“Most books on branding,” Adam says, “focus on what it takes for a brand to be great: follow these steps, tick the boxes on a flow chart.” “PRINCE2® training is just like that,” I reply. “If you complete these documents your project will be a success. That’s not how things work in the real world.”…
ConceptDraw PROJECT is the second piece in the ConceptDraw Office suite. Last week I reviewed MINDMAP. I reviewed version 3 of ConceptDraw PROJECT back in 2007, so now they are on version 5 I was interested to see what had been improved. The interface is attractive and easy to use. Hitting Return puts a new…
“Every day is pancake day,” says Charles Seybold, co-founder and CEO of LiquidPlanner. “Any excuse.” It’s Shrove Tuesday, traditional day for pancakes, and I haven’t had any. What I have had is a look at the new version of LiquidPlanner that was released yesterday. The main differences since I last looked at it in May…
ConceptDraw Office is an entire software suite designed around the project management lifecycle. The first piece in the suite is ConceptDraw MINDMAP, which is “a business and personal productivity tool that collects ideas and organizes them into a visual map.” It’s a tool for on-screen brainstorming. I’ve never used mind mapping software before, being more…
If a visitor came into your office looking for you, and asked a colleague to point you out, what would they say? The short, messy one? The busy one with her glasses on her head? If a colleague was describing you to someone from another department, how would they sum you up? A good project…
A new study* has shown that nearly half of Project, Programme and Portfolio Management Offices (PMOs) rate themselves as Fair or Poor in terms of effectiveness. I think that’s terrible, especially as it was the PMO team or those close to them who responded to the survey. As the purpose of having a PMO is…
Josh Nankivel of PMStudent.com is running a survey on the impact of the currect economic situation on project management. If you have an anecdote to share, complete the survey. He’s had responses from all over the world so far: Costa Rica, India, Mexico, Holland, Germany, France, Canada, the US, China, Australia, but no one from…
One Saturday in 2008 I made Monica Enand, CEO and Founder of Zapproved, get up extra early to demo her new software for me. It was 8am on the Pacific Coast, and she didn’t sound like she was sitting in her pyjamas in front of her PC. Given that it was the weekend before launch,…
You will need: One department store One friend wearing flat shoes (ideally someone with better dress sense than you) The underwear you will be wearing under the dress Optional: The shoes you will be wearing. Cocktail dresses are short, so any height of heel will be OK. If you are adapting this method for a…
This is the last in a four-part series on how project management is facing up to the challenges of the 21st century business environment. I am noticing a shift towards working in a more 21st century way. The focus for many recruiters is now on people who can demonstrate emotional intelligence (read more about that…
If you weren’t able to attend the APM winter conference, you can get all the presentations and session notes online. APM have set up an impressive one-off blog to make everything available. They have also put all the official conference photos on Flickr here. There are two photos of me waving my arms around to…
This mini-series is looking at how project management is facing the challenges of 21st century business practices. Missed last week’s article on how project management is responding to those challenges? Catch up here. Today’s economy and business culture is not the same as the one that most of our project management tools were designed for….