Project Management Ideas

What to look for in Project Management Software?

Admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:16:55 +0000

As a project manager once you are got into the project, you will be starting listing to-do list, getting involving with your team members and start allocating and scheduling the task. No matter the scope of the project, the phase in which your project lies you will be involved in the set of activities carried out at same period of time. This is the time to look upon some good project management software which can fulfill your project planning and executing requirements.

There is lots of software available in the market, but it is your job as project manager to identify your needs to manage your project, team and your project management style. You should ask following questions before choosing project management software. What do you mean by project management? Do you need to map out project plans and schedules? Collaborate on documents? Track tasks? Time? Documents? Issues? These answers can vary which will become criteria to select your project management software.
Following are the basic functions ideally project managers should look into the software:

Project Management

Project management software should guide you by providing the valuable contribution towards strategic interest of your company to work upon particular project. The key parameter of strategic planning is to perform continuous evaluation, prioritization, budgeting and selection of investments.

Projects Planning

A good project management tool should provide a powerful way to define project schedule, understand the critical path, assess and allocate resources. It should allow mapping project tasks and creating visual display (Gantt charts) how they interrelate which can be further used as the reports.

Managing Tasks and Resources

You software should have the ability to define a task, assign it to proper resource, create a deadline, and know when it’s complete. Project management software should manage and control the time, resources, money and equipment to execute a project.

Collaboration

This is required feature of your project management software especially to build, share and manage a central repository of all your project documents and information and increase productivity when your team does not exists in a specific geographical boundaries. It should also target to the issues such as communication between team members, including email, conference calls, meetings, web-based locations. SaaS (Software as a service) is a web-based solution with numerous communication and remote management capabilities. Mainly you should make sure that the web-based solutions use a trusted SSL certificate so that all your information is transferred securely.

Customer Support

You should make sure that the vendor should provide a real support. You can make a test to verify the quality and speediness of the support team to respond your queries. You should also check the reaction of the vendor when you ask to include additional features which can be your project management requirement.

Pricing

Make sure you have not paid extra just because you made a quick decision.

Free trial

Make sure that the vendor provides a free account type to evaluate the tool to check whether it fulfills your project management requirements. If the vendor does not offer a free trial, then surely the product must not be according to your expectations.

If you do not have time to evaluate project management software, you can take quick overview from following websites:

http://www.project-management-software.org/

http://project-management-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

http://download.cnet.com/windows/project-management-software/

Benefits of using Project Management Software

Admin — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 15:51:49 +0000

The project manager can increase the probability of successfully completing a project using good project management software. With project management software, managers are able to nicely communicate, collaborate by staying on track with the project stakeholders as well as team members completing successful project. For small sized project, managing project manually is possible but it is feasible to use project management software for large scale projects number of resources is involved with set of activities to perform in given span of period to achieve project deliverables in a cost effective manner handling all possible risk factors. Here are some of the benefits to use Project Management Software:

Ability to handle complexity with accuracy:

For large size project, it is difficult to monitor and control activities carried out by resources for given span of period. Project Management software have accurate algorithms for calculating project information and contain numerous built in checks to avoid user-errors. Thus is helps to monitor activities and resources involved in the project with good level of accuracy.

Provide better Communication:

Project management software provides same platform for communication among team leaders, team members and stakeholders regardless of their geographical locations. It offers transparency to each group or resource in the team with equal understanding on the project status.

Effective Management:

Most of the project management software provides graphs, timesheets, Gantt charts, task assignments, time sheets and milestones to manage and track the progress of a project. Managers can prioritize task and shuffle resources throughout the project cycle. It also handles effective resource management helping managers to build team profiles to assign right task to right person. The good software also monitors budget, tracks expenses, regulates resources and calculates costs.

What-if Analysis:

One further feature of project management software is the ability to perform what-if analysis. It allows the managers to see the effects of various scenarios on a project. These scenarios can be run on the software, and their effects can be evaluated. This helps the project managers to prepare and plan for certain contingencies and to access consequences.

Work Breakdown Structure

Admin — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:19:42 +0000

Once you are clear about the scope and the outcome of the project, the first thing you require is project planning. Project planning is to break down overall deliverable into manageable chunks, work out the schedule, identify resources and finally work out the cost. Work-Breakdown Structure is the most popular technique used by professional project managers using formal project planning methodologies.

A Work-Breakdown Structure (which is also called the Indenture Level Structure) is the best way to understand the detailed tasks of the project when you have to start a project from scratch. It breaks the project down into the major phases, deliverables and work components in sequential steps leading to greater project detail. These components can be further broken down into the activities to be carried out towards the outcome of the project. Hence work break down structure establishes the hierarchical order in a system, thereby identifying the tasks and milestones when applied to a project.

The Work-Breakdown Structure is definitely the most structured approach to identify the activities. But how does one actually identify the task? Well, this is something that you have to do individually. Following are few tips when building Work-Breakdown structure:

Identify level of breakdown process

You should be specific and detailed while breaking down the structure into components and further into activities. If project manager gets into too much detailing of activities then this will lead to micromanage the project which will consume more time in managing the project detailing instead of actual progress of a project.

Note the Jargon for components of WBS

If you are working on large project it is useful to place all the important terminology or information in WBS dictionary. The WBS dictionary should hold information in form of numeric identifier (1.1, 1.1.1, 1.1.2 etc.) containing track of all the summary and detailed activities, including a short description, estimated efforts and track of changes in WBS.

Don’t place requirements on WBS

Don’t place requirements on WBS. You can place deliverables on WBS and break it further into activities that are required to achieve the deliverable.

Place Deliverables and not Activities or Tasks

WBS should consists the deliverables which your customer or stakeholder will get as an outcome of the project. You don’t have to place activities or task carried out by project team to achieve those deliverables. These deliverables placed in the WBS may not change except the stakeholder gives change request.

Updating of WBS on Change Request

WBS is a formal document showing the deliverables of the project, any change in either the requirements of the customer or the change in WBS will be affecting scope of your project. Any change request given by the customer should reflect WBS in order to manage change.

Pareto’s Law

Admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:30:58 +0000

Pareto’s Law

Pareto’s Law or Pareto’s Principle is known by several names 80/20 Rule, Pareto Theory along with Pareto’s Law or Pareto’s Principle. There is no definite Pareto “quote”, but it is a model or theory that has endless applications. The theory has proved its results in management, social study and demographics, business and financial planning and in all types of distribution analysis.

The principle is extremely helpful in bringing swift and easy clarity to complex situations and problems, especially when deciding the priority where to focus efforts and resources. The Pareto principle says that where two related data sets or groups exists (typically in the pair of cause and effect or input or output):

“80% of output is produced by 20% of input”

Or

“80% of outcomes are from 20% of causes”

The principle does not say that it can be applicable to every situation. It is not the rule that when two figures 80 and 20 are added should result into 100.

This principle is extremely useful in planning, analysis, trouble-shooting, problem-solving and decision-making, and change management, where it is required to take broad initial judgments, and especially when propositions need checking. The instigators had thought to refer Pareto’s Principle as a “sanity check”, many complex business disasters could easily have been averted. Pareto’s Law is a tremendously powerful model, more effective because it’s so simple and easy.

To apply this principle, take the 80% time-consumers and see how you can halve the time; then ask, is that exercise is worth in cost terms, and where will it lead? If you get a positive answer, repeat the exercise three times. You’re now using only 6% of the previous time span, which is massive 16-fold improvement. Now ask whether making these changes will significantly reduce costs or raise customer satisfaction (if not both). If the answer is Yes – well, do it!

Pareto Principle will generally work within any given scenario or system or organization:

80 percent of results come from 20 percent of efforts
80 percent of activity will require 20 percent of resources
80 percent of the difficulty in achieving something lies in 20 percent of the challenge
80 percent of revenue comes from 20 percent of customers
80 percent of problems come from 20 percent of causes
80 percent of profit comes from 20 percent of the product range
80 percent of complaints come from 20 percent of customers
80 percent of corporate pollution comes from 20 percent of corporations
80 percent of road accidents are caused by 20 percent of drivers

Project Management Jokes

Admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:06:32 +0000

Project Management Jokes

Here are few jokes and humorous quotations that can be applied in various stages while managing the project.

Project Stakeholders

A task is one little step for the task sponsor, one monster leap for the task manager

Nothing is unrealistic for the individual who doesn’t have to do it.

Project Planning

It takes one woman nine months to have a baby. It will not be finished in one month by impregnating nine women

At the heart of every large task is a little task endeavoring to get out.

A awfully designed task will take three times longer than anticipated – a well designed task only two times as long as expected.

If you don’t design, it doesn’t work. If you do design, it doesn’t work either. Why plan!

The pleasant thing about not designing is that malfunction arrives as a entire shock other than being preceded by a time span of concern and depression.

Project Team

Everyone inquires for a powerful task supervisor – when they get them they don’t desire them

If you’re 6 months late on a milestone due next week but actually accept as factual you can make it, you’re a task manager.

There are none nice project executives – alone lucky ones.

Project Communication

The task would not have been begun if the reality had been notified about the cost and timescale.

Good task administration is not so much understanding what to do and when, as understanding what apologizes to give and when.

Of some likely interpretations of a connection, the smallest befitting is the correct one.

I understand that you accept as factual that you realize what you believe I said, but I am not certain you recognize that what you perceived is not what I meant.

What is not theoretically has not been said.

A client will notify you anything you inquire about, but not anything more.

Timing

You can deceive a sucker into committing to an unrealistic deadline, but you will not deceive him into gathering it.

A two year task will take three years, a three year task will not ever finish.

The earlier you get behind agenda, the more time you have to make it up.

A task gets a year late one day at a time.

The earlier you start cipher the subsequent you finish.

Some tasks complete on time in spite of task administration best practices.

The acrimony of poor value lasts long after the sweetness of making a designated day is forgotten.

Measurement and Control

Good command discloses difficulties early – which only signify you’ll have longer to concern about them.

Quantitative task administration is for forecasting cost and agenda overruns well in advance.

No task has ever completed on time, inside allowance, to obligation – yours won’t be the first to.

Metrics are wise men’s excuses.

Warning: designated days in a calendar are nearer than they emerge to be.

Project Implementation

If you don’t understand how to do a task, start it, then 10 persons who understand less than you will notify you how to do it.

There is no such thing as scope steal, only scope fly.

The more despairing the position the more hopeful the situatee.

A little risk administration keeps many of followers cleaning.

Change Management

Anything that can be altered will be altered until there is no time left to change anything

Feather and down are padding, alterations and contingencies will be genuine events.

A change freeze is like the abominable snowman: it is a myth and would anyhow dissolve when heat is applied.

Delivering Results

Fast – bargain – good – you can have any two.

There’s not ever sufficient time to do it right first time but there’s habitually sufficient time to proceed back and do it again.

If everything is going precisely to design, certain thing somewhere is going hugely wrong

Project Reports

If at the start you don’t do well, eliminate all clues you ever tried

When the weight of the project paperwork becomes identical to the weight of the project itself, the task of the project can be considered to be completed.

Create and Organize a Project Management Checklist or Checklist Template

Admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:37:23 +0000

Create and Organize a Project Management Checklist or Checklist Template

Project management checklists are important in helping you start, manage and run projects successfully. A well organized project management checklist helps project managers to stay focused and make sure that they do not miss out any important aspect of the project. Some project managers prefer to use readymade project management checklist templates to manage their projects. While this could be a good start, it is only a first step. While some project managers prefer to write a project management check list. To write checklist, project managers should make their homework ahead of time and enter all pertaining information into the checklist. Once you create a few project checklists, you will learn to create your own checklist template to use on future projects.

Break up your project into various sections. This will help you to outline your to-do-List. Hence your checklist will contain various sections.
List out the steps that require taking place before actual the project starts. These steps can be finding appropriate resources to work upon the project, defining scope of your project, getting approval on the budget of the project from the seniors and stakeholders. All these needs to be happening before the project actual begins.
Create a checklist that defines the full scope of the project to start up your project.
Start listing all the tasks and break down each tasks into sub-tasks depending on how detailed they are. Now allocate each subtask to each team member who will be accountable of that sub-task.
Breakdown the project into various types of task. Create a mini checklist for each of this type. Each section of related tasks should have their own checklist.
Set up a checklist to measure the progress of the project. This includes steps to held meeting with the stakeholder, handing out the progress reports.
Set up the checklist for the process of the completion of the project. This includes Final QA, Final review process, getting approval from the stakeholders.

What is different about Agile Methodology?

Admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:24:12 +0000

What is different about Agile Methodology?

Agile Project Management methodology can be implemented along with few traditional project management methodologies are Waterfall model, Iterative and Incremental Development, Short iterations, Progress measured via completed features, Open flexible design, empowered teams, Personal communications. This combination will be managing the impact of the change in a project more effectively; change to be introduced to the project in an orderly way to maximize the benefits to the stakeholders by reducing risk of change management.

Waterfall Development

In traditional waterfall method, the base was the design developed for the product and then product is developed according to that design, which is tested to check how much it adhere to the design. If this process takes 18 months, the stakeholder have to means to measure the progress of the product until he gets access to the product for acceptance review. With agile method, you can focus on user-visible features. If the product have 10 user-visible features, out of which if 4 is completed and working, your stakeholder can easily measure that 40% of product development is completed.

Iterative and Incremental Development

Agile methods break the product development into number of repetitive cycles called iterations. Each iteration builds new layer of the functionality or adding up the older one. Initially product development is started with the core functionality, day by day product get more mature and becoming more towards completing stage.

Short Iterations

Agile methods with short iteration keeps the feedback cycle short, allowing more response to the product and thereby reducing the risk of building up wrong product.

Progress measured with completed features

Agile method keeps track progress by fully-completed and tested features. This is nice approach instead of keeping progress by measuring percent complete on intangible elements such as design. Progress is measured by the percent of features that are complete and ready for the stakeholders to review or deploy.

Open, Flexible Design

Most of the time full set of requirements may be unclear at the beginning of the project. It is likely to change anytime in the project life cycle. With agile prepare a flexible, extensible design that will allow you to add on features to support new requirements as they emerge. There is always the risk of some rework to incorporate complex requirements, but often the impact is offset by the other benefits gained by using agile methods.

Empowered Teams

Instead of imposing the design on the team, a team is framed who know their jobs well and have experience to decide for them. This often allows for more flexibility in a system unlike found in the traditional centralized design.

Personal Communications

Agile methods focus on teams working in shared physical environments instead of focusing on producing written documents to communicate every minor aspect of product development. Whiteboards is much efficient ways for working out design details. This method is quite updated and easily communicated within and outside the product development team.

Agile Project Management

Admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:35:50 +0000

Agile Project Management

The term agile denotes the ability of the project management methodology to respond to the changing requirements in a controlled but flexible manner. When change occurs in the project, these methods provides the ways of allowing that change to be introduced to the project in an orderly way that attempts to maximize the benefits to the sponsor, while controlling the risks that the change introduces. Agile methodology may not suit every project, project manager has to identify the benefits of agile methodology and evaluate whether this technique will suit for your project.

Agile techniques reduce risk by improving communication and thereby getting more control over the project. Agile techniques reduces risk of doing wrong things, the risk of building right things with poor quality and the risk of being stuck in an endless cycle of design updates and reviews due to changing requirements or high level of complexity. We can describe agile project management as follows

Agile projects are feature based

While agile project plans are featured based; describing when the features will be delivered in the most current iteration. Agile projects planning do not have much visionary description of what shall happen in the project after the six months. Depending upon the priority of features, project manager can guess which feature will have to be delivered and how much functionality the team can deliver in the given period of time.

Agile project plan is sequentially organized

Agile project plans are organized keeping in mind to deliver the features on the regular or frequent basis. Usually the feature deliverable time bound iterations are 2-4 weeks in length. Due to this stakeholders have a better picture of the state of the project after using iterative end result as it is available.

Agile project plan is detailed at different levels along with the time frame

In agile projects, project managers have to face parallel affects the continuity of delivery of each features. These factors can be changes in the team, change in the priority of the deliverable, change in business conditions, better approach and techniques learned from previous iterations. Due to this, Agile project plans address multiple levels of detailing based on the given time frame. Team produces the detailed plan that includes tasks needed to deliver the functionality in the most current iteration. At the high level it is the release plan which highlights what functionality the team is planning to deliver for the next several iterations.

Agile project plan is owned by the project team

In agile project planning the team is involved with the stakeholder to decide what feature will be produced and the necessary task to successful deliver the planned feature in the most current iteration. After the plan is developed and approved, the team has to adhere to those plans. Hence when the team members are actually doing the work, they are the best judge to know what needs to be done when in a given time frame.

Project Management checklist

Admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:56:45 +0000

Project Management checklist

Project managers ‘To Do List’ is the form of project management checklist. Project managers put up their thoughts, tasks or ideas at one place and then systematically checking them of till their job is completed. That’s why project manager like to prepare the checklist to measure the project results from starting to the end of the project. Checklist contains the list of check points for which project managers have to grade themselves by replying “Yes”, “No” or “Not applicable”. Check out project management checklist as below:

Does project has clear business objective and quality goals?

Does Estimate/Budget of the project is formally approved by a responsible stakeholder?

Does the project requirements documents are mapped with the project proposal?

Does the work break down structure or project plan are formally agreed upon the top management and the responsible stakeholders?
Does the project have bi-directional traceability documents to verify project scope against the requirement documents?

Does the risk involved in the project are clearly documented and discussed with the responsible stakeholder?
Do your team members are aware of the project deliverables and their roles in the project? Are they adequately skilled or trained to work on the projects?
Does the progress of the project is formally reviewed at required period of time? Does the progress report and reviews conveyed to the stakeholder?
Does the escalation mechanisms and issue resolutions are formed clearly to address potential issues and conflicts within team or with the client?

10. Does the performance against quality goals are analyzed?

11. Do your project team members efficiently perform knowledge transfer at the time the resources are made in and out in the project?

12. Does the project is within the project scope? Do the project documents reflect the change request in the project? Does your work breakdown structure reflect the latest schedule?

13. Does you project undergo internal audits, work product audit and configuration audit by the Quality department? (This is applicable if your company has process of internal audits).

14. Does your deliverables technically reviewed and tested before they are realized to your customer?

15. Does the project deliverables are getting approval by the client at set in place?

Above are the lists of checkpoints, project managers have to check them out and congratulate themselves to complete their job successfully.

Key principle for PM to success

Admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:39:28 +0000

Key principle for PM to success

Project Managers should focus on three project success areas; completing all project deliverables on time, within budget and with the quality acceptable to the stakeholders. These are broadly defined goals, which should be the team’s prime attention to achieve.

Project managers should agree upon the fact that planning is everything and is ongoing process; the most important activity is planning. It may be systematic, detailed and team planning which are the foundation for any project success. When the real-time events occur resulting into the change in the project, project managers updates their planning documents to reflect new changes. Hence planning and re-planning is the ongoing process for project managers.

Project managers should keep the team attention on project deliverables and deadlines as projects are finite activities with limited time, money, and other resources. They should check regular status, meetings, and reminders are essential.

Project Manager should identify standard ISD model to ensure the professional standards and best practices are followed in project cycle. To follow these standards should also be included in the project plans. These standards help to achieve quality product and help to minimize the rework. PM should not entertain any kind of shortcuts’ in the project especially when time and budget pressures.

Project Manager and its team should be on the same level of understanding of the finished deliverables of the project so that the team efforts are focused in the same direction.

Project deliverables should be evolved gradually at certain defined schedules. Project should be delivered in chunks, take incremental reviews and approval from stakeholders and maintain balanced evolution.

Project should require approvals and sign-off procedures after finalizing the deliverables and after the actual deliverables are delivered. There should be clear approval points followed by formal sign-up by stakeholders.

Project Managers should document business needs of the project along with the deliverables before starting upon the project. Project success has direct relation with thorough of the needs of project deliverables.

Project Managers must give stress doing right things in time in the first place. They should ensure top managers and stakeholders to deliver quality product in the total time spent.

Project Manager should equally get authority so as to responsibility. Project must have authority to acquire and coordinate resources, request and receive top managers’ cooperation and take relevant decisions which can impact the success of the project.

Stakeholders should be active participants helping out to define deliverables, review interim deliverables in time, and help to expedite project deliverables to target audience and required documentation.

Project managers should acquire the skillful team members to perform relevant task. Project managers should help valuable team members to protect them from outside interruptions. He should help them acquiring the tools and working conditions necessary to apply their skills.