Questions about communication-related topics like information flow, meetings and reporting.
-3
votes
1answer
33 views
Status Report - Multiple projects
I publish status report on weekly basis for multiple projects. Normally I uses different tabs for each project in MS Excel.
To make it more effective, I want to publish project updates in email ...
5
votes
3answers
241 views
How to handle a complex project without Tech Lead or Project Manager?
I am working on a complex project in Android alone. There is no tech lead or any project manager to guide me about the project development. I have to interact with the client and do the work according ...
-4
votes
1answer
91 views
iPad for Scrum to Skype or Google Hangout [closed]
I am thinking of using iPad as a Scrum tool to Skype/Google Hangout to coordinate better with our offshore team in a different country.
I am planning to hang the iPad onto the scrum board ...
4
votes
4answers
207 views
Is there anything wrong with sending meeting minutes late?
I like my emails to be perfect, especially the minutes that summerise the meetings we have, I understand that it is obviously preferred to send it through right after the meeting, or even an hour late ...
3
votes
4answers
177 views
Schedule Control
Here's the scenario: You are building a schedule for a project that has a planned duration about three months. You are not concerned about project costs so you will not be doing EV. You are ...
0
votes
1answer
84 views
How to propose a project [closed]
I've been with a company for a year now, and I work closely with the company owners (its a startup). I've had an idea for a project that I want to propose, but I wasn't sure the best way to pass the ...
2
votes
2answers
167 views
How do you explain the value of a PM to a client?
I'm sure other PMs have run into this issue, which is explaining the benefit of a PM to a client. Here's a typical question I hear: "Why am I paying extra for someone who is not involved in the ...
2
votes
3answers
104 views
Release Team vs PM
In terms of releasing the code and separation of responsibilities, should it be the project manager or the release teams that inform the business of the releases? I believe it should be the release ...
5
votes
5answers
111 views
Is interspersing different teams a good idea?
Update: (a PM-specific concern) Having developers working close together is valuable to my team - people tend to naturally ask more questions, get involved in code-related conversations they overhear, ...
9
votes
3answers
235 views
How to manage clients who want to meet up all the time?
I have a client/shareholder who is more of a face-to-face kind of client. They can't grasp how to use email and phone to communicate project amendments and feedback. Instead, they wish to meet up ...
5
votes
5answers
123 views
contracts on inputs and outputs between subsystem teams?
My project consists of 5 sub-teams and I think that what most people under-appreciate is subsystem communication.
Do you think that teams using (or even being forced to) contracts between them to ...
11
votes
6answers
487 views
How to apply daily stand-up meetings with a large team on multiple projects
Background
There are:
4 .Net Developers
4 PHP Developers
2 QA Specialists
2 Integration Specialists
2 Analysts
3 PMs
11 Projects in active development. None are trivial. Some are programs with ...
11
votes
7answers
343 views
Is it correct to refer to a 'post mortem' session even for successful projects?
It might be a silly question for non-latin speakers, but it's odd to hear about a post-mortem meeting for a successful project since this expression means 'after death'.
I know that this can be also ...
11
votes
8answers
411 views
Should I collect all the phones before a meeting?
It's no surprise that when a meeting is in place there are a select few that cannot seem to take their eyes off of their phone. I find that this distracts not only that one person, but it also ...
3
votes
2answers
164 views
How to enhance project management practice for the small team?
In our team, we have a small team of 3 people, fresh graduate from the computer and networking stream.
2 people are responsible for software development , 1 people are responsible for back-end ...
6
votes
6answers
288 views
Best way to handle different stakeholders?
There are different stake holders like the quality team,client, peers, sub-ordinates, seniors.
As a manager, do we need to have a strategy to handle different stakeholders? Sometimes we might not be ...
1
vote
3answers
153 views
How to apply project management skills for different projects?
A typical project for me is a 3 months web development and Android Apps project with a 3 person team. All development work is started and required all software development life cycle activities ...
1
vote
3answers
118 views
Is it a good idea to replace Confluence with a custom in-house workflow based on search? [closed]
Our team (40 people) is currently using Confluence as a knowledge base repository. There are many problems with confluence - formatting text is limited; can't paste images in the text; editing bugs; ...
16
votes
8answers
560 views
How do you deal with constant interruptions coming from outside the team?
As one of our teams was restructured completely (6 our of 8 new people in the last 2 months) and their knowledge base is now very weak, I notice constant daily interruptions from them. We share the ...
5
votes
4answers
305 views
How to facilitate communication and peer reviews on a distributed scrum team?
We have a Scrum team of 3 developers, a scrum master, and a product owner. Everyone works out of their home (except the product owner who works at his organization's headquarters).
In the past, we ...
12
votes
5answers
743 views
What Should a Project Manager Do If Development is Not Completed On Time?
I am a project manager of a development team. Oftentimes, the deadline for the development project is not met.
About my team:
I have 4 people in my team, and they are older than me.
Sometimes I ...
2
votes
3answers
317 views
How to improve communication problem facing in corporate culture
I am experiencing difficulties to convey my message in debating topics due to interruption by others(Mostly in office related issues) . My nature is like, I carefully listen others when others talk ...
2
votes
2answers
153 views
Is there any 'pocket guide' with the differences between countries' labor laws? [closed]
Working on a multi cultural environment, one of the problems that's haunting some projects we have are the differences between two countries' laws. I know that there are as much laws as there are ...
2
votes
2answers
155 views
How can a manager dispel speculation of favoritism among employees?
The obvious action would be to not play favorites from the get-go. However, if members of a team voluntarily communicate with their manager at different frequencies/levels, soon enough there will be a ...
2
votes
4answers
147 views
How to add value beyond collecting tasks and their dates?
As a project manager I catalogue a group's tasks, definitions, dependencies, milestones, resources, and similar other elements of a project. The managers use this to report up, estimate project ...
6
votes
2answers
179 views
Communication/Handoff Checklists
I have been having many issues getting bug/tasks provided with the correct information in them. And other points where a task is handed off along the workflow require the recipient to get certain ...
0
votes
4answers
145 views
How to motivate young adults to pursue socially-conscious jobs [closed]
Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I've read some survey data which suggests that young adults are no longer interested in tackling some of the toughest global problems (such as ...
4
votes
5answers
199 views
Is including “communication” aspects in formal agreements with clients critical to have?
We all know that in management, the communication with the client (product owner or sponsor) is one of the key factors. It's good when both sides understand the communication aspect. However, from ...
7
votes
6answers
421 views
Allowing PMs to grade/rate developers
We're trying to introduce some new/updated ways to quantify developer productivity, and we want to include our Project Managers' thoughts. What do you think about allowing PMs to "grade" or apply ...
4
votes
6answers
178 views
How to I cut down on all of the communications?
I am new to Project Management. I am coming in on a project that was just implemented and is now in Post Implementation. The roles do not seem to be fully understood be everyone. Now, when something ...
4
votes
5answers
288 views
Completely customizable issue tracking system?
I have been looking for an issue-tracking system for some time. Our workflow is not software development. Rather we track changes to documentation across groups of people.
I don't need project ...
4
votes
10answers
406 views
How to share information found on the internet with the team?
I need a simple way to share texts, links to frameworks, videos and, of course, actual project data with multiple people. Things that come to mind are blog, wiki and public Facebook page. I also ...
5
votes
1answer
90 views
Can't build reality tree of undesirable effects as objections are absurd
I'm attempting to build a future and current reality tree regarding changing policy and procedure to data access, but we're being given undesirable effects that are entirely divorced from reality.
...
1
vote
3answers
76 views
Good idea for a client to also be the project manager?
A while ago I took on a freelance web programming project with a company I'm already familiar with. My boss (also the company owner) typically pairs me with one of his PM employees for each project I ...
1
vote
3answers
140 views
Software to to work with band practice
Is there any software, preferably web based, that will allow a small group of people, a band, to communicate easily, share song lists and songs, and notes?
The song list is simply a list of songs ...
9
votes
5answers
241 views
PM learns deliverable is vaporware, team has been hiding it from the client & want PM to lie to client also.
I will TRY to keep this simple. I was brought on this project approx. 1/2 way through to fill the role of CM DB SME(20+yrs broad based experience). The PM (non-technical by his own admission) ...
4
votes
3answers
383 views
How to define a project strategy?
My boss has asked to be project manager. I am not afraid of the challenge expect that. I don't know where to start.
We have a legacy server where a couple of apps and a lot of code is hosted. The ...
6
votes
6answers
1k views
What alternatives are there to a weekly status report to collect team members' progress on assigned work?
Each week I issue a personalised email to everyone in the business (there are only 17 of us) with the following headings:
Can you provide a brief status report for this week based on your assigned ...
6
votes
4answers
2k views
How to take minutes of meeting effectively?
I have one on one meetings with manager and senior members of our company. They raise points in meetings and I note down on paper. Can anyone tell me what are format to note minutes of meetings. Which ...
4
votes
6answers
293 views
Scheduling interview with stakeholders
Have a business process re-engineering project where I need to schedule and conduct interviews with business participants and stakeholders in a short period of time (4 weeks).
What is the best way ...
6
votes
4answers
170 views
How to integrate Project Managers within an organisation
We do have around 50 PMs in the organisation and they all manage different projects; for different clients; different technologies, different teams. So they are a bit isolated from each other. The ...
9
votes
4answers
174 views
How to Virtually Co-Locate: Operating across two offices
Apologies if this is the incorrect exchange to post this on but none of the others seemed appropriate.
We are currently investigating the possibility of opening a second office. We are a web ...
5
votes
3answers
179 views
How to Deal with a Request for Asynchronous Communication?
A colleague of mine asks to be cc'd on my communications to our boss. However, he does not cc me on his communications to our boss.
We are on the same level in the org chart. He has seniority and ...
11
votes
3answers
482 views
Motivating younger (Generation Y) members
I realize many articles have been written about generational differences in the workforce, but I'd like to know specific things you've done to help motivate younger team members.
I belong to ...
3
votes
3answers
376 views
How to encourage the commitment on a sprint for a team
The biggest problem I have right now is the team is unable to commit on the stories and tasks planned during a sprint.
For example, we wanted to implement a new database, which is very complex and ...
3
votes
8answers
188 views
Dealing with non-scheduled time in Project
We build software. We use MS Project. We have projects where someone is booked 100% which really turns out to be 80% with meetings, more meetings, some side meetings, corporate meetings, etc that suck ...
4
votes
6answers
416 views
VCS + IssueTracking + CI for free? [closed]
What is the best way to build an IT infrastructure based on a free / affordable online services (GitHub, BitBucket, etc)?
To facilitate collaborative work of a group of independent remote developers ...
3
votes
4answers
167 views
Leading Student Teams
I am currently heading three different projects which are all composed of students from various universities and colleges around Toronto, ON and Waterloo, ON.
In each of these projects I am facing ...
1
vote
3answers
315 views
Communicate a project easily without MS Project?
ISSUES
Microsoft Project isn't cutting it as a project communication tool: I have a copy of Project 2010 and so do many other employees, but they cannot be expected to learn how to use this program. ...
8
votes
4answers
276 views
Should you insist on getting feedback from every member of your team?
In my current project team, I try to encourage an open atmosphere and discussions. In general, I have the impression that we are on a good road in that regard.
The idea of a post-mortem after each ...
