Author: Linky

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How to Prevent Project Failure with Pre-Mortems

By Bruce Harpham

Project failure is a constant threat. When a project fails on scope, quality or timeliness, the credibility of the project manager is threatened. Delivering the project is the acid test of project manager success. That means we need to understand how to prevent project failure.

project pre-mortemThis article is about one strategy you can use to prevent project failure, pre-mortems. Using the pre-mortem approach is a positive way to harness skepticism and negativity in the work place. Rather than silently enduring complaints from project members, the pre-mortem brings concerns into the open. The pre-mortem also creates a safe space to share project opinions.

Trust is a critical component to a successful pre-mortem session. If your project team has had negative experiences in the past, that fact needs to be taken into account.

The project manager sets the tone for the session. At the beginning of the session, say that challenging ideas are welcome. Otherwise, critical threats to the project’s success may never be discussed. With that context, let’s discuss how to run an effective pre-mortem session.

Run a Pre-Mortem Meeting in Five Steps

Follow these five steps to run your pre-mortem session. If you are new to the process, be patient with yourself. Implementing a new idea can feel uncomfortable at first.

Note that the pre-mortem is designed to be used in the early stages of a project. Applying this practice late in the game is akin to providing a vaccine to a terminal patient: timing matters!

#1 Provide the Project Plan

In order to provide meaningful feedback, your project team and stakeholders need background. Whether you have a fully developed project charter or a short PowerPoint deck, share what you have with the team. For the best results, provide the project document to the team a few days before the pre-mortem meeting.

Tip: For purposes of the pre-mortem, it’s better to keep the project plan brief.

#2 Introduce the Pre-Mortem

In an effective pre-mortem session, each person contributes ONE idea. By asking each person to focus on a single idea, they will be forced to prioritize the most significant challenge to the project. I recommend giving five to ten minutes to consider the question and make a few notes.

Tip: If your team has good experience with brainstorming, then you can build on that point. Pre-mortems and brainstorming both rely on openness to new and challenging ideas.

#3 Record Project Failure Factors

Go around the table and ask each person to share their project failure factors. During the listening stage, focus on listening to the comments. There will be plenty of time to evaluate the comments later. The only reason to make comments during this step is clarify how the failure factor works.

Focus the discussion on major problems that could destroy the project’s chances for success. Here are some examples to consider:

  • Vendor Failure – A vendor fails to keep their commitment to deliver software by an agreed date.
  • Project Sponsor Behavior -The project sponsor departs the firm to retire or take a role at a competitor.
  • Lack of Feedback Failure -Employees refuse to provide useful feedback during testing because they fear process improvement will cut employment.

Tip: Appoint one person to serve as the scribe. Their role is to capture all of the ideas and send out minutes after the meeting. Appointing one person to this task signals the importance of the pre-mortem.

#4 Evaluate Failure Factors

Following the pre-mortem meeting, start the evaluation process. Use two evaluation criteria to measure the failure factors.

Let’s use the example of a delayed delivery from a vendor as an example.

Likelihood: XYZ Vendor has delivered 18 of the past 20 software projects on time. The likelihood of late delivery on the current project is low.

Impact: Failure to receive the software package from XYZ Vendor would cause the project to miss the delivery deadline. The impact rating is high.

Assessment: One of the two criteria is rated as high so this problem requires further attention.

#5 Escalate Most Critical Problems to Project Sponsors

From time to time, it makes sense to seek assistance from the project sponsor. For large contracts with vendors, your sponsor may be the accountable executive for the vendor.

In any case, schedule a short meeting with the project sponsor to discuss the greatest threats to the project. Bring at least two possible solutions to the meeting so the executive has ideas to consider.

About the Author: Bruce Harpham writes on project management training at Project Management Hacks. His professional experience includes leading cost reduction projects at financial institutions. He earned a Master of Information Studies degree at the University of Toronto.

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Agile Project Management Certification

The purpose of this article is to look into what PMI-ACP means and to provide you with information outlining the exam requirements, the exam content, and what you need to do to maintain your PMI-ACP certificate once you pass the exam.

What does PMI-ACP stand for?

PMI-ACP-ExamPMI-ACP is the PMI® certification that “recognizes an individual’s expertise in using agile practices in their projects, while demonstrating their increased professional versatility through agile tools and techniques”. (Project Management Institute).

In other words, once you pass the PMI-ACP, you are then considered a PMI Agile Certified Practitioner.  Passing the PMI-ACP Exam indicates to employers and others both inside and outside the Agile Community that you have demonstrated  experience working on Agile projects, and knowledge of Agile practices, principles, tools, and techniques.

Secondly, how can you be sure if taking the PMI-ACP Exam is the right step for you? First you need to have the desire to become a PMI-ACP. Next you need to verify that you meet the PMI-ACP certification requirements in four areas:

  • educational background,
  • general project experience,
  • Agile project experience,
  • training in Agile practices.

Certification Requirements

For educational background you need to have a secondary degree (high school diploma, associate’s degree or global equivalent).

In the area of general project experience you need at least 2,000 hours (12 months) of general project experience within the past five years. In the area of Agile project experience you need to have at least 1,500 hours (8 months) of experience working on project teams that specifically used Agile methodologies within the past three years. Keep in mind that you cannot count the same hours or projects towards general project experience that you do for Agile project experience.

Finally, in the area of training in Agile practices you need to have at least 21 Contact Hours. A Contact Hour is considered one hour of formal education, in this case formal education in Agile practices.

Once you have all of your general project and Agile project hours documented, and you have obtained your 21 contact hours, you are then ready to start your application to sit for the PMI-ACP Exam. You can complete the application online at www.pmi.org, or download a PDF copy of the application, fill it out and then submit it by mail. If you select to apply online you will have 90 days to complete the application. If you have already earned your PMP® or PgMP® credential then PMI has already verified you have fulfilled the 2000 hours of general project experience requirements to take the PMI-ACP® Exam, and this requirement will be waived.

PMI-ACP Exam

Now that you know what PMI-ACP stands for and what the requirements are to take the exam, what should you expect when it comes to the exam? The PMI-ACP Exam consists of 120 multiple choice questions that need to be answered within three hours. There are two areas of questions on the PMI-ACP® Exam. Half of the exam questions cover Agile tools and techniques, and the other half cover Agile knowledge and skills. Additional information on what is specifically covered on the PMI-ACP Exam can be found in the most current copy of PMI-ACP® Examination Content Outline. An excellent resource for studying toward the PMI-ACP Exam is the Agile Prepcast.

Once you take and pass the PMI-ACP Exam, you will need to focus on maintaining your certification. This is accomplished by obtaining at least 30 professional development units (PDUs) during your certification cycle, which is three years and starts the day you pass the PMI-ACP Exam.

A PDU is earned for each hour spent conducting activities in one of two divisions; education or giving back to the profession. You can earn all 30 PDUs with educational activities, but are limited to 20 PDUs per cycle for the giving back to the profession category. All activities in either category must be within the specialized area of Agile project activities in order to be counted towards maintaining your PMI-ACP certification. If you are already a certified PMP® or PgMP® you can claim Agile project activity PDUs toward maintaining your PMP or PgMP credential. So you still only need to earn 60 PDUs in total in three years, not 90. And remember that all PDU hours you earn towards your PMI-ACP certification must be in the area of Agile project activities.

Obtaining your PMI-ACP certificate demonstrates to others your knowledge of Agile practices, tools, and techniques. Make sure you understand PMI’s most current requirements to qualify to sit for the exam prior to starting the exam application process.

Linky

Project Manager – How to Integrate Social Media with your Projects

When considering social media for use as a communication tool on projects, there are many things to think about:

  • the purpose of using social media to manage projects
  • the benefits of adopting social media on projects
  • best practices when integrating social media with projects
  • privacy and security concerns
  • which social media channels to select
  • challenges in the workplace

Project Management SocialThis can be quite over-whelming. The purpose of this article, is to answer some questions about social media for project managers and to direct you to good resources for more information, education and implementation.

A fellow project management blogger, Tony Adams, summarised it very well when he said:

“social media is about investing the time and energy into developing long-lasting, personal relationships with your network.”

This applies whether we want to position ourselves as Thought Leaders or to connect with our project teams and stakeholders.

Let’s look at the questions that people need answers to before they will consider social media for projects.

How do you manage the information overload?

Too many communication tools can result in more interruptions and therefore more distractions, so you need to think about how to manage the various streams of information that social media tools open up to you in order to avoid information overload. It is a matter of trusting your team members and not having to monitor all conversations that are going on.

When it comes to instant messaging, you can store the output from chats. Your IM tool may have settings that sends the chat to you as an email after the session ends, so check if this is turned on and use it if it is available. These can then become project documents and can be stored and archived in the same way as meeting minutes.

Then there’s the matter of email (present on all projects) and then adding more social media channels on top of that. Consider using social media channels as pull communication where teams need to visit the project site in order to find and share project information that would benefit all. And publish the messages that are discussed on the social site, because people often need to hear/see the same thing several times before they believe it; so using several channels to repeat the same (consistent) message is appropriate. Don’t create confusion by saying different things on different channels.

What about the security implication concerns that many companies have?

Most people have smartphones with internet access and they can access social media whether the company allows it or not. It is better for a company to monitor and control access through policies and education by training them about the purpose of using selected social media channels.

Manage security by using tools that you can host in-house behind your firewall so they are not available to external audiences e.g. Yammer, Wikis. Also use tools that enable you to export your data when you need to or when the project is over.

However, if you cannot address security concerns adequately, don’t use social media tools if it doesn’t make sense or puts you in breach of agreements or policies.

How will you activate project managers to integrate social media onto their projects?

PM Social

Based on a better understanding of what platforms are available and how to use them for projects, you can determine and select the most appropriate tools to bring social software onto your projects.

Then make social media part of your communications plan and use it consistently with your team members to achieve the expected results.

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Project Planning Software – Gantt Charts or Kanban?

By Bryan Barrow

project planningWhen I started out in project management one of my first roles was to produce project plans on behalf of the team. I liked playing around with software packages and since I had never worked with project planning software before, I was more than happy spending time figuring out how to use it.

That was the first time that I’d really started to work with Gantt charting tools. The market has changed in many ways since then. The market is changing again.

Project Planning Software

Kanban tools have emerged from the growth in use of Lean and Six-Sigma. The market for Kanban based project planning software is heating up, with several products now becoming trend-setters. The question for you is: should you follow that trend?

There are three reasons why you should think very carefully before making a move away from using Gantt charts if you run a significant number of projects in your organisation.

#1 Scenario Planing, Forecasting, Trend Analysis

The first reason is scenario planning, forecasting and the ability to analyse trends. The real power of project planning software comes from its modelling ability. It is a power that for the past 20 years has been under-exploited.

Three key features of traditional tools are:

  • “What-if” scenario planning
  • Baselining
  • Earned Value

These are standard features for most traditional planning tools; we still need them.

#2 Dependency Management

The second reason is dependency management. Your projects are now more likely to be delivered in partnership with third parties than ever before. As a result your project is more likely now to need good dependency management than ever before, especially if there is a commercial or contractual impact. Few projects use software to map and manage dependencies. This is likely to get worse with a move to Kanban, not better.

#3 Resource Management

The third reason is the ability to plan and manage resources. Resource planning and management is the number one problem for many organisations. The delays caused by resource bottlenecks can be better managed only when you are able to see all the resource demands across your entire resource pool.

Part of the solution is for organisations to be more aggressive in chopping out projects that are not viable, but the other part is in better resource management. Tools which allow you to visualise and manage resources across your entire portfolio is the answer, not visual tools.

Why you need project software training, not new tools

The one thing that underpins effective use of project management software is training. Yet it is not unusual for someone to be given access to some software but no training to go along with it. As the use of Agile methods grows in the IT community the role of the project management specialist is going to decline and with it we will see a reduction in the number of people who have more advanced planning skills.

People are even less likely to receive training in project management software if it’s seen as something that a team of people can do by updating a wall chart or an online Kanban tool, but there’s a world of difference between a group of people independently updating a centralised tool and a specialist independently interpreting the results, assessing whether the project is on track and directing actions based on the results.

So if you’re thinking about swapping from using a planning tool that uses Gantt charts towards a Kanban-based project planning tool, think again. You may be surprised at what you’re already missing.

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About the author: Project leadership expert Bryan Barrow works with Project Management Office (PMO) Managers, Project Directors and organisations that need to deliver more of their projects on time and within budget, so that they achieve their strategic objectives. Barrow is the author of The Project Planning Workshop Handbook: How to Plan Your Next Project so it Gets Delivered.

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Project Management Life Cycle – Why We Need To Think Beyond Waterfall Versus Agile

By Bryan Burrow

Waterfall versus AgileOften when there is a discussion about project management life cycles, it quickly and inevitably comes down to talk about “Waterfall versus Agile”. That’s a real concern, because the selection of project life cycle is a crucial one. Let me explain why I believe that the over-promotion of “Agile” by comparing it with Waterfall is not just wrong, it can positively be dangerous.

When people talk about “Agile versus Waterfall” they mostly mean “Iterative versus step-by-step”, which is not quite the same thing.

When they talk about Waterfall and its disadvantages when compared to Agile, the concern is about the “one-step-at-a-time”, linear nature of the Waterfall approach. What they often don’t know, is that there are other life cycle models besides these two. There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach.

There are circumstances where a Waterfall approach may be the right approach for you.

The main drawback with Waterfall is that a change in requirements midway through the project means going back to square one. However, there are times when you may want, or even need, to impose such a level of control over all or part of your project.

Agile Methods

The most common Agile method is Scrum, but it’s not the only one. There are other Agile methods, including Crystal Clear, Extreme Programming, Feature Driven Development and Test Driven Development. Your choice of Agile approach should depend on your circumstances.

Any Agile approach is pretty much dependent on giving users autonomy and the freedom to design what they believe is right. If your organisation can’t provide that freedom, under the direction of a product champion or key user, then none of these approaches are likely to deliver the results you want.

Agile does not eliminate the need for Analysts or Designers. With the advent of Agile methods some people have questioned the need for Business Analysts, Systems Analysts and Designers. The switch away from more formal methods doesn’t replace the need for Analysts or Designers; it just changes how they do their job.

Agile is a software development method, not a project management method.

Agile as a Long Term Strategy

If think you can use Agile safely for your entire project you’re in for a very rude awakening, especially if you’re running a project that:

  • involves a mix of software, hardware and services
  • requires procurement of third party products and services or
  • involves multiple suppliers where they are using different project methods.

If you’re new to Agile and think you’ll master it in one go, you’re wrong.

You should think about developing your organisation’s capability to use an Agile approach as a long term strategy. It is not a quick fix. Plan for your migration to a more Agile approach.

Tips for Agile

So, if you are intent on using Agile, what should you do? If you are planning to use Agile, here are five tips that will help you to do so safely:

#1:     Decide whether you’re ready to use Agile at all.

#2:     Develop your Agile adoption strategy.

#3:     Decide which parts of your project could best benefit from an Agile approach.

#4:     Start small.

#5:     Review and improve.

So the next time the subject of Project Management Lifecycle comes up in conversation, you’ll know that there is more to life, and to the success of your project, than Agile versus Waterfall.

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About the Author: Bryan Barrow works with Project Management Office (PMO) Managers, Project Directors and organisations that need to deliver more of their projects on time and within budget, so that they achieve their strategic objectives. Bryan’s new Guide to organising and planning project kick off workshops is now available. Visit bryanbarrow.com for more information.

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10 Characteristics of a Good Project Manager – Infographic

Much information exists about the qualities and skills you look for in a good project manager. Allowing for the fact that a different combination of skills would apply for different projects in different industries, I think the Infographic below provides a good summary of the typical characteristics you will find in a good project manager with a dose of humour. Remember that the consistent application of good project management skills will help you grow as a professional.

Let us know in the comments if you agree. Add more characteristics you believe good project managers should have.

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Project Management: 5 Metrics to Measure Project Success

By Maricel Rivera

project success metricsSuccess isn’t absolute. At the fundamental level, project success is difficult to define. According to Computer World, the usual group of project stakeholders – project manager, team members, sponsor, end users and top management – may give the project very different success ratings at any given point in time.

The triangle of time, scope and budget is just the starting point for project managers, as hurdling through the triple constraint is expected for the project’s output to be a success.

Then, there’s the fact that project success goes beyond just the output. As stated by the PMI, “Based on today’s project environments, project managers need to broaden their perspective to include other criteria to satisfy stakeholders and deliver business results.”

How to measure project success

Here are five project success metrics to consider.

#1 Client satisfaction

The project’s end result may squarely fit within the designated time, budget and scope requirements, but is the client happy? Clients, sometimes, cannot eloquently explain what they want, and it is up to the project manager to figure things out. Does the project pave the way to more future partnerships? If not, is the client willing to put his reputation on the line and recommend your company to his peers and colleagues?

#2 Quality of delivery

A project may elicit results the client absolutely loves, but if the people involved in its execution had to go through endless clarification stages and endure unnecessary headaches while working their way to completion, the project may not necessarily be a success. Knowing how team members feel about the overall project can prompt project managers to devise ways to better communicate and define future delivery objectives.

#3 User adoption

A software application as an end product can only be successful if the intended end users actually use it, and use it often. Aside from usage frequency, other questions to ask can include:

  • Is the software user-friendly and easy to navigate?
  • How is the learning curve?
  • Does it address prior user challenges?
  • Overall, is the product an enabler or a nuisance?

#4 Value realization

Apart from satisfying the needs of its clients, a company must also realize its business goals, such as ROI (rate of return), NPV (net present value), among others, for every project it takes on. Shorter time-to-market and faster project delivery benefits not just the client but the business as well, in that this ultimately leads to cost efficiency and more time to take on more projects.

#5 Lessons learned

For every project, successful or otherwise, there are lessons to be learned. While failure is oftentimes seen as a better teacher than success, two important factors to look into when evaluating the success of a project are:

  • Is the project instrumental to increasing the knowledge of its stakeholders?
  • Does it better prepare the company for future endeavors?

Conclusion

Keep in mind, to ensure success above and beyond the output, project and business objectives must be aligned. The above are just five measures to look into when evaluating the success of your projects. What other measures would you like to add? Please add your thoughts in the comments section.

 

About the Author: Maricel Rivera writes content for Comindware, the company behind Comindware Project, a state-of-the-art project management solution providing unique automated scheduling and unmatched collaboration capabilities for professional project execution.

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Tips for Passing your PMP Exam

By Scott Coonrod and Cornelius Fichtner

Do you have as a personal or career goal to obtain your Project Management Professional (PMP)® Certification? Are you wondering about what materials might be the most helpful in studying and where is a good place to start?

If you are interested in the experiences and insights of those who have been there and who have recently passed the PMP Exam, there’s a forum you need to explore on The PM PrepCast website. There are comments from individuals like you who are full of questions and concerns, and looking for a place with information and answers. They also share tips and information concerning their study methods and experiences taking the PMP Exam.

Here are some tips and lessons learned from Scott Coonrod soon after he obtained his PMP certification.

Tips and Lessons learned when preparing for the PMP Exam

  1. Find others who are also studying to obtain their PMP Certification and review key items in the PMBOK® Guide together. Studying with others is a great support system during the exam preparation process.
  2. Go through The PM PrepCast lessons and take notes on the material being presented. Even if you do not go back and refer to the notes later they will serve as a good method for retaining the material.
  3. Take the quizzes after each PM PrepCast Lesson. If you feel as if you missed too many answers, you can always go back and listen to the presentation again or review the notes you had taken.
  4. Answer many, many, many practice questions. The study guide mentioned below comes with a CD with two 200 question sample exams and an option to obtain a third sample exam.
  5. Download free PMP Exam question apps. The great thing about these apps is that many have 25-50 questions each that you can answer whenever you have a free moment.
  6. As you are nearing your PMP Exam date create a data dump sheet with key formulas, definitions, and other items you want to make sure you remember for exam day. Practice recreating it; because that is what you are going to need to do on your exam day.

Tips and Lessons Learned related to PMP Exam study materials

  1. Read the most current version of The PMBOK® Guide together with others who are also looking to pass the PMP Exam if possible.
  2. Include additional study materials like the PMP Prepcast from Cornelius Fichtner, an exam prep video workshop; the “Project Management Professional Study Guide (Fourth Edition)” by Joseph Phillips. This study guide provides you an interactive quiz that indicates not only ‘if’ you answered correctly or incorrectly, but also ‘why’ the answer was correct or incorrect, as you answer each question. Also consider the PMP Exam Prep System from Rita Mulcahy.

Tips and Lessons Learned related to taking the PMP Exam

  1. Know where your exam site is. Allow for plenty of time to get to the Prometric Test Center without causing yourself unnecessary additional stress.
  2. Remember to have your two forms of identification because you will need to prove who you are in order to take the exam.
  3. Do not bring too much stuff with you. You will have to lock everything up because you can’t take anything into the exam room with you.
  4. If you are nervous about taking a computer based exam, don’t worry because there is an optional 15 minute tutorial at the beginning of the exam that does not count toward your PMP Exam time. If you are comfortable taking a computer based exam, use this time to recreate your data dump.
  5. If you start to feel nervous or overwhelmed, take a few deep breaths, tell yourself “you’ve got this”, and keep going.
  6. Answer all of the questions you know and mark those you don’t for follow up. Some questions/answers later in the exam may help you answer those you had marked.

These are just a few examples of the PMP Exam related lessons learned and other tips offered in The PM PrepCast Forum.

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Project Management Software: How to manage Project Issues better?

By Sharon Thomson

project issuesDuring project execution there are typically a number of issues that need to be resolved. It is important to involve like-minded individuals who can share their knowledge and experience and provide valuable inputs for a breakthrough in resolving an issue.

Why is there a need to hold a discussion over an issue?

An issue that is creating a problem for the project needs an in depth understanding and analysis. Some issues are too complex to come up with an easy solution. Some issues are specific to individuals working in a particular department like marketing, procurement, etc.
For example, a marketing project that is launching a new product into the market require input from people who have the experience in the marketing field to resolve issues. These type of issues need to be addressed fast enough, so as not to delay the implementation of a project.

With many modern day projects having virtual teams who are distributed geographically, it poses a challenge as to how to bring them together on the same platform in order to have a discussion accurately and timely.

Technology comes to the rescue here. Project management systems are specifically designed to enable team members to collaborate over a common issue instantly and spontaneously. The centralized structure of a project management system allows a project issue to be discussed actively by the project members and in a fool-proof manner.

A project management tool allows people to be looped into the project. They can receive email notifications about their expected role in a project and how they can contribute to the project. They can express their willingness to join a project through email. Once their reply is received, they get connected to the project automatically and can start contributing to the discussions. Since certain stakeholders will only participate to help resolve project issues, their security access will be limited. The discussions feature promotes communication amongst small teams comprising of some selected members who are involved in discussions over an issue.

Project discussions can be categorised into two types. The first category is where every member of a project is involved and the other category is where only a few selective and knowledgeable individuals can participate. By applying this structure overloading of shared information can be avoided. Any type of discussion can be initiated depending on the need, scope and sensitivity of the issue.

The facilitation of issue discussions is done effectively by a project management system like ProofHub allowing users to deal with issues faster, contributing to a successful execution of a project.

About the Author:
Sharon Thomson is an author who likes to write on themes and issues related to project management. Through her write-ups she provides tips and suggestions for businesses, so they can better manage their projects and duly achieve their business objectives.

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Project Management tool – Agile Gantt

Have you been using the Agile approach on your projects, but you find it difficult to present progress to stakeholders without the traditional Gantt Chart view?

Agile Gantt has just been introduced by Projectplace. This is the first tool that combines the functionality of Gantt charts and Kanban boards to bridge the gap between project managers, team members and senior management.

Agile Gantt
The gantt chart (in the bottom half) links to the Kanban boards. The coloured in dots across the bar marked ‘Video Production’ show the progress of this campaign.

Agile Gantt allows project teams to self-organize, prioritize tasks and work towards common goals in tandem with planning by the project manager, who can focus on strategy and meeting goals rather than administration. This new joined-up approach is enabled by integrating well-known Gantt charts, describing timeline and project steps, with Kanban boards, a common tool used by agile teams. This brings project managers and senior management more visibility over the project without placing an unnecessary workload on teams.

Despite Gantt chart’s popularity, it has forced many project managers to spend too much time micro managing and administrating. Agile Gantt is an industry-first; it capitalizes on the strengths of the original Gantt chart, but makes it more useful by empowering all stakeholders in the process. With Agile Gantt, project goals and deliverables can be specified hierarchically and connected to a Kanban board. As team members complete their tasks on the Kanban board that is connected to the Agile Gantt schedule, this is reported automatically and in real-time, providing a highly accessible visualization of how the project is progressing.

Agile management is at the heart of Agile Gantt and the Projectplace platform. It is a set of techniques according to which work should be done by self-organizing teams in a collaborative manner, with granular planning to take place as the project progresses instead of beforehand.

The benefit of this tool is that it offers powerful project steering and agile self-organization, it will unite teams, project managers and senior management on the same platform for the first time. It has a simple to use interface and it’s also available on mobile devices. To try it out, please click on Agile Gantt.

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About Projectplace:  Projectplace is a leading provider of project collaboration tools that enable people and organizations to reach their goals. From the free ToDo collaboration tool to the complete project management platform, Projectplace brings secure and scalable collaboration to individuals, small businesses and large enterprises since being established in 1998.

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How to Overcome Culture Challenges on Projects

Success Stories SharedRecently we spoke to a project manager, Richard Price, who shared one of his many success stories which focuses around some interesting challenges he experienced delivering to a complex customer. This is part of the Success Stories Shared initiative whereby experienced project management practitioners share project stories and lessons learnt.

Convergent CRM and Billing Solution Project

It was a CRM and Billing project to deliver an end to end solution that ran almost 9 months with a company called Cerillion, a convergent billing specialist company based in the United Kingdom.

What made this project complex, is the fact that a complex system had to be implemented in Africa, in a country called Mauritania, close to the Sahara desert. It posed challenges with regards to the surroundings, the work culture and the language.

Culture and Customs Mauritania Desert

Many challenges had to do with the country culture and the territory (3/4 consisting of Sahara semi-desert), hot and dry climate with frequent sandstorms and power cuts, that contributed to the project taking longer.

Mauritania consists of two main ethnical groups who are both Sunni Islam. Cultural differences could have derailed the project, but it was handled well by the team members, respect to all peoples ethnic and cultural differences was essential. As an example of the challenges the custom dictated the way women were treated; men were not allowed to shake their hands and needed to be very respectful of how to talk to them. A woman could talk to woman and a man to other men. This made project communications challenging to manage.

Read more …