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Agility in Project Management

agility-in-project-managementAs the title of the article suggests, we will be talking about agile project management in this article. First we need to understand, what agility in project management is.

The agile movement seeks alternative to traditional approach in project management. The agile approach help teams respond to unpredictability through incremental, iterative, work cadences and empirical feedback. Agilest propose alternatives that are more fruitful for the project development phase.

The first step should be to make scrum practices the method for doing the work.

The main questions that arise here is

What is scrum?

Why is scrum?

Who is scrum for?

Scrum is an agile framework, which is consistent with the value of agile manifesto.

It is a team based approach used to deliver value to the business. Delivering value is the most important step. In scrum, team members work together to achieve a single goal. Which is a shared business goal; this framework promotes interaction which is effective.

The first step after selecting scrum is to get a shared business goal; further major steps are discussed below,

  • Figure out how to do the work
  • Does the work
  • Identifies what thing is getting in it’s way
  • Takes responsibility of getting out the things blocking their way
  • Focusing on the scope
  • Working with other parts of the organization to control the things which are not in their control.

This focus on scrum is considered critical.

A very important step is centralized collaboration, for example if your team consists of 30 members working in group of ten as three different team units, choose a single tool for communication such as Skype, line or Whatsapp, whichever is easy and accessible to all the members. And for documents, create Google drive or googleDoc, that would be of great help.

Creating a product backlog, which is a key reference tool for the committee or team involved in the development phase.

Planning how to perform the work is a crucial thing, the individual team members must be instructed to break their user stories into tasks that help them do their work effectively, it helps them feel ownership and make accurate tasks. For example, the tasks can be scheduled one day’s work over four sprints. This is in four weeks total. Allowing the team to get momentum and keep the flow going, this would a great step towards breaking down of the tasks in accordance with the need of the development phase, and acquiring the shared goal.

Scrum requires a working finished product goal after as the result of every sprint. A scrum’s team goal is to create a product increment after each sprint.

Meeting regularly with team leads, this will help you in ensuring whether the teams are working on the required tasks and in the required way, team leads should be asked such kind of questions,

  1. What has my team finished since last meeting?
  2. Are there any obstacles in the team’s way?

What needs to be done before the next meeting.

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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.

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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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Why a Good Team is a Primal Virtue for Project Success

project-succssA team, a dream team to be precise is a quality that can defeat any obstacle or hardship experienced during project making. Yet more on the soft skills. It has always been impressive that how people work effectively if they are given confidence and respect, with these two powerful tools things can never get out of your hand. Project management is all about keeping things in your hand. What is happening and how things should go the right way is the primal virtue a project management should focus on. Knowing your stuff and being able to share your expertise while not being utterly persuasive or slightly dominating is a virtue for a good team, a capable team with the right professional attitude goes a long way.

A good project team is always better then a spectacular team. Micro managing a team is never a good step; it will always add mess and might deviate you from the right path where you need to focus on important basis. If you try to become a super star, micro managing everything, trying to get every little detail, interfering, dominating, the superstar will get carried away. You just need to be focused and humble at the same time. There’s a famous saying;

Fill your bowl to the brim

It will spill.

Over sharpen your knife,

And the edge will soon be blunt.

More on soft leadership, pushy project managers may think they are being effective but they are not. Believe you me they are just losing a member. Surely a bad impact on team. Better to be relaxed and go with the flow. For that way, the team will be positive and motivated. That’s not to say you can be incompetent and get away with it. The team will soon find you out. Just be fair, respectful and honest, and you might earn all the respect in the world.

A wise project manager will get all the respect. He must be like water who gets its way easily. And goes anywhere freely. It is yielding and flows naturally. He doesn’t push things or get carried away momentarily.

Enlightened leadership:

A leadership that is soft isn’t selfish and thinks of collective progress. A good team is lead by these. Continuing the theme of soft leadership.  The main quality is selflessness, a project manager who is selfish and thinks only of himself either alienate the rest of the team or worse the team that is the correct way. And start to behave in the similar way adapting to similar characteristics.

The reason is a good project manager who is supportive, builds confidence and makes space for other people to grow and progress as he progresses.

A famous proverb is;

Heaven and earth are long lasting

Why are they long lasting?

They use no personal agenda.

So they last long.

There are a number of courses available online on how to be a good project manager.

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Handling Your Nerves While Doing a Project

project-management-on-your-nurvesStaying calm while handling your projects is the most important thing. There can be a lot of pressure while handling project specially when the deadlines need to be met and resources need to be balanced. Other factors can be the nature, task or inter dependencies. Top management always want it quicker, is it isn’t cheaper and better.

Things are not well versed if the project manager responds to the management pressure by interfering with the team and pressurizing the team, the efforts and skills of the team gets demoralized. The lesson we learn from agile approach is to sit back and let the team do their work. While the pressure prevails. It helps a lot as the team gets confidence what they are capable of and results in a lot more motivation. If this isn’t done the pressure is build up and with tour interruption in pity things wile you lose your focus the team loses their way too. Even the scrum master is there to facilitate. The team gets motivated, the results are great and the projects gets successful, and what you get, satisfaction, a new energy to get things right as well as appreciation and support from the top management.

A wise project manager is guided by the way he feels. The most important of the factor is believing your gut instinct and not to get effected by what is happening around. Staying calm helps you focus and realize what’s going on inside your head and collaborating with your gut instinct. The rest of the team will get on it , pick up the pace and stay centered. The old thought which is practiced by every successful individual. Pause and take time to reflect, the way become clear, and acting the right way becomes easier. Agile project management is all about empowering your team, which is very much in line with the team. When the members of a project work together, there is a inner space created among them, the team then collaborate, grows, work hard, collaborate and make successful projects in that space, while doing this the only thing that matters and what makes it a success is confidence and believe on each other’s skills. A wise project manager always give importance to the silences, silences that prevails within the inner space of the team, which tells a lot about the happenings. It reveals team’s essential mood.

The most primal virtue is to not to take sides or getting involved in any kind of conspiracies. Squabbles are the worst thing that can happen to a team. A correct approach is also very important while resolving the issues or negotiating with people who are not motivated enough.

A leader is persuasive but not dominating, you can make other’s work for you only if they listen to you and not find your behavior dominating or interfering, they never like the project manager to take all the credit for their work, which is ethically wrong too.

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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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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 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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Scheduling Process in Primavera P6

While using primavera p6, the scheduling process is divided into four main parts or steps:

Plan, update, review/ analyze and communicate.

In the first part we would focus on how to plan. It is very important to understand the contract and requirements given by the customer. It is very important for the scheduler as it may help in scheduling the updates. The documents should be well versed and capable of outlining the frequency which may refer to updates versus revisions, earned value requirements, cost and resource status requirements. it may also refer to change management procedures. These documents require specific software to be used.Primavera P6 Scheduling

Policies of the company, budgeting constraints for the project at hand and usage of application are the few important factors responsible for schedule update occurrence. When you maintain your record more frequently, get data of the built programs or data which is based on required periodic performance updates helps to figure out things more accurately and the people working on projects can work more effectively. It establishes greater accuracy, promotes timely issues/resolutions.

The starting point to which it can get back when some error or exception occurs during the update process.

In which the usage of layouts and reporting tools as well as predefined filters helps you enhance the functionality. These filters are based on standard rolling date as well as the scheduling data dates. Regular updates should be taken, in order to effectively record project progress consideration. Internal policies of the company, budgeting constraints for the project at hand and usage of application are the few important factors responsible for schedule update occurrence.

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PSGINCS.COM – A HOME FOR BEST SOLUTIONS

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We address complex system of system challenges through tools , techniques and knowledge based system thinking while also recognizing that future systems require new thinking in complex domains such as cyber security, health care , data analytics, banking, transportation , government and aerospace.

oracle’s primavera portfolio solution is robust, easy to manage.

it’s key features include:

1. flexible user interface

2. team member interfaces for stating work

3. streamlined enterprise reporting

4. integrated risk management

5. resource management and optimization of views

6. workflow engine to automate business processes

the key benefits include:

1. unite project teams and stakeholders through collaboration and strong feedback methods

2. reduce the risk of costs and schedule overruns

3. optimize management of all resources

4. monitor and visualize project performance vs plans

5. confidently make and keep project commitments.

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT – MATCHING PEOPLE WITH PROJECTS:

Support both top down and bottom up resource request and staffing processes . primavera P6 EPPM makes it a lot easier for projects and resource managers to communicate their requirements and decision throughout a project’s life cycle. By providing a graphical analysis of resource and role utilization . PRIMAVERA P6 EPPM helps project team manages resources in dynamic environments.

This allows managers to see where resources are being used across all programs and projects as well as their forecasted future use . because all information is located is localized and centralized system. resource conflicts become apparent to project and resource managers , eliminating un expected delays and unforeseen resource limitations . in result of this, there is greater visibility into resource demand and capacity means maximized resource use.

BUISNESS VALUE:

Oracle’s primavera P6 ENTERPRISE PORTFOLIO ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT SOLUTION helps organizations complete projects on time and with in budget by enabling them to prioritize plan, manage and evaluate projects, programs and portfolios across the enterprise.

ENSURE PROJECT DELIVERY SUCCESS FOR ALL YOUR PROJECTS AND PROGRAMS:

Primavera P6 EPPM is an integrated portfolio management application that includes role based functionality to match each team members’s needs and responsibilities. It provides executives with a real time view of their

organization’s project performance equips project participants with the right blend of usability , power and flexibility to effectively execute projects and enable workers across all levels of organization to analyze, record and communicate reliable information and make timely decisions.

primavera P6 EPPM can easily scale from a single user on a small project to tens of thousands of users engaged in millions of activities across hundreds of projects . the solution is built on a robust and proven standards based java architecture and is designed to deliver high performance with tight security , flexible integration and real time reporting including the analytics.

PORTFOLIO AND PROGRAM MANAGEMENT – PRIORITIZING PROJECTS AND OPTIMIZING ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY: 

With primavera P6 EPPM project managers can be confident that their projects and programs are aligned with company’s strategic goals and objectives that are in line.

by providing a consistent overview and analysis of the portfolio and program as projects are added and removed , this module enables project managers to manage incoming demand and select just the right balance.

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