6
votes
What can I do when I can't adjust scope, resources, or schedule and a team member wants a raise?
TL;DR
Your job as a Product Owner (PO) or Project Manager (PM) is not to have all the answers. Your job is to have a vision, and to communicate options to stakeholders and business decision-makers.
...
- 47.4k
5
votes
When does throwing in people to meet a Project's Scope or Time constraints ever work?
In certain cases it is possible to get more work done if you introduce more people.
The most usual scenario is when teams take time to do detailed scoping and when the project itself allows low ...
- 1,103
5
votes
Accepted
What is the purpose of the "as late as possible" constraint in MS Project?
A use case might be procurement of a service/software that is a pay-as-you-go service that won't be used until a certain release point. You want to wait as long as possible before procurement to ...
- 856
5
votes
Accepted
How should I schedule around a resource that may be unavailable for up to 5 months a year?
This is no different than the probabilistic of weather events and those projects that can be affected by weather. And it is even similar to the probabilistic availability and performance of labor and ...
- 36.6k
4
votes
Accepted
Should I disclose technical constraints and details to the client?
The short answer is yes.
You absolutely want to keep the client informed of limitations or other gotchas in the project. You rarely will know the full story and thus lack the perspective to know if ...
- 12.4k
4
votes
Should I disclose technical constraints and details to the client?
Have a Communications Plan
You appear to be missing a Communications Plan, which is an essential aspect of most projects. This plan would include details such as what your stakeholders need to know ...
- 47.4k
4
votes
What is the purpose of the "as late as possible" constraint in MS Project?
A simpler reason is if you are dealing with something that has a short expiration window, such as fresh shrimp or ice without freezer space. You would want the delivery to come "Just-in-time" or as ...
4
votes
What is the purpose of the "as late as possible" constraint in MS Project?
This constraint makes sense when you have a task with any of the following characteristics:
It can take place at any point in time, up to a point, but there is a future event/date/task by which it ...
- 4,414
4
votes
How can you make a project succeed by raising budget?
The answer will be peculiar to the individual project. Wallace's law of project management the PM's primary job is to inform stakeholders of the effect of any change on Scope, Schedule, and Quality.
...
- 8,689
3
votes
Accepted
When does throwing in people to meet a Project's Scope or Time constraints ever work?
Different tasks have different degrees of resources elasticity. And a task in itself can have different degrees of elasticity depending on other present variables like the environment.
Imagine ten ...
- 36.6k
3
votes
Iron Triangle / quality triangle - why the middle is said to be non-existant?
Some visualizations says that no projects live in the middle of the triangle. But I wonder why?
Projects can live in the middle of the triangle, but typically there is going to be one (or two) ...
- 856
3
votes
Accepted
Task with specific predecessor and weekday - Project 2003
On the basis it should slip to the following Monday-
Add a milestone that depends on the predecessor with a lag of five days and add that milestone as a predecessor to your Monday task.
Then we have ...
- 4,414
3
votes
critical chain project management
If we go back to PMBoK basics, the definition in the 5th edition is is:
Critical Chain Method: A schedule method that allows the project team
to place buffers on any project schedule path to ...
- 2,549
3
votes
What is "Lead Time"?
As a note, lead time in Microsoft Project is expressed as a negative value in the lag field on a predecessor/successor relationship. So if you had a two tasks:
Task 1: Purchase Steel
Task 2: Erect ...
- 2,555
3
votes
What is "Lead Time"?
Lead time is the delay between the initiation and execution of a process. For example, the lead time between the placement of an order and delivery of a new car from a manufacturer may be anywhere ...
- 10.9k
3
votes
Accepted
Can Quality be an adjustable constraint of an agile process?
TL;DR
Quality is a widely-recognized project management constraint. To the extent that one can modify the quality controls applied to a project, one can impact the quality of the deliverables. In ...
- 47.4k
3
votes
What can I do when I can't adjust scope, resources, or schedule and a team member wants a raise?
Let's simplify your question down. Feature A is expected to cost $X to deliver and in reality costs $1.2X to deliver. This can be because of a raise, inflation, change in needs, or a ton of other ...
- 16.7k
2
votes
Can Quality be an adjustable constraint of an agile process?
Quality has to be a constraint, whether or not it is measurable by itself or is so intrinsic to scope is another question.
I disagree with your assertion that you can't control quality and that it ...
- 8,879
2
votes
Accepted
Can you add constraints to a split task in ms projects?
Tasks are split by MS-Project when higher priority tasks take precedence over resources assigned and the position of the splits within tasks is therefore somewhat arbitrary and can move (according to ...
- 4,414
2
votes
What is "Lead Time"?
Ashok gives a great definition for Purchasing lead-time.
Because the term lead time, is a catch-all for a whole load of preceding tasks, its even more important to check how the estimate for its ...
- 98
2
votes
How to deal with a client who does not respect PM practices, yet wants a PM?
My experience has been that when the client refuses to accept your advice, the best approach is to focus on highlighting the pain.
By that, I mean you use information radiators and reporting to make ...
- 18.3k
2
votes
How to deal with a client who does not respect PM practices, yet wants a PM?
Due to the history, it does not sound like you will ever convince her of the need for a more sophisticated PM approach. At this stage, if I were in your shoes, document and publish to as many ...
- 36.6k
2
votes
Accepted
Iron triangle question..how could extended scope only be mitigated by time?
The project management "iron" triangle is problematic.
It does not realistically represent the relationship between the three chosen aspects.
It does not consider quality (except, perhaps, as a ...
- 1,614
2
votes
When does throwing in people to meet a Project's Scope or Time constraints ever work?
One way to think about it is to consider if the task would be marked "Effort Driven" if you were creating an MS Project Plan for it. Effort driven tasks are actually expedited by adding people (at ...
- 1,163
2
votes
When does throwing in people to meet a Project's Scope or Time constraints ever work?
A lot of the other answer, cover the case where there is a lot of independence. But what if there is no space on the team to add anyone, then is it ever possible.
Hire a specialist in an area that ...
- 429
2
votes
What can I do when I can't adjust scope, resources, or schedule and a team member wants a raise?
If you want a salary increase, I need to be able to justify it by showing that your your work saves costs on other elements of the project.
Is your code of sufficient quality that the total cost of ...
- 8,689
2
votes
When we decrease budget in iron triangle, is it necessary that scope must decrease?
The relationship between cost, time, and scope is a bit more complex. The main statement is that you cannot tweak one corner of the triangle without affecting at least one of the others, too, but the ...
- 1,127
2
votes
When we decrease budget in iron triangle, is it necessary that scope must decrease?
Each of these variables is correlated with the others. If a change occurs on one of them, it will likely drive some degree of change in one or both of the remaining variables. There are several ...
- 36.6k
1
vote
Iron triangle question..how could extended scope only be mitigated by time?
Projects often spend extra to make a deadline
Alan gave a good answer pointing out the limitations of the project management "iron" triangle.
To answer your specific question, you need to consider ...
- 10.9k
1
vote
How to deal with a client who does not respect PM practices, yet wants a PM?
I take a slightly different stance with my answer:
"that's not how it works, this is too complex for estimates."
and
she often refers to me as her most trusted asset (also uncomfortable
for ...
- 229
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