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The thought that "no correctly-spec'ed project gets approved" leads me to lots of questions, and no real answers this morning.

I was thinking about the massive projects that the world has seen, like the Pyramids, great Dams, Bridges, Skyscrapers and Railways, or well-designed and -architected cities in general, and wondering: Are these things we marvel at, built on great inequities? Inequities that people of certain demographics cannot even imagine (thinking about myself as a white, male, middle-class American).

It's not comfortable to think about, but would such marvels even exist if there were not the exploited and the exploiters? Can this said to have been even necessary for technical progress?

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Tony Collins' PM truisms. -- Rick Cogley |

Below is a compilation of project management truisms. Some have been around years; a few are my own concoctions - the result of researching and reporting on countless IT projects and programmes.

tony collins project management truisms

Accurate, funny, cynical list of project management truisms. -- Rick Cogley | Ever wonder why so many projects fail? Well, here’s your guide to the seamy underbelly of IT project management. From Tony Collins, who writes a well-researched blog on government-related IT failures in the UK:

1. Projects with realistic budgets and timetables don’t get approved
2. The more desperate the situation the more optimistic the progress report
3. A user is somebody who rejects the system because it’s what he asked for
4. The difference between project success and failure is a good PR company

zdnet.com tony collins project management

Scott Ambler shares some Agile project planning tips. Good advice in here. --Rick Cogley

From the site - My goal with this article is to share good project planning practices which I find to work well in practice. A fundamental difference between agile project planning and traditional project planning is that agile project planning is very collaborative in nature: the team is responsible for planning, not just the project manager. In this article I discuss:

1. Scheduling Tips
* Iterations
2. Estimating Tips
3. People Management Tips
4. Agile Metrics Tips
5. Some Humor (Perhaps)
6. Training

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From the site: Project portfolio management and project management software for the midmarket. Until now organisations were locked out from the benefits of PPM due to expense and complexity. Enter TeamWorks - PPM software with a low cost of ownership that can be up and running in days.

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An interesting web-based PM tool. I like the fact that they are flexible about file-storage size and are willing to create a plan that fits the user's needs. --Rick Cogley

From the site: "5pm™ is a next generation web based project management tool
Looking for a better way to stay organized?
5pm can be your central location for project and task management, team collaboration, time tracking, reporting and more...
Start today and get more done by 5pm! "

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Very easy-to-use time and expense tracking system, in the ruby-on-rails style of 37Signals. Free version for a single user and two projects, reasonable prices for more users and projects. Excellent reporting.

From their site: "Harvest lets you and your staff track time, log expenses, and create invoices in one simple, integrated workflow. Set yourself or your team up on Harvest in just a few minutes, and instantly start tracking time and expenses. Use the Harvest graphical reports to see the distribution of your company's resources in a visual, intuitive way. Quickly create an invoice, and with just a single click, bill your client. You'll see your revenue come in faster with Harvest. Give Harvest a try and improve your business today. "

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