Ok, so my laptop crashed a couple days ago and wiped all the data and had a clean OS installed, and when it came up to what Instant Messenger(IM) to use I had doubts, so I did a little research, maybe it will help someone:

•   Digsby - this a relatively young IM app, but it is really cool, and it has a lot features like integration with all the major IM services (i am not gonna mention them all here, you know them anyway), email notifications, social networking (Favebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn), customizable appearance and notifications, one more really cool feature that I liked is that it offers synchronization between PCs and installations, and of course the ability to place a widget on your blog or website is really cool and useful.
•   Pidgin - cross platform, open source available for Windows and Linux IM. Actively supported and developed by users. As well pidgin is extensible, so this is a real gem who loves their IM super customized with all kinds of plug-ins. But it gets some bad points due to bugs and developer quarrels.
•   Miranda IM - my favorite   up until recently. Miranda is really resource efficient, so if you have a slower PC this definitely the best IM to go with. Additionally, with the choice of hundreds of plugins, icons, sounds and other content, Miranda IM gives you the ability to modify, customize and extend functionality to make it your own.
•   Trillian - if you would have asked three years ago, there wouldn't have been any competition, but in the recent years Trillian has lost a lot of users because the new development of Trillian Astra has taken too long and just recently they released a beta version. Non the less it is still promising and they promised a MAC and iPhone releases as well, just keeps me wondering how long it will take them :).

 

Some other IM clients that I looked at but didn't include to the post where Meebo, Adium (probably the best IM for MAC OS X ), eBuddy. So and which one did choose at the end of the day? Miranda IM is still my favorite :)) What is your favorite IM client?

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

I've been for a small vacation, so I thought i'll post a small list of links of what happened interesting during that time:

• Vertabase project management software launches v 4.5, source
• Wikis that work: Four IT departments get it right, source
• Lessons learned for project management, source
• Extreme Toyota’s Lesson for American Auto
• Crisis Management in Action, source
• Measuring Productivity Metrics With Programmer, source
• New Deloitte Aerospace & Defense Study finds Root Causes for Program Cost Overruns in USA, source
• Six Sigma: Myths and Realities, source

 

So much for today, keep tuned!

Technorati Tags: project management links,project management news

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

Today while doing a keyword research for project management software, decided to go into a new area - knowledge management. I am working a lot with internet marketing and SEO, so I got used to check the competition in one area or another by the amounts and prices of advertising in that particular area. And i was actually surprised that competition is so low keywords like knowledge management tools, knowledge management software, sharing knowledge, knowledge sharing software, knowledge sharing tool. Actually the prices are as low as 0.05$/click. I truly believe this a great opportunity to boost advertising efforts for software that has knowledge management elements like Comindwork, or Centraldesktop. Well anyway I wanted to check what google thinks are the best knowledge management softwares, here is a small list from mu little research:

• BrainEKP - is pretty much based on visual knowledge sharing and management, pretty much like mind maps, looks interesting.
• Kneledgebase - knowledge management through articles and forums, I think this just wrong, then how this is better then a simple wiki?
• Interspire Knowledge Manager - now this really looks more of a knowledge management software, it offer knowledge sharing, integration, workflows, RSS syndication, statistics, imports and much more, this is a piece of software that really is worthwhile to get a look at.
• and I truly believe that with a little bit of customization any project management software that features wikis and collaboration options can be considered as a knowledge management software as well.

Do you use any knowledge management software? I personally love wikis :))

Technorati Tags: project management software,knowledge management software,knowledge sharing,knowledge management

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

This morning i was struggling with twhirl, it didn't want to update my twitter status, so i thought i'd check the Twitter home page, and there i see this:

do you think it is the real reason?

Technorati Tags: twitter

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

Here is a small collection of links about stuff that was going on in the field of project management.

 

 

• Fundamental of Effective Program Management: A Process Approach Based on the Global Standard is a new book by author Dr. Paul Sanghera, PMP and published by J Ross Publishing in the USA, read a more detailed entry here.
• Chip Camden writes that the first rule of estimating time requirements for an IT consulting job is: Don’t do it, read more on his post here.
• Project Communications as Critical Deliverables and How to Keep Your Team Engaged and Informed, read more about it here.
• One of the more difficult aspects of project management in a global economy is the global work team.  Culture, language, geography, and time are all separators that must be planned into project management if your stakeholders are to have realistic expectations of the additional time and effort required for virtual teams, read more about virtual teams here
• It's possible to shrink this whole post to single phrase. "Manage people, not tasks", read more here
• Deliverables Based Planning, read more here

I missed something interesting? I bet i did, so let me know if you've read something interesting.

 

Technorati Tags: project management software,collaboration,management news,project mangement

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

@jgd3, @danleach you could check out a web based app http://ping.fm/VZKn2

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

Nino Katamadze concert yesterday was great!

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

It is common that the biggest mistakes are made at the beginning of the project, so in the end even a small mistake can cost you a lot, here a pretty good video on one common mistake at the beginning of the project:

 

Of course there are a lot of different kind of mistakes, what mistakes have you made while managing a project?

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

I don't know about you, but favorite RSS reader is Google Reader. The only thing that I miss - support for password protected feeds, and i hate using desktop or adobe air applications, because as good as they are none of them offer feed synchronization with Google reader. So, that is where FreeMyFeed comes in. Here is what they offer from there site:

"Have you ever wanted to view an RSS feed in a web base feed reader such as Google Reader or Bloglines, but could not because the feed required user authentication or used an invalid SSL certificate?Well this site aims to be your solution. Using the form above, enter in the feed url, your username and password and then submit. You will be taken to a new page with an alternate URL for your use.This site does not require that you include a username or password. If you want to use this for all of your feeds, whether they require user authentication, are protected by https or whatever, feel free to do so." 

No of course just be careful what kind of feeds you submit, because this service can't boast about the security, but for me it is the solution i was looking for, i hope this will help you too.

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

for a free collaboration tool check out http://ping.fm/VZKn2

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

Today i got a note that Comindwork released some new cool feature called emolog. Did you ever wondered why for your employee it is more interesting to spend more time on Twitter and Facebook instead of doing his work? Well the answer is simple - because when the work starts to be boring, not social, without interaction with other people, the motivation to work falls down

That is where Comindwork have thought about this cool new feature that will add emtions. "Emolog" here stands for the abbreviation of the "emotion" and "log". I completely agree that emotions is very important for the team and for the project itself and i believe Comindwork has taken a really great approach, i love the feature, so head and the emolog for yourself.

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

Technorati Tags: mindmapping blogs,mindmapping software

I am sure that people that deal with project management already know what "mind map" is, today i am not going to do reviews on that software, i am just gona share with some of my favorite blogs about mindmapping and i am sure if you are interested in it, you will find your answer in one of these blogs:

• Peace of Mind (some notes about visualization, MindManager and other graphical tools)
• The MindMapping Software Blog (the title says it all)
• Applications of MindManager (a big collection of articles and tips on how to use MindManager)
• MindMapping Everywhere (theory and practical tips on mindmapping, the author draws maps by hand)
• Study Matrix Blog (big and interesting mindmaps)

 

Are you using any mindmapping tools?

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

"Ping Fire" - http://ping.fm/O77Cx

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

maybe someone could share an invite to Jaiku(http://jaiku.com)?

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

For everyone who is interested in advertising with google, this will be really useful:

With the raging economical crysis, there is no wonder that most expensive keywords for advertising are related to loans, mortgages and refinancing.

With the raging economical crysis, there is no wonder that most expensive keywords for advertising are related to loans, mortgages and refinancing.

Source

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

As I have promised in one of my previous posts, here are the other 15 project management acronyms that you might find useful:

* PM (Project Manager, or Project Management)
* CT (Cycle Time) - the amount of time
* BAC (Budget At Completion) - all budgets allocated for the project
* EAC (Estimate At Completion) - actual cost of project work and completed and the work left to complete the project
* FP (Fixed Price) - when you have a signed contract that you’ll deliver the project in time, in budget etc. The client does not pay for “over budget”, project is completely contractors’ responsibility.
* JIT (Just In Time) - no comments :)
* CE (Cost Estimating) - expected costs of a project task
* VAC (Variance At Completion) - if your BAC-EAC gives a negative value, it means you are over budget.
* MPS (Multi Project Schedule) - scheduling technique that ensures the right resource allocations.
* PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) - scheduling technique that determines the duration of a project.
* QA (Quality Assurance) - actions necessary to make sure that the product meets its requirements. Of course there is much then that to quality assurance :), you can expect a separate post on this soon.
* QC (Quality Control) - controlling results throughout the project life cycle, that project deliverables would meet the agreed standards
* RAM (Responsibility Assignment Matrix) - ensures that all activities are assigned to at least on project member (with some level of responsibility)
* SME (Subject Matter expert) - project member is an expert in some part of the project (like planning, or requirements, or charter etc.).
* RRC (Risk Response Control) - controlling the actions taken when risks appear.

I hope you are enjoying managing projects and i hope that this blog helps to make things at least a bit easier :) Let me know, leave your comments.

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

I've stumbled on this video on youtube, very interesting, i am sure that you know the speaker, and if you don't her name is Mary Popendieck, the co-author of the book "Lean Software Development"



From Google Tech Talks. It is a long video but well worthwhile to watch it.

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

First of all I'd like to say that i am a big fan of open source software, why to pay money when you can get the same thing for free? well ok, maybe not the same thing, but still free.

Everyone will agree me today Microsoft Office is the most popular document and spreadsheet editing program for PCs running on Windows OS, and even for Mac OS users. But with a new release of OpenOffice.org - the open source suite for business applications, the things are looking much better for casual user who is trying to avoid Microsoft dominating his whole PC. It is cross platform, it is free, it has all the stuff you need, compatibility with MS Office 2007. Even more, with OpenOffice you are getting not only a wordprocessor, presentation and spreadsheet program,
but you are getting vector drawing program and relational database. One more major is how OpenOffice handles these multiple program: i think it is way more convenient, because you only need to start a single program and then choose what you want to do at the moment, instead of launching multiple programs like word, excel and powerpoint.

Of course some people might be frustrated by the lack of templates in OpenOffice and yet this suite is great and i hope that with new improvements and releases it will gain more share in the market, thus will have the ability to make this useful open source suite even better.

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

I've just registered for Blogcamp CEE 2008 and here is a bit information what it is, where and why.

Blogcamp CEE 2008 Will Gather in Kyiv Internet Professionals and Enthusiasts from Central and Eastern Europe

On October 17-19^th, 2008 - Blogcamp CEE 2008 (http://blogcampcee.com) will take place in Kyiv. Blogcamp is an international conference on new media: blogs, social networks, podcasting, online video, citizen journalism, start-ups and venture investments.

 

Blogcamp is organized for the second year in a row and this time it will gather participants not only from the post Soviet countries, but also from Central and Eastern Europe. 400 participants have already registered; over 500 are expected to attend.

Blogcamp CEE 2008 will also host Investor Day on 19^th of October. Investor Day is the key event for venture capital investments industry of CEE region. It will unite business owners and investors of TMT (Telecom, Media, Technologies). Investor Day agenda consists of panel discussions with investors and entrepreneurs, and Startup Contest with two nominations:

·      Seed Stage – the project is just an idea or on the stage of a prototype, the amount to be invested is €50,000-150,000.

·      Early Growth Stage – the company has started to sell products/services and is steadily growing, with small sales revenues; the amount to be invested is €500,000-1,000,000.

 

The projects will be evaluated by a group of experts and jury members - representatives of such investment funds as DFJ, which is one of the Top Ten of the largest world’s funds; Mangrove – the most successful European fund; Russian fund ABRT and others.

 

Denys Dovgopoly, Director of BayView Innovations Inc and a member of Blogcamp initiative group, states: “Participation in the Startup Contest is a great opportunity for authors and managers of Internet projects to present their ideas to investors and receive evaluation from professionals of the venture capital investments industry.” You can find more details about the contest on the web-site http://blogcampcee.com/ru/investors/contest. Over 80 projects have been already submitted for the competition. Investor Day is organized in partnership with BayView Innovations Inc.

 

Blogcamp CEE 2008 will be organized in barcamp format, which means that participants are proactively involved in organization of the event. They create agenda themselves – anyone can write the topic of their session, presentation or discussion on the blank table in the beginning of the first day of the conference. Each participant is the co-organizer of the conference - holding sessions, helping out with the technical organization, promoting Blogcamp in his/her blog. The conference is organized in informal atmosphere which stimulates discussions and sharing ideas. Register at http://blogcampcee.com to participate in Blogcamp.

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

Yesterday Oracle announced some interesting news for everyone interested about project management and project portfolio management, as Networkworld writes:

"Continuing its relentless streak of acquisitions in recent years, Oracle on Wednesday said it plans to buy Primavera Software, maker of project portfolio management (PPM) applications.The deal is expected to close by the end of this year. Terms were not disclosed.While large vendors like CA and IBM have offerings in the PPM arena, there are also a number of smaller vendors, such as Planview and Cardinis. As for Primavera, it "is the granddaddy of project management," said Forrester Research analyst Ray Wang. "Every major construction project, every major road project. ... This is like an industry standard."Along with technology, Oracle stands to gain a significant customer base through the upcoming deal. Primavera's software is being used by 375 of the top 400 engineering companies and all five branches of the U.S. military, according to a statement."

All the smaller players in the market should disturbed, because it looks like Oracle is very serious and even before this Oracle had PPM solutions and, it was investing a lot in it and now even more. What will come up from this? I am not sure, but i hope it won't affect the smaller vendors  and become as Google in search when we speak about project management, what are your thoughts on this topic?

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

Today i will give my thoughts on yet another project management software EasyProjects.Net. Maybe this software isn't known very well, but i think it has done a very good job on SEO, because it is on the top search positions for very competitive keywords related to project management, well enough about that lets take a look what they offer.

EasyProjects.Net is developed by Logic Software Inc. and as they write in their guide the system was build form internal company needs and then evolved into a separately offered product. It is AJAX based and like the software name points out it should be really easy to use, soon we will find out.

Registration was really easy, the registration really takes only a minute or two, but I'd like to point out that EasyProjects.Net don't have free accounts like my previously reviewed project management tools Comindwork or ProjectOffice, instead it offers a 15 day trial period, so for people looking for free project management solution this won't be it. And upon registration, when you login for the first time you get an offer to book an online session with EasyProjects.Net guru.

Ok, what features does this software offer us?

• desktop module
  
• desktop timer application
  
• tasks to multiple users
• task dependency
  
• task hierarchy
• billing
• reports
• gantt charts
• export to MS Project (no import though)
• custom fields
• time tracking
  
• issue tracking
• request tracking
  

I really didn't have a lot time to look into the software, but here some of my thoughts and first impressions, maybe i'll post a more thorough review after i use for a while.

i didn't like:

• the UI looks clean, maybe even too clean, there is no distinction between the system parts, it all kind a blends in; some might like it, but i prefer a more Basecamp look
  
• navigation - for me it was inconvenient to navigate with not all menu items shown, again because i am used more to a tab based menu like Basecamp uses;
  
• even just with a couple projects it seemed like it is a bit slow, so what when there will be 10 users and 50 projects? of course maybe this is because it is trial account
• no project RSS
• way too many pop up windows
• price tag 15$/user
  

what i liked:

• export to MS Project
  
• a lot material and explanations in the online help section
• really cool that billing is so well integrated
• task dependencies and hierarchies lets you do so much more and easier
• estimation analysis
  
• reporting - summary, billing, resources, milestones and gantt charts
• easy time tracking with time logs
• desktop module (didn't test it)
  

conclusions:

Overall my impression was positive, it is definitely worth to try, but the software still has that feel, that it was created for particular  company under the company's business processes. Well actually this is how most of the project management tools are born, this is why there is till no real leader in this market, and i don't think that we will soon see this. So you'd better see it for yourself and tell how what do you think about it.

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

When reading this article Microsoft Empowers Enterprises to Think Bigger About ...
"These new tools will empower companies to extend the benefits of BI across their ranks to information workers with minimal reliance on IT to help drive smarter, quicker decision-making, free up IT staff for more valuable activities, and dramatically drive down deployment costs." Microsoft says, it looks like another never ending from the story of SaaS and On-Demand systems. I doubt that soon we will see a successful implementation of this product world wide, none the less all smaller vendors and project management software developers should be very careful, risks are increasing here, because imagine the possibilities of a system like that.....i guess we'll just have to wait and see. Good luck Microsoft.
 

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

I thought that i would share with everyone the sites that i like to read about project management, or sites that have something interested to read on this topic, so here is my list, please note that some of these project management blogs haven't been updated for weeks, or even months...shame, but none the less they have some interesting content :

• http://projectmanagementblog.com/
• http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/
• http://www.4pm.com/saga.html
• http://ni.comindwork.com
• http://projectmanagement.ittoolbox.com/blogs/
• http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/project-management/
• http://management.blogvis.com/
• http://blog.brodzinski.com/
• http://www.gantthead.com/
• http://herdingcats.typepad.com/my_weblog/
• http://www.pmhut.com/
• http://blog.softwareprojects.org/
• http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/

Well these are not all of them, but some of my favorites, what are your favorite ones?

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

To day i got tired of using different blog platforms for my personal and business blogs, so i went on the journey to find some tool that would make my life easier. So what did i need:

• to be able to publish my blog posts with one click to multiple blogging platforms (wordpress, blogger, livejournal, typepad, any self hosted blog)
• easily manage blog posts
• easy and fast WYSIWYG editor

After the first 10 minutes of searching i found WriteToMyBlog, i tried but it didn;t worked correctly, i kept getting errors so i moved away from this tool. Then i stumbled on a post about Windows LiveWriter and Flock. I was really impressed with the LiveWriter, but it couldn;t post to multiple blogs with one push, you have to switch between the blogs. So now was the time to test flock, and you know what? this post was actually written in flock and posted through flock to 6 of my blogs, and i really like it.  

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

Hello everyone, i wanted to share that from now on you'll find all my new posts at online project management software reviews. There you will find tips about project management, time manageemnt tips, project management software and tools reviews and much more.

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

Project and company blogs are superior instruments for building real team.
Team is actually a set of people who share same goals and, more important, share themselves. Informal communication in distributed team can be done in blogs, where you can store and discuss

* Ideas
* Feelings about the project
* People issues

Ideally, a blog post is equal to team meeting. It may have its own structure and may have not; all post replies are meeting results. Its good when you can combine real-life meetings and blogs.

What's so important about informal communications? It's about people working with people, sharing themselves. Not as functions, but as human beings. Such position, to treat each Coworker as Human, is an essential part of company strategy. Everything may become a space for fulfilling yourself. Starting from project blog ending up with whole company.

Are you really addicted to the idea that successful teams make successful projects?
Me, personally, am sure about it.

Keep talking!

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

If you do repetitive start of new projects then you might obviously have a plan to run all the routine preparations before the actual work commences. This involves many things like planning resources, budgeting, involving team, as well as managing and communicating requirements. Certainly, it's a common thing you forget something, and then start making some corrections in the middle of the project, thus shifting the milestones, worrying your clients and distracting team. Conversely, you wouldn't miss anything if you have a checklist of mandatory items that simply need to be done.

Let us look closer over a plain actions that are usually taken first.

* Project name -> communicated, available
* Goal -> outlined, shared, discussed
* Team -> assigned, communicated
* Milestones -> planned, submitted
* Requirements -> recorded, organized and shared
* Cases -> assigned to team

Each line of the checklist consists of artifact and a set of actions to be accomplished. For example, the project goal needs to be defined, disseminated in team, discussed and possibly changed afterward. Although the order of the actions in checklist is not strict, it's easy to navigate and just tick the items done.

You can always invent your own checklist or just adopt the one from some methodology like XP, RUP or Agile. I will be writing more about each of these methodologies so keep tuned!

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

As I have promised in one of my previous post, here are the other 15 project management acronyms that you might find useful:

• PM (Project Manager, or Project Management)


• CT (Cycle Time) - the amount of time


• BAC (Budget At Completion) - all budgets allocated for the project


• EAC (Estimate At Completion) - actual cost of project work and completed and the work left to complete the project


• FP (Fixed Price) - when you have a signed contract that you'll deliver the project in time, in budget etc. The client does not pay for "over budget", project is completely contractors' responsibility.


• JIT (Just In Time) - no comments :)


• CE (Cost Estimating) - expected costs of a project task


• VAC (Variance At Completion) - if your BAC-EAC gives a negative value, it means you are over budget.


• MPS (Multi Project Schedule) - scheduling technique that ensures the right resource allocations.


• PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) - scheduling technique that determines the duration of a project.


• QA (Quality Assurance) - actions necessary to make sure that the product meets its requirements. Of course there is much then that to quality assurance :), you can expect a separate post on this soon.


• QC (Quality Control) - controlling results throughout the project life cycle, that project deliverables would meet the agreed standards


• RAM (Responsibility Assignment Matrix) - ensures that all activities are assigned to at least on project member (with some level of responsibility)


• SME (Subject Matter expert) - project member is an expert in some part of the project (like planning, or requirements, or charter etc.).


• RRC (Risk Response Control) - controlling the actions taken when risks appear.

Of course there are many other acronyms that i haven't mentioned here, which ones do you use most?

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

Today when I reviewed the newest release of Comindwork with tons of features and widgets I suddenly recollected the times when we didn't have anything for knowledge work collaboration.

Well, I really can not imagine how we would work without any project management system today. I perfectly remember the times (although it was 5 years agooo) when the main tool was just Outlook and its folders with mess of unsorted emails, issues, suggestions, lost decisions and missed milestones.

I think the core needs of the project team didn't change over last 5 years, although most of today's project management systems provide much more than really desired. Here is my list of TOP-5 most demanding features for online project management:

Project blog - without this power of informal communication your project is just dead. This is excellent source for inspiration and place for sharing opinions and news in distributed team.

Email notifications, RSS - you should ensure that every team member is aware about the latest project changes and events. The information should be shared immediately and target people should have 100% guarantee not to miss any critical comments to their tasks or project requirements and schedule.

Bird view dashboard - "1-minute-dashboard to jump into the project context" - ability to review project state and progress during just 1 minute. This is critical for making immediate project decisions or making scheduled project audit.

Project wiki and tagging - the powerful "knowledge shaping". When we write requirements - we use wiki. We like co-editing wiki-documents as that is simple and powerful way to prepare really mature documentation, help-topics or tips for beginners.

And the 1st prize is... Case (issue) tracking - our biggest challenge was to handle hundreds of small issues which must be tracked until closure and 100% never ignored. In such a situation we create a new case and give the flag to the person who is responsible to resolve the issue. In 2007 year every team player resolved over 200-300 of such cases.

This was the 1st wave of features for Comindwork and they managed to establish basic management discipline and culture in their team. After that the main task was to make the knowledge work truly effective.

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

I am sure that all projects have two essential attributes:

1. Absolutely every project has a beginning and an end. The start date of course can be undetermined, due constant changes to the project requirements and the project idea itself. Though the end of the project always should clearly defined and expected, so that all the people that are involved clearly understands and agrees what it means to be complete.
2. Doesn't matter what kind of project it is, but it will for 100% produces unique product. The results on the other hand can be tangible (e.g. a house you have built, software or a website) or intangible assets (e.g. knowledge and collaboration activities, worker development plan document, new specification etc.). In real life it doesn't matter if your company provides some services or if it produces tangible goods - same project management tools and methods can be used (you can view my earlier post about project management methodologies).

There is a vast amount of projects in every industry; here are just a couple examples from a couple different industries:

* Engineer optimizes car engine
* Software developers document their processes to gain ISO certification
* Bank managers reorganize entry-level managers responsibilities
* Marketing company develops a plan to promote a new car

We could go on and on, you can find it in every company in every industry, as you see each of the projects mentioned above produces unique result, it is temporary and it will be finishes when it reaches its goals. Don't forget that project results can tangible or intangible.

It doesn't matter what kind of project you have, though I am sure that online project management tools can help you reach your goals. Come back for more! :)

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

I quess when you read stuff related to project management you find a lot of abbreviations, so i decided to gather some and share with you. Here are the first 15:

1. WBS - Work Breakdown Structure: fundamental project management technique for projects scope definition and organization uses hierarchical tree structure.


2. EVA - Economic Value Added: financial performance method to calculate the true profit of the company.


3. BCWP - Budget Cost of Work Performed: measures the budgeted cost of work that has actually been performed up to date.


4. ACWP - Actual Cost of Works Performed: total cost of work completed up to date.


5. TM - Time Management. Check my post about time management


6. PSI - Probability of Success Indicator: a concept used in the book "How to Run Successful Projects III: The Silver Bullet" by Fergus O'Connell.


7. PMBOK - Project Management Body Of Knowledge: term describing knowledge in the field of project management.


8. XP - Extreme Programming: software engineering methodology (a form of agile software development).


9. RUP - Rational Unified Process: iterative software development process.


10. 7P - Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People Process, Physical evidence: or the so called Extended Marketing Mix.


11. PO - Purchase Order: written sales contract between buyer and seller indicating services, payment terms, delivery dates etc.


12. SLA - Service Level Agreement: a part of a service contract, where the level of contract is formally defined.


13. RFP/RFQ - Request For Proposal/Quotation


14. NDA - Non-Disclosure Agreement: as well know as a confidentiality agreement.


15. TCO - Total Cost of Ownership: how much it actually costs, direct and indirect costs.

Hope this will make thing a bit easier for you ;) Wait for other 15 soon!

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

What is time management? why do you need time management? Can you manage TIME? You can bet there are thousands of questions about time management, it is actually a never ending story, i invite you to watch a nice lecture presented at the Virginia University by Randy Pausch, enjoy :)

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

Starting on project management? Then you have come to the right place. You will find a lot of tips, best practices, project management tools reviews and much more in our blog. Now, the first thing you need to do is to sign up for a account. Next, without any doubt, you need to some theoretical background. I am not going to tell what project management is and what it is not, soon you will find that out by yourself. In this post I would like to introduce you to the main project management methodologies. Please keep in mind that my focus is on IT projects management.

It is important to distinguish that different methodologies are focusing on different elements:
• CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) - management is built around PROCESS (i.e. Transformation is the core and entities it uses are secondary)
• PMBOK (provides the fundamentals of project management as they apply to a wide range of projects) - is also built mostly around processes (i.e. its 9 bodies of knowledge are organized around 9 major processes, although usually each process is dedicated to management of 1 important object like “Management of cost”, “Communication management”, ”Risk Management” etc. )
• RUP - actually in the middle - i.e. entities (RUP: artefacts) and transformations (RUP: Activities organized into disciplines) are balanced. And roles are pretty well refined and described.
• XP - management is built mostly around entities (i.e. focus on Time, Cost, Scope, Quality). Processes are incremental and iterative, we can also say it’s “every-day-work”.

You can see the main focus points of every methodology in the table provided below:

Aspect	CMMI	PMBOK	RUP	XP
LIFECYLE(activity)	PLAN: Estimate Build Plan (formal paper) Obtain Commitments (Human-related) CONTROL Monitoring against Plan Corrective Actions when required	Initiating processes Planning Executing Controlling Finalizing	Project Start Manage Iteration/Project Plan next Iteration Project Closure	Manage Iteration Plan (partial) next Iteration (moving works further, descopings etc.)
ENTITIES	Like in RUP but more heavier (for example "Life-cycle model" etc.)	Manage 4 parameters: Expense: Cost and Time Result: Scope and Quality Manage other issues: People and communication Freelancers (subcontractors) Risk	Work orders Issues Risks Plan Assessment	4 Parameters: Cost Time Scope Quality

As you can see they all have a lot in common, but at the same time they are very different, so choose carefully, because when something will go wrong in the project, or not the way you planned (and I can assure you that it is very likely to happen), it will not be the best time to think about your management methods, so do your homework and come back for more!

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry

1. Feature Set
– Companies have different views what a project management software
should include, so read carefully before you choose. Do not get on the
marketing tricks like “Our time tracking tool is the best project
management tool”, keep your eyes open, a good project management
software needs much more then that.
2. Web-based – can be accessed from anywhere, anytime, multi-user.
3. Support
– everybody claims that their support is superior, but is it? First
thing I’d do, I’d email support with some simple questions and
suggestions maybe, and see how quick and how good the respond is.
4. Collaboration
– first of all this means working with other team members on a task to
reach a defined goal. In other words it’s just day to day
communication, and you’ll want this to be as effective as possible –
emails, blogs, video conferencing, intranets, extranets etc.
5. Integration
- an integrated system combines project management or project planning,
with many other aspects of company life. Can the system be integrated
with a third party tools? Make sure it does.

Of course there can be said much more on this topic, but i think
these are the key things to consider when choosing a project management
software. Choose wisely!

Pay Per Click | Read More This Rest Entry