High-tech projects are ideally staffed by creative, educated, opinionated professionals. A PM who understands the technical aspects of the project will be more likely to gain the respect of the ...

An old often overlooked technique is the Wide-band Delphi estimating technique. It's a technique where a group of experts arrive at a consensus decision iteratively. It has more or less be ...

Agree with Geo. Just to amplify a bit: the PMP has some prerequisites that effectively shut out anyone who is a new project manager. From the PMP About Credentials page: To apply for the PMP, ...

On my projects all risk boil down to What will it cost if the risk event happens? For that reason, I try to express all risk in terms of cost. Everything ultimately costs money. Time costs money, ...

I don't use/have never used a PID (Project Initiation Document), but as for the others, they are different. In my line of worK: The Project Proposal is a document written by a hopeful contractor to ...

When you fill out the experience portion of the PMP Application, you will be asked to provide the total number of hours you spent "leading and directing", i.e. managing the project and what percentage ...

I would encourage you to develop processes that work in your organization and try not to get hung up on applying a particular process method strictly. There is plenty of precedent for using Scrum on ...

There is a role for PM's on agile, but PM's need to be willing to accept that not all projects may be run the way they used to run them. Agile is a metaphor for embracing change and project managers ...

Certifications of any type, whether for PM (PMP, PRINCE2), Computer Security (Security+) or Plumbing are of primary use to job seekers. It's an independent and objective assessment you can put on your ...

pawelbrodzinski's answer is excellent, but I feel compelled to add a bit more... Even a 1 person project can benefit from the old Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. Even though this is mostly about changing ...

Every project will have its own goals for a bug tracking system. Only you can define yours, but asoundmove makes some good points. To not get too repetitive, I'll just assume you read that answer &...

Not sure if it rates as "bad manners", but most people in senior management are busy. They may have lots of direct reports and their subordinates copying them on dozens of emails per day in order to "...

XP is a software development methodology that encompasses the entire lifecycle of a project. Scrum is a project management methodology that explicitly says nothing about how a software project gets ...

Overtime happens. I am a salaried employee and don't get overtime pay. I would not advocate pushing your team into overtime, routinely but even if you have defined reasonable goals, you may find that ...

+1 to ashes999 for focusing on the root cause, but characterizations like: Didn't follow the coding conventions Bad coding logic Fix for another bug broke this bug Third-party library's bug Tend to ...

You're getting ahead of yourself. Your template is for a schedule, but you probably don't know what activities you must do, much less when to do them. Read Adam's answer - he's got a lot of good ...

Sometimes it's helpful to create a "war room" and have everyone work in a single large space for a set period of time. It's especially useful on projects with short timelines and large communications ...

I tend to be an "all or nothing type" when it comes to reporting status. IMHO status reports (often based on gantt charts) that contain tasks like: Task | Duration | % Complete Build ...

I lean towards "work with", but at a distance. I would recommend setting clear boundaries and try to figure out how to minimize your risks. This manager is a risk to your project and possibly the ...

As in most things related to project management, there are no absolutes. To a large extent, your company, enterprise or organization will influence what organizational structures are allowed. That ...

If you're still interested in trac, I would suggest the TracJsGanttPlugin. It installs easily, integrates with the popular TimingAndEstimatingPlugin. The thing I like about this is that you can put ...

Any methodology that encourages communication and frequently delivery would work well here. In an R&D environment, you as the PM have a team of educated, opinioned professionals and have to ...

Usually the words "distributed team" and "share" imply some kind of hosted or web based application, not a desktop application. You either need a web application or a tool that will allow you to pass ...

You are planning to commit to a fixed price contract to "evolve" something with little or no requirements stability? Fixed price + uncertain requirements are a bad combination. This should be a ...

Before you can answer this question effectively, you have to ask yourself "What do I need to know"? Then you can decide how much planning, measuring and reporting is needed. For example, if you ...

I don't keep a 'register', I keep a risk database that I can generate a risk list from, if I want a list. The problem with a single excel spreadsheet style of risk register, which is the type you ...

Free PM resources that I have used: Defense Acquisition University - free, but probably only useful to people doing work for the US DoD, but it has a wealth of PM information for those who can get in....

Picking only one would be hard. If I had to rank them: The Mythical Man-Month. Fred Brooks. This is the only book I would say should be required reading for any PM of a software project. Crystal ...

If you are familiar with python and comfortable with open source, I would definitely recommend trac. It's a lightweight, flexible project tracking tool that I have used successfully for years. Out ...