The Value Stream Management Consortium (VSMC): A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

I am excited to write about a new strategy to help organizations adapt more effectively to the intensified digital-first world. From improving time-to-market to operating more efficiently as an organization, software-driven innovation has never been more critical to business success; software has gone beyond accelerating everything we do to actually being what we do. That’s...

Why is Cost Estimation So Important (& How Can I Get Better at It?)

As a project manager, it’s impossible to underestimate the importance of cost estimation when it comes to successfully completing a project. Before even approaching a project, it’s important to get a handle on cost estimation to help keep you on task and in touch with project constraints and limitations. Why Cost Estimation in Project Management...

Scrum: Everything to Cover in Your Sprint Review

Sprints are the cornerstone of the Scrum project management methodology. Sprints are the units of time in which teams determine and prioritize certain tasks from the product backlog, assign ownership to them and define the timeframe for their completion. After the sprint is completed, the next step is the Scrum sprint review, which gives the...

What is PPM Software (& How Can It Help Me?)

It’s rare for a company to focus on a single objective, serve a single client or undertake only one project at a time. After all, this would hardly be conducive to building clientele, expanding operations and diversifying for continued growth, stability and profit. That said, seeing even a single project through to completion can be...

Service Businesses: Balancing Profit and Innovation Isn’t a Pipe Dream

As a professional service business, profit is the bottom line. With high profit margins, you can grow your business and serve new customer demands as you please. Without profit, you’re in a constant fight to stay afloat. However, you also can’t afford to have tunnel vision. Alongside profit, you must maintain high service quality, innovation,...

What’s the Difference Between Project & Portfolio Management?

If we take a closer look at successful enterprises and the way they operate, it becomes clear that their growth and establishment in the market is never a result of mere chance, rather it is the final outcome of various forces working together successfully. These invisible forces that operate in the background of each enterprise...

Agile Business Project Management: An Introduction

The concept of agility, once confined to the world of software development, is making its way into the broader world of project management. As more organizations begin to see the improvements in efficiency and communication that Agile Methodology can deliver, business agile is transforming industries from manufacturing to marketing. If your organization is interested in...

How to Make a Project Timeline That Works

The ability to plan is what defines an effective project manager, and one of the key pillars of that plan should be the timeline. Creating a project timeline is like drawing out the map before the voyage – it sets the goals and limits of the project’s duration so that teams can stay on-course (and...

The Best Qualitative Risk Assessment Methods

A defining skill set of any effective project manager is their ability to assess and mitigate risk. Spotting bumps in the road, predicting outcomes and preventing failures are all part of the responsibility of managing a project successfully. Risk assessment can be an art form, and there’s a variety of ways to get the job...