Friday, August 24, 2012

Project Charter Ownership

As usual, I'm tring to catch-up on my reading.  Today I came across an interesting article on change management for projects.  It is good to see an article focusing on change management although the article did not go far enough to stress using change measures as a project performance indicator.

Anyway, as you can see by the title of this post, I'm not focusing on change management measures but rather the project charter ownership.  In this article, the author presented a case where an organization implemented a formalized process where project leaders prepared a one page outline of the project to summarize the project's value to the organization, the project outcomes, and the alignment of the project outcomes to strategic objectives.  This outline was then provided to the steering committee to evaluate current and proposed projects.

First of all, I like how this organization simplified a formalized project charter down to essential components that are used in the steering committee's project evaluation.  This one page outline reduces the overhead of a more detailed and formalized project charter so the project teams should be more likely to comply with the process.  Also, by providing a highly summarized format for the project charter, the steering committee will be able to quickly assess the projects and, due to the standardized outline, easily compare projects to determine which projects to fund.

My issue with this process is where the ownership of this project charter was placed.  The organization required the project managers to develop this outline.  I feel this ownership is misplaced.  This is a good opportunity to engage the project sponsor in the project.  It is the project sponsor that should be responsible for developing the simple project charter.  The sponsor should be responsible for identifying the value to the organization, the project goals, and the project alignment with the strategic objectives.  The project sponsor needs to own a part of this project charter and developing a simple one page project charter is a great opportunity to ensure the sponsor is involved in the direction of the project.

Perhaps I'm overreacting and the organization simply infers the project manager is responsible for this project charter document and it is implied the project sponsor is involved in developing the charter.  I just think the importance of engaging the project sponsor should be emphasized by placing ownership of this project deliverable with the project sponsor.

Monday, August 20, 2012

iPad Keyboard

As an IT professional and an academic, I typically need to read a lot to stay up-to-date in the field.  This sometimes means reading RSS feeds from blogs and technology news sites.  However, this often means reading technology journals and magazines.  Quite often I come across new information that I will want to be able to refer back to.  For this reason, I use my Evernote account to capture my notes and evaluations of the articles I read.  Using this approach I'm able to include a URL to the original article in my Evernote note and have quick access to my notes through a search of my Evernote notebooks.

I also like to read while away from my desk.  This means I don't use my computer to capture my notes and evaluations of the articles but rather my iPad.  I use Evernote on my iPad to record my notes from the articles.  In the past, I used the iPad on-screen keyboard to type in my notes.  However, this method is slower than a keyboard and results in more errors.  I think I found the solution.

Earlier this month I purchased a new keyboard cover for my iPad.  With the keyboard cover I'm able to quickly open my iPad and use this keyboard to enter my notes.  This new configuration resembles a type of ultranotebook (like Macbook Air) but I'm also easily able to remove the tablet (attached using magnets) from the keyboard and use the iPad in its original form.  Pretty slick.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Preparing for Business Intelligence Class

In a few short weeks I will begin teaching an undergraduate course in business intelligence.  Business intelligence (aka BI) and the corresponding topics within the field have been around for while but under different names.  With the new language and concepts I was unsure my knowledge of legacy concepts and implementations were still valid so I began preparing for the class by searching for introduction-level articles on the BI field.

I was immediately successful in locating a great introductory source.  The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), a professional organization in the IT field, put together what they refer to as Tech Packs as a form of overview for a select group of topics.  In the library of Tech Packs I found a Tech Pack for BI.  This set of overviews and annotated bibliographies provided a great introduction to the BI field and included many references for further reading.  Using this Tech Pack I was able to confirm my understanding of the topics and now feel I have a good solid foundation to begin working with my textbooks to teach the course.

I still have a lot to do to prepare for the course and a lot of learning along the way.  Since this is my first iteration with this new course it will be a JIT (just-in-time) design and development over the semester.  I'm looking forward to the challenge of the course and the excitement to be learning more about BI.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Advisory Board

Over the past month I recruited and engaged an advisory board for our new Master of Science in Project Management program.  Our board met last week to provide input into the program outcomes and the curriculum.  During this meeting one of my colleagues at the college facilitated a dialog circle to capture the board member's input on the project management profession and our program outcomes.  This proved to be a very effective technique in eliciting input from a group.

I am now in the process of formulating the program outcomes and finalizing the course sequence for the program.  The input from the advisory board proved useful in both validating my design for the program as well as pointing out gaps in my initial design.

Incorporating the advisory board into the program design process adds more work and increased the schedule.  However, the program design will be dramatically improved by integrating all of the perspectives offered by the board.  I am very pleased with the contributions from the board.

Skills to Look for in Project Managers

Today I read a brief article describing the eight skills to look for when hiring an IT project manager. The headlines caught my attention...