Understanding breakdown structures in project management

Breakdown structures are central to the practice of project management and have their origins in the industrial revolution. Pat Weaver explains how they can be useful—and sometimes not.

Using project controls for effect

Describing scheduling, earned value and financial management as ‘project controls’ is, I would suggest, dangerous! Project controls is a communications process, argues Lynda Bourne.

10 goal-setting tips for project managers

Project managers are always thinking of the goals of their project when they should also consider their personal aims. Here are 10 ways to fast-track your goal-setting, writes Michelle LaBrosse.

The truth about project controls

Much of we call ‘project controls’ is actually a process of communication that we can use to influence the direction of our project, writes Dr Lynda Bourne. How did we manage to confuse communication with control?

Benefits realisation and project controls

Benefits realisation is now becoming a central plank to the evaluation of project success. Guy Wilmington shows how you can track benefits throughout your project.

Survey to determine how project managers lose control

A survey supported by the Australian Research Council will set out to investigate the causes of project blowouts, compare governance systems and practices that may contribute to or mitigate blowouts, and develop a model to predict and avoid project blowouts.

Project controls versus project schedules

Project controls are a misnomer, says Pat Weaver, they don’t control projects at all. A well designed project schedule on the other hand…

“The project schedule has two key roles to play, firstly as a tool to develop a common understanding of the optimum approach for achieving the project objectives and then as a flexible tool to measure the inevitable deviations from the plan and re-assess the best way forward.”