PM Hut — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:50:07 -0000

Project Management, in particular, is benefiting a lot from the Web 2.0 collaboration tools.

Most (if not all) the online tools use a lot of the Web 2.0 features (especially ajax).

Re: Most important ingredients in a Project Management Organization (PMO)

PM Hut — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:22:41 -0000

Erik,

This is an excellent article, and I'm interested on republishing it on PM Hut under the project management office category. Please contact me through the "Contact Us" form of the PM Hut site in case you're OK with this.

Thanks for your time!

Re: Project Management 2.0 - What’s Wrong With 1.0?

PM Hut — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:08:04 -0000

I have read several interpretations of Project Management 2.0. 2 things:

- No real standard in the concept
- They all basically agree that it's about using online collaboration tools.

Maybe someone, somewhere, should really say exactly what PM 2.0 is and others will follow.

Re: Project Management 2.0 – What’s Wrong With 1.0?

PM Hut — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:08:04 -0000

Re: Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products

PM Hut — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:17:33 -0000

Thanks for the review,

Much has been sad about the benefits of Agile Project Management but almost nothing about its disadvantages (I wouldn't expect one of the founders of the concept to mention them!). In this article, Limitations of Agile, the author sheds a light on the boundaries that Agile cannot cross. I think it's worth a read for those hyped by the subject but don't have a clue on what Agile can and cannot do.

Re: Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products

PM Hut — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:18:53 -0000

Sorry the link for the article is: http://www.pmhut.com/limitations-of-agile-softw... . No idea why it's linking to your website instead...

Re: Top Online Project Management Planning Tools

PM Hut — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:39:48 -0000

Most of these tools are extremely similar in both functionality and interface. It always amazes me how many small businesses out there are tapping into the Project Management Software market.

Re: Using Social Media Tools in Project Management

PM Hut — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:22:24 -0000

Blogging as a communication tool for PM can be a bit messy. Wikis, on the other hand, are OK (I was against them at first because of some bad experience using them). Twitter is also OK, I have heard of one (can't remember the name) that is mainly dedicated at enterprises.

Re: azneita project » ACKnowledge*

PM Hut — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:32:37 -0000

I remember I had a small post discussion with someone the other day about KM and PM. That man was a professional with lots of years of experience, what he said was that Project Management is actually part of Knowledge Management. Which probably is true (some might disagree though).

Re: ACKnowledge*

PM Hut — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:32:37 -0000

Re: ACKnowledge*

PM Hut — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:32:37 -0000

Re: 5PM: Full-featured Project Management SaaS

PM Hut — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:28:06 -0000

I like the very sleek and intuitive interface a lot. I'm trying it now (the 14 day free trial). Let's see!

Re: Agile Project Management & Product Strategy - A Case Study

PM Hut — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:35:08 -0000

Hi Eric,

I like this post a lot. I'm interested in republishing it, as a series, on PM Hut ( http://www.pmhut.com ). In case you're interested, please use the "Contact Us" form on PM Hut and we'll take it from there.

Re: Big ideas vs Little ideas

PM Hut — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:51:49 -0000

That's an excellent post Eric! 2 things:

- An idea taking more than a month is not worth your time
- An idea that keeps changing (in your mind) is also not worth your time

In this time and age, there are IT projects getting finished in 2 days (in a weekend), and that's the whole process, not just the implementation phase.

<abbr></abbr><abbr>PM Hut´s last blog post is: Preventing Scope Inflation</abbr>

Re: From Project Manager to Super Hacker

PM Hut — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:23:32 -0000

I think this is a bit unfair for Project Managers. There are some really brilliant Project Managers out there.

Re: PMS

PM Hut — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:24:05 -0000

Nice cartoon.

The problem with Project Managers in general (giving them a lot of stress) is that they have responsibility with authority. Most of them have to deal with lots of politics, and team members that are usually loyal to their functional manager. A Project Manager who cannot establish his/her authority can never run projects.

Re: PMS

PM Hut — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:44:39 -0000

Sorry I meant responsibility without authority!

Re: Scrumy.com, A Not So Crummy Project Management Tool

PM Hut — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:02:39 -0000

I've tried it, it's actually quite easy, but also very basic, and probably (IMO) lacks the professional touch.

I loved the interface though, and I'm sure if they add more functionality this will be an excellent Project Management application.

Re: Need a simple (!) book on Project Management! Will this one do?

PM Hut — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:22:56 -0000

Hi Vincent,

I would like to suggest PM Hut for Project Management Articles. Excellent articles by top PMs from around the world are posted every day.

Re: What stops you from being an entrepreneur?

PM Hut — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:00:53 -0000

Or maybe the security at your job?

Probably feeling too much secure and being well treated demotivates from going on your own. I'm mainly involved with Project Management (I run PM Hut), and I always wondered how come most people are employed when they can go on contracts and earn 2-3 times more. The answer was eventually one word: Security.

Re: Bridging the Three Gaps in Project Management with Web 2.0 tools

PM Hut — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:02:54 -0000

Hi Ron,

This is an interesting subject. Can you pleas post the link?

Re: ProjectOffice - Best free project management tool

PM Hut — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:17:26 -0000

I checked it. Sleek interface and a lot of features. We do have a the moment a lot of online Project Management tools...

Re: Project Manager Tips | The Null Pointer

PM Hut — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:05:40 -0000

These really aren't tips as much as a of a sarcastic reflection of the current state of Project Management.

Re: Agility and The New CIO

PM Hut — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:39:14 -0000

I haven't heard about "Shadow IT" before, but I can definitely relate.

The snobiness of IT is something, at least IMO, unavoidable. Asking IT to do stuff and not getting what you want is something that is completely ordinary. For example, the support department opening tickets for bugs in the software, the bugs reach the IT department, and most of them are never fixed. Support people need to get their bugs fixed (it's causing more support by the day). Usually their options depend on the prominence and the authority of IT in the organization. They can either force the IT to fix the bug (weak IT authority), contract a 3rd party to fix the bug (also a weak IT authority), do nothing and wait for IT to do something about it (very strong IT authority).

The best option for IT in case its authority is not that strong is to cooperate, within reason, with all departments. Note: Even the strongest IT can turn very weak once upper management withdraws support, and it will, once the complaints from other departments become too many to overlook...