Monthly Archives: April 2009

My book featured on MSDynamicsWorld.com

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Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 by David Roys and Vjekoslav Babić (opens in a new window)MSDynamicsWorld.com has just posted an excerpt from my friend Dave’s and my book Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009, delivering some content from chapter 4, focusing on the implementation process. The Chapter 4 draws a lot of its content from Sure Step best practices, and the fact that MSDynamicsWorld.com has decided to post this content on their website shows how important a standard methodology is for a successful implementation project.

This excerpt is only the first part of a series of two articles, and the next one is due to follow soon. I’ll make sure to let you know about it.

Anyway, the book so far has been received pretty well, we’ve got a lot of good feedback, and Amazon.com sales rank consistently shows the audience likes it a lot. Have you got yourself a copy already?

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Do you need contingency reserve?

  • Reading time:4 mins read

If projects were completely predictable, there would be no need for risk management. Everything could be planned and executed according to plan. However, we know better. Unexpected things happen, disrupt the original plans and cause time and cost overruns. In IT projects, these overruns are far too common to be ignored.

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My WinDays9 presentation online

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image WinDays9 is over, thank you all who attended my presentation “What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009”. I hope it was worth your time. For all you lucky ones, I hope you liked the book! I would prefer if I had enough of them to give you each a copy, but let’s just say I was logistically impaired.

Also, I hope you enjoyed the presentation, and learned a lot about this, for Croatian market, still upcoming release. For me, preparing (and delivering) this presentation was a challenge, regardless of all the effort I invested into researching the product last year.

If you didn’t have a chance to attend the presentation, and you are still interested in watching the presentation, I invite you to visit the presentation workspace at http://www.mswindays.com/WinDays9Technology/radniprostori/472/default.aspx.

Please note – only WinDays9 registered attendees can access this web page (as far as I know).

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Panorama ERP diagnostic and Assessment

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image Panorama Consulting Group, the authors of the ERP report, have just made available two interesting tools: ERP Quick Diagnostic, and ERP Readiness Assessment.

According to their website, if you are “in the early stages of selecting a new ERP software or if you’ve already completed your project, our ERP Quick Diagnostic will help you benchmark with other ERP projects across the globe”.

On the other hand, if you are thinking about starting an ERP project, you can take advantage of the ERP Readiness Assessment which can “determine how ready you really are for ERP”.

All in all, two simple online tools which can help you understand how well your ERP project is going or completed, or what can you expect if you decide to venture into one. Click here to check this out.

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WinDays9: see you in Opatija next week!

  • Reading time:2 mins read

imageOften you don’t even notice how quickly time goes by, except for a few milestones, which happen once a year and remind you that another one’s over.

WinDays conference is one of such milestones, and I’ve barely published a handful of posts here since the last time it was the most discussed topic in Croatian IT community. So, an incredibly short year later, here’s another one: WinDays9.

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What’s a project plan?

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Project plan. A fancy term we all like to use. But believe it or not, most of us don’t even know what a project plan really is.

I don’t know why, how and when it came to be that in IT we started using the term project plan, but whatever the origin, the term we use is somewhat incorrect, and when attached to what we often attach it to, it’s downright wrong.

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Hollywood Secrets of Project Management Success: a review of a sort

  • Reading time:5 mins read

Hollywood Secrets of Project Management SuccessTake that project you are currently running, and imagine, just for a second, that it came with only 3% budget overrun. Most of people in software industry would call it wild success.

In motion picture industry, however, trampling measly 2% or 3% over initial budget would be considered a failure.

While movie industry and software industry are seemingly light years apart, there are many things these two have in common, and there are obviously many things we can learn from them.

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Disruptive nature of ERP projects

  • Reading time:4 mins read

Many project management authorities assert that from project management stance all projects are equal. I dare saying that some projects are more equal than others.

In my last post, I argued why I believe software (and ERP) projects are different. But something came to my mind today, and it’s really an important differentiator of ERP projects from other kinds of projects.

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Is an ERP implementation project just a project?

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image “Software projects are no different from other projects”.

This statement is being repeated over and over at project management courses and seminars, even endorsed in books.

It’s true that software (and ERP implementation, as a subset of software) projects have many traits in common with projects in other disciplines. But ignoring their specifics is almost as wrong as saying that software projects are completely different than other projects.

Continue ReadingIs an ERP implementation project just a project?