Project Management Stack Exchange
Project Management Stack Exchange

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1500 questions
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2 answers

Is deciphering a book a project?

I just got an argument with a friend about whether deciphering the Voynich manuscript (a mysterious book dated in the 15th century, written in an unknown script) should be deemed a "project". He told me that, since there is no compelling evidence…
user14784
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5 answers

How to determine how good someone estimates their time?

I am very often in an environment where the employees performing the work are constantly rolling over to new employees and these employees are allowed to estimate on their own how long tasks will take. I have found that the error in their estimates…
Kellenjb
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Communication Among Teams

What is the best way to communicate between project teams so that your staff feels "in the loop"? Context: I work in a small research center (about 40-50 researchers, statisticians, and support personnel at any one time). Our staff values…
rubybooth
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3 answers

What are some good definitions for High, Medium and Low priorities?

I am using a project management system that forces me to define feature requests as either High, Medium or Low priority. Has anyone got a good set of definitions that clarifies what those priorities should mean? I think it would focus our minds…
gbh
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Is it still possible to use formal methods if the organization has chosen not to adopt them?

I managed a project in a company where I was the only person with experience of using formal methods (Prince 2). The directors of the company, and the other senior staff, all took the attitude that the project was my responsibility, and if I asked…
Iain9688
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Basis of Estimate

Some consider the BOE the most important part of an estimate. How do you know that, when you write one, you hit the necessary aspects that brings confidence to the reader that the estimate is sound? What makes a quality Basis of Estimate? What…
David Espina
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7 answers

Project stuck in endless testing cycle

I am involved in a project where for some time now the project has stuck in an endless testing, UAT, bug fixing cycle. The issues that caused this are, lack of initial requirements, new requirements creeping up during testing, and just bad coding…
troubledpm
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6 answers

During a sprint, should we try to achieve 100% user story completion or 100% productivity

We know that during every sprint, the team's primary goal is to achieve 100% completion of user stories which are part of the sprint backlog. But what happens in practice is that, development should be completed 2-3 days prior to sprint end, so that…
Anoop
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Should a Scrum Master also perform a functional manager role?

We're trying to plan for agile transformation soon, and one of the main sticking points in this is organizational structure. Management's expectation is to have a Scrum Master perform all normal functions, but tacking on hiring, firing, and…
Sergey
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7 answers

Is it the responsibility of a PM to terminate a failed project?

I'm not talking about the project closing process. Is it the responsibility of a project manager to recommend to senior leadership or the customer to prematurely terminate a project with no reasonable chance of success? Should this decision be made…
DaveParillo
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Proof that badly scheduled meetings hurt productivity

I have a friend who is a developer. He is very stressed out by his manager, who seems addicted to meetings. The volume of meetings is a problem, but what is more of a problem is that they are spaced out evenly throughout the day. Meening that there…
Jeremy French
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14
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4 answers

Product Owner depending too much on the team

I am a Scrum Master for two different teams. The product owner of one of the teams left recently, so we have a new product owner. The team is fairly experienced with the product. Since the product owner is new to the product she is relying far too…
ramu
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Setting Project Deadlines

As a project coordinator, would it be acceptable if I asked the employee "Would this be a reasonable deadline for you?"
Lixie
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7 answers

How to get burned out team back engaged again?

You get the project and development team which is assigned to it recently finished one of those hard-core projects, where everyone is working overtime for long months just to end up being completely burned out. Now they're starting to work on your…
Pawel Brodzinski
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Solution to scary programming/project management situation?

I'm a newbie programmer in a troubling situation and wondered if anyone knew best practices for dealing with this type of project management problem. After a rough job-search, I finally found a contract job to port an arcane system from an old OS to…
neoleo
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