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Project management – What Should be Kept in Mind?

project-managementThe first step for an organization is to see whether the project manager has the necessary skills.

Skills required managing the project or in any adverse circumstances moving them to a place where they do less damage to the organization. And when we speak about the organization:

Certain things should be kept in mind. Considering the needs of the organization itself is a very important step. Business needs today includes the business to be agile, it should change quickly and as per the need. Adapting rapidly to the changing environment is a key factor. These factors make your business project driven.  Which means the business should have a project focus. This means embedding project management into business strategy and making sure the organization understands it.

This includes doing projects right. And that begins with making your team with the cream people who do the things with their best skills, putting your best people. For a couple of years as part of the practice the role of good managers may be stretched and blossom to some additional roles which may take their project to new heights of prosperity. Not just their projects but their skills, knowledge and expertise. Which help them as an individual as well as whole of the organization?

Two of the most important things which should be kept in mind is only those projects that are most critical to the organization takes place and secondly are measured as per actual benefits delivered to the business at the end of the project.

Decisions like these are made by the high level managers, (business executives).

According to some experienced project managers they work on a three year focus with a quarterly review of the portfolio and the strictest rule that nothing is bullet-proof. Business critical projects should always be prioritized and rests of the projects are delayed as per the need of the business. This is the most important way of getting top management support. Worldwide very few organizations have implemented portfolio management support. And among them mostly are suffering from “project amnesia” this term refers to “approve and forget” by some people. Explaining it may include:

“The (executives or top management) approve a project and then seem to forget all about it”.

Reviewing what we discussed in this article, step one was the skills of the project manager, step two were the needs of the organization, step three includes considering the projects that are critical to the organization. But we can’t just stop there even if we take the important of the projects, things might still go wrong. Which can be eliminated using the review technique, which the fourth and most crucial part.

It includes putting processes into place considering all projects are reviewed at set times during the project life cycle.

What is needed is the some kind of a peer review process where a team or an individual carries out a review against a standard check list of the project at hand.

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Resources Allocation

iStock_000006849315XSmallTop ways that a project manager is likely to allocate resources for their projects, As discussed in earlier articles, the project managers need to be multi-tasking super heroes.

So what’s the best way of allocating your resources in best possible way?

It’s crucial and critical to stay on top of resource allocation. Ideally resource allocation should be inclined by these three principles,

  • Creating value for clients
  • Creating value for your agency
  • Creating value for employees

Now the most important question that arises, how does creating value relates to resources,

Motivated teams are a result of efficient resource practicing. Happy and motivated employees are vested in their work. That includes positivity towards their organization as well as clients.

First we should understand, what a resource is,

A resource can be identified as an economic factor or a productive factor, required to accomplish an activity.

Or as means to undertake an enterprise and achieve desired out comes.

Resources have several types.

They can be energy, entrepreneurship, information, expertise, management and time to name a few.

In project management, it includes executing project, managing people, technology, time, space, tools, equipment etc.

It also includes basic allocation decision, contingency mechanisms.

A very important and crucial technique used in resource allocation is resource leveling.

Which can be understood as a project management technique, use to examine unbalanced use of resources. Which mostly includes people and equipment.Another use is resolving over allocations and conflicts.

Resource training is also very major part, for many in the corporate world September is the start of the final push whether you are looking forward to finish the year or your project on a strong note or you ought to get new skills acquire for major roles, you need training resources.

Statistics show that you and your organization is spending significant time and money on training each year. This article will guide you in five different training resources, they might range from free to thousands of dollars.

The web today is filled with thousands of resources, a distinct problem is information overload, and you can start with these projects to stay informed on project management practices. It might help you in learning other skills.

Note:

If you are a self-employedproject management professional, copy blogger is a must read. It helps you build your internet presence.

Now we come to understanding resource allocation in a broader perspective;

Plans change all the time, one minute you are working on one project, next minute on another. The next thing you know your team has been switched to something else or the client might drastically adjusts the scope. In such an hour of panic or utter bewilderment. Rapid adjustments and re allocation of resources can be very time consuming and a big headache. Make your life easier and be at ease with your work by using latest tools e.g. “resource Guru” to streamline your re allocation process. Many companies still use legacy project management tools, that hasn’t kept up well with the time.

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How things are catered using Primavera P6?

Primavera P6The thing which is of key importance are project planning and management skills using Primavera P6. While dealing with projects of lengthy time span and activities that are larger and are further divided in sub activities.

The key features to this are:

  • Planning
  • Monitoring
  • Budgeting
  • Accomplishing.

The foremost thing in carrying out of these features is scheduling. Whether it is used in planning long term plans or tasks at hand. Scheduling includes services that tell at what time, what task would be carried out. Scheduling has been discussed in a number of previous articles but would be differentiated with project management and planning in this article.

Differentiating project management, planning and scheduling:

It can be easily understood as:

Project management is a system’s approach to planning, scheduling and controlling.

Project management of primavera p6 is a recognized standard for high performance. The projects are high scaled, sophisticated and multifaceted. Projects with unlimited resources are recognized and organized. The number of target plans are large, which in return makes it a vital part in catering projects under primavera P6.

A project managers work include,

  • Balance resource capacity
  • Plan, schedule and control projects
  • Track progress
  • Allocate best resources
  • Monitor, visualize and assess project performance versus plan.
  • Risk analysis
  • Conduct what-if scenarios.
  • Plan alternatives in case of anything went wrong.

Executives will be facing increasingly complex challenges during the next decade these would be the result of escalating salaries, raw materials and competencies between different giant organizations. Which increased union demand, pressure from stake holders, and the possibility of long term high inflation accompanied by mild recession.

All the executives today agree on the point, that the solution to majority of the problems is better control and use of existing corporate resources.

Project management can mean different to different people. It is designed to use the existing resources in a better way.

Let us understand it with an example:

It’s around 5 in the evening and the project needs a design change as well as a front end implementation, within a couple of hours for a persistent client, handling this kind of tasks comes under planning your project where there should be a spot for sudden changes, you check to see who is available, this is done through already scheduled tasks and duties. Well, you have a UX designer but not a single developer who can implement the changes. You have teams in multiple time zones, a model, intended for flexibility and sudden turnarounds like this, so you should have someone available for the tasks.

Figuring out when a developer might be free for some additional work load or sudden task is just one of the many things that you ought to manage.

This takes a good project manager to handle this chaos, good project managers need to be multi-tasking super heroes. Figuring out what need to be planned when and what should be scheduled how, differs all three terms we were discussing in this article.

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Does Internet of Things(IoT) changing project management?

Internet of things refers to ever growing network of physical objects that contains an IP address that features for internet connectivity. The communication that occurs between these devices and systems is what enables.

IOT-project-managementThe way IOT is changing project management is not just because everything these days is internet enabled but because the software for project management we use will be more inter connected. And hiring project managers will help us in handling the projects whether it is research or development in a better way. And even if your projects are not IOT related today, they will be in the near future.

There are a number of people that think IOT is not related to construction or medicine. For example if you are digging the road or working on some product of home appliance or working in the clothing industry, how does the internet of things effects project management there.

You don’t think it is vital to all the industries, it is, for now IOT is in its infancy. It is a broad term but we can narrow it down to enhance our understanding they say basically it’s a networking thing that have something embedded. Which allows to gather and share data. Which is indeed the very point of progress these days. Let us take an example here. A retailer has a dress, he thinks of doing something new, different and innovative with this dress. Starting from health care or may be it can even alert to health care. All of this just based on one dress. Another point is that this dress can even alert the person from some dangers. Like they are not aware of a car coming up from behind them and they might get hit form that car.  It doesn’t basically includes wires hanging all around or big things coming out of the dress just some technical things embedded as a thread or whatever stuff the dress is made up of.

A number of people believes the internet to be old and soon to be replaced by something else. But internet of things is the next big thing because innovation and communication would always be the need of the hour. A need for progress, development, innovation and handling the projects with the most refine and adequate knowledge of things.

As mentioned in our previous articles, IOT will change the way we drive our business models, it might change the way we do business, automating things that are done manually today or in the near past. Same things will be revolutionized by the use of IOT. It will have positive effects enhancing professional efficiencies and operational efficiencies.

Let us take here an example of a 3D printer for a better understanding of IOT and how it relates to project managers, a project manager will go to the R&D folks. Bringing the system where it needed to be whether the system needs to communicate? The project manager will go back to the R&D asking them, have you think of this or have you think of that.

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What should be known while scheduling?

During project management a very important and basic step is program or task scheduling. Project managers give a very significant importance to this. This article proves to be of great help for project managers who focus on the importance of scheduling.

While scheduling there are a number of terms that should be known.

Few of them are listed below.

ACTIVITY:

While working towards a larger goal, a task or process to be accomplished in a set period of time is called activity.

Actual cost:

The actual or real amount paid for labors or materials.

Activity relationship:

An ordered link between two activities representing the order of execution.

Approved change request:

A prove that can be a document which approves changes made to the contract.

Approved and reviewed by all stakeholders

Backward pass (backward plan):

Also known as critical path calculation, calculates earliest dates for activities on the network. It works backwards to find the finish dates and latest starts.

Bar chart:

A chart on which bars are used to represent activities. Lined up on an X axis time scale, length of the bar represents time duration.

Base line:

A set of dates and cost frozen at the start of the project and is used in evaluating the performance.

Change estimate:

An estimate of a potential change that can be made to a project, which helps in determining the overall cost of the project. Main focus is in cost, resources and scheduling.

Change impact:

The effect of a change on the whole project

Committed cost

A payment that is not yet made but is committed by the stakeholders, it can b in the form of a purchase order or a contract which is not recoverable.

Cost break down structure:

Breaking down in to cost elements for cost control planning.

Critical activity

An activity being carried out on the critical path of the project

Critical path:

A sequence of network activities, which adds up to the longest over all duration. Which determines the shortest time to complete the project

Critical path analysis:

Analysis using the longest path of a project. This aims to identify whether the project can be completed on time and tasks are a barrier between the project and its timely completion. The mile stones are identified and eliminated.

Date constraint:

Mainly used in scheduling software tell us the starting and ending date of tasks and sub tasks in a project. Often used to delay activities or imposed date deadlines in a schedule.

Direct labor:

A labor which can be directly allocated to the output of a productive account. It can either be allocated to a cost Centre. Usually not directly related to output.

Double resource estimated duration:

If the assigned levels of resources have doubled, it successfully measures the length of the activity duration

These all tasks are a very important and essential part of scheduling. These primary key factors helps the project managers in scheduling the tasks for getting maximum progressive output from the project.

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How Internet of Things(IoT) relates with Project Management

For understanding first we need to understand, what is internet of things (IOT), It can be understood as a proposed development of internet in which everyday objects have connectivity through networks which allows them to send and receive data hence communicating through a channel.

internet-of-things

In some years the bigger projects will need a project manager that will not only handle the flow of work but also control a large number of some programs, understanding this by an example.

Amazon plans to deliver packages using drones, this includes a number of issues to be resolved. Firstly these drones would need to communicate with customers, corporate office, and employees and at some point air traffic controllers. Starting from research and development and going through up gradations this whole process indeed needs a project manager. A NEVER ENDING CYCLE.

Some people would say that the IOT is still embryonic or amorphous. It would be a disgrace to internet and the speed with which it is progressing that the IOT is not in a clear or definite shape.

But there are already a number of project managers working on IOT. And there would a huge impact OF IOTin the coming years McKinsey Global Institute.

Researchers estimate the potential economic impact of IoT technologies to be USD$2.7 trillion to USD$6.2 trillion annually by 2025.

The large organizations will have an overlap of projects that includes IOT. A program manager is neededto drive the strategy that effects the bottom line of company in a beneficial way. It will take years for companies to determine what IOT will do and how they should drive it, in order for them to produce successful business projects.

The internet of things is so broad. It will be the project managers who define the benefit realization plan and tells whether the program need to be sub divided taking into view its huge value.

The main strategy will be set by the company’s CEO, providing what will be needed and how things will be implemented, the responsibility of execution will be of the portfolio management. For example the task at hand is modernizing delivery. A better understanding of this can be perceived with the collaborative efforts of portfolio manager and the company’s chief executive officer. The portfolio manager in return tells what should be kept and what should be discarded to make this project a success for the company. Portfolio manager will have assistance of a governance committee led by CEO or any of the executive officials.

The internet of things and project management is a broad perspective that can be implemented in any or every field whether it’s construction, energy, medicine. You name it and it proves to be of great success.

Internet of things will provide a number of opportunities in the years or decades to come. Fasten your seat belts, and hold on for the new adventure and wave of jobs. Hence providing a greater step towards a brighter future.

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Ways To Monetize Your Websites

Email Marketing

This is one of my favorite things to talk about because it’s just so powerful.

Building an email list can make you a lot of money, help you build a solid brand and of course help readers come back to your site, time after time.monetize-your-business

Email marketing can be seen to make you money in a few different ways, such as direct email promotions, to deliver free reports that are monetized and my favorite, to drive traffic back to your site where you make money from other methods.

Gone are the days of finding it hard to get people to subscribe to your website.
A few years ago, we added a lightbox popup to IncomeDiary. Over night, we went from getting 20+ subscribers a day to well over 100.

At the time, most websites hated the idea of using popups because of the negative association people have with them. But these popups are different. Instead of popping up in another browser window, they popup as part of the page you are on. It was a lot less intrusive. Even better, it wasn’t to promote something spammy, but rather something of value to the reader.

After seeing the massive results, we decided to develop our own software so that other website owners can experience the huge gains we have. We called it PopUp Domination.

Even after selling over 30,000 copies, big names in the industry still didn’t want to use it. They thought they knew better.

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How to Get More E-mail Subscribers

A very important task faced by a person running some website is attracting maximum number of email subscribers. In this article we will tell you a very tricky and successful secret of attracting maximum email subscribers. The percentage can be around 60 to 70 percent.How-to-Grow-Email-Subscribers

Now, let us focus on getting subscribers.

The main problem faced is getting subscribers for same traffic. Here is a faster way of growing your E-mail, and that is by using POP-UP domination. Use of pop up domination is easy to use, high converting, mobile responsive and your subscriber list will explode with request in a matter of minutes.

There are two further things to be kept in mind. Pricing and Pop-up designs.

There are different websites in market that deliver services related to maximizing your email subscription via pop-up generation.

Services that are provides are enhancing. There are a number of ways of increasing the number of subscriptions. Savvy online marketers will tell you “the money’s in the list!” but that’s not entirely true. What they should be saying is that the money’s in the quality of the list, rather than the quantity of subscribers. Lists with a few hundred dedicated customers can outperform lists of 10,000 or more generic “freebie seekers” when you focus on building relationships instead of counting sales.

So how do you attract the right kind of people? How do you get interested visitors to become eager subscribers? Keep reading for 10 outstanding list building tips you can’t afford to miss.

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How can you Improve your Organizational Structure(Process Improvement)

When we thing about the term process improvement, the first thing that comes to our mind is improve the overall organizational use. The use of what, yes, precisely, the software the success of your project needs the primavera software. When we talk about the improvement in process, we are talking about the organizational use, its benefits and the rate of the success of primavera software. The abundance in functionality in primavera oracle software unlocking and correctly using these capabilities is the key feature in maintaining the successful implementation. When it comes to consultancy, our consultants have a vast experience in all functional aspects in the oracle primavera oracle suite. The expertise of our consultants is all you need to make your project a success and a big hit in your domain. Our consultants can work through the system of your business process to ensure that the functional capabilities that we provide are leveraged in a cost effective manner and to provide benefit to the user specific to accuracy, time saving, reporting and ease of use.

The expertise covers areas such as:

Demonstration:

The oracle primavera manuals are good but sometimes there is no substitute for seeing the tool in action. Our consultants have demonstrated virtually every component of oracle primavera to audiences. The audience may range from senior managers to technical team members.

Process design:

To achieve an automated workflow that guides users through standard business procedures and processes. Oracle primavera provides the mechanism to send actions to individuals in order to complete the steps which have been identified previously. Escalation and reminder conditions can also be placed into the process in order to prevent bottlenecks. When data changes process can react to the data change allowing steps to be executed in an automated way. This fashion is opted to notify and ultimately rectify. Prescient Solution Group have designed process to aid in the compliance of many requirements (e.g. Sarbanes Oxley) to automate time approvals to facilitate conditional time approvals in order to facilitate conditional time approvals, define risk management processes, and outline project and program creation.

Financial structure maintenance:

When we talk about financial capabilities, they might appear to be complex when it comes to oracle primavera software. The complexity can be in term of settings that need to be made, the classifications that need to define,matrices, bill cycles , charge backs etc. PSGINC consultants can work with your finance department to identify and install the financial attributes required to achieve a streamlined project and the accounting process of that project. The most important point is that our experienced staff can maintain or build a link between your finance systemand oracle primavera to provide transparency into all your portfolio investments.

Security structure:

The security functionality within primavera allow for multiple levels of granularity.

It is further classified into more parts:

Instance based: it defines the part where the user has a specific right to an instance of an object e.g. an individual project.

OBS based : allowing on the organizational structure.

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PSGINCS – REVIEWS, PROS AND CONS

PSGINC has always strived for the best forits customers, bringing them the best solutions for their professional related fields.  PSGINC has a reputation for giving excellence to the customer’s product and collaborating with them to get it to the heights of their professional needs.

The reviews and feedback we got in the previous year has been of great honor for us. This compels us to works more for the mutual greater good, which not only grow us as a company, but also make our customers the best choice for people when selecting from the organizations.

The reviews to be mentioned are

“Great company to work for, with paths of advancement for people who are smart and want to work hard. “

The person giving review has been an anonymous employ at PSGINC. He further adds to his talk.

PROS:

“I have always been treated fairly. In my time at prescient group solutions.I can’t say for anyone else. Compensation has been above average.  The company has been getting many clients in the past few years, which have generated a number of opportunities for junior level staff to move up and run their own specific account .The culture is friendly, the atmosphere is good. The staff is supportive as well as getting your back for things on hand.

Seminars are held by the company every week or few weeks to highlight the changing trends of technology. senior level engineers and technological staff has always been a great support and have our backs in times of hardships or if something is not getting the right way whether they are on the same account or not.

CONS:

By the nature of the business, staff is decentralized with most of them being assigned full time to specific client or client sites.  Thismay result in a negative approach, which is limiting the direct interaction with other senior or junior level staff members. Who are not assigned to the same project as you have been assigned to.

The one advice that need to be given as a loyal member of the enterprise is to focus on managerial stuff when it comes to IT team.

Another member added his experience:

He says:

The pros include, IT OUTSOURCING. The main focus is on growth and customer satisfaction and need identifying as long as I h=have been there. The company has stood through tough times with his employees and has made serious efforts to support all the crew with financial and economical allows. The sense of teamwork you get to witness as well as personally practice is not seen in other organizations. Where IT is simply considered as an overhead expense. The enterprise is a growing organization, which gives you opportunity to get a varied skill set and wider experience that can be had at a large organization.

Cons:

The cons include, like in every organization, sometimes the things don’t work out the way they should mostly when it comes to managerial stuff.

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