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Browsing Archives of Author »Dave Kohrell«
PMBOK 5th Edition
Yes, it’s coming this year. 2013. Really soon! But don’t worry we have your back at TAPUniversity. Our blog minions, elves and other noble folk are updating over 300 PMBOK rocking entries for the hefty new PMBOK. Yours truly, David, has seen this rodeo before. Why I remember the very first PMBOK – pdf and […]
Program Management gets real in the Market to Market 2012
October 19, 2012
Program management involves orchestrating several inter-related projects. Often times a program grows out of a large project. While reflecting upon a wonderful weekend of running with close friends and over 3,000 other friends, covering a distance of 78 miles in teams of six to eight, it dawned on me – that event was a perfect, […]
Dirty Consulting Tricks – Subletting the “talent”
October 9, 2012
Bait and switch. Pitch the A team and send in the D team. Front load the client engagement up high and deliver low. Three consulting slang terms for subletting talent or substituting in lesser skilled or experienced talent for the one proposed for an engagement. In program and project management the engagements typically involve the […]
Dirty Consultant Tricks – Leaky Faucet of Billable Hours
October 5, 2012
The leaky faucet, the sieve, the bleeding of billable hours – called different things in different settings they refer to the same concept, a consulting/ contracting company or resource who piles up time and material hours. It’s also one of three dirty consulting tricks I’ve observed first hand in the last few years. The irony […]
Dirty Consultant Tricks – Hiding the Crystal Ball
October 3, 2012
Nearly four years ago we began the TAPUniversity Blog. It’s been based on a mix of our training and consulting delivery. The first topic was a top 10 things to do for contractors or consultants (or not do). After a round of consulting assignments, in pharmaceutical and insurance, with other consultants alongside me, I observed […]
Meaningful Work – Busy Work
September 27, 2012
Meaningful Work versus Busy Work was the central theme of a presentation and discussion I shared with the PMI Heartland Professional Development Day on September 17, 2012. The title was “Undercover Agile”. The premise was sorting through what’s meaningful and busy work in daily project management practice. Once sorted, high performance organizations and project managers focus […]
Working in the Weeds
July 31, 2012
12 months of two consulting project management engagements. Digging in. Pitching in. Working in the weeds! Since 2002 my career has been a blend of “doing” project management, business analysis, faclitation, agile and lean six sigma along with “teaching” those same subjects. The last 12 months has been 95% of the doing. Now that the […]
Function over Form – Don’t go Delores on me!
March 12, 2012
Over the last several months I had the opportunity to work alongside some wonderful people doing some great things. From time to time a quirk surfaced. I love quirks because they’re opportunities to grow. One quirk I saw I’ll call “Delores Umbridge” – in honor of the character from Harry Potter. Delores was a most […]
Stand up meetings – not just for software or Agile anymore
February 20, 2012
Stand up. Sit down. Which is better for the team, productivity, your company? The trend is stand up for a short burst of action and accountability among all types of business teams. A hall-mark of rapid software development (1990′s) and Agile (manifesto in 2001 onward) the stand up meeting has progressed rapidly beyond software, to […]
YAGNI – You Ain’t Going to Need It – anyway.
November 6, 2011
In the midst of some infrastructure / application remediation work for a great client in Omaha (insurance company) the concept of YAGNI came to mind. There’s a couple of quick reads for you. First a sort of “anti hero” opinion piece from one of the early members of Borland (Mike Rozlog) who apparently still holds […]
TAPUniversity’s Online Learning System has moved.
October 8, 2011
Exciting news. TAPUniversity has partnered with gnomio to launch its learning management system ahead. Additional must-have features include test bank expansion and knowledge sharing tools. An innovator in online project management training since 2006, this partnership ensures our delivery keeps paced with your learning needs! Just click on the TAPUniversity LMS* on the menu to […]
Green Project Management – PMI Minnesota – 2011
September 29, 2011
Good morning PMI Minnesota! in an effort to go green and to help your mobile access I’ve translated the Green Project Management presentation into a highlights post! Here’s a Link to the USGBC’s & LEED as well – http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1988 Slide 2 — Why “Think Green”? •All systems (economic, social, etc.) depend on the link to living systems •Our natural resources are […]
Business Analysis Technique #2 – Benchmarking
May 27, 2011
Benchmarking is a valid, powerful and concrete way to compare a new system or process to the current, “as-is” state OR to compare multiple systems in a vendor selection process. To ensure each of those adjectives (valid, powerful and concrete) are met here’s some suggestions: Valid – ensure a level playing field in all systems […]
Celebration! 100,000 readers!
May 17, 2011
Time for a little celebration. Today the TAPUniversity blog surpassed 100,000 visits or reads. Over the last two years our blog readership and contributions have grown steadily. Several hundred professionals check in each day and explore over 400 articles and growing. We’ll continue to publish and hope you’ll share in our exploration of the Management […]
Business Analysis Technique #5 – Data Dictionary and Glossary
May 11, 2011
Equally at home with Use Case creation, or the earlier generation’s database analysis, Data Dictionaries and Glossaries provide a common place to store and retrieve definitions. They’re used by business and technical roles. The premise is to understand what is needed for a field of data or an entire table or record of data (aka […]
Business Analysis Technique #4 – Business Rules Analysis
April 29, 2011
Business Rules. Universal definitions or process descriptions that transcend a single use case or process flow. A little bit bigger than a glossary definition (such as income range, gender, ethnicity) but not quite a usage scenario in its own right. Business rules as they’re refined, adapted and updated are invaluable requirements assets – they really […]
Business Analysis Technique #20 – Problem Tracking
April 21, 2011
Problems, issues, bugs, defects, action items, punch list, clean up tables – so many synonymous terms for the same underlying concept – tracking known “stuff” and making sure it gets resolved before a product or service is released. While risk management concerns the known- unknown, management reserves address unknown -unknown, problem tracking is smack dab […]
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