Performance, Productivity and Efficiency
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 10. March 2010
How one can manage to accomplish in a project best possible performance, productivity and efficiency at once? Is it a realistic goal in a real world, on real life conditions? Is it better to transit as times change from efficiency to productivity? Which PM methods help the most while trying to do so? Is it Agile? Questions over questions…
We would love to read your answers in the comments.
Tags: Efficiency, Performance, Productivity
Ch-cha-changes; News in our blog
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 9. March 2010
Ch-cha-changes… This is to inform you that the name of our blog ‘MacPM.net‘ as shown in the navigation menus of our website http://www.projectwizards.net/en is now ‘News’. Please note that only the name changes, the URL remains the same. The contents of our MacPM.net blog for Project Management with Merlin on Mac OS X remain. We will keep you posted in the usual frequency.
Merlin at the CeBit: An interview with Frank Blome, ProjectWizards’ CEO
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 9. March 2010
Frank Blome, our CEO, was interviewed by Richard Joerges at the CeBit, on the second day of the trade show.
He was asked for a resumé to the CeBIT so far and whether he sees any current trends in the Project Management.
Frank talks about Windows based PMs thinking about switching to the Mac platform, traditional project management, Agile and Scrum. Enjoy the interview 
Tags: Agile, CeBit, Scrum, Traditional Project Management
Merlin: resources utilization dynamically adjusted
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 8. March 2010
This is a tip of our CEO, Frank Blome, as discussed at the CeBIT 2010 and published on our German MacPM blog:
Supposedly you plan an activity of 5 days work to be accomplished in the duration of 10 days. As an experienced PM and Merlin user you create the activity in your project as follows:
This results to a 50% utilization for the assigned resource
Tags: Actuals, Documenting actual work, Merlin, Merlin 101, Utilization
Quote of the day
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 4. March 2010
Under a quality system, if it wasn’t documented (according to your own rules), IT NEVER HAPPENED!
Found in a post about Managing Projects in the Medical Device Marketplace
My thoughts in random order:
- It pays to document things as you do them, it’s a horror to catch up later on
- There is no such thing as over-documentation
- Next team meeting ToDo: Suggest to develop dietary supplements additionally to our Mac OS X project management software; Merlin
- When documenting don’t forget localisation aspects
Quote of the day
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 3. March 2010
Why is it that we seek a silver bullet to magically solve all of our problems?
Found here
Applescript: Shifting activity starting dates at once
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 26. February 2010
From time to time we get asked in support, how to shift all given planned starting dates at once in Merlin projects to a new date while maintaining the slacks.
If the activities are linked together, the user may use the dynamic shifting project setting, and define a new planned starting date for the first activity. The linkages between activities will shift the successor activities as needed.
If the activities are set to specific starting dates, and you want to shift them all by the same amount of time, you may consider writing an AppleScript to read the given planned earliest start dates of the activities, apply the desired time offset, and write the new date back onto the activities of the project.
But why bothering writing a new Applescript from the scratch, when there is already one which we have just written doing so? Spend your time on managing your projects, not on scripting. Be lazy and productive. Just click here to download it
Tags: Applescript, Merlin, Merlin 101
My Team: my customers
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 18. February 2010
Reading a blog post about the importance for a good PM to build good relationships not only to clients but also within the project team, I found the following sentence:
your team are your customers
Just a few hours ego I had written a similar sentence to a colleague. I was asked whether it is really ok, that I was told to do so many changes to a specific newly created web content. Of course it was fine with me. My team are my customers. I have delivered the best possible result based on the original instructions, and was satisfied by the result. My ‘customer’ used the possibilities of the new product and was happy at first. But what happens when you use new products? First you try to understand them, and later on you try to customise them. So as expected customisation requests arrived, changing the scope of the project. Very well. Everything is fine. If the changes make sense and the effort is reasonable to the achieved benefits, why not? If my ‘customer’ is happy, I am happy to.
Tags: PM, Scope Change Request
Scrum basics
Perri Pappas on 18. February 2010
Hi, this is me Perri…
you probably know that during my internship by ProjectWizards, I am not only up to learn how to use Merlin, but also more about project management.
So while searching the internet for understandable documentation to Scrum, I came up with a post listing its basics. I really liked the 3 questions on the daily scrums when doing the sprint:
- What did I do since our last daily scrum?
- What am I planning to do until the next daily scrum?
- What is stopping me to do what I plan to do?
I also see a great benefit in the sprint retrospect with the next 3 questions:
- What went well?
- What can be improved?
- What will we focus on improving in the next sprint?
I intend to plan my work to meet the scrum basics. It really makes sense and I am very curious to see how it helps me delivering successful projects.
Tags: Internship, Merlin, Scrum, Scrum basics, Sprint, Sprint retrospect
Motivation
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 17. February 2010
One of the reasons why projects fail could also be luck of motivation. There are various ways to motivate a PM or the team. One very important according to me, is letting the people have an amount of autonomy in choosing their way of work.
If the ‘what’ question is clear, it a great to know that you can freely decide ‘how’ methods to apply.
This works at best in creative teams but is also very good elsewhere. Creative workers find it easier to do mental work on their projects while hearing music, being on places outside the office walls, when visiting museums, or shopping moles, by taking a coffee at the coffee shop around the corner, go for a jog etc.
A programmer on the other hand, needs his machine, his code and may find it easier to concentrate in the silence of his office.
There are so many different working habits and ways. Not everyone enjoys company when thinking. Different people work differently well while using the same set of hardware or software tools. Why should a company or a PM try to force a specific one? It would not rise effectivity, it will probably lead to unease.
My suggestion: Do you want to rise effectivity and make your deadlines on a project? Be courageous and offer autonomy to your team to decide for their own how they organise their work.
Tags: Creative teams, Motivation, PM
PMOT, AGILE Tweets
- RT: @AgilistaPM: Top 10 Skills in Demand in 2010 (PM is #1) http://bit.ly/d28leW #pmp #pmot #agile bono2k (Ahmed AbuElNour)
- Top 10 Skills in Demand in 2010 (PM is #1) http://bit.ly/d28leW #pmp #pmot #agile AgilistaPM (Donna Reed)
- Great series by @rayposch on the common barriers to project success. Many apply to #agile projects too! http://bit.ly/awoEyQ #pmot AgileForAll (Bob Hartman)
- RT @albertcmz: @LaetyDeCo Presentación del PMI de Barcelona "La alternativa ágil" http://ow.ly/1kbIo Es abierto, gratuito y online. #pmi #pmp #pmot #agile LaetyDeCo (Laety De Coene)
- RT @albertcmz: Jueves con el PMI de Barcelona "La alternativa ágil" (18/3 -19h) http://ow.ly/1knUu Es abierto, gratuito y online. #pmi #pmp #pmot #agile fredyfl (Alfredo Fernández)