Improving PPM Using Objectives and Key Results

Many organizations use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure performance and milestones toward their goals. For today’s customer-centric organizations, it is critical to align metrics that show the impact of programs designed to meet their strategy. We’ve seen this is easier said than done. Just last year, 73% of budget decision makers felt that 2017...

Planview Brings Collaborative Work Management to South By Southwest

Excitement at the SXSW Conference and Trade Show was high!  The tradeshow was loud and full of excitement and energy about technology and beyond – literally. We were set up directly across from NASA where they shared discoveries, technology advancements, and plans for future space exploration. We were around the corner from Japanese entertainment firm...

What Does a Successful Cost Management Program Look Like?

Most enterprises will tell you that a successful cost management program is essential to their ongoing success, but not all project managers are adept at figuring out the basics on their own. At a glance, a successful project management program starts with project cost management, but what exactly does a successful cost management program look...

How to Protect Your Team’s Time

As a project manager, how your team spends their time is what ultimately either makes or costs your employer money. And, at the end of the day, those numbers are often used as a measure of your success. Not only can poor time management strategies be detrimental to your clientele and daily business practices, but...

Creating Connection Points Between Enterprise Architecture and the PMO

Are you ready to close the gap between Enterprise Architecture (EA) and Project and Portfolio Management (PPM)? Or the gap between strategy and execution, to finally end those turf wars? Enterprise architects should work closely with their PPM colleagues to ensure the right projects are selected and scheduled, while PPM groups can help ensure enterprise...

Gap Takes Advice from 5-Year-Old: What Innovators Can Learn

Great ideas, and lessons, can come from anyone. Yes, even a 5-year-old. As reported by the Washington Post, 5-year-old Alice Jacob wrote a letter to the fashion retailer, Gap. In the letter, Alice urged Gap to consider going beyond the “pink” and “princesses” stuff common in their girls section. Instead, she recommended more variety in...

4 Benefits of Kanban Project Management

As a project manager, you probably spend a lot of your time trying to get a clear picture of the current status of your projects. Between spreadsheets, email, and meetings, you’re constantly deciphering and relaying back information to various stakeholders and team members. Kanban project management is a highly visual method that gives project managers...

Resources are Multiplying: Resources Are Anything That Help Achieve a Goal

In my last post, I discussed how “Technology is everywhere.” As ubiquitous, complex and necessary as technology is, it still only counts as one of the many resources that organizations must integrate into a work and resource management world. Resources are multiplying, making it the eighth and last of our business forces potentially thwarting organizations....

How to Motivate a Team Resisting Continuous Improvement

When practicing continuous improvement, the only constant is change. For teams that have achieved moderate, predictable success by following the status quo, embracing this change can require a major paradigm shift. Resistance to change can come in the form of foot-dragging, sabotage, and even rebellion, and can have a toxic influence on your Lean implementation. As...

Kanban and Agile Marketing: Why Teams are Getting On Board

One of the reasons I love Kanban so much is that it’s so ubiquitous: The principles and practices are very easily portable between domains. While the Agile Manifesto, for example, is very development-oriented, if you look at Kanban and the Kanban Method you will not find such domain-specific language — making it much easier to apply in other value streams....