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IT Governance: Drive Down Operation Costs: Save time, standardize, and focus resources

IT governance or ITG refers to those processes that ensure the effective and efficient use of IT resources in the business that enables the organization to achieve the goals. Doing business is now inspiring and frightening at the same time. The rapid speed of internet devices and a number of devices and systems that different businesses that use it in their daily life have opened up the world of cybercrime and that is the biggest challenge that they are facing nowadays. The connection that is used for information sharing and global commerce that is also creating an opportunity for the cybercrime. The risk of cybercrime is now growing bigger and bigger and can become volatile for the organization of any kind and of any size.

In 2016 cyber attack took down the number of popular websites and devices. In this attack instead of a standard computer, malware was used to harness the computing power of the internet of things. We are just aware of the risk that is physical, like earthquake, hurricane, fire etc. The insurance company are only concerned about these physical disasters. But now with the advancement of technology, we are using more digital devices and we never thought about the risk that may lie in the digital world.

Cybercrime is a threat to the internet world. Many businesses involve internet of thing in its business activities. Cybercrime world has risen the silent cyber incidents. So everything that is connected to a computer can be hacked. People think that they are secured from being hacked by hackers but in reality, they are unaware of all the aspects and circumstances they may face in the future. The information that is transmitted on the internet is not always secured because the IoT becomes ubiquitous. Cybercrime is seeking an opportunity to steal new information that may be valuable for the enterprise. One can not differentiate that IoT is a friend or a foe.

Business may need to know to understand where the weakness of connected devices may lie, that how complex the situation and severe the threat is. This type of risk assessment is not easy because different platform, hardware and software that the majority IT teams are unfamiliar with. Any project that involves connected devices that must be designed with security front. The WI-FI enabled devices that are connected internet means that the business the advance that tolls that can differentiate between legitimate and malicious traffic on IoT devices. As more and more devices, that are enabled with the internet, are increasing, more robbing cases are happening.  In business it results in poor customer experience, it can decrease employee productivity and even case of fall of business profitability. For this organization need proper traffic management that can ensure business  continuity and that can avoid customer potential loss. The organization needs IT experts that can handle all type of threats to an organization. Primavera experts are focused on delivering the solution to the organization to meet the demands the organization faces today. Primavera has bought the solution to many industries one of them is IT industry.

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What makes money and time so important to project management?

The success of a project depends on factors like integration, scope, quality etc. Modern day project management is constantly evolving but time and budget are still the solid foundation of project management. However, we will leave the rest of the factors to some other blog and discuss how the two equally crucial yet demanding factors, time and money, affect the outcome. Time and money are not only inter-connected but also very important in what is termed as the “planning” stage of project management.

Time and budget constraints have a positive impact on project management because the restrictions of both increase productivity and thus a higher success rate. Restrictions of both keep the wheel rotating and do not let complacent attitude become a part of the work and employees. The major task for the project team is to work efficiently while also meeting the time and budget constraints.

A project manager must first understand the time and budget constraints and see how it applies to a project. The project is then planned and managed accordingly. While the cost allocated can be adjusted, fluctuations in time are rarely possible unless the due date is moved ahead.

Cost:

The budget is not just the amount of money needed; it is a reflection of the work of the project and the resources required. A comprehensive budget takes into account how funds will be utilized throughout the course of the project. Generally, a project’s expenditures show an increase when resources utilized are increased.

The monetary commitment of a project is dependent on various factors. The factors include the cost of labour, services and materials used in the process, and other overhead costs. The budget allocated might show an increase as each stage of execution is elaborated.

Every project essentially has costs that might be fixed or varying or both. The project manager must know how to control costs throughout the course as per the requirements and quality of the work. The budget is estimated by evaluating historic data, average vendor and resource costs.

Time:

Time constraint for a project is basically the time allocated to the project from beginning to end, i.e. till the work is delivered. Time can be assigned only after being thoroughly aware of the work that project requires. To be more precise, the project is first broken down into components and then into sub-components to estimate the time that would be needed for the completion of the project.

Time management is vital and can be achieved by devising a timeline that mentions the duration that each component of the project should take. The schedule must be properly planned and constantly compared to the on-going project so as to clearly judge the progress of the project. However, it is also important to remember that time management is required at an individual level as well. Team work and support enhances both creativity and productivity by keeping the spark of motivation and dedication alive.

Constraints of time and money are vital to project management because both these factors determine the quality of the work produced and delivered. A project manager must devise a budget and schedule that all the employees agree on.

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Enterprise Function Support

valueIf you are new to project management, you surely need to know and understand this phenomena,the first thing is understanding enterprise function model. The enterprise functional model is generic one that can be applied to numerous organizations, in any industry. It can be of two ways, product driven and service driven. It represents the highest level functions in an enterprise.

Now a days with the changing needs, everyone is in need of enterprise function support, it is more demanded as hybrid project delivery approaches. The quantitative analysis as show that the hybrid project delivery is becoming rather common these days.

In order to add more value to one’s business the things like aligning business activities is coming into considerations by project management leads. The activities which are made top of the list are project delivery activities.

The considerations may include activities like speed at which project iterations are produced using agile method, complexities of business and technology, and the increasing expectations of customers. Though these considerations are not limited to the ones discussed in the article, there can be many others as well.

All of these enhances the importance of enterprise functions and their support such as portfolio management, release management and resource management etc. these and other enterprise delivery disciplines have been identified by a framework known as scale agile framework. This has been identified as the key to success in agile project delivery methods.

Coming back to enterprise function model and its key features, the material used in enterprise function model gives details about

  • Overview of functions used.
  • Functional responsibilities
  • Terminology

This model is generic and can be implemented to a wide range of industries and enterprises.

The approach used can be product driven or service driven.

A function can be understood as a group of knowledge related (subject area activities).

These activities need to have a purpose.

The framework used for enterprise function model has an impression of creating a sense of getting a long lost thing back specially when considering the innovations, but that’s not the case.

Rather this framework has helped in identifying the critical need to have these functions in place and engaging all types of deliveries in an enterprise.

Whether there are project managers or agile leads, both can increase the percentage of their project’s success by getting closely related and integrated with enterprise functions. Lacking of this will create troubles for enterprise and organizations will have a hard time in processes like schedule, resource, dependency, testing and implementation. Without having any robust enterprise function model in place, the enterprise may lead to lesser number of successful projects ultimately reducing the business value and profit share of organizations, which is indeed closely related to how organizations design their work infrastructure.

Talking about function and their model, it varies with the scope of the industry, whereas the thing that has been seen is all enterprises do have research and development function.

Consistency while following the right model and delivery is very important for businesses.

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When the Benefits of Your Recent Project Fades Away

benifitsThis is a thing which is not being paid due attention, for instance, let’s understand it with an example the project you were working on is complete you are busy taking your time out, enjoy success, celebrating with your stakeholders and other teammates. You are not following your recently completed project but somebody else surely is.

You even engage in some new assignment. But then the unexpected happen. Ad what it is?

The project you completed is not delivering results. At some point like the first six months or so of your project, you might even overhear what your project has been creating, a mess for others or let’s just say , not adding the right kind of value or expected value to the business of your customer or the organization you are working for. But once you find out the results are not as expected, next thing on your mind is how you need to carry out the amendments but firstly you get to know, what went wrong?

You start looking for clues and let us see, what can be the answers,

Your findings reveal that the related processes which are supporting your product are not aligned thus in return producing the loss. Which results in erosion of benefits or you can say with this the benefits of the product fade away.

Some of the factors are discussed below, which can be of great help for project managers, these factors will help you fill the loopholes when you work on your next project, so here you go.

  • Overtime
  • Regulatory fines
  • Overlooked tax deductions union disputes.

Discussing these in detail is important.

But first, understand is what your next step would be, focus on the assignment you are currently working on and ignore what’s been lacking behind or work on the solution involving your stakeholders, other project managers, and team in the process. The answer may differ according to the situation you are in, but one thing you need know, updating the project with lessons learned is important. And crucial to your success as a project manager, whether you are in the leadership role or not.

Regulatory fine:

The project processes do not provide the project report on time, regulatory reports to be precise. There is a lack of compliance, data requested by federal or local authorities is missing. This results in creating a lot of mess.

Overtime:

Lack of clarity about changes brought by your project and the changed processes caused the operational areas to work as usual. Producing the undesired results and the operational areas worked as usual, and the work had to be done again.

Union disputes:

The implementation of the new processes and project caused a change in union worker’s duties, which were caused due to not thinking about the minor aspects at hand, in the current contract, the new contract if done, would be on a larger scale with contemplating, each and every aspect.

Benefits Gain Profit Earning Income Hands Volunteer Concept
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Hi friends, have problem listing open end activities in primavera P6?

import-projectIf you want to list up open end activities in primavera v6 and you can’t find any option in p6. A simple way is exporting activity relation detail to excel and separate predecessor with only SS successor. But that is a too lengthy process because at times you don’t know what formulas to apply in excel for fast working.  In excel one predecessor can have more than one successor. So you have to select predecessors with fully SS relation successors only.  Download are free to use schedule viewer. We have a project health check section which provides various checks including ‘ACTIVITIES WITHOUT SUCCESSORS’

There is a checkbox under this section where you can include or exclude activities with SS successors only. You can then export the activities to excel.  Hope this would be of great help for you on your project. You can still contact our experts if you face any ambiguity on provided email addresses globally or contact the vendor who provided you with the software.

Here are some problems that you might face and we are giving a solution to it in advance so that our blogs could be of great help for you. If you use the above-mentioned schedule viewer, and if it proves to be good there might a problem arise that it shows activities without predecessors or successors. It might not show open end activities. Only showing milestone activities with no successors and predecessors, this might create a lot of confusion or ambiguity. The problem can be, your, not tagging the checkbox. Consider, start to logic as missing.

Done. The other problem can be how to export that list to excel. When you try to export the whole project is exporting. Well, that is a big issue but you need not worry. When all the project activities are exporting including those without successors but you just want to export the list , not the Gantt then what you need to do is after clicking export and the options box comes up , you ought to select ‘expand to level  1’ and uncheck or deselect the ‘ draw Gantt  option’.

Another problem that can arise is , what can be the formula or any other method for extracting  SS relation activities in excel. The solution is using the formula countif(). You could sum up the total number of successors for each activity ID and the subtract the number of SS successors.

Another problem can be with the registration code being invalid there can be multiple reasons for it but one that has been commonly witnessed is moving or copying the existing file if you have copied or moved the file, the new file would need it’s own registration key. For the key that has been generated to you , you must use it for the existing file and not for any of new, moved or copied a file.

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Standardization and How it Effects a Project Manager’s Business?

project-managementThis article is written for the better understanding of how the standardizing of project management adds value to once business, in any industry, the growth is driven by standardizing project management across the organization.

Some key capabilities for standardization:

An enterprise must invest in standardizing, codifying and documentation of project management practices. It doesn’t mean one way of managing projects but a portfolio of consistent projects the enterprise.

Different business units and verticals may follow different methods or templates for following project management. Many variations are carried out in order to meet the needs of customers and specific markets.

For instance just think if standardizing is not done, it can reduce management’s ability to track and control price change requests and manage scope stuff, which may result in lower margins and increased project risks. Formalizing projects help scale your business. Fostering standardization of processed such as change management, scheduling, costing and project reporting is also very important.

Another major step in standardizing is consolidating and integrating project data. Project teams can also improve productivity and effectiveness.

Benefits of standardization are vast and far reaching, those organization that combined standardized project management processes with the right kind of technology get a significantly good result and successful projects. The outcomes include improved project team productivity, fewer project losses, the higher instance of projects that get completed on time, and are under their financial reachability.

Standardizing project management across an enterprise often encounters resistance. Because teams usually working as how they might be feeling but often you have to encounter adjustments one way or another. There is a positive side of creating consistent project management experience.

Standardization can have the following positive impact on a project manager’s life.

If you are a project manager, you can experience that your life may go from slow and steady to chaotic in a matter of seconds. , it is witnessed it would be helpful both for the leader and the teammates to work efficiently if you share a common way of working such as a framework or interface etc.

Considering an example, if the schedule of your project is built on the same tool as your teammate, it would be easier for you to grab what’s next on the to do list.

When hiring a new project manager, standardized project management, which is already implemented in the enterprise may help the new hiring in the understanding of how the work is done in that organization. Thus, drastically reducing the learning curve.

The cooperative continuous improvement is a very important thing and I have always been in the favor of improving. And the best way of doing this working along the other project managers, peers or pioneers both. This will help you in carrying out your tasks in more effective and standardized way. Thus making standardizing your tasks easier. Having someone to share your ideas and looking up to someone for some good experience is indeed a good strategy

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How Outsourcing Adds Value to Your Business?

outsourcingBefore pursuing to the understanding of adding value to your business, first, we need to understand what is outsourcing.  According to our very own Wikipedia, this term refers to a practice used by different companies in which they transfer a portion of their work to different external companies, this is a cost effective way but the condition is, it should be used properly. The external sources or service providers ought to be Specialists in their related fields.

Leaders choose out-sourcing to enhance business value propositions to stake-holders.

The question arises how and why the need arises, some of the processes are temporary and the company does not intend to hire a professional for doing that task.

However, before that, it is necessary that you should think and study about all the advantages and disadvantages of giving the resources and time of your business to a third party vendor, which is indeed very critical for your business.

As every other strategy related to business, there are many pros and cons to outsourcing as well. If not done right, it can bring down your business and create a lot of unrest.

Famous outsourcing business streams may include,

Pros of outsourcing

  • Swiftness and expertise
  • Concentrating on core process
  • Risk sharing
  • Reduced operational costs
  • Reduced recruitment costs

Cons of outsourcing:

The disadvantages include:

  • Risk of exposure of confidential data
  • Hidden costs
  • Lack of customer focus

How it adds value to your business:

When outsourcing, making a strategy which is effective in lowering the cost is very important.

Project managers can help make one.  Considering this three part structure,

  1. Assess the current state
  2. Consider the “to be” state
  3. Consider the governance require to sustain the future state

Project managers can avoid some common pitfalls in their outsourcing projects:

  1. Add a legal team, consisting of procurement and legal outsourcing experts which will help you in making the agreements.
  2. If you have any senior leaders around you, invite them to your project, in this way you can steer the initiative this will also help align it to the business mission.
  3. Gather some leadership support from your seniors; they might help you abstain from committing some serious blunders.

The things that count should be on finger tips of a project manager while handling a process with outsourcing aspects. Leaders can capitalize business value by keeping the right things in mind and if the outsourcing is done with a defined end.

Just to get an idea, consider that Assessments can be made on few things, such as

  1. Associate labor costs
  2. Labor expertise
  3. Value and non value support services
  4. Baseline of operational measures and service levels.

Project managers can help in many ways make an outsourcing strategies that trigger capitalization.

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Project Management for Newbie’s

project-maangementProject management is a serious business. The reason for using this title is I believe the new entrants to software development don’t realize or take it serious what a serious and stressful job project management is.

The newbie’s these days think that it is a cool job as in the TV series, “the apprentice” where in each episode each project manager is given a single task for a week but that is not the case in reality, the project management is far more adverse and hectic job. It is indeed a tough job, no matter how big or small the project is.

The most important key factors in managing projects are:

  • Evaluating what is done
  • Determining where you are on the way of getting things done.

When the project management was started in the early days, risk wasn’t the issue that was being focused on. Only focus was on time and budget, the job of it was just to deliver what was being asked by the stakeholders. But with the passage of time things have changed radically which is a positive thing and should be acknowledged. The process of risk management is given importance and the project evaluators as well as the stake holders give due importance to this factor.

The most critical and soft skill is understanding the psychology. Projects and most importantly successful projects are all about teams, successful teams make successful projects. And successful team is made by a project manager who very well understands the psychological needs of the members. Understanding the psychology is very important while dealing with the stake holders understanding the needs of the business sponsors.

Here I present an analogy, a lighter one for a better understanding of what project management is,

To understand this analogy let us compare IT with Golf;

There are four factors that are compatible between golf and IT.

  1. It looks simple but believes you me, it is not.
  2. A very little mistake can lead to major problem; an error is the last thing you might want to encounter.
  3. Second guessing others is easy, when it’s in your hands, its easy being an expert with hindsight.
  4. Very difficult thing to do is to sustain a consistent level of performance.

A very important question asked these days is where and how the education should be started these days as there are few industries where the project management  is taken seriously, to name a few, the sectors like banking, aerospace and pharmaceuticals are some. But there are still some smaller or bigger ones where the term project management hasn’t made an impact or the due importance is not given.

The questions arises from where the education should be started, the answer is from the stake holders, they should be made to realize not everything can be handled by the same

Old traditional way where everything was decided in a board room and people followed what was discussed , now every stage needs supervision.

PSGINCS

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Consultation Services for Primavera P6

consultingThere is a wide range of consultation services available for primavera p6. Solutions that are most critical to your project are offered.  Consulting while solving some ambiguous problem is a way to minimize the effort and work and go in the right direction while you still have time.

In this article we will provide you with some of the most successful and known consulting services providers related to primavera P6 portfolio management. This would be indeed of great help for companies who are still in deciding phase whether to opt for primavera services or not, whether they will be able to implement them successfully in their organization for their crucial projects. Would it be a source of uplift and progress with making the projects which are critical for their business, a success?

These all questions are definitely answered by consultations service companies.

Few of them are listed below.

CBA: critical business analysis inc.

A short about the company includes, that their history goes back to 30 years. Since then they have been committed to advancement of project and program management expertise.  Decades of real world experiences offering a wide range of professional services in a variety of industries.

CBA inc. is seasoned with professionals that provide you with the best of assistance. Giving you a variety of project management. The services and support is given with the best of knowledge. The expert knowledge comprises of portfolio project management. That is re enforced with real world experiences. Based on skills and aptitude of people involve in your project. The most important thing is their training services for primavera.

The processes they use include:

  • Business process development
  • Software implementation
  • Process documentation
  • Custom training development
  • Report writing

The people involved in consultation services are

CBA has been helping preventing project failures since the past 30 years of their services. A highly recommended one.

EBS:

With more than 12 years of experience, EBS gives integrated services for IT solutions and project management market. Part of the Insynchro group of companies, they have extended their operations across Asia pacific region providing services that range from complex implementations across the world.

Their expertise include oracle and Microsoft stack of project related solutions, services and trainings as well as their very own project centric board room solution also known as IXD.

The IXD is basically designed to serve the neglected project business stakeholders. Supporting large capital intensive projects in oil, gas, utilities, miming, telecommunications, aerospace, and infrastructure, transportation, public and construction sectors.

Their oracle product suite includes:

Their services include:

  • Consultations
  • Planning
  • Integration
  • Earned value management for primavera
  • Upgrade and installation for products.
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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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