After working on countless projects, I realized that there is a common hiden key to project success – vision. And given how vital delivering bottom line results is in today’s business world, I’ve devoted an article to the topic.

As published in Project Times, “A Hidden Key to Project Success” discusses three main strategies to improve bottom line results: 1) Seeing the integration points and impacts; 2) Seeing the optimal sequencing points & patterns; 3) Seeing potential roadblocks.

I hope you enjoy the article, and I’d love to hear your feedback / insights. When I reflect on those successes which have had the greatest positive impact on my career, it always comes back to “project execution”. I have no doubt that following these secrets to success will yield results.

© Lisa Anderson 2010. All rights reserved.

Today uncertain economic climate is driving greater focus on risk management.

According to Industry Week’s article, “Riskier Business”, signs indicate that CEOs will be taking greater notice of risk in the wake of the economic crisis. According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers’ latest annual CEO survey, fully 84% of respondents reported they anticipate making changes to the way they approach managing risk, with 41% indicating that those changes will be major ones.

Also according to the Industry Week article, a few pieces of advice are as follows: 1) Categorize your risk – strategic risks, big-picture operational risks, financial risks and compliance risks. 2) Assume greater uncertainty. 3) Mitigate credit risk.

I also recently addressed this topic in an article published in Project Times, “Project Risk – Should You Care”. In the article, I discuss three keys to success: 1) Identify what might go wrong. 2) Determine potential reasons. 3) Implement steps to mitigate risk. To read the article in full, click here.

© Lisa Anderson 2010. All rights reserved.

I’ve recently worked with multiple client on this topic. It is an important topic – if you can “guarantee” your strategy through solid execution, you’ll increase the value of your business. In my experience, few companies achieve their strategy. It is much easier to create binders full of strategic documents than it is to “make it happen”. What you find someone who not only can create a practical yet solid strategy “AND” execute it, you’ve found a gem!

I recently published an article on Project Times about this subject, “Why Project Planning is Critical to Attaining Strategy Goals”. The article discusses the keys to success in “making it happen”: 1) Executive committment and involvement. 2) Effective questioning (largely what I’m able to provide my clients to help them think through how to successfully execute their strategy). 3) A rigorous focus on the critical path. Read the entire article here.

Simply by focusing attention on strategy execution via a project planning process, you’ll be further along than most of your competitors. Why not give it a try?

© Lisa Anderson 2010. All rights reserved.

There seems to be an increase in interest in this subject matter – perhaps so many companies put everything on hold with the recession that they are just starting to dust off their old upgrade and new ERP selection projects. Thus it seemed like an opportune time to discuss the pitfalls to ERP project success – and how to overcome them.

I’ve been involved in “too many” ERP and other system selection and implementation projects. They can be monster projects to say the least but they can also be quite rewarding and provide significant results if handled appropriately.

I recently wrote an article in Project Times about the pitfalls to success. I’ve found the three most common pitfalls to be the following:

1. Trying to solve process discipline issues with systems.

2. Focusing on bells & whistles instead of core functionality

3. Focusing too much effort on system cost instead of implementation cost and risk

Read the full article here

© Lisa Anderson 2010. All rights reserved.

Are you interested in what all successful project leaders have in common? If so, refer to my recent article in Project Times about this subject: click here.

After evaluating what “works” from being involved in hundreds of projects ranging from the simple to complex, multi-million dollar ones, I’ve identified the top traits of the project leaders who delivered RESULTS: 1) Set direction. 2) Manage the critical path with rigor. 3) Listen and provide feedback. I expand upon these traits in the full article.

I’m interested in your thoughts and feedback. What have you seen?

© Lisa Anderson 2010. All rights reserved.

No! It isn’t part of the 80/20. I just wrote an article on this topic for Project Times: to read the full article, click here.

In essence, the article focuses on how there’s NO investment required to achieve the 80/20 of project management success. The bottom line is that I’ve found it to be imminently achievable to achieve project management results with current tools, software and resources. Instead, in 100% of the hundreds of projects I’ve either led or worked on in a diverse set of companies and industries, I’ve found that developing the critical path (whether manually or aided with project management software) has been one of the keys to project success.

Although project management software provides a few ease-of-use advantages (described in the article), the keys to success are available without software tools:

1) Focus

2) Questioning ability

3) Organization

4) Communication

Read more about these critical success factors in the full article.

© Lisa Anderson 2009. All rights reserved.