Self Publishing - Lulu.com

http://www.lulu.com/

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Norkom’s Enterprise Fraud Management receives Positive Rating | Print |

http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=79027558&gid=128568&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Enorkom%2Ecom%2Fpress%2Fpress-releases%2Fpress-releases-2009%2F547-norkoms-enterprise-fraud-management-receives-positive-rating%2Ehtml&urlhash=j0uf&trk=news_discuss

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Mortgage fraud risk report

http://www.interthinx.com/pdf/09_Q3MFRI_FNL.pdf

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Center for Outsourcing Research and Education (CORE)

About CORE -

CORE is a non-profit organization, governed by a Board drawn from its sponsoring organizations, which have deep outsourcing expertise. We are devoted to the issue of making outsourcing work more effectively, and we will leverage the skills and capabilities of many organizations in achieving this goal.

CORE‘s management consists of its President/CEO, Molly Pellecchia, Board Chair, John Simke and Corporate Secretary, Richard Corley. Charu Murti is CORE's Research & Program Coordinator.

We are also building a network of alliances with organizations also interested in outsourcing. These include business and technology associations, industry groups, media organizations and public sector enterprises.

Kroll Global Fraud Report

Lessons Learned for More Successful Joint Project

1. Define clear path to identify, report and resolve resource (people) issue crossing organizational boundaries
2. Define, communicate, and clarify roles and responsibilities upfront
3. Allow time to ramp up and prepare before starting a major work packages
4. Plan and execute incremental reviews for major deliverables
5. Vet project schedule by work package owner
6. Plan and execute regular review of plans to identify and capture changes
7. Establish clear criteria for change request
8. Encourage collaboration in preparing change request
9. Share resource availability crossing organizational boundaries

How to Survive a New Boss

by Rebecca Schalm

What's not working?
How can I work with you effectively?
How can I help?

Who’s Really on Your Team? How to Work with Difficult People

PMI Community Post, by Pattie Vargas, MAOM, PMP

Never Say No - Managing Change in a Project

A blog posted by Martin Burns

Never Say No To a Client

Project Managers: Just Say No!

A blog posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Project Management

Saying "No": A Tutorial for Project Managers

by Rick Brenner

Have you ever thought "Why did I ever agree to do that" ?
Have you ever wished that you knew better how to say no — or even how to avoid volunteering to do something — without suffering undue consequences?
Giving a firm and clear No can feel good if it comes from a place of high self-esteem.

How to Say No

By John Hrastar

Goddard Space Flight Center

John offerred two points of thought re. saying no as a project manager:
1. Focus on meeting the basic requirements
2. You don't necessarily need to know how to solve the problem. The refusal forces a reappraisal of the issue, possibly stimulating more creative solutions.

You cannot outsource risk

According to Gartner, more than 60% of companies do not do any security risk mitigation when outsourcing development.

Rob Rachwald has some suggestions.

International Project Management Standard - ISO 21500

IT trends in banking: key focus for 2009

European banks will this year invest in IT to improve risk management, increase flexibility and reduce complexity. And they will outsource and offshore more…

Outsourcing can offer good returns

IT outsourcing has proved disappointing for many companies, failing to live up to the promises of the business case or deliver the expected return on investment. But good management can turn it into a success, as Liz Warren discovers.

…So you want to be an independent consultant…

By Jennifer (Tharp) Russell, President, Mastodon Consulting and Alex S. Brown, PMP, President, Real-Life Projects, Inc.

Statutory holidays in Ontario

Often missed holidays in 2009:

• Family Day (Third Monday in February) - Mon, February 16
• Good Friday - Fri, April 10
• Victoria Day (Monday before May 25) - Mon, May 18
• Civic Holiday (First Monday in August) - Mon, August 3
• Labour Day (First Monday in September) - Mon, September 7
• Thanksgiving Day (Second Monday in October) - Mon, October 12

26 Ways To Know Your Software Development Project Is Doomed

Does any of these sound familiar to you?

• The project name changes for the third time in as many months.
• The requirements definition is begun four months after development started.
• The developer doesn't understand the spec document and continues to develop anyway. And the QA team doesn't know how to test, but they "test" anyway.
• The user or client requests new features instead of focusing on bug fixing and performance enhancements.
• The technical project manager asks you to compose the list of user requirements—without consulting any actual potential users.
• Status reports are seen as insubordinate.
• You learn that management had to insist that the interface definitions be checked into version control after the first code freeze.
• The QA team is told, "We've only allocated three weeks for testing" (on a project that has lasted six months already). Or QA is told, "The date is fixed. We have to have all this functionality by that date."
  

Want to see the entire list? Go to http://www.cio.com/article/470103/_Ways_To_Know_Your_Software_Development_Project_Is_Doomed

On the other side, there are Ten Tips for Running Successful Projects: http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/ten-tips-for-running-successful-projects.html

And more … Make or Break: Why Accurate Cost Estimation Is Key: http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/make-or-break-why-accurate-cost-estimation-is-key.html

The First-Time Manager’s Guide to Performance Appraisals

by Diane Arthur

• The primary objective of a performance appraisal is to ensure the maximum utilization of every employee’s skills, knowledge, and interests.

• Managers as Coaches
• Coaching is the day-to-day interaction between you and your employees. Its purpose is to provide regular assistance, support, praise, and constructive criticism.

• (1) Approachability
• Whether they need help or want to talk about an idea they have concerning how to proceed with a task, you need your employees to view you as responsive and accessible. Employees should feel that you are available for coaching, at any time and for any reason.

• (2) Consistency
• To earn the trust and respect of your employees, strive to apply organizational policies, procedures, and rules as evenhandedly as possible. Conversely, avoid showing favoritism, bending the rules, or looking the other way, even when it doesn’t seem as if any harm will come of it, or if it’s unlikely that anyone will find out.

• (3) Dependability
• Nothing shakes an employee’s confidence more than feeling uncertain about whether he can count on you when needed. Managers who demonstrate that they are reliable are more likely to have maximally effective employer-employee relations.

• (4) Empathy
• Managers frequently find themselves in the position of listening to employees’ work-related and personal problems. When this happens, you must strive to remain impartial, thereby maintaining an emotional distance so you can best help the employee achieve resolution. The key is to be empathetic, not sympathetic.

• (5) Honesty
• You should try to be straightforward and forthright without being harsh or disrespectful. This is best accomplished by adhering to the facts in all matters calling for both praise and criticism.

• (6) Knowledge
• Smart managers are as clear about what they do not know as they are about what they do know. Smarter still are those who view themselves as lifelong learners.

• (7) Respect
• You cannot demand respect from your employees if you do not offer it. This includes having regard for employees’ views, approaches to tasks, requests, and needs.

• Managers as Counselors
• Counseling is the structured interaction between managers and their employees, with a keener focus on specific work-related problems.

• (1) Attentiveness
• By being attentive, managers may follow-up coaching with more structured counseling.

• (2) Broad-Mindedness
• You cannot look the other way when an employee’s behavior is outside the parameters of her job. By being broad-minded, you can leverage the impact one employee’s behavior has on others.

• (3) Commitment
• Savvy managers know that being committed to helping employees achieve a maximum level of productivity in accordance with specified job duties, policies, and procedures can be highly beneficial to all concerned.

• (4) Conscientiousness
• You need to be ever vigilant about what’s going on in your department. Even if everything appears to be proceeding smoothly, it is still prudent for you to determine, firsthand, the status of what each employee is working on, as well as any interpersonal matters that could impact work. Then, if anything is out of sync, you can step in with counseling.

• (5) Focus
• It’s easy for first-time managers to become sidetracked when it comes to matters impacting employee performance, but with a little effort you can remain focused and make objective decisions.

• (6) Interest
• Maintaining an active interest in your employees is likely to result in a good rapport. Then, should counseling issues develop, employees are likely to be more responsive and less resentful. Note that interest does not mean involvement.

• (7) Realism
• it’s important that you take into account each individual’s level of skill, degree of knowledge, and extent of interest in relation to the expectations of the job, rather than your personal expectations based on your own prior level of performance.

• The Golden Rules of Performance Appraisals
• Ongoing coaching and counseling set the stage for any performance review; that is, by doing her job as an effective coach and counselor, she’ll be prepared to successfully apply the three golden rules of performance appraisal:
• (1) nothing that is ever said during a performance appraisal meeting should come as a surprise to the employee;
• (2) managers should be prepared to praise and criticize elements of the employee’s work from the time of the employee’s last review or date of hire; and
• (3) every incident that is referenced should be documented.