www.Nozbe.com – New version of Nozbe helps everyone in your company get things done together, bringing award-winning Nozbe interface and easy-to-use task, project and time management application.
Posts Tagged “project
Learn the SCRUM software development methodology in less than 10 minutes. By the end of this fast-paced video, you’ll know about burn-down charts, team roles, product backlogs, sprints, daily scrums and more.
Why do we have to plan and manage IT projects? Why bother at all considering the fact that many clients eventually accept whatever the resulting software may be? Why bother at all since time is precious in building the systems rather than planning systems? These are the usual answers of independent or freelance software developers who are excited in tackling or building software projects immediately without the need to sit around and plan first. If you will bother to read my article, you will see the importance of IT Project Management.
I have an experience before in my last year in college where in we have an IT project to do. Since we are excited in building – or finishing? – the product without planning properly, my team suffered a lot in the near end of the project-building time. We failed in building one prototype after another. We also exceeded the time allotment given to us, thus, we suffered financially since we incurred extra expenses, lost the interest of other team members and caused dissatisfaction from out teacher. Learning from my mistakes and applying Project Management in other areas of my life, I would like to share the importance and advantages of IT Project Management to others as well.
Project Management is “the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities in order to meet project requirements” (PMI, Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), 2000, p.6). These project requirements are like the goals of a project that once met or achieved signifies the completion of a project as well as customer satisfaction. The application of knowledge requires careful sifting, planning, specification and design of these requirements. Through Project Management, software developers will be able to identify, coordinate and monitor tasks, activities and resources to meet the project requirements.
The outcome of Project Management is: scope of work is defined, project feasibility is evaluated (thus, a team can early detect if they are capable of doing a project while considering their skills and resources), tasks and resources are estimated, plans for execution of tasks are developed (through documentation that serves as blueprint also), and progress is monitored.
The advantages of Project Management are: shorter development period, less expenses, quality software products, control in activities and resources, client interaction (since they too are informed of the project’s progress), early detection of risks and potential problems, good documentation (serves as blueprint and reference), and project members are learning and applying teamwork.
Though it usually takes time in planning, in the end software developers are assured of smooth work in developing their IT projects since they already have plans and blueprints in the form of documentations and reports. All that they have to do is implement it in the actual building of their products. Take for instance a carpenter building a small house. Once he has the plan, blueprint, tools, workers and other resources, he can build the house in a jiffy and his construction work will run smoothly.
P. Lobrin
plobrin@gmail.com
About the Author:
The author of this article is Paulita C. Lobrin from Iloilo, Philippines. She is currently undergoing training (and hopefully be employed) in a software development company in Iloilo. To know more, click http://agentsofvalue.com for imformation
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – What You Should Know About it Project Management
|
The PMP Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try
$49.00 A self-study guide for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam, this book provides all the information project managers need to thoroughly prepare for the test. Review materials cover all the processes, inputs, tools, and outputs that will be tested, and extra help is offered with insider secrets, test tricks and tips, hundreds of sample questions, and exercises designed to st... |
|
Microsoft Office Project 2007 Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft))
$18.25 The smart way to learn Microsoft Office Project 2007--one step at a time! Work at your own pace through the easy numbered steps, practice files on CD, helpful hints, and troubleshooting tips to master the fundamentals of working with the latest version of Office Project, including information on the new, easy-to-use scenarios and reporting features. You will learn the essentials for mana... |
|
Agile Project Management with Scrum (Microsoft Professional)
$24.79 Apply the principles of Scrum, one of the most popular agile programming methods, to software project managementand focus your team on delivering real business value. Author Ken Schwaber, a leader in the agile process movement and a co-creator of Scrum, brings his vast expertise to helping you guide the product and software development process more effectively and efficiently. Help eliminate the... |
|
Software Project Survival Guide (Pro -- Best Practices)
$3.95 The author of the classics "Code Complete" and "Rapid Development" throws a lifeline to the industry's huge and indispensable population of rookie managers and technical leads. This book is a roadmap to how an effective software project works--understandable even for those with limited project experience.... |
|
Project 2007 Training Videos - 6.5 Hours of Project 2007 training by Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor: 2000, XP (2002), 2003, Microsoft Certified Applications Specialist (MCAS 2007) and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), Kirt Kershaw
$29.95 Are you looking for affordable, in-depth, high quality, easy to follow Microsoft Project 2007 training videos? Well, look no further because our Project training videos are developed and trained by a Microsoft Certified Applications Specialist and Microsoft Certified Trainer, Kirt Kershaw. He has a knack to make learning fun and would you believe it if we said, "easy"? You will quickly learn the P... |
|
Microsoft Project 2003 - Instructor-based Video Training Essentials Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced
$129.00 Interactive Instructor-Based Project 2003 Essentials Video Training Course on DVD-ROM. Computer Based Training (CBT) and Video Based Training (VBT) have emerged as the premier training tools in recent years. KeyStone Self-Paced CBT/VBT courses are known for their high quality in-depth content. Compared to traditional training methods, KeyStone courses cost less and users can learn faster while ta... |
project management tools
Jan 5
Today web development project management is quickly becoming a requirement for companies, as most of the projects handled by the companies are web based. To fulfil this requirement, web project management software is available now days. It helps in controlling project lifecycle and provides with an arsenal of tools that help your project run smoother, faster and easier. Web development project management software enables teams to collaborate on projects, coordinate activities, control information and monitor project progress with management tools. It also helps the companies in accessing and updating project documents, budgets and timesheets from one key point. With it each project can have its own individual e-form, including customized fields, notifications, handlers, plug ins and SLAs, which can be used for reporting concerns, requesting resources, materials or as a general support portal for all involved in project.
Right from initiation to planning, to execution and controlling, web development project management software helps you in every project management endeavour. With it each project can have central access area to Gantt chart of tasks, metadata, references, resources, documents, forums, permission management, preferences and a comprehensive e-form solution. Its Gantt chart tool enables team members to graphically summarize the project tasks and milestones and also helps in recording information like start date, finish date, task metadata and key dates, resources required, link to a parent task and percentage of completeness. Web development project management software offers notification feature, which alerts users of any recent change. The landing page of web development project management software is the project overview dashboard, which is an extremely useful information area for each user, from where they can with one click get to the project or task that they need.
Web development project management software provides web-based access to comprehensive project management tools, helping users to collaborate on projects from wherever they are and it also helps companies to tailor their project management tools to fit the precise needs of their business with easy-to-use administrative tools of web project management software. Easy configuration of metadata with it enables companies to define information captured for each project, to suit their own business processes. Integration of web development project management with document manager application helps team members to collaborate on creation and development of project document with version control. The plethora of benefits offered by web development project management software makes it the most helpful tool available for businesses today.
About the Author:
Claromentis is a leading Web Development Project Management company operating across the domestic and commercial sectors providing wide range of Web Development Project Management.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Web Development Project Management
|
|
Project Management - Vol 3 - Tools, Tactics & Budget
$28.95 ... |
|
Bosch Punch List Digital Task Master, Master Builder 2003 Version #BDPTPLMB
$414.37 ... |
|
Bosch Punch List Manager Lite #BDPTPLM
$749.99 ... |
|
Handicap Wheelchair Ramp Plans # 104
These do it yourself ramp plans are for a ramp and deck combination with a 18 x 12 deck size. Accommodates a 24" vertical difference.... |
|
Bedrock Learning BL-cd-PMForms Residential Technologies Installation Project Management Forms on CD
$149.00 ... |
|
PlanBee Pro Project Management (Windows Software)
$69.95 Critical Path project management planning tool, an inexpensive alternative to Microsoft Project. Calculates Early Start, Late Start, Early Finish, Late Finish, Float (Slack) and identifies Critical Path activities. Calculates and summarizes resource costs. Shows all project data in a "spreadsheet" pattern for ease of understanding. Data may be manually entered or imported from a file or the clipbo... |
|
Maven: The Definitive Guide
$21.82 For too long, developers have worked on disorganized application projects, where every part seemed to have its own build system, and no common repository existed for information about the state of the project. Now there's help. The long-awaited official documentation to Maven is here. Written by Maven creator Jason Van Zyl and his team at Sonatype, Maven: The Definitive Guide clearly explains how ... |
It is not unusual for people to use sophisticated project management software tools such as Gantt and PERT charts to manage complex tasks. At the other end of task complexity, simpler, more straightforward projects will require a simpler approach and fewer steps to accomplish. The simpler project may be dependent on tasks that proceed it and if broken down to manageable events, will be easier to manage.
When is it time for a Gantt Chart?
Project management may wish to use a tool such as a Gantt chart for such simple tasks and projects. An example of such a project may be the implementation and creation of a marketing plan. A plan for a single owner business may be another example. A Gantt chart may in fact make a simple project more complicated than it needs to be. It could be far more than necessary for such simple planning needs. It will be helpful if such tools are understood by all members of a project in order to maintain good communication among all parties.
For planning requirements that are simple, it is very helpful to use a time table or a plan of action. Ensure that those who are participating should get the plan and the time table so that there are no issues. Members should participate in the time table negotiation and to keep records, the management has to use diaries or calendars.
All such projects will need deadlines and control points when progress is monitored and quantified, although a missed deadline doesn’t necessarily mean that the project ends. The project’s needs can sometimes be further evaluated and negotiated by members. If time points are still missed or if a project becomes too complicated, Gantt Chart may be needed, but members will need to learn how to use this tool.
An action plan is one of the tasks that are needed to achieve a specific project. These action plans are intended to reach an outcome or particular goal. The first step to make possible the attainment of such a goal is copying the actions on a to-do list or action calendar, this fact also leading to the listing of additional goals.
Getting a project on track one it has been derailed can be a challenge. When a task as fallen behind or a worker has then management may need to make compromises to recover the overall goal. The reassigning of resources may be required. The order of tasks may be affected or the specified scope of specific tasks altered.
Reassigning resources can happen to even the best project managers. Sometimes a task may become more challenging than what was originally considered or the resources that were provided are needed for more critical tasks. However, it is possible that if some tasks are no longer priorities than a re-evaluation should be considered to determine whether the planned task is required.
Changing the sequences of tasks is required to face the challenges sometimes. It will look good when we substitute some tasks and leave more difficult tasks for later. The tasks can be rearranged so that multitasking can be enabled when the things are behind.
A Gantt chart can be useful in planning for the possible roadblocks a project may run into. When a manager can see the whole plan laid out before them it may help them to see where problems may arise or where time and resources may be better used. This can help to avoid problems before they arise.
About the Author:
Steve Wilheir is a management and marketing consultant. Consult these resources to learn more about Gantt Charting, Pert Charts, and Project Management Software.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Improving Project Management With Gantt Charts
|
|
Bosch Punch List Digital Task Master, Master Builder 2003 Version #BDPTPLMB
$414.37 ... |
|
|
Bosch Punch List Manager Lite #BDPTPLM
$749.99 ... |
|
UDA ConstructionOffice Builder-Remodeler California
Take the Next Step! Now you can do more for your business with Construction Office, the essential project management system for residential builders from UDA Technologies. ConstructionOffice includes the tools residential builders need for managing their construction firm including accurate Estimating, automated Contracts and Specifications, powerful Document Management, and Mobile Integration. Ad... |
|
|
PlanBee Pro Project Management (Windows Software)
$69.95 Critical Path project management planning tool, an inexpensive alternative to Microsoft Project. Calculates Early Start, Late Start, Early Finish, Late Finish, Float (Slack) and identifies Critical Path activities. Calculates and summarizes resource costs. Shows all project data in a "spreadsheet" pattern for ease of understanding. Data may be manually entered or imported from a file or the clipbo... |
|
|
Maven: The Definitive Guide
$21.82 For too long, developers have worked on disorganized application projects, where every part seemed to have its own build system, and no common repository existed for information about the state of the project. Now there's help. The long-awaited official documentation to Maven is here. Written by Maven creator Jason Van Zyl and his team at Sonatype, Maven: The Definitive Guide clearly explains how ... |
|
Mercurial: The Definitive Guide (Animal Guide)
$28.31 This instructive book takes you step by step through ways to track, merge, and manage both open source and commercial software projects with Mercurial, using Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, and other systems. Mercurial is the easiest system to learn when it comes to distributed revision control. And it's a very flexible tool that's ideal whether you're a lone programmer working on a small proje... |
|
Microsoft Project 2007 Quick Reference Guide: Handling Complexity (Cheat Sheet of Instructions, Tips & Shortcuts - Laminated Card)
$3.60 Laminated quick reference guide showing step-by-step instructions and shortcuts for how to use Microsoft Office Project 2007. The following topics are covered: Indenting/"Outdenting" Tasks, Hiding/Displaying Tasks under a Summary and Understanding Precedence. Using the Network Diagram, Creating/Deleting Relationships, Showing Slack, Hiding Negligible Amounts of Slack, Examining the Critical Path a... |
Transportation Logistics Software
Fast, flexible and very powerful
The Transport Management System will streamline the services of any company carrying freight for clients, or supply companies managing their own delivery systems. The system covers every aspect of management and integrates seamlessly with online booking system.
Transport Management Software
System Overview:
Transport Management provides a number of solutions for courier bookings. These include receiving client bookings via data entry, client onsite systems or through web bookings over the internet. These bookings flow into the radio dispatch area where the requirements are communicated to the delivery vehicles. When a booking has been completed, it moves into the booking review area for pricing adjustments. After the adjustments have been finalised, the booking is passed on to invoicing. The accounts system can then allocate incoming payments and keep track of debtors. An automatic status update for a booking may be sent back to the client either by email or by CRM.
Once a booking has been made, customer service screens are available to review bookings within any screen. Review screens differ depending on whether the booking is a distribution run or a standard booking. Internal electronic “Chat sessions” can be conducted by staff to discuss particular bookings. The cost of a new booking is automatically calculated by the freight rating engine.
Transport Management Software
Features:
1. General Features Customize:
screens, reports, graphing templates and menus to meet needs. Client hierarchies: The system supports the division of clients into cost centres that may be arranged into hierarchies. Accounting tools, Invoicing, cash allocation and debtors’ modules are available.
2. Bookings
Screens: designed for rapid data entry and high volumes.
Booking selection: selection of booking methods includes:
Data entry Onsite systems (such as Comet)
Internet bookings
Front end data capture: minimizes data entry duplication and increases accuracy.
3. Dispatch
Designed for high volumes.
Rapid freight allocation: “Drag and drop” freight allocation with keyboard option available.
Freight status at a glance: colour coding and icons quickly show freight status.
Transport Logistics Software
Automated driver messaging
Temporary Run: Develop the most efficient route before allocating freight to a vehicle.
Labels: printed where required. Depot weigh stations: verify information from onsite and ad-hoc pickups are correct.
4. Fleet management:
Details of company or driver owned fleet are entered and managed within the system. Automated status updates via the internet must be allowed your clients to track and trace their freight. Customer satisfaction will improve with immediate access to tracking data. At the same time, fewer customer service enquiries will take pressure from your customer service staff. Customer service screens optimised for route management. Data retrieval and modification available all in one screen, Routes displayed graphically: and may be modified using “drag and drop” or keyboard entry. Internal messaging: workstation messaging sessions with notifications regarding specific jobs, usually bookings.
5. Rates
Rating contracts are used to automatically calculate the booking cost. These may be attached to clients. Rating always defaults to a client contract. Cost centre contracts are used in the absence of client contracts. Rates information is centralized, minimizing client onsite systems maintenance.
6. Human Resource Management (HRM)
HRM Specifies details of your employees and contractors, covering: Support for multiple resource types Rating by hour, by service, by project GST calculations Pay sheet printing Payroll deductions Timesheet management. Driver specific: Piece rates Safety net calculations
About the Author:
Black Soft Services offering web 3.0 semantic web application development and analysis on web 3.0 technology and many more on web 2.0 software applications
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Logistics Management Software
|
Plan Plus Online
$199.95 ... |
|
Project Soft 4.0 - Project Management Software (Windows 2000 / NT / XP)
$69.00 Project Soft 4.0 is a scalable, customizable, web-based project management solution perfectly suited for small, medium and large companies. This project manager features: GANTT charts, project cloning, E-MAIL alerts, task auditing, requirement tracking, attachment uploading, Avery 5160 labels report, burn-rate report, and grouped security for PROJECT TEAMS or clients. Perform job costing and quoti... |
|
Help Centric 3.0 - Help Desk System (Windows 2000 / NT / XP)
$65.00 Help Centric is a comprehensive, flexible, and portable ... web-based Help Desk System. Automatic responses to tickets, e-mail notifications, customer profile matching and a feature-rich knowledge base put Help Centric in a league of its own. Common help desk requests are handled quickly using the preset automatic responses. Help Centric comes with a Help Ticket History and Tracking module. There ... |
|
Zoho For Dummies
$0.01 A great way to get started on this new, FREE, Web-based productivity and collaboration tool Zoho is a very cool-and free-alternative to Microsoft Office. Known as "cloud" computing because it's totally Web-based, Zoho provides 18 different applications to help you write documents, create spreadsheets, send e-mail, and much more. People love it, but what it doesn't offer are extensive help fil... |
|
Business Process Excellence
$49.97 Business process management is the basis for all initiatives like SCM, CRM, ERP, or business intelligence. New component and internet-based software architectures and web services require a solid process management to deliver the expected business success. However, many organizations still struggle to find the right approach to business process management. IDS Scheer delivers with ARIS the framewo... |
Is project management an art or a science? How do I deal with problem employees? How can I improve employee morale and boost productivity? What skills can I develop that will ensure that my projects will run smoothly and to a successful finish. This essay tries to answer these questions, drawing from lessons I have learnt on the job. While the examples I provide are from a software company perspective, most of the article applies to any kind of domain. Being a Project Manager, I have found, calls upon 5 different sets of skills:
- A. Organizational skills
- B. Communication skills
- C. Problem-solving skills
- D. Leadership skills
- E. Team-building skills
A. Organizational skills
Do you consider yourself an organized person who can generate and keep track of multiple documents? If so, you already have one of the most important skills needed as a Project Manager. On the job, I was called upon to keep track of requirements and design documents, contracts, schedules, personnel records, project reports, communication (email) records, hiring history, meetings and status reports. Luckily for me, I have always been a meticulous record-keeper (since I don’t trust my memory ), and this saved me from being overwhelmed.
B. Communication skills
This does not refer to just giving presentations, but to various forms of written and oral communication. A Project Manager is expected to produce high-quality project planning and design documents, and send out meeting agendas, updates, status reports and courteous and effective email. A good manager, I observed from my peers, is able to get his/her ideas across clearly and in a non-confrontational manner, without seeming to impose views on subordinates. This is a skill I am still learning. Good negotiation skills also fall into this category.
C. Problem-solving skills
A good manager has the knack of seeing the big picture for any problem, while others may miss the forest for the trees. I was frequently called upon to analyze a problem, research and compile a list of alternative solutions, determine the best course of action and get it implemented by my team. The trick is to never lose sight of the big picture – the overall problem we are trying to solve.
D. Leadership skills
This one is not easy. It is tricky to get your team to go with your idea without making them feel that the idea is being thrust on them. The team looks to the Project Manager to provide direction and vision. To be able to do that, I had to work constantly towards enhancing my knowledge – breadth of knowledge is very important, but depth is important too – superficial knowledge fools noone. A manager must earn the respect of his/her team, and the best way to do that is to lead by example.
E. Team-building skills
This is an often-neglected area, forgotten in all the excitement of project deadlines. But the effort spent motivating a team to perform to the best of its ability is worth its weight in gold. Four easy points to remember are: reward achievements, provide feedback, recognize strengths and provide challenges.
Instead of talking in generalities, let us follow the lifecycle of a project step by step, and see how these skills come into play. A Project Manager is involved in all of the following 5 phases of a project.
- Phase 1: Scoping the project
- Phase 2: Planning the project
- Phase 3: Launching the plan
- Phase 4: Monitoring progress
- Phase 5: Wrapping up the project
About the Author:
My name is Harish Gopinath (Just call me ‘Harish’) and I am 31. I come from a small village called Kheezillam, which is located in the Ernakulam district of the state of kerala, India. I am though born and brought up in Delhi and did my schooling from Delhi in CBSE Board. I then did my Bachelor of Engineering from Karnatak University in the year 1994-1998. I’m happily married to Praveena and have a sweet baby Preksha. I come from a wonderful, loving and caring family. Visit my ‘Photo Gallery’ page to meet my family members.
I am a software professional and presently working in Synapse Communications in a senior management position. Prior to this, I was with Infopro, Compunnel and Vipasha. I have developed lots of internet based websites, some successful and some unsuccessful.
Coming to my hobbies and interests, I like reading autobioghraphies of successful enterpreneurs. I like spending time online. I love to travel and want to visit all the beautiful places on earth. I’m interested in photography and love to capture the nature’s beauty in my small camera! I enjoy driving, let it be a bike or a car. I like listening to soft, melodious music, as well as these latest noisy albums. Last but not the least, I have grown interest in blogging and networking with like minded people on web. You can visit my networking profile on http://www.linkedin.com/in/harishgopinath
and my blog on http://harishblog.wordpress.com
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Project Management Tips: How to be a Good Project Manager?
|
CAPM/PMP Project Management Certification All-in-One Exam Guide with CD-ROM, Second Edition
$27.45 All-in-One Coverage of the CAPM and PMP Certification ExamsGet complete details on all the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) and Project Management Professional (PMP) exam topics from this fully up-to-date volume. Written by industry expert, trainer, and project management consultant Joseph Phillips, this authoritative exam guide features learning objectives at the beginning of each... |
|
Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play
$23.98 Innovation Through Understandingsm The toughest part of innovation? Accurately predicting what customers want, need, and will pay for. Even if you ask them, they often can’t explain what they want. Now, there’s a breakthrough solution: Innovation Games. Drawing on his software product strategy and product management consulting experience, Luke Hohmann has created twelve games that ... |
|
PMP Project Management Professional Study Guide, Third Edition (Certification Press)
$27.47 The best fully integrated study system available for the PMP examUpdated for the latest release of the Project Professional exam from PMI, PMP Project Management Professional Study Guide, Third Edition covers what you need to know--and shows you how to prepare--for this challenging exam. 100% complete coverage of all objectives for the PMP exam Exam Readiness checklist--you're ready for the exam w... |
project scheduling
Dec 2
If your companies have business spread across the globe than tracking details of projects, work performed, time schedules and employee outside the office is also very important. This required online time tracking software which can be used at any time. By using online Zeiterfassung software you can access the timesheets of projects and employee at any time. The manager can easily plan project time and employee according to work load and timeline of project. Software also helps you to properly submit biding price of any project so that on successful completion of project you can get profit form project.
When you choose the Zeiterfassung software properly check the functionality provided by the company because lots of different types of products are available. The software should be simple to operate and it should provide user interface so that you can also request some specific report like particular date or day. It should also provide different types of reporting facilities. Like some time tracking software provide time reports via mobile also. So these types of software increase your access to time reports and organize schedules of your important projects.
If you have choose the perfect time tracking software than it will helps a lots to make coordination between time, work and employee. Like if your any project have very less time for completion than you can increase the number the employee so that project can be completed before deadline. This is why time tracking is very important to efficiently handle the project. Whether you have small business with lesser number of employee or big company, the efficient method to keep track of project time lines is to use proper time tracking software. These provide simple and effective way to get organized project and employee related information.
About the Author:
For reviews and download of different Zeiterfassung software and simple Excel Arbeitszeit software for tracking work time, visit arbeitszeit-zeiterfassung.de.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Time Tracking Software to Organize Your Project Schedules
|
BMV Quantum Subliminal CD Planning Skills: Plan Ahead (Ultrasonic Subliminal Series)
$14.99 Program your subconscious mind to improve your planning skills. Create life-changing results using state-of-the-art subliminal and brainwave entrainment technologies. Tune your brainwaves to specific frequencies by listening to this CD! Program your subconscious mind for positive lasting results, created by a Certified Hypnotherapist and NLP Practitioner (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). Silent affi... |
![The Agile Planning Game: Rapid Estimating and Scheduling for High-Change Projects [DVD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/415yt1kRK%2BL._SL75_.jpg)
|
The Agile Planning Game: Rapid Estimating and Scheduling for High-Change Projects [DVD]
$29.95 So, you've heard about these new agile management techniques. You may even have attended a conference session or have read a book on it. It all sounds so simple... in theory. But how do you get started? The #1 topic people ask about when learning agile is how to estimate and build schedules using these methods. Our project sponsors need to know how much a project will cost and how long it will... |
|
Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling
$54.35 The landmark project management reference, now in a new edition Now in a Tenth Edition, this industry-leading project management "bible" aligns its streamlined approach to the latest release of the Project Management Institute's Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMI's PMBOK® Guide), the new mandatory source of training for the Project Management Professional (PMP®) Certificat-ion Exam. Th... |
|
Dynamic Scheduling with Microsoft Office Project 2007: The Book by and for Professionals
$60.00 Designed for the busy, practicing project manager, Dynamic Scheduling With Microsoft Office Project 2007 will help you get up to speed quickly with Project 2007 and enable you to create effective schedules more efficiently. Through the use of helpful screen shots, hands-on exercises, illustrations, and review questions, this guide instructs you on how to build dynamic schedules that will allow you... |
|
Project Planning, Scheduling & Control, 4E: A Hands-On Guide to Bringing Projects in on Time and on Budget
$27.91 The classic project manager's handbook, with new chapters and insights that demystify the new PM tools and the PMP® exam Project Planning, Scheduling, and Control has been the standard guidebook for project managers for more than 15 years. Addressing the key issues you face every day, Jim Lewis's benchmark book brings the subject alive with accessible, nontechnical questions, step-by-step guidel... |
|
FastTrack Schedule 10 - 5 Concurrent User
$2,995.00 Your Windows project management software for organizing tracking and reporting all your project goals. Great for both new and experienced project managers FastTrack Schedule 10 helps you manage your small to mid-size projects easily and effectively.... |
|
FastTrack Schedule 10 - 1 User
$349.95 FASTTRACK SCHEDULE 10 1U... |
When interviewing some of today’s top practicing programmers for my new book, “Secrets of the Rockstar Programmers”, one of the most frequently cited key skills is having a great system for managing incoming information. In today’s information workplace e-mail is the conduit through which lots of that information flows. This article shares a few things I’ve learned from the rockstars in the book, as well as providing an insight into the system I currently use for email.
Much has been written about managing e-mail, some of it even mentions the important link between e-mail mastery and its parent skill: time management. Rather than rehash old content I recommend you keep that link in mind when reading content on this topic. In my opinion, any system that doesn’t link these two skills together is not worth learning about.
Before we begin, I want to give a quick shout out to two bright lights of prior art on this subject. Mark Hurst wrote an article back in 2002 about the subject which compared the act of managing e-mail with the classic arcade video game Tapper. Being a classic video game enthusiast, I LOVED the analogy and also loved the article. Mark has expanded the article into a book: Bit Literacy. I hope to interview Mark Hurst for the next edition of the Rockstar project and I plan to read his book. The other bright light I’ve found is Merlin Mann whose famous “Inbox Zero” talk is a web phenomenon even more popular than Rickrolling. Merlin’s easygoing manner also makes his content a pleasure to watch and read.
I’m old school, through and through. For time management, I use an old fashioned Franklin-Covey planner, and do the full system, “big rocks” and all. It works for me, but it is a bit short of being fun to use, which Merlin points out is a desirable attribute for an e-mail management (and time management) system. For e-mail, I’m equally old school. I use XEmacs VM mode combined with fetchmail, procmail and mairix for my email client (aka Mail User Agent or MUA if you want to be pedantic (which I often do)). Fetchmail is a simple IMAP client that sucks my email down to /var/mail/edburns, the way God intended. Procmail is a rule based filtering program that takes the mail and filters it to folders. This is how I deal with SPAM. Mairix is an email indexing and searching utility I learned about from rockstar programmer Adrian Colyer, Chapter 2 in the book. That’s the software stack. Here’s how I use it to get the job done.
One of the things Merlin leaves out of his 58 Minute Google Tech Talk on Inbox Zero is how to prioritize the reading of the email in your INBOX which you will reduce to zero. My old boss and college crony Tony Ng shared a prioritization scheme with me that works for me and I’ll share it with you.
0. Filter mailing lists straight into folders so they never end up in
your INBOX.
1. Process emails with URGENT: or ACTION: in the subject.
2. Process emails from people in your “list of important people.” This is somewhat like a whitelist, but not specific to spam filtering.
3. Process emails sent directly to you, either in the To: or CC: list.
4. Process emails received in the last 24 hours.
5. Process emails received in the last week.
XEmacs VM has a nice feature called “virtual folders” that allows one to use regular expressions to put a view on top of your INBOX, only showing those messages that match the regular expression. I have virtual folders that implement steps 1 – 5, and I use Procmail to implement step 0.
Even with all this, I still don’t have an empty INBOX, but at least I can get replies back quickly. Don’t lose hope, just do your best!
About the Author:
Ed Burns has worked on a variety of client and server side web technologies since 1994, including NCSA Mosaic, Netscape 6, Mozilla, the Sun Java Plugin, Jakarta Tomcat and, most recently JavaServer Faces. Ed has published two books with McGraw-Hill, JavaServerFaces: The Complete Reference (2006), and Secrets of the Rockstar Programmers: Riding the IT Crest (2008). Visit
Riding the Crest
. To subscribe to his list, email
subscribe@ridingthecrest.com
.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Rockstar Tips For Processing E-mail
Professional Project Management is becoming more pervasive. Like “electrification” occurred during the era of proliferation of electricity, “projectization” is occurring throughout the workforce and organizations. Most of the emphasis I have seen is on professional project management. However, most people will not be professional project managers, but rather will be team members, support personnel, subject matter experts, department managers, C-level executives, and the like. This article explores what is being said about this broader workforce in a projectized world.
The essential question is, “What knowledge level about project management do non-project managers need to have in order to function effectively on professionally managed projects?” One parallel situation over the past 25 years has been the proliferation of computers. Virtually everyone in the work force has needed to acquire at least a user-level knowledge of computers and a variety of software packages. This has included understanding the basics of Windows and MS Office, competence in using the internet, and the ability to use a variety of applications. Similarly, a basic level of knowledge is required to function effectively in a projectized world. Here are 5 key areas of focus for non-project managers to be effective in the world of projects:
1. A project has a beginning and an end, with smaller beginnings and ends in between. – Understanding the anatomy of a project can help to distinguish between other things that actually are not projects, but may be termed such. This will put a non-project manager onto the same page conceptually as a professional project manager.
2. Understand the difference between the plan for a product and the plan for a project. – This is one of the most common misconceptions. This often occurs for those with deep technical abilities, which often makes workers more “product centric”. They mistakenly think that a clear description of the product, whether written, in drawings, or some other representation is enough. The problem is that there are many issues and challenges surrounding that product that are in the realm of “project management”, not “product management”.
3. See that all projects need to be, at some level, an implementation related to the overall objectives of the organization. – Everyone in an organization should have a pretty good, albeit general, idea of where the organization is going. If that is not true, it may be a failing of upper management as often as an employee or associate. What is important here is that, given the assumption that the individual understands in general terms the overall objective, directives, and current initiatives of the organization, that they have the basic sense to ask and seek to understand how the project aligns with those objectives.
4. Recognize that projects are budgeted in terms of time, money, and resources, and that they need to achieve objectives within constraints on these resources. – This is a basic fact of life, and scarcity as a concept is one of the foundations of economics. A mature awareness of this fact should spawn a curiosity and awareness that there are constraints on all projects, and should encourage questioning on the part of any team member about the constraints on their given projects. Awareness of project constraints on the part of team members is a healthy development for any project manager.
5. Understand what a stakeholder is. – Stakeholders are anyone who is affected by the project. Recognizing that there are many potential stakeholders will raise awareness of risks and opportunities. Stakeholder awareness should become second nature to project managers and non-project managers alike as part of a projectized culture.
Competence in understanding and incorporating the above into day-to-day activities can bring project skill “ownership” to non-project managers such that they are very effective on most projects. In fact, they will likely be able to manage portions of projects or small projects on their own.
There are many other topics that can be of interest to everyone in the organization. In the process of becoming “projectized”, an organization needs to continuously educate everyone in the organization. The indoctrination of everyone in the basic essentials of project management is part of that. The results will be more successful projects, smoother functioning teams, and alignment across the organization within the important function of managing projects.
About the Author:
John Reiling, PMP, MBA is an experienced Project Manager. John’s web site, Project Management Training Online, provides 24×7 online training for PDUs in “Project Management for non-Project Managers“, as well as PMP certification training and hundreds of courses for PDUs. John’s Project Management blog is PMcrunch.com .
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Projectization and Essentials of Project Management for Non-project Managers
|
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition
$34.99 The classic book on the human elements of software engineering. Software tools and development environments may have changed in the 21 years since the first edition of this book, but the peculiarly nonlinear economies of scale in collaborative work and the nature of individuals and groups has not changed an epsilon. If you write code or depend upon those who do, get this book as soon as pos... |
|
Making Things Happen
$31.99 Based on his nine years of experience as a program manager for Microsoft’s biggest projects, Berkun explains to technical and non-technical readers alike what it takes to lead critical projects from start to finish. Here are 16 chapters on the critical and common challenges of leading projects and managing teams, diagrams, photography, and war stories of success and failure. Berkun offers prac... |
|
Maven: The Definitive Guide
$27.99 For too long, developers have worked on disorganized application projects, where every part seemed to have its own build system, and no common repository existed for information about the state of the project. Now there's help. The long-awaited official documentation to Maven is here.Written by Maven creator Jason Van Zyl and his team at Sonatype, Maven: The Definitive Guide clearly explains how t... |
|
|
Project 2007 Training Videos - 6.5 Hours of Project 2007 training by Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor: 2000, XP (2002), 2003, Microsoft Certified Applications Specialist (MCAS 2007) and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), Kirt Kershaw
$29.95 Are you looking for affordable, in-depth, high quality, easy to follow Microsoft Project 2007 training videos? Well, look no further because our Project training videos are developed and trained by a Microsoft Certified Applications Specialist and Microsoft Certified Trainer, Kirt Kershaw. He has a knack to make learning fun and would you believe it if we said, "easy"? You will quickly learn the P... |
|
Microsoft Project 2002
$69.99 Microsoft Project Standard makes it easier than ever to manage schedules and resources, communicate project status, and report project information.... |
|
|
PlanBee Pro Project Management (Windows Software)
$69.95 Critical Path project management planning tool, an inexpensive alternative to Microsoft Project. Calculates Early Start, Late Start, Early Finish, Late Finish, Float (Slack) and identifies Critical Path activities. Calculates and summarizes resource costs. Shows all project data in a "spreadsheet" pattern for ease of understanding. Data may be manually entered or imported from a file or the clipbo... |