Hi guys,

I have just reached a significant milestone. Literally a few days after announcing my new online learning platform we are nearing our 100^th student! To commemorate this event, I am offering a 48-hour sale where all of my classes will be sold at a 50% discount. Similar courses received a rating of 4.7/5 on Udemy.

All you need to do is comment something along the lines of “Interested” or “Yes” and I will PM you the link.

The 100^th person to take a workshop will receive FREE access to any course of his/her choice!

Some of the courses available:

• PROJECT MANAGEMENT
• PROJECT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
• PROJECT MANAGEMENT CASE STUDIES
• PROJECT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT CASE STUDIES
• TROUBLED PROJECTS RECOVERY
• ADVANCED BUSINESS ANALYSIS

Also, please:

1) Share this

2) Like this

3) Tag your friends or managers who may benefit from it

4) Leave a review

Thanks in advance!

Continuing with our summer project management jokes theme!

To all my fellow business analysts out there :)

About the Author

Jamal Moustafaev, MBA, PMP – president and founder of Thinktank Consulting is an internationally acclaimed expert and speaker in the areas of project/portfolio management, scope definition, process improvement and corporate training. Jamal Moustafaev has done work for private-sector companies and government organizations in Canada, US, Asia, Europe and Middle East.  Read Jamal’s Blog @ www.thinktankconsulting.ca

• Please follow me on Twitter: 
• Like our page on Facebook: 
• Connect with me on LinkedIn: 
• Subscribe to my RSS feed: 
• Visit my Udemy Course page:

Jamal is an author of three very popular books: 

Sorry, found this somewhere on the Internets ... Couldn't resist sharing :)

About the Author

Jamal Moustafaev, MBA, PMP – president and founder of Thinktank Consulting is an internationally acclaimed expert and speaker in the areas of project/portfolio management, scope definition, process improvement and corporate training. Jamal Moustafaev has done work for private-sector companies and government organizations in Canada, US, Asia, Europe and Middle East.  Read Jamal’s Blog @ www.thinktankconsulting.ca

• Please follow me on Twitter: 
• Like our page on Facebook: 
• Connect with me on LinkedIn: 
• Subscribe to my RSS feed: 
• Visit my Udemy Course page:

Jamal is an author of three very popular books: 

1. Delivering Exceptional Project Results: A Practical Guide to Project Selection, Scoping, Estimation and Management 
2. Project Scope Management: A Practical Guide to Requirements for Engineering, Product, Construction, IT and Enterprise Projects
3. Project Portfolio Management in Theory and Practice: Thirty Case Studies from around the World

Friends and colleagues!

After spending long hours in a small and stuffy studio, I was finally able to post my third workshop on Udemy. This one is called “Advanced Project Management (1/4) – Intro to Project Management and Project Initiation”. This is the first part of my new four-part course series titled “Advanced Project Management”.

I have created a coupon that allows my connections to watch this workshop for free (regular price $180). All you need to do is comment something along the lines of “Interested” or “Yes” and I will PM you the link. My only request is that you leave your review on Udemy. You will be prompted automatically by the website as early as 5-10 min into the course.

Also, please:

1) Share it 
2) Like it 
3) Tag your friends or managers who may benefit from it 
4) Leave a review

Thanks in advance! 
Jamal

About the Author

Jamal Moustafaev, MBA, PMP – president and founder of Thinktank Consulting is an internationally acclaimed expert and speaker in the areas of project/portfolio management, scope definition, process improvement and corporate training. Jamal Moustafaev has done work for private-sector companies and government organizations in Canada, US, Asia, Europe and Middle East.  Read Jamal’s Blog @ www.thinktankconsulting.ca

• Please follow me on Twitter: 
• Like our page on Facebook: 
• Connect with me on LinkedIn: 
• Subscribe to my RSS feed: 
• Visit my Udemy Course page:

Jamal is an author of three very popular books: 

A great American scientist and a 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Linus Pauling once said, "If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away."

One of the key principles of project portfolio management is to generate as many project proposals as possible in order to improve the portfolio selection. The idea here is that the more proposals one has in front of her, the easier it would be to build a higher quality portfolio of projects. Let us try to illustrate that point with a couple of examples (see Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1 shows the bubble chart diagram of several project proposals imposed on the risk-reward diagram. let us assume that we need to select six projects out of all the proposals in front of us. In this particular example once we eliminate the always unwanted "white elephants", i.e. the low reward and high-risk projects, we have exhausted our choices. In other words, we must add all of the remaining ventures to our portfolio including two "pearls", two bread and butter" and two "oysters".

Figure 1

Let us compare this situation above with the portfolio shown in Figure 2. Instead of having only eight candidates we now have twenty: four "pearls", five "bread and butter", five "oysters" and six "white elephants".

Figure 2

After getting rid of all the low reward, high risk projects and an addition of four low-risk, high reward ones, we are now free to mix and match the "oysters" and the bread and butters" to our liking. For example, we may decide to select two highest return and lowest risk projects from the "bread and butter" and "oyster" quadrants respectively.

Comparison of these two charts clearly demonstrates that having more project ideas to start with we were able to select a more attractive portfolio overall.

Traditional Models

There are a lot of rating models out there that attempt to define project success or failure. There is the traditional one:

• Success: Finished (more or less) on time, within budget and met all requirements
• Challenged:  Reaches conclusion, but with cost overruns and schedule slippages; possibly not all specifications are met
• Failure: Project was abandoned or cancelled due to project management failure

I can’t say that I am a big fan of it, because it fails to incorporate the value (i.e. the project portfolio management) perspective into the model. Recently I came across the one I really liked – a model that considers both project management (PM) and project portfolio management (PPM) sides proposed by Harold Kerzner:

• Complete Success: Project met success criteria, value was created and all constraints were adhered to
• Partial Success: Project met the success criteria, the client accepted the deliverables, value was created, not all of the constraints were met
• Partial Failure: Project was cancelled. But some IP was created that can be used on other projects
• Complete Failure: The project was abandoned and nothing was learned

Proposed Model

My view of a successful project is slightly different. I basically like to (1) add word “reasonably” to the “adhering to constraints” sentence and (2) include the recoverability variable into the equation:

• Project success is a function of:
  • Business value is realized
  • Project is delivered reasonably on-budget
  • Project is delivered reasonably on time
  • Project scope is delivered within reasonable limits
  • NOTE: “reasonable” = “does not negate the business value”
• Projects should also be differentiated by their recoverability

Regarding the first point, let us examine the following famous examples:

This true gem of a story happened much earlier in my career when I was working for one of the largest international banks. Basically, it explains how NOT to conduct estimates-related negotiations on your projects!

Director: Hey, I am going to assign you to this new regulatory project. Keep in mind, this is a high-profile endeavour; our main client is the Senior VP of our company. Keep in mind, he hates us, the IT guys. His nickname here is “El Diablo”!

Me: Yes, I have heard about this project. I have spoken to some of our technical people and they have estimated that it would take about nine months to deliver the final product...

Director: Yup, that is another problem. I have personally promised that we would deliver the product in three months

Me: (incredulously) What?! Three months? But now that he finds out the truth he will be mad!

Director: Don’t worry about that. I have a plan. We will proceed by breaking the news to him gradually!

Me: (sarcastically) Do you really think that he got to the position of Senior Vice President of one of the largest financial institutions in the world by being an utter idiot?

Director: (slightly offended) No!!! Why?

Me: How can a normal person NOT notice the difference between a three-month project and a nine-month project?

Director: (somewhat disappointed) I see… Yes, that is a bit of a problem, isn’t it?

Have you ever been forced into similar situations by your bosses? How did you handle them?

Unfortunately, even today I frequently come across the situations when a (typically) gray-haired executive asks me the following question:

CEO: Yes, Jamal, I have heard about project management and all that. But I am still not sold on it. Can you explain to me – and I only have a couple of minutes - the value someone like you brings to the organization?

Me: (unexpectedly) Ever cooked a meal?

CEO: (very surprised) Yes… But what does that have to…

Me: Imagine that you need to fry a couple of eggs. Would you use a shopping list and step-by-step cooking instructions to accomplish this task?

CEO: No, of course not. That is a very simple process.

Me: Exactly! Get a couple of eggs, some butter, salt, pepper and a frying pan. Easy, right?

CEO: Yes!

Me: Now imagine you need to cook a fancy five-course meal for ten of your friends. Do you think you will benefit from a detailed shopping list and comprehensive cooking instructions?

CEO: Yes! Probably…

Me: Since you only have one stove and a pair of hands, do you think you will need to plan all of your cooking tasks in such a way that you don’t end up with a cold steak and undercooked potatoes by the time your guests arrive?

CEO: I guess so…

Me: (loudly) That is exactly what we do. We define the scope in detail, confirm that you have all the ingredients and time your tasks in such a way that you get the entire product at the deadline (inaudibly) I guess, we will chat about risks, costs, quality and other project management knowledge areas some other time.

Do you still have to justify the existence of project management to your stakeholders? What tricks/examples do you use? Please leave your comments below.

Almost every time I start a project at a new company I have to answer the following question:

So, Jamal, what are your deliverables as a Project Manager? What should we expect from you and when?

And every damn time I go to the nearest white board and draw the following diagram (see Figure 1).

Figure 1

Here are the definitions and useful links: