Project Network Dıagram <Project Name>         Company ... [full story]

Mechanics of Leading a Team There is no magic formula to leading a team. It is one of the unique qualities that some people have naturally and others must learn. One of the best methods you can use to lead a ... [full story]

Establishing the Project Authority With any project, regardless of the size, the project manager must establish his authority over that project. Authority over the project is not the same as authority over the project team members. You, the project manager, will ... [full story]

Tracking Progress There are several reasons why you must have a formal process for tracking progress. At the top of the list of reasons: tracking project progress will help you make adjustments and tweaks to the implementation plan, should you need ... [full story]

Leading the Team To lead the team, a project manager must first act like a leader. Think of any of your favorite leaders from politics, sports, or history. What are some of the attributes they possessed to lead and inspire? Chances ... [full story]

Ensuring Quality Throughout the Project As your project moves along through each process group, over hurdles, and through barriers, you’ll need a proven system to check the quality of your progress. You may subscribe to any one of multiple theories ... [full story]

Creating a Strategy for Quality As with any area of project management, you won’t be successful without a plan. Quality control requires a plan, a process, and a strategy to implement and enforce it. You can attack quality enforcement many ways; ... [full story]

Quality Management as a Process Quality project management is an activity you need to perform from the concept of the deliverable to the release of the deliverable to ensure quality in all your activities. It is a belief that the process ... [full story]

Quality of the Process Whether you are creating a product or a service, you will follow a process to arrive at the deliverables. As you’ve read in all of the earlier chapters, there is a set process, a logical and discrete ... [full story]

Quality of the Deliverables Every project must produce a deliverable to finish. A project to create a new application must, obviously, produce the application. A project to create a Windows 2003 domain must result in planning, designing, and producing the expected ... [full story]

Delaying a Project There will come a time in every organization when someone proposes that a project, specifically your project, be cut. Your hands will get sweaty, your gut will develop a sinking feeling, and you won’t sleep well at night. ... [full story]

Defining Quality Quality. How many times a day do you hear that word? Reports of it come from all around you: upper management, television commercials, salespeople, and the news. At every turn, someone is spouting off about their quality carwashes, the ... [full story]

Implementing Project Changes Your project is always in a state of flux. Changes are called for from management, team members come and go, and new technology sprouts up along the way to completion. All around you are temptations to shift the ... [full story]

Issue Management Meetings An issue management meeting, as its name suggests, is a meeting to resolve problems and issues as they arise on a project. Every project, no matter who planned it, will encounter troubles—they just always do. A delay in ... [full story]

Establishing Change Control Change control is an internal process an organization can use to block anyone, including management, from changing the deliverables of a project without proper justification. Change control requires the requestor to have an excellent reason to attempt a ... [full story]

Tracking Financial Obligations In addition to collecting information on the status of tasks from your team members, you will also have a responsibility to collect information on the financial aspect of your project. You will need, and generally be required, to ... [full story]

Defining the Need for Revision The English writer Arnold Bennett said, “Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.” How true that is! In the world of IT project management, change is not, and generally ... [full story]

Team Meetings A project manager who wants to lead an effective team must be organized, prepared, and committed to a strict timetable. When you meet with your team members, they will be looking to you to lead the meeting in an ... [full story]

Maintaining Team Leadership Once the project has been launched, the meeting schedule established, and the project team has developed a routine for completing, reporting, and finishing assignments, it’s tempting to relax and let the project take care of itself. Unfortunately, as ... [full story]

Working Toward the Finish A project requires many things: finances, hardware, time, and other resources. Chief among the required resources is a commitment from all parties involved in the project. This includes the project manager, management, the project sponsor, and the ... [full story]

Installing and Running MasterExam If your computer CD-ROM drive is configured to auto run, the CD-ROM will automatically start up upon inserting the disk. From the opening screen you may install MasterExam by pressing the MasterExam button. This will begin the ... [full story]

Delivering More Than What You Promise One sure way to be a success as an independent project manager is to promise to finish the project. Then look for opportunities to deliver more than what was promised. Always give more than what ... [full story]

Becoming a Leader Becoming a leader to your project team is the goal of any project manager. By doing such a thorough, complete job of leading the team, inspiring the individuals you’ll be working with, and seeing every task through to ... [full story]

Making Yourself at Home All eyes are on you, the new guy. Being an independent project manager can be a stressful way to start a project. You’ve got a project team of strangers to work with. They most likely know each ... [full story]

Everything You Must Know As promised, this section now covers all of the information you must know going into the exam. It’s highly recommended you create a method to recall this information. The 39 Project Management Processes Table B-1 shows the 39 project ... [full story]

Test-Passing Tips For starters don’t think of this process as preparing to take an exam; think of it as “preparing to pass an exam.” Anyone can prepare to take an exam: just show up. Preparing to pass any exam, especially the ... [full story]

IT Project+ Exam Objectives The IT Project+ examination is designed for information technology (IT) and business professionals involved with IT projects and business projects with a technology component. The examination is designed for candidates possessing at least 12 months of cumulative ... [full story]

Cheers! Celebrating Victory At the end of the project, congratulations and kudos to the project team, the project manager, the project sponsor, and anyone else who helped make the project a success. It is necessary to celebrate the victory of a ... [full story]

Declaring Failure No one likes to be called a loser. Unfortunately, some projects can make the project manager, the project team, and all associated parties feel like failures. How many projects are started, stopped, and rearranged, only to complete the cycle ... [full story]

Declaring Victory At the end of the project, you’ll have a fairly good idea whether the project is a victory or a failure. A project is a victory if you have completed the project on time, on scope, and within budget, ... [full story]

Creating the Final Report As with every other phase of the project, documentation is required. The good news is that the final documentation of the project does not have to be an in-depth novel of all of the work completed. If ... [full story]

Post-Project Audit At the conclusion of the project and before the final project report is submitted, a project manager should complete an audit of the success of the project. The purpose of the audit is to analyze the completed project, the ... [full story]