Tag Archives: Project Management

Project Management Archive

Daily RSS Feed Reads Over a Cup of Coffee

– January 8, 2010Posted in: Misc

As one of the items on my personal “resolutions” kanban for 2010, I shortened my list of RSS feeds I’ve subscribed to. I will now only keep the RSS feeds in Google Reader that I can actually zero out by Friday close of business. Too many times, we grow these unmanageable lists of feeds, only to see them grow and grow. As a project manager, you don’t accept more and more work, until tasks are completely unmanageable. Why should reading be any different? In order to handle tasks, both management and reading, I allocate time for planned “work” and unplanned “work”.

The more people I follow on Twitter, the more recommended blog posts I read (unplanned) on a daily basis. I now find myself reading more of these posts than my (planned) RSS reading. My colleague Sridhar of Hyderabad, India, asked if I would provide a list of RSS feeds I subscribe to. The topics I am interested in include: Project Management (who would have thought), Agile, Kanban, and Entrepreneurial topics. I’ll admit this is not a complete list. I also like to see pictures of epic kludges and jury rigs and pictures of the people of Walmart.

Here is my list of RSS Feed Reads (in alphabetical order) that I enjoy over a cup of coffee:

1 of 100 PM Related Questions I Ask Myself

Derek Huether

– December 30, 2009Posted in: Project Management

Question 1: In the hope to help the Project Management industry mature, should project management related templates and worksheets be freely distributed to the project management community or should there be a reasonable fee charged?

I am a strong believer in the wisdom of crowds. If there was a consortium of types with diverse backgrounds in Waterfall, Spiral, RUP, Agile, Scrum, XP… don’t you think they could come up with some pretty good stuff? In this case, all templates would be freely distributed. I have to admit, the majority of my traffic is from people looking for free templates and worksheets. It’s tempting at times to put them behind a pay wall and ask for 99 cents.

What do you think?

Image courtesy of misallphoto on Flickr

Free Critical Path and Float Calculation Worksheet

Derek Huether

– July 21, 2009Posted in: Project Management

The number one search on the Critical Path website is for a Critical Path and Float worksheet. Though you should be using software to calculate a critical path, if it is mission critical, it is important to understand the concept for the PMP exam.

Rather then go into the specifics on how to calculate the critical path and float in this post, I’ll merely say a free worksheet template and PowerPoint presentation are available and you can download them at any time. (see links below)

•Remember the Critical Path tells you the activities that can not slip a day without increasing the total duration of the project or moving the project completion date. It is the longest path of logically related activities through the network which cannot slip without impacting the total project duration, termed zero float.

[Click here to download the Critical Path and Float Calculation Worksheet]

[Click here to download the Critical Path Scheduling PowerPoint Presentation]
Also available in PDF

The Lights are on at HueCubed

Derek Huether

– June 26, 2009Posted in: Application Development, PMP, Scrum, Social Networking

In anticipation of my upcoming iPhone application release, I figured it was time to stand up a new website with the purpose of distributing my own brand of tools, templates, and talk. The Critical Path will remain as my blog. But, selling products requires branding. By following me on Twitter or reading this blog, I think people will enjoy the HueCubed brand.

Contribute for the better good

Derek Huether

– April 21, 2009Posted in: General, Scrum

Scrum Overview I just posted an update to the Agile Scrum definition on Wikipedia. It has been a while since I’ve made updates to this definition and others on the free online encyclopedia. It’s actually quite cathartic to contribute to something like Wikipedia, for no other reason then to help others. I’ve been asked a lot of questions recently about Agile Scrum and its applicability to my current project. Though I’m happy that people value my opinion, I figured it was time I revisited Wikipedia and make sure the items I’ve edited in the past still pass muster. Sure enough, without telling anyone that I am one of the contributors, I’ve received two emails linking to the Wikipedia definitions with notes like “You should check this out”. I hope by continuing to make contributions and updates to publicly available PM related topics, people will be exposed to my work if they know it or not.