This past November (yes, I am late getting this story to the blog), I was published in the Project Management Institute sponsored “PM Network Magazine” on the topic of Project Management Networking. Surely this was an ego boost for me, and an opportunity to flex my PMP muscles by contributing what I knew to benefit the Project Management Industry. Interviewed for the article by Neil Hodge via trans-atlantic phone call between the UK and the USA, I offered Neil a wide perspective of how project managers could benefit by expanding their network and by leveraging their networking tools. Unfortunately Neil only took a minor fraction of what we discussed for his article, as he had other subject matter experts who provided input and all this good advice had to fit into 2 1/2 magazine pages. The good news (and I appreciate this tremendously) is that Neil gave Planphoria a really good plug within PM Network. (This is Planphoria’s first industry trade mag shout out!) Despite this, much of what was said was lost as it never made it to the article, so I thought it prudent to clean up some of my interview notes and offer them here.

Normalization of Deviance is the working or mission environment created when established standards are subverted incrementally over time without consequence, by routinely rewarding shortcuts from the established norm. As team members continue this practice (normalization), it leads to “predictable surprise”, incursion of risk, technical failure, and in the worst cases complete and catastrophic failure and loss of property and life.

Microsoft Project Seems Synonymous with Project Management, But is It Really the Best Place to Start? — We have all seen it, and have likely been there at one point or another. A Project Manager is assigned a new project and instantly follows his impulse to crack open his laptop, start MS-Project and begin the planning process. In doing so, he immediately, without hesitation, dives headfirst into his project and begins to waste time in the name of advancing it.

ANSI/EIS 748-a (1998) is the widely adopted Earned Value Management System (EVMS) standard. Overall, it is about 32 pages long, 19 of which actually hold real content that is directly relevant to the standard. The ANSI standard goes by other names, relevant to the 32-Steps described in the document, such as the 32-Step Earned Value Management Process. This is confusing, and on a proposal a few years ago, I had to figure out what the RFP was talking about when it referred to the 32-Step EVM Process. In short they wanted the ANSI standard without referencing it, and requested it without the understanding that the ANSI standard was not structured by the 32-steps. For this reason, I thought it to be a good idea to pass this knowledge along. Hopefully I have hit upon a few key words for those people frantically (and incorrectly) searching for the 32-Step EVM Process.

Organizations who need a “Value Engineering” system often develop one for the wrong (singular) reason as they address OMB Circular 130 mandates to Federal Agencies, and fail to realize their own reasons for tracking Earned Value. Earned Value Management is an effective tool to help the Project Manager understand the the dynamics of a project and where the project is heading if present trends persist. It gives them the visibility into the project give them an early response to perceived problems. Saul Rosenberg discusses how.