As recent media reports suggest, the dreaded “R” word—recession—is looming large across the horizon of most western and global economies. Many organizations have had to scale back their spending and reduce costs. Due to the cyclical nature of our economy, certain industries will fare better than others. Read the rest of this entry »

Introducing “Green” to Projects

There is a growing trend in IT organizations to reduce the environmental footprints that are typically generated from large enterprise IT project initiatives. To achieve this goal, a group of prominent IT organizations Read the rest of this entry »

Part II of this blog series analyzed the relatively recently launched Deltek EPM suite, which came as a result of three focused acquisitions. It also analyzed the suite’s resulting potential cross- and up-sell opportunities and its prospective additional revenue for Deltek in a standalone manner. However, Deltek has not been sitting still when it comes to continually enhancing its core products either.

Deltek Vision 5 Series

For example, the new Resource Planning module of Deltek Vision 5 [evaluate this product] was devised to allow project managers to assign staff to projects and immediately see the impact on labor utilization. The managers can then modify resource assignments to meet project needs, whereby color coding provides focus on resources.

The new module also offers real-time insight into employee billing rates and actual labor charges. It provides visibility to align resources for upcoming projects in order to increase overall resource utilization. The available tools give project managers a view of employee utilization by project or across all projects by day, week, month or year. In addition, the enhanced Resource Search feature allows for projection of future staffing allocation. Read the rest of this entry »

In this final installment of the Project Management Communication series, we look at a vital project management tool. This system has provided visibility to senior management, as well as justification for projects based on the expected value of each product in its planning stage, and in projects both in progress and completed. Read the rest of this entry »

Frequently when project teams convene to discuss post-project reviews, project team members feel that if communication had been better, the project would have gone smoother. The reason communication in project management is crucial is because it can impact a project’s success, and it is very important that project managers use the right types of communication during a project. Read the rest of this entry »

As with almost every business activity, the importance of communication cannot be overstated when managing projects. Examining the various phases of project management, it’s easy to see the importance of all types of communication at each phase.

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The New CIO Business Leader and Change Management Expert

Today’s chief information officer (CIO) not only has to be knowledgeable about technology, but frequently, the CIO is called upon to align the strategic goals of senior management in addition to managing on-going, day-to-day technology issues—the technology that provides visibility in the decision-making process.According to the IBM survey Expanding the Innovation Horizon: The Global CEO Study 2006, of 765 global chief executive officers (CEOs), most are finding there is a gap in the integration of their business and their technology, which hinders customer satisfaction as well as speed and flexibility in managing the business.A survey sponsored by the Gartner Group, Cost Cutting in IT, states that “2008 represents an important year in the transformation of IT’s role. Executive expectations for IT will accelerate towards greater support for solutions that attract, engage, and retain customers.” Notwithstanding the progress made in the area of aligning business requirements with IT skills, the gap has still not narrowed significantly, as a generational shift has occurred: IT employees in their mid to late 30s have only ever worked in IT, and they may have not had the opportunity to grow inother areas within the organization. Many baby boomers, on the other hand, have been entrenched in one organization for a number of years, and possibly in a number of positions within several company facilities.
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Emerging Trends in the Logistics and Distribution Knowledge Areas

1. RFID
RFID technology is the hardware used to communicate information (typically bar code information) to computer software systems that gather and use the data (such as a WMS). The manufacturing of RF equipment is dominated by several market leaders that typically go to market through various distribution channels, including resellers.
It is important to recognize that RF technology provides the backbone—but not the nerve center—of a physical operation.In other words, RF provides the ability to gather data, but not necessarily to make use of it. RF and bar coding technologies need to be implemented in conjunction with software systems that not only gather the data, but that also respond to it in real time or in batch mode. Read the rest of this entry »

Just one generation ago, the courier industry was essentially nonexistent. Today, in 2008, it is one of the largest means of transporting daily shipments for all industry sectors. According to the US Department of Commerce statistics, air freight accounted for nearly 40 percent of all international trade merchandise in 2007, equaling about $4.8 trillion (US), with express delivery accounting for 20 percent (or $2.4 trillion) of that amount Read the rest of this entry »

Well, a few months after Part I of this blog post was published, which focused on Deltek’s pre-New Mountain Capital private equity investment era, the time has finally come for us to analyze why being again publicly traded should (or should not) work better for Deltek this time. If one is to judge merely by the most recent financial figures, it would appear to be working well, but my focus here is on some lingering “softer” issues too.

So, when the new management team took the helm at Deltek in mid 2005, it realized that many good things had happened over the previous two decades at the company, but that one can never be too complacent. Indeed, room for improvements existed in many regards, or at least  some challenges could always be turned into opportunities. Read the rest of this entry »

In my last posting I wrote about the functions of project management. When I considered alternatives to MS Project, I started thinking about the functions of Project Portfolio Management (PPM) software and concluded that they were similar in many respects. Read the rest of this entry »

In a previous blog post, I wrote about the Project Manager’s role and some of the constraints that affect the daily life of a PM, namely: scope, time, and cost. This post will focus on some of the tools a PM uses on a day-to-day basis (and why), and some of the limiting factors that these tools present. In order to understand the use of PM tools it is essential to have an understanding of the PM’s role in the area of software deployment strategy, and the techniques used to realize the PM’s objectives. Read the rest of this entry »

The competitive environment that both Manufacturers and Distributors alike have experienced in recent years in the era of Globalization, Currency Fluctuation, and Market Pressures has given rise to the business impetus to run a leaner operation to remain competitive. These issues have trickled down to the IT department. IT Professionals are at times facing an enormous obstacle. They are expected to align the organization’s IT infrastructure with the strategic and operational components of the Business to improve upon Service Delivery. Read the rest of this entry »

The recent marketing push to integrate both small and medium sized businesses by large IT hardware and software vendors makes strategic sense. Both business groups are plagued with similar issues including small IT budgets and limited technical resources. Frequently SMBs target their IT acquisitions either in the hope of lowering costs or solving problems. Read the rest of this entry »

So you’re well on your way in terms of deploying the enterprise software. With great care and diligent planning you have assembled your team and despite your best efforts in securing resources and communicating schedules and responsibilities your Project Schedule is falling behind. You wonder if only I had selected the other vendor I wouldn’t have to be preparing this project update for first thing tomorrow morning.

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