Project Management Articles

Business » Project Management | By Ed Oakley @ Wednesday, 27th December 2006 @ 12:27 PM

A regional claim center of a major insurance company was in big trouble. It's customer service rating was a miserable 58%, entirely unacceptable. A senior manager was brought in to lead a critical turnaround project. After experiencing a Leadership workshop, the approach he took was very simple, so simple that he attracted lots of naysayers, lots of pushback from all directions within the organization. Eighteen months later, his simple approach to project leadership had taken... more...

Business » Project Management | By Daniele Protti @ Sunday, 3rd December 2006 @ 5:12 PM

When a business plan to have a product and decide to outsource the activity the big mistake is not to have a contract in place with the supplier and good product specifications. The product specifications should, or better let's say, must be an annex to the contract or agreement: black on white! Many people have no or do not want to spend the necessary time to have a good start when outsourcing a task. This is really the most important part of a project, the product developmen... more...

Business » Project Management | By Vernon Riley @ Thursday, 30th November 2006 @ 3:45 AM

The different types of project review each have their own characteristics and benefits. For any review however it is important to decide what the overall purpose is, and who should gain what from the output. This step is missed out in many cases and the design of the review is not given sufficient attention. Standard methodologies for carrying out project reviews can be helpful, but must be supplemented by intelligent thought! In the author's experience a review should consider both the pro... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Wednesday, 8th November 2006 @ 10:14 PM

Selecting the most appropriate Six Sigma Black Belt project is the most common problem faced by students who enroll themselves in a Six Sigma training course. The project is necessary as it helps students learn the practical aspects of Six Sigma implementation programs. The project is conducted either before the commencement of the training program or during the first week. Identifying A Problem Before starting a project, students first need to identify a problem, similar to real ... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Wednesday, 8th November 2006 @ 12:22 PM

Introduction 6 Sigma is all about quality improvement and was first pioneered by Motorola in the 1980s. Over the last few years, this methodology has received much recognition and several companies have adopted it in order to meet their targets. Six Sigma's clientele include a long list of well-established manufacturers like General Motors, Ford Motor Co., GE, Honeywell and many more. However, there are still many non-manufacturing companies that have come to the conclusion that 6 Si... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Wednesday, 8th November 2006 @ 12:22 PM

6 Sigma concepts and philosophies were originally developed for improving the overall quality of business processes in the manufacturing sector. Companies like Motorola and GE were among the first few that successfully introduced Six Sigma concepts in their business processes. However, with the development of newer tools and techniques, 6 Sigma is now deemed appropriate for the services sector as well. The usability of Six Sigma in the services sector is easily evident from the increasing number... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Wednesday, 8th November 2006 @ 12:21 PM

Problems Faced By Companies On The Cost Front On the cost front, most industries such as the manufacturing industry, service industry, health care industry and even the educational industry are all experiencing a great amount of pressure. As an example, hospitals are facing ever-decreasing compensation from insurance companies, which is a serious concern to many. Hospitals also experience the pressure of high labor costs and low productivity. This decline in revenue has come about due to... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Wednesday, 8th November 2006 @ 12:21 PM

Six Sigma And The Green Belts In an organization implementing Six Sigma, the Black Belts are generally supported by the Green Belts. Black Belts do most of the problem-solving and analytical work. The cost of training, hiring and renting new Black Belts is a major factor that eats into the Six Sigma projects savings. This in turn leads to a decline in the returns on investment. An increasing trend for companies employing Six Sigma in order to save more money per year is to use the unconve... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Saturday, 21st October 2006 @ 2:09 AM

Six Sigma concepts and philosophies aim at improving the overall quality of business processes. With the help of time-tested tools and templates, Six Sigma aims at achieving near perfection by restricting the number of possible defects to less than 3.4 defects per million. An organization that does not use Six Sigma tools and templates may not be able to produce quality products or render quality services even if the organization follows a planned strategy. It is only through Six Sigma tools and... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Saturday, 21st October 2006 @ 2:09 AM

Six Sigma concepts and philosophies aim at improving the overall quality of business processes. With the help of time-tested tools and templates, Six Sigma aims at achieving near perfection by restricting the number of possible defects to less than 3.4 defects per million. An organization that does not use Six Sigma tools and templates may not be able to produce quality products or render quality services even if the organization follows a planned strategy. It is only through Six Sigma tools and... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Saturday, 21st October 2006 @ 2:09 AM

Six Sigma concepts and philosophies aim at improving the overall quality of business processes. With the help of time-tested tools and templates, Six Sigma aims at achieving near perfection by restricting the number of possible defects to less than 3.4 defects per million. An organization that does not use Six Sigma tools and templates may not be able to produce quality products or render quality services even if the organization follows a planned strategy. It is only through Six Sigma tools and... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Saturday, 21st October 2006 @ 2:09 AM

Six Sigma concepts and philosophies aim at improving the overall quality of business processes. With the help of time-tested tools and templates, Six Sigma aims at achieving near perfection by restricting the number of possible defects to less than 3.4 defects per million. An organization that does not use Six Sigma tools and templates may not be able to produce quality products or render quality services even if the organization follows a planned strategy. It is only through Six Sigma tools and... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Friday, 20th October 2006 @ 11:51 AM

Six Sigma has become one of the most commonly used quality management techniques since its introduction in the 1990's. The importance of Six Sigma has continued to increase ever since companies like GE began implementing it's various concepts and techniques in their business processes. This has helped the company in saving billions of dollars since the time when the concepts were first implemented. The Simulation Process Process simulation is one of the various technique... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Thursday, 21st September 2006 @ 9:05 AM

Since its introduction in the 1990's, 6-Sigma has become the buzzword in both the manufacturing and service industries. The various methodologies used in 6-Sigma are based on a disciplined and data driven approach that help in eliminating defects and achieving near perfection by restricting the number of possible defects to less than 3.4 defects per million. The methodologies are effective in managing business processes of both the manufacturing and service industries. In manufacturing indu... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Wednesday, 13th September 2006 @ 5:01 AM

Six Sigma is a methodological strategy by which errors in a company's current processes and plans are identified and strategies to rectify the same are formulated. It is fact-based technique, involving a lot of data handling, which provides scientific results for cost cutting and reduction in waste of resources. Today, many organizations, large and small scale, are applying Six Sigma to ensure improved, faster and cheaper services to their consumers without compromising on the quality quoti... more...

Business » Project Management | By Vernon Riley @ Thursday, 7th September 2006 @ 5:00 AM

Even when a good governance structure is in place the structure of an IT project is more important than is often assumed. The structure can make estimating difficult, and make it impossible to deliver whilst retaining the confidence of the management and external stakeholders. Yet the structure is often assumed without proper debate - either with the customer or with the project team. Many organisations and project managers still like to use the so called 'waterfall' method of ... more...

Business » Project Management | By David Gass @ Tuesday, 8th August 2006 @ 7:58 PM

Gone are the days when people had to calculate the accounts on paper. Regardless of whether you are working in a large or small business institute, if you are good at computers and have a desire for learning, no one can stop you from becoming an accountant. Annual planning of accounts has become a thing of the past in the cutthroat competition of today. To survive in this environment, small businesses need to be agile and must move ahead at a faster pace with sound strategies prepared by managem... more...

Business » Project Management | By Vernon Riley @ Wednesday, 2nd August 2006 @ 12:35 AM

Over the last few years there has been much emphasis on project management methodologies such as Prince2. The introduction and roll out of these structured techniques helps set expectations amongst the wider community about what the project manager will do, and the manner in which communication will take place. For instance the project stakeholders will not be surprised to see a project manager having a set of documents including ¨ Business Case, ¨ Project Initiation Document, ¨ ... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Wednesday, 19th July 2006 @ 4:23 PM

The title ‘Design Risk Assessment in Six Sigma’ beckons to be likened with Poka Yoke or ‘Mistake Proofing’. But without going deeper into the comparison part of it, what we can say is that both of these don’t have any similarities whatsoever, even though Poka Yoke appears to be the next logical step of Design risk Assessment in Six Sigma. So What Is Design Risk Assessment In Six Sigma? As the name suggests, design risk analysis is the procedure to determine potential risks in desig... more...

Business » Project Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Wednesday, 19th July 2006 @ 4:01 PM

Projects, both planned and unplanned, can get out of hand, producing undesired or no results after waste of huge resources and time unless they are monitored accurately with the appropriate tools. The pitfalls of not using Six Sigma tools are extremely complex in nature. It becomes impossible to manage the quantum of data in a systematic way that facilitates pragmatic analysis as desired by the project goals. If you look at it from another angle, which is from the administrative side, pre... more...