Real World Projects

Project management is being increasingly recognized as a vital skill-set for many management positions, not just those with the title of “project manager”. As businesses increasingly have to do more with less, implementing strategy effectively has become more important than ever. Real world project management best practices meet this need – by providing proven, standardized practices for meeting project goals.


Key Consulting has been using Project Management Institute (PMI) best practices and standards since 2002. Key Consulting employees have been part of PMI since 1991.  Check out our free project management templates. We also provide a variety of public project management best practice training courses that cover everything from project management fundamentals to project management certification. Select a location for a listing of course dates: Seattle/Bellevue, Tucson, Grand Cayman, live online.


Posts in this category relate to the real world application of project management tools and techniques.

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The Second D of Project Management: Detail 8 comments

In the first post of this series, I discussed how project management can seem overly complex and difficult – hard to visualize, and we started […]

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The Ten D’s of Project Management 4 comments

Project management text books and standards can make project management seem overly complex and difficult – hard to visualize.  But that doesn’t have to be […]

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What does Project Management Maturity mean?

In the late 80’s and early 90’s, the US Department of Defense Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University was wrestling with how to […]

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What is Progressive Elaboration? 1 comment

In the project management world, the term “progressive elaboration” involves continuously adding to, improving and detailing a plan as more specific information and more accurate […]

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The Importance of Project Sponsors for Project Success 1 comment

In late 2014 PMI surveyed almost 1000 project management professionals and over 200 project sponsors as part of their Pulse of the Profession® research.  Not surprisingly, […]

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Cost Variance

What is Cost Variance (CV)? Cost Variance is the difference between the amount budgeted and the amount actually spent for the work performed on a […]

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Schedule Performance Index

What is the Schedule Performance Index (SPI)? The Schedule Performance index (or SPI) is the ratio of the budget for the work performed to the […]

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Estimating Activity Durations

What is an estimate of activity duration? An activity duration estimate is an evaluation of how long will be needed to actually perform an activity. […]

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Products in Projects 1 comment

What is a “product” in a project? Basic rule of thumb: a product is something tangible (hold, touch & feel). Software and electronic documents are […]

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Tom Peters on Project Management

Best-selling business author Tom Peters was recently the keynote speaker at PMI’s Leadership Institute Meeting (LIM).  Among the wisdom he shared with the audience: If you […]

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