Project Management Overview

Project Management Overview

Critical Path Method (CPM) is a magical tool and should be the foundation of all professional project management (PM). CPM set us apart from functional management in the first place. New tools have improved dramatically in recent years. Attempting project management without them is like trying to play tennis without a racquet. We can help you get the biggest bang for the buck with well-defined critical path schedules, resource loading and leveling, fast tracking, using Earned Value (EV) to manage-by-exception just the activities that are falling behind schedule, etc. We customize the software specifically for your industry and your company by changing defaults, setting up standard WBS, reports, and templates to maximize its benefits. Project management and CPM can be the ultimate goal-setting and achievement tools - Covey’s “Seven Habits” on steroids. Why would you resource-level yourself one day at a time in a diary when you can set long-term goals, break them into short-term goals, see where you are overloaded, use the float to resource-level yourself, and change priorities accordingly? If you use the tool to help you concentrate on what is important rather than on what is urgent, you often find low-cost tasks that will help you achieve important multiple goals in your personal as well as professional life. CPM  also helps you to negotiate for common sense goals; more time, less scope, more and better resources, full time and protects you from idiots. It is important to do things in the correct order. Don’t waste time and money by doing things that don’t add value or by doing the right things in the wrong order and then blaming either project management or the tools. Follow the order given in our TWG checklist. Make sure that you are running your projects on schedule before you spend too much time collecting detailed costs at the activity level on projects that are running late. Ensure that you are running single projects well before attempting portfolio management, to avoid “garbage in, garbage out.” We can help you avoid a lot of the pain that we went through and dramatically increase the benefits to you and your company. If you apply these new tools and techniques well, you will increase project success, productivity, profits, protection, poise, and pleasure dramatically while decreasing risk and burn out. You may even save your job while other jobs move overseas. We analyze and critique clients’ schedules each week. The first one is free.