Five Steps Towards PMO Success

Ideally, it’s a centralized hub for organizing processes; managing special projects; and facilitating the free flow of information across your enterprise. The ultimate Project Management Office (PMO) is a model of defined and aligned processes, with results tracking and transparency to match. Try these tips for project management success. ONE:  Make business processes defined—and repeatable....

Tasktop Sync 3.5 released: VersionOne, Zendesk, links get sync

We’re at the ALM Forum this week, where the hot topic is how to scale Agile and DevOps deployments.  What Scott Ambler made clear in his opening keynote is that there isn’t a single Agile best practice that spans the various sizes, domains, business processes that we find across organizations. While the practices and vendor...

When it comes to Software Delivery, The E in Email Stands for Evil

Most organizations will experience failed software projects. They won’t necessarily crash and burn, but they will fail to deliver the value the customer wants. In other words, the software projects will not deliver an appropriate level of quality for the time and resources invested. The extent of failed software projects is calculated every year in...

Why and How to Limit Your WIP

In this webinar, we explain why setting work-in-progress limits is necessary if you want to establish and improve your flow of work. Simply put, you can’t do more work than you can handle. It makes sense, but with all the competing demands on our time, it’s too easy to bite off more than we can chew –...

Mourning the Dead: Why You Should Have a Funeral After Killing Your Product

My Mardi Gras hangover cure didn’t involve a greasy breakfast with an aspirin, chased by a strong cup of coffee. My hangover cure was delivered via the brilliant idea Brandon Rowberry of United Healthcare Group shared at the recent Frost & Sullivan Innovation in NPD & Marketing conference in New Orleans. Brandon discussed how his...

The Risk of Doing Nothing

Current events paint a picture of a finance sector plagued with “Technical Debt” resulting in security breaches, ATM lockouts, blocked debit and credit cards, and more. It often feels like as consumers we have little choice but to accept these faulty systems. But, the more I read about these challenges, the more the enterprise architecture...

WIP Limits: How to Journey Safely Into the Unknown (Part 1 of 3)

It sounds counter-intuitive, but limiting your work in process (WIP) actually improves your flow — and your team’s productivity. In this three-part series, Stephen Franklin, CIO at Planview AgilePlace, draws from experience to explain the common obstacles you’ll face when setting WIP limits, and tips for overcoming them.  Missed deadlines, constant task switching and inefficient handoffs are...

Will Your PSO Be Able to Meet Client Demand?

Results of SPI Research’s 2014 Professional Services Maturity Benchmark™ Reveals Capacity Concerns: Find a Cure in Information Infrastructure With near record growth rates, professional services (PS) executives continue their emphasis on increasing both revenue and profit. In SPI Research’s recent benchmark (the 2014 Professional Services Maturity Benchmark is available for free here) we have seen...

The Changing Role of the CIO – From Technologist to Business Strategist

An article published by CIO.com about the modern day CIO and the challenges that they face resonated with us for several reasons.  First, the talent pool for the position as ascribed in the article differs a bit from years past.  Secondly, the characteristics and requirements for this role are shifting and lastly, the expectations for...

Why Limiting Your Work-in-Progress Matters

If you’re a fan of Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry’s Personal Kanban writings, you’ll know that they have two basic rules: Visualize your work Limit your Work-in-Progress Being relatively new to Kanban, the first rule instantly made a lot of sense to me — particularly in the context of using Planview AgilePlace. Being able to see the...