Management and Careers

Project Management Topic Center

Trends, in-depth analysis and more about how to successfully run IT projects

Auditor: Big Aussie SAP project behind schedule, over budget

A major SAP ERP (enterprise resource planning) software project being conducted by the New South Wales Department of Education and Communities has hit a rocky patch, with projected costs for the first phase ballooning from A$153 million (US$157 million) to A$210 million (US$215 million), according to a new report by the Australian state's auditor.
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Intacct goes for ERP trifecta with Salesforce.com, Clarizen

Intacct is hoping to build on its stake in the cloud ERP (enterprise resource planning) market via a three-way integration with Salesforce.com's CRM (customer relationship management) application and project management software from Clarizen.

Customer sues Epicor after ERP software project attempt ends in 'big mess'

A would-be Epicor customer is taking the ERP (enterprise resource planning) vendor to court over a "big mess" of a software project that it says ended up battering its bottom line instead of improving operations.

Salesforce.com launches Do project management app

Salesforce.com's reach is about to get wider both in terms of functionality and target audience with the arrival of Do, a project management application announced in public beta on Tuesday.

Air Force mulls changes as major ERP system project stumbles

The U.S. Air Force is close to making decisions on the future of a sprawling Oracle ERP project that is supposed to remake the military branch's worldwide supply chain, according to a recently released document.

IT tier-level support, chargebacks, called wasteful

With their budgets seeing little increase, IT managers are being urged by Gartner Inc. to re-examine many of their long-followed IT practices and then, quite simply, kill them.

Customer, Lawson Software, hosting provider in legal dustup over ERP project

Health-care business services provider MedSynergies has sued Lawson Software and hosting company Velocity Technology Solutions over a rash of alleged problems with an ERP (enterprise-resource-planning) application project, but Lawson and Velocity say MedSynergies is just trying to get out of a contract it inherited through an acquisition.

It's not the coding that's hard, it's the people

The path to better projects may be for software developers to become better people. The source of all project dysfunction is usually the project manager, an organizational psychologist said at a recent conference on agile development.

IBM jumps into cloud, customers tiptoe behind

IBM unveiled some new cloud services to some of its large users that have so far been slow to embrace the technology for a variety of reasons.

When agile came in, cubicles went out

Progressive Medical Inc. began a move to agile methodology more than a year ago and realized an almost immediate improvement in development time.

Paul Glen: The 'Low Affect' Effect

Business people expect their colleagues to express enthusiasm openly, and they don't recognize hard work as an expression of commitment to their goals.

Self-service IT

Sure, today's end users are pretty tech-savvy, but do they have the technical and business chops needed to take full advantage of self-service technologies?

Paul Glen: 'Nothing but the facts' approach just won't work with business people

The reason techies' presentations to business people often bomb is that we make the mistake of believing that they think like we do. (Insider, registration required)

When IT Gets to Play

IT skunk works are alive and well -- not so much as a place to hide experimental projects from a stifling corporate bureaucracy, but as a place to reward hard work, build employee loyalty, breed innovation, learn about risk, conduct pilot projects and educate in this time of rapid-fire tech change.

Ensuring Project Success

Even aggressive plans can succeed if they are grounded in reality.

The New Metrics for CIO Success

Modern CIOs must think more like CEOs about business needs and future strategies.

Career advice: Qualities that could get you hired

Premier 100 IT Leader Dennis Hodges also answers questions on the skills needed in a cloud-dominated world and more.

Talking to the Business: Our Problems, Their Visions

For IT, problems are our life's work, but business people want to avoid them at all costs. Insider (registration required)

Greg Schwartz

Greg Schwartz, CIO at USAA, talks about how mobile is redefining the business, how increased regulation has refocused IT resources, and how USAA is engaging customers through social media.

Windows 7 is on a (slow) roll

The economy has done a number on enterprises' Windows 7 deployment plans. If you're behind, take heart -- you're not alone.