Sales Process: Tip 5 - Don't rush to the demo.

Often times, sales reps rush a prospect into a demonstration before fully understanding the prospect's needs and/or timeframe for even further consideration. Not only does this put off and potential irritate the prospect, but it also makes for very poor demonstration results. Seek to first understand the needs and timeframes of the prospect and then, if qualified, pursue forward going discussions and demonstrations.

Sales Process: Tip 4 - Qualified Lead Definition.

Ensure your sales teams know what a qualified lead is. Some sales organizations have elaborate schemes for grading and ranking leads and determining if they are qualified. While such schemes can be helpful, it is often best to view leads as either qualified or non-qualified. To be a qualified lead, the following four conditions must be met: one, there is a mutually agreed to customer need that your product meets; two, there is a budget or access to budget funding of the purchase; three, there is a timeframe for the purchase; and four, there is an identified decision maker for the purchase. If any of these four conditions are not met, the lead cannot be considered qualified.

Sales Process: Tip 3 - Conduct Loss Reviews.

When one of your sales rep loses a major sales opportunity, conduct a loss review. The purpose of the loss review isn't to place blame, although that may very well happen, rather to identify the reasons for the lost sale, to determine what could have been done differently, and to assess if there are any sales process defects, sale rep execution problems, or competitive exposures. When conducted properly, loss reviews can be an invaluable source of information that can both help to prevent further competitive losses and ensure that the sales team executes effectively.

Sales Process: Tip 2 - Know both target markets.

Target marketing is critical to the success of just about any sales and marketing "Go-to-Market" project. In addition to identifying and understanding your most desirable target market, take time to identify and understand your least desirable target market. Ensure your sales teams understand and focus their efforts on the best opportunities in your most attractive market segments as well as be aware of the market segments that they should avoid and refrain from investing, and likely squandering, their time and resources.

Sales Process: Tip 1 - Think in terms of the customer Purchase Cycle.

Most sales professionals follow a sales cycle process to ensure that they have the best possible chance of selling their product offering to the prospect. Such a process has steps for lead generation, pre-sales, sales, installation, and service, etc. Savvy sales pros, however, always think in terms of the customer purchase cycle (information, evaluation, purchase, delivery, support) and carefully think about and plan for all of the things required, from the customer's point of view, to advance the initiative and enable a purchase.

Quality Tips: Tip 10 - Inspect the Quality Plan.

Inspect what you expect. Within the Quality Plan, use a quality control table to list for each work package the work package leader, the description of the work package, the acceptance criteria, a summary of the test plan, and any supporting comments for how the quality of each work package is managed. Regularly, review and inspect the quality control table to ensure project quality is achieved.

Quality Tips: Tip 9 - Insist upon all projects having a quality plan.

The quality plan is the plan of record for quality assurance and quality control. It describes how quality is measured, tested, and accepted for each work package item. Quality plans do not have to be excessively lengthy nor overly detailed. Insisting upon a quality plan as part of the project planning process and work to be completed artifacts, even for small project efforts, improves project manager adherence to generally accepted standards for project management and increases the odds that the project effort will successfully produce the product of the project.

Quality Tips: Tip 8 - Establish a quality dashboard.

Often times, QA is shortened in order to bring a late project back on schedule or back on budget. But how often is a project delayed in order to ensure that it meets its quality objectives? Or how often is additional budget expended in order to achieve the quality objective? Establish a quality dashboard to both manage to the planned objectives for quality and to foster a culture and appreciation that project quality is just as critical as other project objectives such as schedule and budget. In fact, often times and in the long run project quality, arguable, is the single most important measurement.

Quality Tips: Tip 7 - Partner with your Quality Team.

Project management methodologies, especially those aligned to leading standards for project management, include process steps for quality. But often, these process steps are limited to project quality and do not provide additional and optional techniques and resources to best manage and assure quality from a broader perspective. If your organization has a quality team or a QA/QC function, work with those resources and seek ways to incorporate their knowledge, skills, and experience into the areas of the project management methodology that deal with quality.

Quality Tips: Tip 6 - Don't shorten planned testing to keep the project on track.

Many organizations stick to the planned testing schedule and activities even when the overall project effort is running behind schedule. But there are those organizations that immediately look to shortening and sometimes omitting testing activities in order to get the project back on track. This should always be done with extreme caution and as a last resort and with management understanding and signoff. Shortening testing to preserve the project delivery date is rarely a good idea.

Quality Tips: Tip 5 - Assess the overall quality of every project effort.

Establish and use a standard quality report to assess the quality of every project effort undertaken by the PMO. Provide a measurement and rating for such things as the project manager competence, adequate amount of planning, processes understand by project participants, processes followed by participants, duties defined, deliverables met, project costs within budget, etc. And where noted, provide improvement suggestions to contribute to organizational effectiveness and continuous improvement.

Quality Tips: Tip 4 - Ensure project quality with a CAT.

CATs are very helpful in ensuring project quality. Of course, this particular kind of CAT is not the four-legged animal with a tail that says meow. Rather it is the three key components of your project quality plan; Criteria, Acceptance, and Testing. To ensure the quality of your project, plan for quality by defining the specific criteria that must be meet. Then, define the assurance process and how this required criteria is to be met. And lastly, define the acceptance process for how the criteria is to be tested and accepted. The resulting Quality Plan based upon these CATs is the plan of record for quality assurance and control.

Quality Tips: Tip 3 - Recognize and avoid analysis paralysis.

Yes, seek to do it right the first time, but recognize and avoid analysis paralysis. Analysis paralysis comes in several forms such as a delay in decision making, a delay in getting started, or a delay in addressing a problem. Rather than making a decision, the victim of analysis paralysis finds one reason after another to avoid getting on with things. Don't be a victim of analysis paralysis. Determine what you want to achieve, make a plan, and then execute. You can, and will, always monitor and control changes after you start.

Quality Tips: Tip 2 - Take the time to do it right the first time.

Why is it that there is never enough time to do it right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it over, and over, and over? Taking the time to do it right often means more and better planning as well as more and better monitoring and control. These activities do take time. But to avoid them or to rush through them almost always results in miscues that lead to project delays, increased project costs, and customer dissatisfaction. Seek to allow ample time for planning and review throughout the project effort and concentrate on getting it right the first time.

Quality Tips: Tip 1 - Think of quality as simply conformance to requirements.

Typically, you get the behavior you critique for, rather than by hope and prayer. So to ensure quality, clearly document and communicate your standards and then require conformance to them. Inspect what you expect. Quality will come from that and that alone, not from slogans, posters, or even threats.

Justifying an EPM tool: Tip 10 - A sustainable return on investment.

The value of an investment depends on what types of improvements are gained and how quickly they're realized. By enabling increased employee productivity, faster cycle times, reduced costs, reduced rework and work around, and improved resource and time management, an EPM solution provides a positive and sustainable return on investment.

Justifying an EPM tool: Tip 9 - Fully leveraging existing technologies.

An EPM solution fully leverages the existing technologies that most organizations already have in place, such as your enabling technologies, database, collaboration platforms, and desktop tools. Hence, you can get the most out of your existing investments in infrastructure, applications, and user skills, rather than incurring a duplication of investment and redundancy in capabilities. By customizing and integrating an EPM solution with your line-of-business systems, you can get a comprehensive view of your organization's activities for better management and control.

Justifying an EPM tool: Tip 8 - Strategic hiring.

Without understanding long-term workloads and resource capacity, companies can experience hiring-firing cycles. Such cycles are inefficient and often result in higher overhead, lost knowledge, and very poor employee morale. By providing visibility into the overall work commitments and resourcing capabilities, an EPM solution helps a company achieve a balance of strategic recruiting, outside contracting, and potentially outsourcing to achieve the long-term business objectives of the company.

Justifying an EPM tool: Tip 7 - Effective resource deployment.

Many organizations struggle to deploy resources effectively. This can lead to higher costs, project delays, and missed opportunities. An EPM Solution can help you more accurately assess resource commitments, deployment alternatives, and to deploy resources effectively across your organization. The end results is having the right people on the right projects at the right time for optimized delivery.

Justifying an EPM tool: Tip 6 - Empowered project teams.

Project team members make high-impact decisions as part of their daily routines. Businesses are increasingly relying upon project managers and are seeking ways to equip them with the tools they need to perform even better. With an EPM Solution, project managers, project team members, and the leadership team can access the latest project information resulting in more efficient time management, better communication and decision-making, and increased accountability.

Justifying an EPM tool: Tip 5 - Better collaboration and coordination.

As businesses become more complex and geographically diverse, structured communication is vital to ensure teams share common goals and work together effectively. An EPM solution provides access to timely business-critical project information, so teams can share knowledge, better collaborate to complete tasks, and communicate progress effectively to manage risks and accommodate project changes.

Justifying an EPM tool: Tip 4 - Increased customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction often is more than finishing projects on time, within budget, and within scope. The delivery process must also engage the customer, involve the customer, and meet the customer's expectations. An EPM solution enables you to ensure a high level of integrity to the project delivery process. The end results are project plans that reflect realistic schedules, resource requirements, and budgets. Hence, so you can set, communicate, and meet achievable milestones for more consistent project delivery and higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Justifying an EPM tool: Tip 3 - Continuous process improvement.

Project organizations are increasingly standardizing their processes to improve operational efficiencies, increase cross functional teamwork, and more effectively manage projects of different types and sizes. With an EPM solution, you can implement a common framework for project portfolio management guided by proven best practices, resulting in better management and control of projects as well as identification and implementation of process improvement opportunities.

Justifying an EPM tool: Tip 2 - Faster, more informed business decisions.

An EPM solution can provide visibility into your project portfolio for monitoring performance, visualizing trends, and identifying business gaps. With these capabilities, you can make informed decisions on how to proceed with existing projects, make tradeoffs, and pursue new opportunities. Making accurate decisions quickly can be of tremendous business value and is a key consideration in justifying an EPM tool for the organization.

Justifying an EPM tool: Tip 1 - Alignment with strategic objectives.

Reaching long-term business goals often requires investing in the right business activities now. With an Enterprise Project Management (EPM) tool, you can identify, prioritize, and select projects that best support your strategic objectives as well as align your resources accordingly. And, by routinely evaluating and adjusting the project portfolio, you can ensure continuous alignment with your business objectives.

Project Rescue: Tip 10 - Restart the project.

Now that you have a new and approved project plan and new estimates, re-launch the project. Have the executive sponsor for the project communicate to the team how important the project is and take steps to ensure that the project team is prepared and mentally positive about restarting the project effort. Be mindful of all of the past project difficulties and be prepared to deal with potential roadblocks.

Project Rescue: Tip 9 - Submit the project to governance.

From a business perspective, determine if at this point in time the project still makes sense to pursue and if the project is an appropriate use of the resources of the company. Look at the value of the project and compare it to other competing project alternatives and initiatives. Perhaps previously the project was a priority, but now the project scorecard may rank quite differently. Use the governance process to gain formal understanding, approval, and support for the project.

Project Rescue: Tip 8 - Validate the business case for the project.

Ask yourself, is it worth continuing the project? It is possible that the project is no longer important or a priority for the organization. Additionally, external factors such as new technologies and alternative solutions may render the initial approach of the project obsolete. Before proposing that the project be restarted, validate the project's business case.

Project Rescue: Tip 7 - Assess the effort to complete the project.

Restore the integrity of the project by assessing the effort, both schedule and budget, to complete the project. Often, when initially estimating projects, many project managers use intuitive estimating; they estimate from gut feel and personal opinion rather than from historical estimating experience. Intuitive estimating may work with smaller projects, however, larger projects require experienced-based estimating. If possible, enlist the aid of someone who has experience performing the particular project tasks in order to get realistic estimates. Additionally, establish and maintain a historical estimating database within the PMO so that future projects can be estimated more accurately.

Project Rescue: Tip 6 - Audit the project.

Even an experienced project manager can have great difficulties delivering a difficult, complex project. And often, organizations perform project management in an ad hoc manner without any processes or policies in place to help the project manager and all those involved in the project effort to ensure the integrity of the project. After pausing the project, assemble the appropriate members of the organization to conduct a project audit. The purpose of the project audit is not to place blame nor to fix or re-baseline the project. Rather, the purpose of the project audit is to first find out the root causes for why the project is failing.

Project Rescue: Tip 5 - Pause the project.

Pausing the project gives you an opportunity to regroup, establish a new plan, and restore integrity to the project baseline. By continuing a failing project, you are likely to burn time and money against the project not knowing where you are truly headed or if you are on the path to completion. Pausing a project does not need to be difficult or scary. To pause the project, you may need someone with enough vision, clout and security to say, "This project is not on the right course." Some people might think the ship is sinking and want to flee the project, but most will eagerly take advantage of the opportunity to get things back on track.

Project Rescue: Tip 4 - Admit you have a problem.

Many project organizations continue with failing projects instead of taking action, corrective or termination, early. Often, project managers are skilled at managing project difficulties and have the confidence to think that they can project manage their way out of any bad project and in many cases they can. However, if you don't get people to recognize that there is a problem then rescuing the project is going to be very difficult. When you identify the reluctance to admitting there is a problem, then rescuing the project becomes much, much easier.

Project Rescue: Tip 3 - Beware of the last mile syndrome.

Often times, project managers fall victim to the "last mile syndrome." That is, it takes 90 percent of the project time to finish the last 10 percent of the project scope. This can occur for many reasons from poor project requirements and scope planning to ad hoc development rather than process-oriented iterative development. The end result often is the extension of the project for just one more month, and again, and again. If you are still waiting for your last month, look in the mirror and admit you have a problem.

Project Rescue: Tip 2 - Recognize early warning signs.

Early warning signs, both good and bad, exist in all projects. Early warning signs can be seen in just about every aspect of the project effort such as the attitudes of the parties involved in the project effort, the performance of infrastructure, systems, tools and machinery, and internal and external factors that can impact project scope, timing, and risk. It is always easier to get projects back on track that haven't drifted too far off course. Recognizing the project early warning signs helps to prevent projects from failing.

Project Rescue: Tip 1 - Be open to the possibility that the project is failing.

It is natural for project managers and project teams to have a task-oriented focus. And, most project methodologies anticipate project difficulties and provide monitoring and controlling processes for change, issues, and problem management. However, the resulting mindset for the project effort can often be singularly focused on getting the project back on track to the exclusion of any real consideration given to the fact that the project may very well be failing. Be open to the possibility that the project effort could be failing.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Tip 10 - Maintain flexibility.

The interpretation of what is required to meet the spirit and intent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is changing and will continue to evolve overtime. Keep focused on what is best to ensure your IT organization is focused on safeguarding company assets, maintaining data integrity, providing the business with the infrastructure it needs in order to attain its business objectives.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Tip 9 - Monitoring and controlling.

Continually review the execution of your program plans with all relevant parties. In addition to the SOX PMO team, be sure to include your public company accounting firm as well as any other outside consultants. Like any other project, use your monitoring and controlling process to identify and communicate project issues and to approve any project change requests such as scope, schedule, and budget.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Tip 8 - Do not take on too much all at once.

Complying with SOX 404 is a daunting and time consuming task for most IT organizations. Prioritize and work on the processes and critical issues that, if not addressed, may lead to your company failing their 404 attestation. Some processes and best practices may have to wait until later.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Tip 7 - Provide flexibility within structure.

Ensure that all business units have and follow standardized procedures for evaluating, documenting and implementing controls. Keep in mind that flexibility within structure will enable processes to not only vary from business to another, but to be optimized by the business at the point of execution. Anticipate the need for flexibility and develop procedures for identifying and describing why some IT controls may vary from unit and unit and have a defined and consistent approach for standardizing controls where it makes sense.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Tip 6 - Work closely with the executive team.

Make sure the executive team understands what IT does and how IT fits into the overall program and requirements for compliance. The CIO or manager of IT should be part of the SOX steering committee.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Tip 5 - Hire advisors that understand IT management and SOX.

Many public company accounting firms are experts in accounting, auditing and SOX, but have never managed an IT department. In addition to audit expertise, companies of all sizes require practical front-line IT experience to determine what makes sense for their company. There is a significant amount of translation required to convert accounting practices into terms and actions appropriate for the company that can be identified, implemented, and validated by the IT department.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Tip 4 - Design your SOX program to fit your business needs.

Don't change what you do to fit a generic set of best practices. Use best practices as a reference point and for guidance, especially where no or limited documentation of IT processes exist. Your IT SOX 404 program should be tailored to your business requirements, not a costly and lengthy effort that doesn't fit your business needs. Ask your public company accounting firm for references similar in industry and size to your firm to ensure the scope of your SOX 404 program is on target.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Tip 3 - Leverage your existing documentation.

Many organizations such as banks, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing companies already have to comply with federal regulations and many are ISO 9000 certified. It is important that IT departments leverage existing procedures, policies, and documentation in their SOX programs. This can save time as well as avoid duplication of effort. Additionally, the existing documentation of processes and controls may even need to be updated or extended upon to satisfy the current state requirements.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Tip 2 - Get everyone on the same page.

Be sure your team understands how SOX fits into the IT environment. You should make sure the IT group is involved from the beginning of the project and is updated and included in the review of business processes that rely on IT systems and infrastructure as well as the review and validation of the IT development (SDLC) and change management processes that are used to manage new systems development, enhancements, bug fixes, and change requests.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Tip 1 - Get everyone educated.

Ask your finance team to conduct a meeting with your public company accountants and to have them, the public company accountants, provide insight into IT general controls. In addition, there are multiple materials available on the Internet that specialize in Sarbanes-Oxley section 404 for IT such as the "IT Control Objectives for Sarbanes-Oxley" published and provided by the Information Technology Governance Institute (ITGI). Get everyone educated in Sarbanes-Oxley as early as possible.

Managing PMO Processes: Tip 8 - Define the "as-is" state.

Quite often, it is helpful to first define the "as-is" state of a process before discussing and debating options to arrive at the "desired" state of the process. A clear understanding of the "as-is" state enables the team to discuss and debate what works well, what needs improving, and to agree upon actionable process improvement suggestions. Conversely, trying to achieve the "desired" state for a process without a full understanding and agreement of the "as-is" state can often lead to mis-communication due to differing points of reference as well as process improvement suggestions that may not meet the needs of all parties involved in the process.

Managing PMO Processes: Tip 7 - Recognition for process improvement.

How do you recognize project managers? Most of them are every good at what they do and it is expected that they will manage projects well. One approach that more and more PMOs are adopting is to provide incentives and recognition for process improvement and process ownership. Rather than experiencing the same difficulty over and over again, recognition and incentives for process improvement encourage and reward project team members to get involved. The end results are not just lessons learned documents, but practical improvement suggestions to streamline processes, improve best practices, and eliminate defects and waste. As Edward Deming put it, "Fix the process and you fix the problem."

Managing PMO Processes: Tip 6 - Process reviews.

Don't wait until there is a problem to review the processes and best practices of the PMO. Establish process owners and delegate to them the duty of periodic assessment of their assigned processes and best practices. Encourage them to proactively find ways to streamline and improve existing processes and to identify new processes and best practices that could be of value to the PMO.

Managing PMO Processes: Tip 5 - Process owners.

Process owners can play a key role in ensuring that the PMO processes are kept up to date, useful, usable, and auditable. PMO processes or best practices without process owners will likely become outdated over time and at some point will even become inconsequential to the organization. On the other hand, PMO processes and best practices that have process owners or "care-takers" are continually improved upon vis a vis lessons learned feedback and process improvement suggestions. Hence, process owners help drive continuous improvement and institutionalization of the PMO processes and best practice knowledge, skill, and execution capabilities.

Managing PMO Processes: Tip 4 - People oriented processes.

People oriented processes anticipate and help with people's challenges and constraints and free them up to do what they do best on projects such as thinking, planking, and doing. The best processes don't create extra work, rather they streamline it or make it easier. People oriented processes serve specific purposes, ensure efficiency and consistency, and tend to become "roadmaps" for continuous improvement and knowledge sharing.

Managing PMO Processes: Tip 3 - Flexibility within structure.

Some people believe that project management processes are by nature rigid and inflexible. This can often be a result of implementing a "one shoe fits all sizes" methodology. However, PMO processes that provide workflows scalable to project type and size enable the project team to effectively execute a wide variety of projects without being burdened by too much bureaucracy. PMO processes can provide the structure, guidance, and flexibility to truly help, not create additional work for, the project manager and project participants.

Managing PMO Processes: Tip 2 - Think processes, tools, and collaboration.

There are those in the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) vendor community that say their product has everything you need to manage a PMO. While PPM tools can be very helpful to a PMO, also required are processes that are scalable to project type and size, whether used with the PPM tool or not, and a collaboration platform to share project documents and information. Though PPM tools provide some collaboration features, most PMOs seek to use the existing enterprise collaboration platform rather than placing project files and folders in an additional repository. Processes, tools, and collaboration work together and are each required to effectively manage projects and continually improve the organization.