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The views expressed in this blog are entirely my own (or the appropriate post's or comment's author) and do not necessarily reflect the views of AURA or the Gemini Observatory, for whom I work. (Not that they would want to claim any of my opinions!)
Tag Archives: Project Management
Some thoughts about commitments
No, this Blog is not dead. I think about it often; I just don’t have as much time as before to update it. I started taking some remote classes (what was I thinking?) and they are pretty much devouring every … Continue reading
Resource Management: Focus on the workers, not the managers.
Inspired by the Norm Smith talk I recently heard (see previous post), I purchased his book Got Progress? and highly recommend it. I now have words to describe some of the unease I’ve been feeling about my workplace’s current project … Continue reading
Additional Random Bits from the NASA PM Challenge, 2012
The annual NASA PM Challenge is a really good meeting. The speakers are generally excellent and the material covers a wide range from project management fundamentals to the latest great and innovative management ideas. The ratio of outstanding talks to … Continue reading
Managing Cost, Schedule, and Scope is not enough.
Project Management 101 teaches the need to actively, and simultaneously, monitor and manage a project’s cost, schedule, and scope. Project Management 102 might add risk management to the list as well. These ideas have become fundamental tenets of project management … Continue reading
On systems, processes, and paperwork
Lately, I’ve come across several proposed new systems, processes, and forms — all developed to address an assumed real, but unstated need. In most cases, I could see a useful purpose for the new system/process/form, but it usually wasn’t provided … Continue reading
“I set early deadlines so people work hard to get done as soon as possible.”
I recently heard a project manager say something like, “I set an optimistic, aggressive schedule to make sure people work hard to meet the deadlines, otherwise, they might back off and not work as hard as they can to finish … Continue reading
Working with academic vendors…
In my previous post, I made the outlandish statement that not all vendors are well-versed in the skills needed to properly handle large, fixed-price, contracts for one-off products. Now, I want to discuss some ways to effectively work with such … Continue reading
Why are we surprised when vendors can’t keep projects on time and budget?
It has been occurring to me lately that there is a fundamental mismatch between how some astronomy projects select and manage external vendors and their expectations of these external vendors’ performance. In our case, we require competition and fixed price … Continue reading