Saturday, February 23, 2013

Utilize Project Management Techniques Accurately



Project Management Context

Earlier I encounter a promotion for a project management technology software. It was an expression of seven pre programmed robots in a team, which represented humans. The tag line expressed that if your group is similar to this, any project program management should work.
It gave me surprise how many companies really suggest that commendable technology software do the task and yield prosper outcomes –not us. Guess how many organizations and project managers adequately realize their project requirements and the suitability of the latest technology to their organization’s current setting and procedures?
Organizations sometimes purchase costly project management software and the coax groups to be conventional and settle into the software rather than personalize the software to the requirements of the persons and the project. However, purchasing applications because other companies utilize them does not naturally mean you too, will transform a leader. Similarly with the best practices, knowledge has trained me that technology and gadgets are precious – however only if they complete breaks and require successful.
Scientific expertise is crucial and can boost effectiveness, but in the right setting and situation. The project is programmed and implemented by humans –hence technology need to balance and be unstated by the humans who utilize it. Previous to investing in a new project management software  you must think about factors like training, prices and your group mate intentions to utilize the techniques. Or else, it could sum up to a costly lumber.
What learning can you share of fading to involve customers prior to investing in technological applications? What aspects should be taken prior to investing in new software?
Your experiences will be the part of learning

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Being pushy? Or not?



Assertive Manager
People do not bother how much a person know, until they know how much the person care for others.
Have you ever noticed your project manager saying something which makes you feel like a machine? These are signs you are working with an extrovert manager.
In opposite,  few project managers supervise more as a shy person. They are less  belligerent and more submissive in their behavior.
There is a level of being pushy and assertiveness, which be fathomed as a person’s inclination to aggressively protect, convince and express out for his individual benefits.
Being pushy is an important factor for a leader’s skill to attain outcomes, according to a 2006 research made by Daniel Ames and Francis Flynn. They realized that our normal inclination to concentrate on optimistic data tells that the value of low or high extents of being pushy may sometimes overshadow the positivities in the perceptions of those who watch.
So what is the ideal behavior to boldness in the situation of project management? My answer would be, it actually depends on the kind of project.
May be the crux is to create our abilities to expand a broader range of pushiness and maintain our attitude to the situation of the project.
For example, on short term projects, being assertive to a greater extent will offer us the skill to gain outcomes. But on a long term project, the ideal attitude would be more reasonable in pushiness to develop healthy bonds with our team members, which enables us to coordinate positively in the future.
Which type of project manager you think you are? And which kind of project manager you fancy to be ?

Monday, February 11, 2013

The Rhythm of Communication in Project Management


Image
The basic purpose of communication is to split information or convey an alteration of behavior. This is a specifically real for the communication with the project members. The confront of the effective communication is sustaining a persistent aim and altering your presentation and rhythm to prevent becoming uninteresting.Successful communicators utilize a known approach to make it melodious. It doesn’t matter if you concentrate on Beethoven’s Symphony or Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. You realize continuation and diversification in both of them. Traces of high pitch intensity with calmer surroundings create an outstanding triumph.
The same outcome can be obtained in your communication by harmonizing optimistic and negative aspects of a code or message, altering the course of the data flow.
For instance, if you desire somebody to halt an unwanted attitude, realize the issue, but also emphasizes the advantages of the alteration you desire to happen. Or else than expressing the group they are following the agenda, alter the route of the data flow and inquire them for concepts to retain the mislaid phase. The tip you are developing is stable, but the diversifications in expressing takes to involvement.
One more important aspect is to compete on a high intensity. Unforgettable rhythm does not die away. It creates a climax!
Effective communicators like Martin Luther King Jr, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and many others, all had a stable, dedicated message they transformed in a manner that would develop a burly effect in their spectators.
All had dissimilar vocal styles, but each had an actual feel of music and presentation. Their communications are meticulously designed for response, but the performance adds great mass to the message.
Project managers need to consider upon the effectiveness of communication to create a rhythm in your work and to create an impact on your team.

Do you make the most out of this art of communication ?

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

How Cloud Computing Benefit Project Management?



Cloud Computing

Projects works as catalysts in performing major roles in fostering a prosper future of business. But this can only be possible with sound and really effective project management base, without which, it would just be a pipeline dream.
A project management foundation is comprised of systems, process, paradigms, laws and guidelines, incorporated project management, techniques, best practices implementation, project resources, learning tools, and future practices.
There are so many small firms, legal organizations or those with budding economies recurrently don’t have the sufficient finances to spend on complicated data technology in constructing and sustaining a project management podium of their own.
This big division in the job of project management, can be minimized with the help of cloud commuting. Through which business opportunities arise, individuals and  legal officials can gain access to a trustworthy project management forum online at reasonable cost, according to their utilization or on rent. This whole system is known as the Project Management Cloud or PM Cloud.
There are a number of analytic PM clouds that can be noted as:
• Engineering & Building PM Cloud
• IT PM Cloud
• Research & Development PM Cloud
• Administration PM Cloud
• Edification or Education PM Cloud

Managers that prefer using cloud computing, are able to shun key capital investments and can also resist the continuing difficulty of administering the expertise confrontations.
When the PM Clouds are accessible at reasonable costs, when required, they can affect project management in the subsequent ways:
v  A major step ahead in attaining the opportunities to budding finances and small firms capable to accomplish internationally by influencing superior quality PM clouds.
v  Grooms the novelty as firms controlling more reasonable PM cloud choices to trial.
v  Reduces the division between small and big firms. It also offers identical opportunities as project management clouds develop into at a reasonable cost.
v  It enables for international cooperation with project skills all over the world.
v  It aids worldwide and dynamic training and learning at a reasonable price.
However, we are still in the emerging state of offering complicated incorporated project management podiums in the cloud, but ultimately, cloud computing will affect the approach the project management is completed in the prospect.

How do you believe cloud computing is affecting project management? Share your views with us!

Friday, February 1, 2013

Project Threat + Precautions = Project Victory


Risk management

Risk management under the umbrella of best practices, is crucial in the project victory. It compels the project team to think about the deal breakers on a project, and to proactively arrange and execute solutions.
Below are some example of managing risks that could have accumulated a project.
A project manager looks after an electrical team who is responsible for mounting electrical and audio visual machinery. The civil engineering and building teams conveyed the completed and well furnished location, all set for the final stage of the project. To the project manager’s alarm, the team member does not synchronize with the screens, depict them not good for the function.
Where was the problem?
The civil and building teams had changed the measurements of the rooms, the clients botched to correspond the alterations to the electrical team. Pretentious the project was accelerated according to the preparation, the project manager organized and submitted the electrical designs based on the authentic measurements of the room. These designs were made outmoded when the room measurements altered, which distressed the machinery’s placing.
How to resolve?
To rectify the problem, the project manager designed and submitted new drawings for electrical team. The location’s walls and roofs had to be reopened to house the alterations, which caused setbacks and greater costs, amendment and irritation.
Had there been a vigorous risk recognition and executing plans, they would not be in this problem. There were so many pretentious that were left open and risks pertaining to many exterior addictions were ignored.
As part of this risk management, precautions and proactive correspondence with the clients and other teams should have been programmed. For instance, the project manager should have thought and inquired questions about how the contractors and locations be observed and controlled. What would the incidence and form of communication be like with clients?
There should have been an evaluation of what if  situations. What happens if the results are not as predicted or calculated? What are the threats if there are issues with contractors? What is the result of not having keen assets to the team?
These forms of discussions and inquiring would have changed the project manager and team to precautionary program to administer the quality of contractor task and assign the necessary asset on the project team.
So, as a project manager, do you practice risk management? How does its planning and organizing transforms your projects into a victory?
Share your views with us.