TSI's Project Management Discussion Blog » Project Management Discussion

$700,000,000,000 and No Scope Statement!

Tim Bergmann — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:45:06 +0000

Watching the news lately and seeing all the “bailout” money being distributed to failing corporations like a big “money-storm”, it makes me wonder. What are they thinking? We, the American taxpayers, through our elected representatives, have violated one of the most basic concepts in project management. We have granted authority to spend $700,000,000,000 – and no [...]

Rethink and Retool

Tim Bergmann — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:35:44 +0000

Jim Wiseman, vice president of external affairs for Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America recently announced that Toyota would be consolidating truck manufacturing at some plants and using a new plant in Mississippi to produce Prius automobiles in the U.S. In the announcement he stated that Toyota was using this as an opportunity to [...]

Thousands of Hours of Boredom

Tim Bergmann — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:32:10 +0000

The news media reported on Monday, July 7, that Barack Obama’s chartered campaign aircraft experienced elevator problems in flight from Chicago and made an “unscheduled” landing in St. Louis. Unfortunately, the mechanical description in the press reminded me of the catastrophic airplane crash involving Alaska Airlines off the coast of California several years ago. To [...]

Gas Prices Exceed $10.00 Per Gallon

Tim Bergmann — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:52:24 +0000

This morning one of the alleged US experts on petroleum has been interviewed by one or more media outlets and has predicted that gasoline could reach $12-$15 per gallon in the United States. While I think this expert is wrong about gas prices in the US; in other parts of the globe there could be [...]

Ten Steps for Practical Business Continuity Planning

Tim Bergmann — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:41:40 +0000

Business Continuity Planning is a complicated, sometimes difficult endeavor for an organization. One of the challenges that colors the process is that Business Continuity Planning is still in the formative stages. BC experts who are working today are often the same individuals who performed Disaster Recovery planning on early mainframes and self published their findings. While there is always a definite need for Business Continuity Planning, there are many barriers to success. This paper describes a methodology at a high level that can facilitate success for Business Continuity Planning by applying proven project management, program management and business continuity best practices in a coordinated manner.

Business Continuity Planning superseded the concept of Disaster Recovery around 1994-1995 after the Hurricane Andrew experience in Florida. During this widespread disaster event, some companies found that they had protected their infrastructure (Disaster Recovery), but had failed to protect the company (Business Continuity). This initiated an evolution from Disaster Recovery thinking to Business Continuity thinking.

Simply stated, Business Continuity deals with all of the elements of the company:

Infrastructure (Buildings, communications and computing)
Sales
Fulfillment and customer service
Human Resources
Security
Risk scenarios

To oversimplify, Business Continuity deals with the organization holistically; in the past Disaster Recovery only dealt with a small portion of the organization.

But there are some definite challenges to Business Continuity. First of all, in order to address a problem, the organization has to recognize that a problem or need exists. Many organizations fail to plan for Business Continuity due to various reasons, such as lack of resources, lack of budget and lack of interest. Many organizations suffer from the vision that “It won’t happen here” and fail to take adequate precautions to protect the enterprise.

Think about it: how often have the officers and directors of a company that failed into bankruptcy been criminally or civilly prosecuted for the failure? Sometimes, usually in cases of fraudulent activity there have been prosecutions; Enron, Tyco and Worldcom would be recent examples of criminal prosecutions. But while these prosecutions have been very public events, there are very few corporate leaders who suffer this fate.

The Seven Deadly Project Sins: Part 6 – Over-Allocation of Resources

Tim Bergmann — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:19:53 +0000

Project Managers are often encouraged to try and meet unreasonable expectations for projects. Scope is often extended while schedules and budget are restricted. Project managers many times try to meet these constrained schedules by pushing their existing resources to their limits.

The Seven Deadly Project Sins: Part 5 – Personalization

Tim Bergmann — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 01:10:58 +0000

This document is fifth in a series about the Seven Deadly Project Sins. In this narrative, I will continue to focus on some of the “soft-elements” of the project, some temptations that the project manager needs to be on the lookout for in order to foster success on the project. The Seven Deadly Project Sins as I [...]

The Seven Deadly Project Sins: Part 4 – Project Lust

Tim Bergmann — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:40:25 +0000

This document is fourth in a series about the Seven Deadly Project Sins. In this narrative, I will continue to focus on some of the “soft-elements” of the project, some temptations that the project manager needs to be on the lookout for in order to foster success on the project. The Seven Deadly Project Sins [...]

The Seven Deadly Project Sins: Part 3 – Project Gluttony

Tim Bergmann — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 18:14:49 +0000

This document is third in a series about the Seven Deadly Project Sins. In this narrative, I will continue to focus on some of the “soft-elements” of the project, some temptations that the project manager needs to be on the lookout for in order to foster success on the project. The Seven Deadly Project Sins as I [...]

Have you Failed Today? Communications Barriers to Success

Tim Bergmann — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:30:01 +0000

Have you failed today? Has anyone come up to you and spoken the hurtful phrase “you have failed me (again)”? If they have, you need to know how to respond to that.

The Seven Deadly Project Sins: Part 2 – Project Envy

Tim Bergmann — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:20:33 +0000

This document is second in a series about the Seven Deadly Project Sins. In this narrative, I want to focus on some of the “soft-elements” of the project, some temptations that the project manager needs to be on the lookout for in order to foster success on the project. The Seven Deadly Project Sins as I have [...]

The Seven Deadly Project Sins: Part 1 – Elitism

admin — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:26:33 +0000

Early Greek theologians originally identified eight wicked life characteristics that the individual should avoid lest they be punished in the afterlife. Christianity modified these eight elements into a shorter list that has been euphemistically labeled the “Seven Deadly Sins”. By theological assertion, the individual who practices the deadly sins or who falls into temptation from these deadly sins will be punished eternally in the afterlife. Project Management has a group of “Deadly Sins” that the project manager can be tempted by. Punishment for practicing these sins often does not wait for the afterlife or the after-project. Punishment is many times swift and career changing.