Master planner quotes
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 17. August 2010
You can learn more from failure than success. In failure you’re forced to find out what part did not work. But in success you can believe everything you did was great, when in fact some parts may not have worked at all. Failure forces you to face reality.
Great design does not come from great processes; it comes from great designers.
The critical thing about the design process is to identify your scarcest resource. Despite what you may think, that very often is not money
When I first wrote The Mythical Man-Month in 1975, I counseled programmers to “throw the first version away,” then build a second one. By the 20th-anniversary edition, I realized that constant incremental iteration is a far sounder approach. You build a quick prototype and get it in front of users to see what they do with it. You will always be surprised.
Fred Brooks, in an Interview by WIRED, July 28, 2010
Do you need a ScrumMaster?
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 29. March 2010
Do you develop software and use the Scrum framework? Do you wonder, like me, whether you need to have a ScrumMaster in your project team if you already have a Project Manager?
Lisa A. Grant (MBA, PMP, CSM) from the pmi.org gives an answer by using the following check list :
- Does the project manager have the technical expertise to assess technical tasks and set direction?
- Has the project manager been trained in Scrum?
- Does the project manager have the respect of the team for his or her subject matter expertise?
If the answer to all three questions is yes, Lisa Grant concludes, than the PM can probably successfully perform both roles, otherwise…
These two positions should work in concert with each other just as a project manager and a development manager do.
You will find the mentioned post here
Tags: CSM, PM, PMP, Scrum, Software Development
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: CeBit, Scrum, Traditional Project Management
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
Tags: Scrum
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
When to sprint
Perri Pappas on 19. January 2010
Hi, this is me Perri…
I had the other day a good idea to blog about and I though, I should write a ‘to-do’ before I forget it. So I started our Daylite, logged into the server, added a new task and written down a resume for the feature blog post. I categorized it, set up a priority, even entered some referencing URLs for external links and as I was about to save the task I remembered what I had read in the blog post Sprint is a Great Idea of Pawel Brodzinski:
Next time you have a task which you should take you fairly short time (a few days) try to sprint. Not much strategy, not much thinking about anything else – just run as far as you can.
So… canceled saving, copied the summary, logged into the Merlin blog, created a new post, pasted the clipboard and simply did my sprint. Editing and posting was quicker than task creation or scheduling and had not really delayed the other plans of the day at all.
I really have to write a post-it for this:
Remember: Scrum techniques apply on many areas, not only on project management.
Tags: Internship, Scrum, Sprint
Questions to a professional PM: Interview with Dave Prior
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 22. December 2009
As promised here the interview Dave Prior gave to our Richard Joerges.
It is about project management in general, agile methods like Scrum and XP, Twitter and of course project management on Mac OS X.
MacPM: What are the benefits of scrum in your opinion?
Dave Prior: Scrum offers a great alternative to traditional “waterfall” approach. I find it works best on projects that are high risk, troubled or have really tough (impossible) deadlines. It is a great way to get the client fully engaged and build a quick history of success that leads to deeper trust. At first glance it seems fairly basic and simple, but it does require a lot of discipline. Lately I’ve been blending Scrum and the PMBOK a lot. I use Scrum with the development team so that they can move quickly and stick to the business of coding and I take the output of the Scrum process and port the results into PMBOK oriented reporting formats I can use for more traditional minded senior executives.
Tags: Scrum
Dave Prior: PM combining the best of two worlds
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 21. December 2009
Richard Joerges, our colleague from the German blog, had the chance talking with Dave Prior and wrote a very interesting post here.
In case you happen not to know Dave Prior already, Dave is a PM for the past 15 years and has been volunteering for PMI since 2002. He has been on the board of the IT&T SIG since 2003 and was the Chair during 2008. Now serving out his term as Past Chair, Dave is also senior consultant at Valtech in the Transformation Services group – which helps companies who want to migrate to Agile.
Tags: Scrum
A blog tip…
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 21. October 2009
Here is an interesting post we found in the Project Management Tips.
It lists an all-inclusive timeline of Project Management milestones starting by the development of the Gantt chart back in 1910s and ends with the publication of the third edition of PMBOK® Guide in 2008… Enjoy reading it
BTW here is how the project would look like if Henry Laurence Gantt had a Merlin and a mac to use back then, was only interested in milestones and the future PMs had entered the actuals within… 
Click the screenshot to see it in real size…
Project management can be zen
Perri Pappas on 22. September 2009
Hi, this is me Perri…
looking in the internet for more information about project management methods, I found this slide concerning Scrum, which ProjectWizards had linked on the German blog.
I find it very interesting. What about you?
Tags: Internship, Scrum
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