More companies than ever are seeking to understand project accounting costs as they realize that knowledge of this data impacts their bottom line and exposes areas where costs can be cut and profits can be made. By understanding project accounting costs, companies can discover financial problems wit...

Can you tell me exactly where your employees are and what they are doing? Do you know what the top 10 most profitable projects were for your company last year? Can you make a bid on a project that has little or no margin of error? If you can't answer these questions, then you should know that someon...

Why should you care about the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? If you are the CEO or another executive within a large public company, the answer is obvious: because you have to. If you don't, your business -- and you -- will face serious repercussions, including possible jail time. Not good. If you are an execut...

For many companies, the role of the PMO seems like an enigma. Sure, everyone knows that PMOs exist to streamline project operations so time and money aren't wasted, but what do they actually do? Failure to answer this question has led many companies to question the value of the PMO in the years afte...

"It takes two to tango." Ronald Reagan said this of the contentious relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union in the final stages of the Cold War. Unfortunately, this also applies to executives and project management offices. At times, it seems they are destined to face off against...

The project management office has provided well-documented value to many organizations. However, for some businesses, the benefits never materialize. Take a look at PMOs over the years, and you will see that many have restructured, dissolved, or constantly had to justify their existence during both ...

Rash assumption of leadership on the part of product managers creates an environment of uncertainty, and can result in the degradation of work ethic and productivity. Therefore, wise project managers will pay special attention to how they portray themselves and the manner in which they execute the ...

The cheapest available resources no longer necessarily come from the business next door. Any product or service that can be outsourced is more than likely being offered in some other region of the world for a competitive price, and it's up to consumers to decide where to spend their dollars. This m...

As the economy continues to improve, allowing us to feel a sense of hope that the worst is behind us, it's still critical for business owners to make sure they're making smart decisions about technology. After all, if the recession taught us anything, it's that we must be cognizant of cash flow, and...

TCO is a financial estimate that helps enterprise managers determine direct and indirect costs of a system. TCO goes beyond the initial purchase price or implementation cost to consider the full cost of an asset over its useful life. TCO and ROI are frequently confused and misused, but they actually...

More than ever before, project managers are looking to technology help mitigate the risk of project failure. According to a recent list of Top 10 Project Management Trends, "the implementation of new PPM solutions [in 2010] will soar. Program and project managers, under pressure from senior manage...

It often seems that an agile development environment will always be at odds with the structure and constraints of the project management office. Yet it does not have to be this way. Creating an agile PMO that bridges the gap between these two very important groups can help organizations to prioritiz...

The economy is finally recovering. This should mean that projects that were sidelined for the past year or two can come off the bench, and there might be more money to go around. As a project manager, are you confident that you will be able to put the right people on these projects? Not only that,...

Small projects, though often overlooked, can make up the bulk of the portfolio and are crucial to a company's success. They might not involve large sums of money, but the fact is that if managed improperly, these small projects can add up to some major costs in the long run. The good news is that ...

Due to the economy, many businesses are now looking at project portfolio management solutions to help them isolate and execute mission-critical projects more effectively. These businesses have also found that Software as a Service solutions are both more affordable and easier to deploy than traditi...

Josh Nankivel of PMStudent.com recently polled project managers about how the current economic climate is affecting them, and he found that 27 percent had experienced project cutbacks, 14 percent had experienced PM layoffs, 11 percent had experienced financial scrutiny of projects, and 10 percent ha...

Do you know what your people are working on? Do you know why your project is late? Do you know if you are getting the ROI you need? You may not realize it, but what you don't know can hurt you and your organization. You might be planning projects that your resources cannot accommodate, or spending t...

Data centers and headquarters have made up approximately 90 percent of the value in many recent asset sales on Wall Street. For example, Lehman Brothers sold its assets to Barclays for $1.75 billion, 86 percent of which was for the data centers and headquarters alone. The fact is that a company's he...

The global financial marketplace has recently become quite volatile, as fears of an American recession affect economies all over the world. Such fears can be especially dangerous for businesses. In times like these, many top managers panic and make unwise decisions such as firing quality employees a...

Why do your best laid plans often go unfulfilled? You have put the right people in the right jobs, empowered them to achieve, drafted an excellent plan, and got the necessary buy-in and funding. Yet somehow things went into the ditch -- and now the project is late and over budget, delivering a poo...