Short throw projectors have a lot of advantages for classrooms and conference rooms: The short image throw allows for presenters to approach the screen without interfering with the image or having to look into the projection light. The short image throw also allows for several projectors to be placed in a small room, making it […]

I love this recent tweet from Viorica Marian And if you teach undergraduate students, then you probably love it too. But if you can’t move your class time from 8am, then here is a little trick you can use to save the lives of your students’ distant relatives. Tokens. Here is how it works. In […]

It’s happening again: The migration of some 20 million college and university students back to campus. It’s a good thing for them. And for us! For students, a post-secondary degree will pay off in terms of salary and life-style. After graduation, these former-student will enter the workforce, create more jobs, develop new technologies and contribute […]

There are a couple of ways to make RS232 and similar cables, either by soldering or crimping: Soldering is time consuming and can be difficult to do correctly, especially for the novice or those that don’t do it regularly. Moreover, problems with solder contacts sometimes don’t show up until years later, when a weak solder […]

This is a short paper assignment that I sometimes use in which the students will research a project that has failed and try to analyze the root causes. It helps them see the results of poor planning. The compressed (.zip) file below contains the assignment as well as the rubric I use for grading, in .pdf, […]

Often I am lucky enough to teach project management in a computer classroom, with MS Project. After orienting students to MS Project on the first day of class, I'll assign the following as a "Ticket to Exit" for them to complete before leaving. The attached zip contains this assignment in .pdf file, MSword and Apple Pages formats.

This is a very interesting TED talk from Astro Teller at Google about the value of failure and project selection: http://www.ted.com/talks/astro_teller_the_unexpected_benefit_of_celebrating_failure#t-310435

As a classroom exercise: Handout a page with a table of the PM Processes (below is a compressed (zip) file with Apple Pages and MSWord versions of the PM Processes table). I print on a tabloid size (11x17) paper so it is legible and there is room for students to take notes. Print out a copy of the PM […]

A version of this is table included in the student workbook, but this is one page (front and back) listing of all the Earned Value Management indicators (CPI, SPI, ETC, SV, AC, etc.), how they are calculated and how to interrupt the values. The compressed (.zip) file below contains this "Cheat Sheet" in Apple Pages and […]

The zip file below contains one excel file and two videos. The excel file contains 5 forward/backward pass exercises and the solutions. This was a "hand me down" from a former PM professor at the University of Missouri. I sometimes use it as a tool for exam review. The two videos are recordings of myself solving the exercises […]