February 2012 – In Search Of

Project Portfolio Management

Posted on February 28, 2012Leave a comment

Projects are not assets, they are liabilities. Like a future obligation, or a goal. When you manage a portfolio of liabilities, they have to be offset by assets. The process of project portfolio management is simply the management of flow of expenditure projected by each project, in time, compared with the projected flow of funding from defined sources.

When the projected funding is sufficient to cover the projected flow of project expenditure for all projects, no worries. When the projected funding is insufficient, decisions need to be made. We can take actions like: stop, slow, abbreviate projects or change the scope of projects to overcome the insufficiency.Continue Reading

Product Management

Posted on February 20, 20123 Comments

Product Management is something that should be easy to understand. The highest level goals of product management should be easy to articulate.

1) build a valuable product
2) maintain the value of a product relative to its customer community
3) manage the investment in the product, to ensure the best possible returnContinue Reading

When Firing Is Better

Posted on February 13, 2012Leave a comment

Sometimes it would just be easier, and better for all parties if we were honest and just “Fired their sorry asses!” It would be easier for management, because there is less corporate drama around firing and hiring than around a reorg, or implementing alternative staffing models, and RIF’s are either good (when the economy is going down) or bad (when it is going up), from a market analysts perspective – but firing ineffective employees and hiring new talent is always good.

Product Centric

Posted on February 6, 2012Leave a comment

I work in an environment that is somewhat dominated by a project governance mentality. What does this mean? What it means to me is this – that our diligence is focused on spending rather than on asset creation. Why is this significant? Because it changes how we focus the decisions in the process of software development.Continue Reading

What I Have Done

Posted on February 4, 2012Leave a comment

Recently I have had to look back on my career and remind myself what I have done. I am leading a challenging project, and at times it feels like I have team members and customers projecting their expectations for how the work will be executed. Sometimes amid the cacophony of voices, I have to remind myself that I am capable of bringing the team to consensus around strategic decisions. Continue Reading