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Business Intelligence Project Management 101: Managing BI Projects Within the PMI Process Group 
– By Carole Wittemann, PMP
Too many times, business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing project managers are ill-equipped to handle their roles in guiding a project to success. Often, the person slated to lead a project is either a technician who does not know the first thing about managing a project or a project manager who does not know the first thing about BI. This paper introduces business intelligence to the pure project manager and introduces project management concepts to the BI practitioner in the context of an example project.

In Search of the Perfect Project Management Tool 
– By Dmitry Stillermann
The market for project management tools, specifically those targeted at the software development industry, is in a very peculiar state nowadays. Every available solution is either lacking some rather critical features, or is cumbersome to use, or both. Basically this means that any newcomer that addresses all of the shortcomings of the existing products can easily grab a huge market share from the competitors.

IT Project Management: Ten Rules for Enhancing the Human Element 
– By Kevin McGaffey and Rob Beckmann
In this article, we step back to take a look at our combined 56 years of experience in IT delivering hundreds of projects, and we assess and determine the lessons learned working in large complex IT organizations as employees, service providers, consultants, and trusted advisors to leading North American companies. We believe that there are patterns to successful performance by individuals and teams in projects, and would like to present ten rules for enhancing the “human element” of the IT team.

Challenges and Tips with Communications in IT AMS Projects 
– By Guang De Wang, PMP, IBM China Global Delivery Chengdu Center
Communication plays a very important role in an Information Technology application management service project. To provide the quality of service to customers and meet the service level agreement, the project team needs to communicate every day with customers who may have different roles. To ensure the successful delivery of the project, the project manager need to master and keep the whole team informed of communication techniques for different scenarios.

Process Innovation SaaS: An Emerging Business Model Techniques 
– By Chitra Rao, PMP, ALMI, ARA
This article attempts to provide insight into some key business considerations for an SaaS provider to enable a successful transformation from a traditional on-premise model to the SaaS business model, and some key considerations for an SaaS consumer to identify the likely business domains to use an SaaS solution and enable a seamless integration with the existing on-premise applications.

The Role of Lean
– By Howard Williams, PMP, and Judy Gerber
Scenario: A particular software development project is underway, but progress is slow, even with the required resources on board. Technical issues are compounded by changing requirements, and planning is complicated by development resources getting pulled into support work on existing products. Quality has been compromised. The problem described above is an example of what we view as a work process issue. This is in contrast to what we have called, in a companion paper (“IT Project Management: The Role of Governance”), a governance issue.

The Role of Governance
– By Judy Gerber and Howard Williams, PMP
Scenario: A particular software development project is described as critical by the organization that initiated it, but it is difficult to acquire the resources needed to get it done. The needed people and assets are always busy with other projects that higher-level managers insist get done first. The problem described above is an example of a lack of functional governance processes and its effect on IT project management. This paper describes the identifying concepts and features of governance, how it affects IT project management, and some practical examples of what can be done when governance is not functioning.

One Size Does Not Fit All 
– By Anand Padhye, PMP, CPIM
The most widely used project management methodology is the waterfall model. In this model the progress of a project is seen flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of conception, initiation, analysis, design (validation), construction, testing and maintenance. It should be apparent that this model has its origins in the manufacturing and construction industries. And that raises a question: Do all information systems projects need to follow the same model?

Design and Governance of Formal Review Gates for Systems Integration Projects
– By Jeet Sandhanwalia, PMP, IBM Global Technical Services
This article addresses the design considerations and governance of formal review gates for composite application development and infrastructure implementation, commonly referred to as “systems integration projects” in this context. Although the basic design principles and governance between software development and systems integration do not widely differ, there are technology implementation aspects that alter the governance (including a set of deliverables, team of reviewers,and timing during the project life cycle phase) of these gates. 

Software Development Projects—Operations Integrated Approach 
– By Channaveer Channashetti, PMP
With the passage of time, IT organizations have become an integral part of almost every function of every industry. This has led to increased budgetary allocations and provisions for supporting, enhancing, and adding new software systems in all segments, year after year. As a result, numerous opportunities have arisen to make processes more efficient and productive, yielding better quality at reduced cost--but IT must be designed and deployed effectively.

 Applying Project Management in Technology Transition - A Bird's-Eye View 
– by K.S. Biju, PMP
Technology transition has gained a great deal more attention in recent days. This is defined as the detailed desk-level knowledge transfer and documentation of all relevant tasks, work flows and business processes from a provider to a client or from an owner to a support organization. Extensive due-diligence is required in assessing what activities need to be transitioned and to what extent. This article is an attempt to explore the different phases and activities of a transition cycle and how some of the project management techniques can help make life easier for a transition manager.

Go Fast, But Don't Hurry 
– by Raj Kaushik, PMP
Do we care to learn from our past mistakes that have resulted in failed or overrun projects?  This article poses some of the decision-making questions you can ask to produce success on your project.

Practical Advice for Software Implementation Project Managers 
– by Steve Reichenbach, PMP
Learn from the mistakes of an effective project manager with over 10 years of experience leading software projects whose simple three-week project went on for three months.