Summer is a time of reflection at Smart Projex as many are midway through the year, taking vacations and preparing for that seasonal upswing in work that often happens in the fall – before the holidays set in.
We are taking a break from our normal posts and doing a quick recap of some of our top 10 most popular posts over the years. These are posts that users come back to time and again to brush up on their skills or find out how to handle the unexpected.
We thought putting some of these most resourceful posts together in one place would be a great thing to share with our readers!
Smart Projex Top 10
Five Characteristics of the Best Project Management Methodology
Those seeking to improve their exercise program or lose weight often ask what the best diet or exercise plans are. The frequent answer is the one you will stick with. The same is true of project methodologies, task management software, and calendar tools. And for that matter, a whole lot of other programs. Is there a best project management methodology that people will stick with? As I continue to read articles and blogs on [...]
Measure Project Quality to Ensure Success
Reading Time: 3 minutes
In the last few weeks I’ve written a few blogs on other aspects of project management I think are important. It’s not just about checking off your action items as fast as possible. It’s about setting up your project so you have the greatest chance of success. You need to think ahead about what each activity involves. You [...]
How Do You Measure Project Success?
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Over the years, I’ve written about how to start a project well, and how to close a project – two tasks that are very important. One of the benefits in doing those things well, is that it makes it possible for you to measure project success. You have to decide from the beginning what’s important. Most people are familiar [...]
Why Do We Need to Simplify Project Management?
I recently met with a project team that was trying to become more Agile but they didn’t really know what that might look like for them. We got into a discussion of their software – which allows them to select a Waterfall or Agile approach – and then, the software presents the appropriate interface. But everything seemed so complicated to them. Project Management doesn't have to be this complicated. There are other ways to justify [...]
Five ‘First Principles Thinking’ Contributions to Project Management
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Not being trained as a physicist, the term ‘first principles thinking’ is not a term with which I was familiar until I started listening to and reading about Elon Musk. According to Drake Baer, a journalist for Business Insider, “Aristotle said that a first principle is the ‘first basis from which a thing is known’ and that pursuing first [...]
Eight Tips for Dealing with Project Ambiguity
Complex projects are often described as ambiguous projects. They differ from complicated projects in the way they emerge. One set of activities gives rise to another set, which cannot be predicted until people have seen how the previous set of activities plays out. There can be varying reasons for this emergence phenomenon. It may be a research product, where scientists have to ascertain the results from a certain set of experiments. Or, it may [...]
Don’t Skip These Critical Discussion Topics At Project Team Meetings
You are cheating your project management teams if you don’t periodically meet. Yes, I understand that little project work is actually done in project team meetings, and when I look around a room and mentally add up the hourly cost of those in attendance, I want to make sure that the time is well spent. Yet, there are some critical discussions that can only happen in project team meetings. I remember some years back [...]
A Four-Step Guide to the Work Breakdown Structure
How many times have you worked on a project and wondered if you had identified all of the different pieces of work that are needed? In a simple project, that may not be necessary. As projects become more complicated and involve more people, it becomes important to understand the many pieces of scope, what resources are needed, and how much it is all going to cost. Forgetting a major piece of scope, or misunderstanding what the [...]
A Four-Step Approach to Legal Quality Management
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Legaltech News recently published an article by Janelle Belling and Andrew Pratt, both of Perkins Coie LLP, which discussed the need for a greater focus on quality management in the practice of law. Their article focuses on eDiscovery, but it goes beyond that. Law firms need to create a legal quality management process in their firms. At the 2015 [...]
Five Tips For Launching A Disciplined Project Management Approach
Reading Time: 3 minutes
As often as possible, I talk to organizations about how to adopt a disciplined project management approach. The people I am talking with have typically come to me, wanting to do better. Too often, they believe that whatever new software they select will suddenly solve all of their problems. Frequently, the people I am working with don’t really understand what it means to [...]
