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Top Tips for Project Management

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“What advice would your project management students give to those just starting out in this discipline?”
Geoff Crane asked me the same question as other project managers to compile his top tips and tricks for his students. It was difficult for us to come up with tips as there were so many things we could share with new project mangers. This is where I ran out of space.
New project managers should show that they are flexible, willing, and able listen to their team members and are willing to learn. Project management experience is not necessary. You can instead find other ways to help.
In my first project, I didn’t know how identify a stakeholder group. I didn’t even speak to them. I called the head to inquire about what had happened and why she was so overwhelmed with extra work on go live day. Communicate more than you think you should. You will find additional stakeholders when you least expect them. This does not necessarily mean that you should send mass emails to all employees. This means communicating with specific stakeholders in a targeted and relevant manner. But there are many of them. Call people and invite them to lunch or coffee. People worry about not knowing all the details, especially if they are involved with large projects. This is your responsibility.
Another rule of project management is to keep your project team members safe from politics and grief so they can do their jobs. If it helps, you can accept responsibility for the problems. It’s a great way to diffuse tension and move forward with constructive problem solving. It is very difficult for someone else to shout at you after you have apologized.
Remember that you are also a stakeholder of the project. Even if it’s only 6 months of work in an area you love, you should always be able to get something out of a project in terms of career development.
Geoff has created a complete ebook. It is available for download here. It is a PDF file, so no sign-up necessary.

Ferdinand
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CloudWatch Logs is a new AWS feature. This new extension service was introduced at the AWS Summit in New York. CloudWatch used to only monitor resource utilization. To monitor application-level logs, we need to use third-party tools. With CloudWatch Log service, one can upload and monitor various kinds of log files and even filter the logs for particular pattern which could help resolve various production issues like an invalid user trying to login to your application, a 404 page not found error or a bot attempting a denial-of-service-attack. You can also monitor other AWS services such as EBS, EC2, RDS, and others. CloudWatch can store and monitor application logs, system logs as well as webserver logs. These metrics can be set as alarms so that you are notified of any app/webserver issues and can take the necessary actions quickly. CloudWatch Logs: Loggly, Splunk and Logstash already monitor logs and provide detailed reports. CloudWatch Logs is quite basic at the moment, but it would not surprise if Amazon adds additional features in the future. What makes CloudWatch Logs better than other third-party tools? CloudWatch Logs is the only platform that can monitor resource usage and logs. CloudWatch Logs pricing works on a pay-as-you-use model, which can be more affordable than third party tools that use a per node license model. You will pay for log storage and bandwidth to upload files. CloudWatch Logs pricing – $0.50 per gigabyte ingested, $0.03 per gigabyte archived per month Ingested data : This is the data (log file) that CloudWatch is uploading to. Archived Data – All data (log events) uploaded to CloudWatch are retained. You can choose how long you want to keep the data. This data will be archived using gzip Level 6 compression and stored. Storage space for archived data is charged. Let’s review the basic terminologies used in CloudWatch Logs. Log Agent – A python script that directs logs to CloudWatch. Log events: A Log Event is a log file that contains an activity and a timestamp. Log events are only supported in text format. Other kinds of formats will be reported as error in the agent’s log file (located at /var/logs/awslogs.log). Log Stream: A log stream is a collection of log events that are reported by one source. Consider the apache server’s access log. It contains multiple events from one source, i.e. apache web server. Log Group – Log Group is a collection of Log Streams from multiple resources. A WebServerAccessLog, for example, reports Apache access logs from three identical instances. Log Group level is used for Metric filters and retention policy. Metric Filter: The Metric filters tell CloudWatch how to extract metrics from ingested Log events, and turn them into CloudWatch metrics. We can create a Metric filter called “404_Error” that will filter log events to find 404 access issues. To monitor 404 errors on different servers/instances, an alarm can be set up. Retention Policy: The retention policies determine how long events will be retained. Log Groups are assigned policies that can be applied to all Log Streams within the group. You can set the retention time from 1 day to 10 year, or you can choose to have logs never expire. How to install and configure Log Agent on Linux machine: Steps: SSH into the instance and switch to root. Run the following command in the terminal. Shellwget https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-cloudwatch/downloads/awslogs-agent-setup-v1.0.py1wget https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-cloudwatch/downloads/awslogs-agent-setup-v1.0.py 3.
What is a WBS? Bill asked a great question about a WBS and how it can be used to plan project scope. Josh, please clarify. I am only at chapter 7, so if you have any questions, please forgive me. So far, it seems like the WBS is different than the schedule. Is this a point you’re making? Or am I misunderstanding it? I thought the WBS was the basis of the schedule. RegardsBill Bill, you are correct. The WBS is separate from the schedule. You should be able to focus only on the deliverables when creating the WBS. This is true regardless of the time. (I hesitate to recommend phase-based deliverables in general but I recognize that some programs may use this structure) I also recommend that you do not use staff roles to organize your work breakdown structure. Next, you break down the deliverables into tasks. The tasks will be what you use to create your schedule. Your schedule will most likely be influenced at least partially by the WBS structure. But not always. My version of a WBS is called a Product Breakdown Structure (PBS) in the PRINCE2 world. When I speak of task decomposition in a Base of Estimate (BOE), they use the same terminology for what they call a WBS. Although we do the same thing, the terminology can be confusing if you try to translate across the pond. I recommend that you never open a scheduling tool without first completing the necessary steps.
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What is a WBS? Bill asked a great question about a WBS and how it can be used to plan project scope. Josh, please clarify. I am only at chapter 7, so if you have any questions, please forgive me. So far, it seems like the WBS is different than the schedule. Is this a point you’re making? Or am I misunderstanding it? I thought the WBS was the basis of the schedule. RegardsBill Bill, you are correct. The WBS is separate from the schedule. You should be able to focus only on the deliverables when creating the WBS. This is true regardless of the time. (I hesitate to recommend phase-based deliverables in general but I recognize that some programs may use this structure) I also recommend that you do not use staff roles to organize your work breakdown structure. Next, you break down the deliverables into tasks. The tasks will be what you use to create your schedule. Your schedule will most likely be influenced at least partially by the WBS structure. But not always. My version of a WBS is called a Product Breakdown Structure (PBS) in the PRINCE2 world. When I speak of task decomposition in a Base of Estimate (BOE), they use the same terminology for what they call a WBS. Although we do the same thing, the terminology can be confusing if you try to translate across the pond. I recommend that you never open a scheduling tool without first completing the necessary steps.
What is a Project Coordinator? Scott was thinking about the role of Project Coordinator recently. He replied to one my Project Management Career Coaching questions with this: Josh, I am currently attending school for Project Management and have really enjoyed your daily emails. I am currently a Manufacturing Supervisor in a small company. After graduation, my goal is to be a full-fledged Project Manager. I was interested in your recent post about changing industries and how you were successful in landing a job as Project Coordinator. I have been looking for a company for some time, but I don’t have any way to get to know the workers. It is a different industry than mine and I don’t have any connections to the company. I discovered that they have two positions available for Project Coordinators. I am trying decide if it’s worth taking the risk and making the move now rather than after I graduate. It is difficult to gain experience in managing small projects in the position I am currently in. It’s a small company, so I have to accept the fact that I can’t advance in my career unless I leave or wait for someone else to retire. I am asking you this question: Do you think that a job as a Project Coordinator is a good starting place for an aspiring Project Manager. Or would you prefer to stay at the same place for another year and gain more experience in employee management? I know you are busy, so I appreciate any advice you can offer me. Scott, thank you for your email! What is the role of a Project Coordinator? Project coordinator roles are not the same in all organizations. This is why I don’t believe it fits into all strategic career paths. It depends on the industry and the organization, but as a general rule, a role in project coordination is a good way to get into project management. It indicates that the organization is mature in managing projects. It will also give you an opportunity to experience the ‘world of managing projects’ in that organization. If my experience is any indication, you’ll be right there. Building Relationships – I discuss how to get connected to people in the industry or company. If you approach it with respect and tact, you can use LinkedIn to reach out to these people. LinkedIn is a great networking tool that can bring you face-to-face connections and allow you to make friends and develop relationships over time. It’s not a quick process, but it’s possible to expect great results. It will take some time. It won’t take forever, but it won’t stop. It’s ongoing. Some people find themselves in small companies and want to go into a larger company. Once you have the experience and knowledge from a larger company, it is sometimes best to stay there. However, if you want to return to a smaller company, you can bring your expertise and help grow it. If I was you, I would interview for the position of Project Coordinator, even if it wasn’t something I wanted to do. This will give you valuable experience in interviewing and allow you to ask great questions about the company’s project management. It can make a huge difference in your chances of getting hired.
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What is a Project Coordinator? Scott was thinking about the role of Project Coordinator recently. He replied to one my Project Management Career Coaching questions with this: Josh, I am currently attending school for Project Management and have really enjoyed your daily emails. I am currently a Manufacturing Supervisor in a small company. After graduation, my goal is to be a full-fledged Project Manager. I was interested in your recent post about changing industries and how you were successful in landing a job as Project Coordinator. I have been looking for a company for some time, but I don’t have any way to get to know the workers. It is a different industry than mine and I don’t have any connections to the company. I discovered that they have two positions available for Project Coordinators. I am trying decide if it’s worth taking the risk and making the move now rather than after I graduate. It is difficult to gain experience in managing small projects in the position I am currently in. It’s a small company, so I have to accept the fact that I can’t advance in my career unless I leave or wait for someone else to retire. I am asking you this question: Do you think that a job as a Project Coordinator is a good starting place for an aspiring Project Manager. Or would you prefer to stay at the same place for another year and gain more experience in employee management? I know you are busy, so I appreciate any advice you can offer me. Scott, thank you for your email! What is the role of a Project Coordinator? Project coordinator roles are not the same in all organizations. This is why I don’t believe it fits into all strategic career paths. It depends on the industry and the organization, but as a general rule, a role in project coordination is a good way to get into project management. It indicates that the organization is mature in managing projects. It will also give you an opportunity to experience the ‘world of managing projects’ in that organization. If my experience is any indication, you’ll be right there. Building Relationships – I discuss how to get connected to people in the industry or company. If you approach it with respect and tact, you can use LinkedIn to reach out to these people. LinkedIn is a great networking tool that can bring you face-to-face connections and allow you to make friends and develop relationships over time. It’s not a quick process, but it’s possible to expect great results. It will take some time. It won’t take forever, but it won’t stop. It’s ongoing. Some people find themselves in small companies and want to go into a larger company. Once you have the experience and knowledge from a larger company, it is sometimes best to stay there. However, if you want to return to a smaller company, you can bring your expertise and help grow it. If I was you, I would interview for the position of Project Coordinator, even if it wasn’t something I wanted to do. This will give you valuable experience in interviewing and allow you to ask great questions about the company’s project management. It can make a huge difference in your chances of getting hired.
Project Failure: We are at It Again Serendipity happens. I replied to a student Inside pmStudent eLearning with what turned to be an article about project success and failure. Shim wrote, “Projects failure rates?” a few days later. The conventional wisdom is wrong! His blog is amazing. I began leaving comments, and it quickly became one of those comments that should be its own post. Chaos I mean the reports that various organizations have on project failure rates. Shim outlined the following in his post:
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Project Failure: We are at It Again Serendipity happens. I replied to a student Inside pmStudent eLearning with what turned to be an article about project success and failure. Shim wrote, “Projects failure rates?” a few days later. The conventional wisdom is wrong! His blog is amazing. I began leaving comments, and it quickly became one of those comments that should be its own post. Chaos I mean the reports that various organizations have on project failure rates. Shim outlined the following in his post:
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