Project Risk Management Plan: How to Build One That Gets Used

What is a project risk management plan and How to Write a Project Risk Management Plan

The project risk management plan that gets used looks different from the one that gets filed. I’ve reviewed end-of-project risk registers where 11 of the 14 risks that actually materialised were in the original register — scored correctly, with plausible … Read more

Kaizen Principles: What They Mean in Practice

Kaizen Methodology Kaizen Implementation infographic

Most organisations that adopt kaizen principles understand them well enough on paper. The five or ten principles get listed in a workshop slide deck, people nod, and then the team goes back to their desks and nothing changes. I spent … Read more

Cause and Effect Diagram: Fishbone / Ishikawa Root Cause Analysis

Fishbone Diagram (Cause and Effect Diagram) Ishikawa Diagram

The cause and effect diagram — also called a fishbone diagram or Ishikawa diagram — gets used in root cause analysis more than almost any other quality tool. I’ve seen it used well and I’ve seen it used badly, and … Read more

Project Procurement Management: Best Practices

importance of procurement management and best practices in project management and in construction. project procurement plan

Project procurement management involves more commercial decision-making than most project managers are trained for. Not the administrative side — issuing purchase orders, filing contracts — but the decisions that actually determine project outcomes: what to outsource, what contract structure to … Read more

Critical Path Method Example: Steps, Float and Common Mistakes

Critical Path Method (CPM) in Project Management

This critical path method example article covers the full calculation — forward pass, backward pass, float — and the execution problem that makes most CPM implementations less useful than they should be. The critical path method tells you which activities … Read more

Schedule Compression – Fast Tracking vs Crashing

Schedule Compression Fast Tracking vs Crashing

The conversation about fast tracking vs crashing usually happens under pressure. The project is behind schedule, the client wants the original completion date, and someone in the room says “can we just add more people?” Someone else says “can we … Read more

What is a Projectized Organizational Structure?

Projectized Organization Structure advantages and disadvantages infographic

The projectized organizational structure is the one that gives project managers the most authority and the one that creates the most difficult problem for organizations to solve: what happens to the team when the project ends. Most descriptions of projectized … Read more

Lean Six Sigma Principles: What the Training Slides Don’t Tell You

What is Lean Six Sigma ? Lean six sigma principles, methodology

Lean six sigma principles are one of those things that look straightforward on a training slide and turn out to be genuinely hard in practice. The principles themselves — define value from the customer’s perspective, map the value stream, create … Read more