project management tools

• Basecamp

http://basecamp.com/

• Activecollab

http://www.activecollab.com/

• Smartsheet

http://www.smartsheet.com/

• Change Management. What a Project Manager should know.

The change management system (CMS) is the “radar” for your project, it’s

constantly scanning the horizon for changes


investigating and evaluating requested changes to your project scope

requires time and money to perform, so you need a mechanism built into your

CMS to allow for this


Obviously the investigation must be fair, you must not attempt to bias the

reporting of the results of the investigation to the stakeholders in order

to:

a. have them reject to change, because i\t means more work for you.
b. exaggerate the impact so that you can use it as a buffer for shortfalls

elsewhere in the project.



Document everything

So you draw up a justification for accepting/rejecting the change and

present it to the stakeholders. If the change is accepted and signed off

(don’t miss the signoff stage, or it will come back to bite you –

guaranteed!)


A good CMS will ensure that all necessary changes are made to the budget,

schedules, performance measuring metrics at the same time as the scope is

changed, and no critical stakeholders are left out of the loop

you must establish within your CMS a way to tell “who pays” for the

changes, because it can vary depending upon circumstances.


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