Managing Change in Contracts

change management tips

  Is Managing Change The Ultimate Program Management Challenge?   For 18 months now, my team has been negotiating scope changes with a given client to offset our increases in cost.  Per our contract, we have the right to seek commercial coverage and have the ability to charge the customer for change.  We went into this particular business deal expecting delays before all was said and

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Justifying More Staff: Avoid These 9 Mistakes

Increasing headcount

  One of our most popular articles here at MRH discusses a basic strategy that we’ve used to justify an increase in staff.  And it’s no surprise: based on our research, 50% of managers say the biggest challenge they face is the size of their staff.  We’ve said it many times, but will mention it again.  Between salaries, benefits, insurance and other

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The 8 Steps to Mastering Technical Design Reviews

preliminary design review

Tips for Conducting a Technical Design Review When it comes to the product development cycle and a phase gated design process, holding robust technical design reviews is critical to a project’s success. While there are various types of design reviews that lend themselves to different technologies and industries, the most common and universal examples include the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) and Critical Design Review

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Top Down Problem Solving For Managers

managers resource handbook

What Is Structured Problem Solving and Why Use It? I was asked to attend a meeting by the manufacturing manager. “We have a problem” he said. He had been alerted to a defect with hardware being processed through the production floor. Initial information suggested that during some of the molding processes, some parts were noted to have cracked while the molten

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Create a Technology Growth Strategy That Wins

preliminary design review

A recent article by Professor Karan Girotra at INSEAD University discusses 4 myths to a technology growth strategy.  The entire article is a great read, but Myth 1 “It’s about a BIG idea” caught my attention. Having spent my career in the technology and engineering fields, I’ve seen several different approaches to technology growth.  In some instances, the growth strategy could be described

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Is Your Research and Development Under House Arrest?

Research and Development Spending: Where Did the Money Go? I recently read Borderless World by Kenichi Ohmae in which he discusses the approaches companies take in terms of their technology growth and research investment.  In his book, Ohmae highlights the differences between companies that truly flood the pipeline with investment, and those that play the betting game with a handful of specific projects.  Having

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