Radio Show 1/22

The Work/Life Balance Friday at 2 PM Pacific January 22, 2016: Paul Pedrazzi Join Rick A. Morris while he interviews one of the most innovative minds in the industry Paul Pedrazzi. Paul is equal parts innovator and pragmatist - always on the lookout for not only the new, but also its application in the real world. This combination has guided his work in software for nearly two decades. Over the last year while leading Product Design and Product Management teams, he completed an ambitious rethinking of PPM, championing a research based approach to building winning software. Launched at CA World 2015, this new interface was the hit of the show. Paul ha Tune in Friday at 2 PM Pacific Time on VoiceAmerica Business Channel Featured Guest Paul Pedrazzi Most recently, Paul led the product and design functions for Achievers - a SaaS employee engagement platform. There he championed a much more focused mobile strategy around iOS and Android while expanding their footprint in digital commerce. The company was successfully sold to BlackHawk Networks in early 2015. His roots in software that every employee uses, every day, were solidified at Taleo, where he led the Performance Management suite of products. There he built a model to bring together design and product management thinking in harmony with the speed of Agile. Taleo was acquired by Oracle for $1.9B in February 2012. He began his career in other world class o..... Share This Episode Connect with VoiceAmerica Download our mobile apps

Radio Show - 1/8/2016

The Work/Life Balance Friday at 2 PM Pacific January 08, 2016: What is the impact on the organization of having Work Life Imbalance? Rick A. Morris will be interviewing best-selling author John Stenbeck. Given the immense pressure faced by project teams to control budgets and meet deadlines, it is even possible to suggest they could have a Work/Life Balance? Come listen to the invigorating John discuss is latest book which is ranked #1 in Agile Project Management and hear a lively debate between whether or not Agile and Traditional Project Management can co-exist in the workplace. Hear the two leading experts in their respective spaces discuss this relevant topic on the evolution of projects in the workplace. Does Agile rep Tune in Friday at 2 PM Pacific Time on VoiceAmerica Business Channel Featured Guest John Stenbeck John Stenbeck is a long-time, deeply committed PMI volunteer who has served as both the President and VP of Professional Development for the PMI – San Diego Chapter, and is currently the VP of Programs for the PMI – Inland Northwest Chapter in Spokane, Washington. His expertise and experience in Agile Project Management and Agile Government Contracting have caused many PMI Members to begin referring to him as “The Godfather of Agile in a Traditional World”. John is a PMP and PMI-ACP, as well as Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Professional. He is a Best Selling author. His first two books have achieved over $1 million in sales and his most recent one – the Agile Almanac – is the A..... Share This Episode Connect with VoiceAmerica Download our mobile apps

CA Technologies is changing the narrative with the next release of CA PPM

As a long time user of PPM technology, I have always been a big fan of CA PPM (Clarity).  The feature set is robust and it offers unparalleled configurability to the end user.  CA PPM is truly a platform that can be utilized to solve many more business issues and processes than just project and portfolio management.  The ability for businesses to leverage the power of the platform and to drive the key performance indicators of their individual needs makes it a market leader.  The architecture underneath CA PPM is a differentiator.  The ability to easily upgrade to the newest version without losing configurations and user settings has also made it a very attractive product.
There are a couple of key segments of the market to consider as well.  In my experience, only 10-15% of project managers on the market can write a fully resource loaded project schedule.  It is a skill that most project managers have not had the time to invest in learning.  The issue becomes the aggregation of data across an enterprise that is trying to leverage resource capacity and demand.  If the project managers are not resource loading the schedules, then a large disconnect can occur.  This has been an issue that many software vendors are trying to resolve.  CA PPM separates allocation from assignment to ease the burden for the organizations that want to allow mature and immature project schedules to be normalized and aggregated.  Again, a market leader.  The issue that CA PPM has always faced with their product is that the focus was on features, functions, and the maturity of their product allowed them to fall behind in the user interface.  This narrative has changed and CA PPM’s next release will absolutely change the market.
Some companies have utilized Workfront, Daptiv, or some of the newer solutions because of a modern interface.  What these systems lack in configurability, features, or functions have been outweighed by the ease of use factor in the product.  CA recognized this issue and tonight, unveiled their latest direction with the product.  Instead of chasing features or functionality, or even getting a laundry list of improvements requested by the end user, they invested a tremendous amount of resources in behavioral science.  They studied how humans interact with the product and why.  They extrapolated the data into some key findings and focused on those in a completely fresh look at the design of the product.  By focusing on personas, this enabled them to design the entire interaction with the product from a user life cycle perspective.  The results are impressive.
Think of the best features of Facebook and Twitter combined with the stability, power, and adaptability of one of the most mature products on the market.  This is an absolute game changer.  The new interface is intuitive, modern, and design with total mobility in mind.  The ability and extensibility of the product has been modernized for ease of use and has been optimized to also be used on mobile platforms.  This is not an app; it is a solution that can be accessed anywhere business is done.  Furthermore, it will take the use of a PPM tool (which has been viewed as a governance platform or a necessary evil) into a more social user experience that will drive the participation and content of the team.  CA PPM will become the centerpiece of conversation and collaboration instead of being a collector or aggregator of data.  It is truly revolutionary.
The other exciting piece of information that was shared today at CA World was the commitment of resources to move the product forward.  CA has nearly 40 resources dedicated to the enhancement of the product and several others working in a shared services model.  This means there are more people developing than some of the other products have in their entire company.  Mike Gregoire also stated that CA will be investing $1B next year to research and development of CA products.
It is clear by talking to customers, seeing the preview, and hearing the research that CA has absolutely nailed the market.  The behavioral science was a paramount decision that will continue to produce real solutions to real problems.  Some of the other major players in this space should be worried about the impact this design and delivery will have in the PPM market.  As I said in the title, the narrative has changed.  It will no longer be about can the product do this or that, it will be a centerpiece product that will revolutionize how the market utilizes PPM software.
No Day But Today,
Rick