January 2025: How to decide on project activity sequencing relationships? Most popular activity sequencing relationships in a project schedule are Start-to-Start (SS), Start-to-Finish (SF), Finish-to-Start (FS), and Finish-to-Finish (FF). Choosing the relationship between two activities in the schedule is not arbitrary. The type of relationships connecting activities, and any lag or lead durations between them, will directly impact the performance and overall duration of project completion, and could consequently impact on overall costs of the project. For example, an SS relationship with a lag time can be used when two activities can be executed in parallel, but the second one depends on partial delivery of the first at its beginning, so instead of waiting for the full activity duration of the first one to complete, the second activity can start after a certain lag time as soon as the first activity is started and began to deliver, which leads to much saving of time of the overall project schedule. Similar reasoning can be applied to deciding on when the other types of relationships can be used.
December 2024: What is Generative AI (GenAI)? Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is a modern trend in technology, a sort of Artificial Intelligence that utilizes machine learning and neural networks techniques, applied on large data sets, to identify patterns and structure of content, and possess the ability to create, that's to generate, new content, in forms of text, image, video, audio, etc. Newly generated content will be satisfying characteristics desired by the user of the application that's based on GenAI technology, like ChatGPT and Google Gemini, among others. Many applications are starting to emerge by building on the power of GenAI, enabling users to create unlimited sorts of content based on their own criteria, and this is embedded now even in legacy applications, to add new features. In addition to the many positive sides of GenAI, still there are malicious uses, like deep fake videos, where audio and video content is generated and attributed intentionally to some persons for the purpose of defame or insult.
November 2024: How to select an Assessment Sample? Random sampling is a technique used in studying a certain population. It's used for purposes like market research and trend analysis. In the context of maturity assessments of processes in business operations, like project management maturity assessment, a sample of staff are selected for interviews, and a sample of projects is selected for document reviews for evidence of compliance. While the size of the sample is usually a proportional ratio to the size of the overall population in the scope of the assessment, and usually the ratio is recommended according to the assessment model adopted, the individual items in a sample should be selected so that the overall sample is as representative as possible for the population under study. The larger the sample, the more representative it would be, and more realistic the resulting findings will be. For project and process maturity assessment purposes, a representative sample should cover all departments and all business lines within scope with weights proportional to staff size of each.
October 2024: How to capitalize on Quick Wins? Quick Wins are opportunities that are considered low hanging fruits, with low overhead in terms of cost, risk, and effort, but with high impact and high return. In a bubble chart of potential endeavors an individual or an entity can pursue, quick wins can be easily spotted, depending on the representation of each axis and the bubble size and color. In project portfolio management, those endeavors are ranked at highest priority, considering their high score in all evaluation aspects. Keeping an eye on potential quick wins can help in seizing them as they are identified, and not to miss opportunities. This can be achieved by continual scanning and review of market trends, research and development proposals, customer demand, technological shifts, etc. Criteria should be defined in advance to help in identifying quick wins and acting upon them in proper time.
September 2024: What are Schedule Optimization Techniques? Project schedule optimization is done by analyzing the relationships and durations of the project activities, using techniques like critical path method, with the ultimate goal of compressing the project duration as possible, with optimum allocation of costs and resources. Most commonly used schedule optimization techniques are schedule crashing and fast tracking. Crashing refers to adding more resources to an activity so that it completes in shorter time. When applying this technique pay attention to the concept of diminishing return, when the expected gain from allocating additional resources is reducing as more resources are allocated, and activity duration can't be reduced with the amount that justifies the additional cost of resources. Fast tracking refers to reengineering the relationships, dependencies, and sequencing of activities, so that the overall network of activities is optimized, and the project critical path length is shortened.
August 2024: Why Continuous Education is Important? Education is not limited to school years, it's a life-time journey that goes through stages. This journey doesn't end by graduation from school or university, in fact a new type of education is waiting throughout work years. Continual professional and personal development is essential in order to sustain and increase your value and viability in the job market, and to keep growing in positions. Continuous education can be self-paced by keeping your knowledge up to date and learning new skills and innovations in your field, or it can be formal education by attending educational and training programs and obtaining advanced certifications. Rising up to leadership and managerial levels puts on you responsibility for continual development not only of yourself, but also of your team and subordinates.
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