Project Management and Change Articles

Articles

Andre Malowney writing at a desk, working through project management reference texts and printed process diagrams

Practical thinking for project professionals

Articles on project delivery, governance, risk, predictive, Agile and hybrid practice, alongside a growing PMP® knowledge library for professionals preparing for the current exam.

Root Cause Analysis in Projects: How to Fix Causes, Not Symptoms

A problem that keeps returning has been fixed at the wrong level every time. The discipline is in refusing the first plausible cause, especially when it is a person.

Backlogs, Boards and Registers: Choosing the Right Artefact

Each of the three answers a different question. Most project clutter comes from asking one of them to do another's job, and then maintaining all three badly.

Cost Is Not the Same as Value

A project can come in under budget and leave the organisation worse off. Cost is measured while the project runs; value is collected by somebody else, afterwards.

Agile Estimating vs Predictive Estimating

One system estimates the work in absolute units and aggregates upwards. The other sizes items against each other and learns the rate by observation. Both are forecasts.

Defining Scope: Turning Requirements Into a Manageable Commitment

Requirements describe what people want. Scope is the subset the project commits to deliver, and somebody has to do the choosing before anything can be planned.

Product Backlog vs Sprint Backlog

In the tool they look like two views of the same list. In practice they have different owners, different horizons, and different rules about who may change them today.