PowerBlog Review: Project, Process & Business Improvement

Editor's note: This is the twentieth in our popular weekly series of PowerBlog Reviews of other weblogs...



The Project, Process & Business Improvement weblog is a great resource for businesses of any size.



As the title implies, it is all about using project management and processes to improve business.



The Project, Process & Business Improvement weblog is published by A. J. Vasaris, a management consultant, writer and speaker from Akron, Ohio, USA. A.J. uses his blog in connection with his consulting firm, Value Management Partners.



This is a great weblog for understanding how to make information technology -- and information technology professionals - work for you in business.



One of the things I like best about this blog is how practical all the posts and advice are. A.J. clearly has a lot of business and IT experience. So it would be easy for him to write at a level that is over his readers' heads. But he doesn't. He keeps everything streamlined and practical.



He also takes the mystery out of information technology implementations in business. It all seems so simple and easy to understand when A.J. explains it.



A recent weblog post illustrates what I mean. The post is about doing a "lessons learned" review after engaging in a lengthy project. A.J. says:

"Whether you call it a close-out, a lessons-learned review, or a post-mortem, what you do after completing a project is the first step in the success of all future projects. It should bring together people from all parts of the organization -- those who worked directly on the project to those responsible for budgets to transient personnel, vendors and contractors.



Many of the participants said the meeting would be a waste of time because the project was so successful, nothing to talk about. But it is a misconception thinking that lessons-learned reviews are only needed when something goes wrong. Actually the close-out process really starts at the beginning of the project when goals are established. If the goals are met, the post-mortem sets out to prove it; if the goals aren't met, then it tries to discover what went wrong."

The power behind this technique is considerable. As A.J. later points out in the same post, human beings learn through experience. That is, they learn through making mistakes and learning lessons from them. That's why a recap meeting or lessons learned review is so important.



The Power: The Power of the Project, Process & Business Improvement weblog is in its practical, hands-on advice for making IT work for business.