Article	Abstract
The Project Management Discipline:  Achieving the Five Project Success Factors	Most of us at one time or another will be responsible for the successful completion of a project. From a simple LAN expansion to a major systems upgrade aboard an aircraft carrier we know that the U.S. Navy relies on the successful completion of many projects to achieve mission readiness. This article will explore the challenges of managing projects as well as provide a systematic approach for improving the success rate of all projects. As an example, we'll examine one specific project management technique you can apply to any project.
Building the Problem Solving Machine	Successful Information Technology projects may depend on using a specific technology, but when projects require more than one person to complete they also require teamwork. This article will provide a vision of a high-performance team and guidelines every project leader can follow to improve team performance. How big a difference does successful teamwork make? Read just the opening lines from one of the classic books written on IT management, first released in 1987 and updated again in 1999, Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. Chapter One, entitled "Somewhere today, a project is failing," says it all: "Since the days when computers first came into common use, there must have been tens of thousands of accounts receivable programs written. There are probably a dozen or more accounts receivable projects underway as you read these words. And somewhere today, one of them is failing. Imagine that! A project requiring no real technical innovation is going down the tubes. An accounts receivable program is a wheel that’s been reinvented so often that many veteran developers could stumble through such projects with their eyes closed. Yet these efforts sometimes still fail. "1
Project Status Reporting using Earned Value Analysis	"So, how’s it going?" Whether you hear it in the hallway or in your regularly scheduled project review meeting, you have stakeholders who want to know the latest news on your project. There are usually a variety of topics they want to hear about, but there are two questions that are always asked: "Will it be on time?" "Will it be on budget?" There is another question they all have too, but may not be asking: "Do you really know how it’s going?" This article is another in the series on proven project management techniques. It will present a long-used method of project accounting known as earned value analysis. By using this approach, a project manager, sponsor or customer can make more objective, more accurate assessments of project progress.
Phase Gate Development for Project Management	This year, 2003, America celebrates the beginning of one of our country’s greatest projects, the exploration of the American West by the Corps of Discovery – better known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  This great journey shares many characteristics with 21st century IT projects: It had a clearly defined beginning and end, required a team of dedicated professionals, confronted previously unimagined obstacles and finished a year behind schedule!  It’s true. The original schedule called for the explorers to begin traveling up the Missouri River in the spring of 1804, reach the Pacific Ocean and return to St. Louis before winter 1805. Instead, they completed their journey September 23, 1806, and were instantly haled as national heroes.1 When your project finishes 10 months late, chances are there aren’t any parades. Worse yet, there is often a sense of frustration and failure. Yet many IT projects face the same dynamic confronted by the Corps of Discovery: they are given a fixed deadline while the actual scope of the project is barely understood. This is the fourth article in a series profiling project management techniques that apply to the IT environment. If you’ve read the previous articles you may already be building detailed action plans, managing risks and developing a more cohesive project team. Those techniques focused on the day-to-day responsibilities of managing a project. This article will take a new perspective, examining an overall strategy for managing the risks of exploring new territory, a strategy called phase gate development.
Increase Your Rewards:  Guidelines for Project Risk Management	IT project managers could learn a lot from 17th century European merchants – both have experience with uncertain dangerous ventures that promise great rewards. Over 350 years ago the merchants, with some help from a monastery outside Paris founded the modern theories of risk management. Their revelation: "Fear of harm ought to be proportional not merely to the gravity of the harm, but also to the probability of the event." To the merchants this meant they could calculate when their fleets would reach port and what returns they could expect. This allowed the merchants to maximize their odds over the long run to make dependable profits. As a result they could fund increasingly risky -- but potentially profitable enterprises. This in part contributed to the growth of modern Western economies.
Winter 2005 Newsletter	MS Project tips from Sam!
Fall 2005 Newsletter
Summer 2005 Newsletter	Stakeholder management is risk management for people. Read Eric's thoughts.
Spring 2005 Newsletter	“Lousy” is the way many executives describe the estimates they receive from project managers. “Optimistic” may be a more accurate description, because the estimates are possible – just not likely.  How can you make your estimates better?  Here are seven factors that influence the accuracy of your estimate – the more of them that are present the more accurate your estimate will be.