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.

Trend Analysis vs Variance Analysis

Variance tells you where you are against the plan. Trend tells you which way you are going. Most projects report the first and are surprised by the second.

Cost-Benefit Analysis: Why the Cheapest Option Is Not Always Best

Most comparisons fail on the same two things: costs that stop at the purchase and benefits with no timing attached. Both make the cheap option look better than it is.

Multicriteria Decision Analysis Explained

The technique does not choose for you. It makes the basis of the choice explicit, and it moves the argument from which option to which criteria matter, where it belongs.

Facilitation Techniques for Difficult Project Conversations

The techniques that work in a hard conversation are small and mechanical: who writes before anybody speaks, what is being decided, and what is not open today.

Five Whys vs Fishbone Diagram

One follows a single chain backwards. The other spreads out across everything that could be contributing. Choosing wrongly produces a confident answer to the wrong question.

Lessons Learned Register: Use It Before the Project Ends

A lesson captured at closure helps a future project that may never read it. The same lesson captured in week six helps this one, at the next site or the next release.