Web Based Project Management
Posted on August 7, 2008
Filed Under Marketing and Advertisign | Leave a Comment
I was actually surprised about the all the buzz that keywords like online project management and web based project management are causing. I was wondering how much it would cost to advertise my blog for these keywords, so just out of curiosity, nothing more (not like I am going to spend money for my blog advertising or anything). So I went to google adwords page to check it out, and I was shocked! Just check the prices they are charging for online project management and web project management keywords:
As you can see a single click would cost me near 10$! You really need a big budget for advertising with google in the project management field. Just for comparison I ran some other searches like for example for keyword new the advertising costs start as low as 0.50$ a click. But I am sure that a successful marketing campaign should empower advertising with google, because it is the most targeted traffic you can get. What do you think?
Effective Time Management With Comindwork
Posted on August 6, 2008
Filed Under Online Project Management, project management tips | Leave a Comment
Effective time management…can it be achieved? how can we manage our time effectively? I believe that it is near impossible to manage time, yet you could increase your effectiveness how you use time 
Lets take a quick look how Comindwork could help you to manage time more effectively.
- Deadlines - manage your deadlines effectively with Comindwork, milestones and project tasks (cases) will be your best friends getting organized, ready and prepared for deadlines. Remember that any task that hasn’t got an exact or approximate deadline will get lost, till it won’t become critical and remind of itself. Give every task a deadline!
- Meetings - usually there are lots of project meetings that aren’t actually needed at all. Comindwork will help you to decrease the amount of needed meetings: project blogs is a great place to share project news and announcements, every task and wiki document (page) has a talk page where details can be discussed and all this is instantly available through a password protected RSS feed. For the needed meetings, Comindwork will help you to make them more effective: before a meeting create a wiki page with a short agenda in advance (everyone will get instantly notified through the RSS feed), put a short summary of the meeting after it’s done, so that no one needs to make notes and so that the decisions made, the knowledge shared would be available for the team later on, at anytime (it’s simple and easy using wiki feature)
- Paperwork - I think that everybody hates it, our online project management tool will help you to keep all your documents, files, questionnaires, reports etc. online, available 24/7 and safe (backups are performed couple times a day). You’ll not only save money by reducing your costs related to paperwork, apart from that you’ll create your own knowledge base!
- Panning - planning isn’t urgent, but it’s important! The busier you are, the better your planning skills should be, because without planning you’ll be just wasting part of your precious time. Try to have a day planned at least one day before.
- Interruptions - it’s almost impossible to eliminate them, but you need to decrease their number if you want to stay effective. Comindwork dashboards come in very handy here. You won’t need to make a couple phone calls, read a bunch of papers and emails to get in context of the project - quick view on the project dashboard and you’ll know what was happening for the last couple days: milestones, tasks assigned, new documents, changes and more. And you don’t need to sit in the office, with Comindwork you get the job done when and where it is convenient for you.
Online project management tool - Comindwork is at your service :). I have writtent earlier that i really like thise tool and with it’s latest release it is starting to look even better, i will be covering the new features some time later this week. Now you have the tools that you need, to increase your and your team effectiveness, achieve better communication and make successful projects! Sign up for a free account and start using Comindwork today for better projects.
Peopleware Productive Projects and Teams Book Review
Posted on July 10, 2008
Filed Under Book reviews | Leave a Comment
You haven’t heard about this amazing book? Then definitely buy it or get it from your friends and read it. Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister does a wonderful job, they go straight to the heart of project management and tells you exactly why a company fails or succeeds. My favourite idea from the book is “it’s not technology, it’s people”. This book is one of the classics in software project management; it actually can be used in any other knowledge based industry, not only IT.
I should say that I am embarrassed to say that I read this book only now, when the first edition was released in 1987 and the second in 1999(I’ve read the second edition). Well you might think that if the original book was written more then twenty years ago, a lot of the things have changed and the book is not actual today anymore. Indeed the technology evolved, a lot has changed, new management methods and theories were created, but what about the people? As you might have guessed from the title, Peopleware is all about the people. And it strikes how precise the authors were, because when you read the book you can find their examples in your daily work life today, more then twenty years later. Of course the book won’t do the impact as it might have done ten years ago if you read it today, but never the less it’s definitely worth reading. Don’t be mistaken that this is another project management methodology, it is not. It is just about people and how they work, why they are effective or not, simple as that :). The authors point out, that the most common managers’ mistake - too much concentration on technology, and not enough on the team, teams’ well being and motivation.
A couple of interesting quotes from the book:
- “The major problems of our work are not so much technological as sociological in nature.”
- “Quality, far beyond that required by the end user, is a means to higher productivity.”
- “The manager’s function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work”
- “People under time pressure don’t work better; they just work faster.”
- “People who perform better tend to gravitate towards organizations that provide a better workplace.”
- “The ultimate management sin is wasting people’s time.”
I’d recommend reading this book to any level manager and all of who is related to project team in one or another way. Like I’ve mentioned the book has a taste of the “80s”, but I strongly recommend it.
What do you think about this book? Did you find the new chapters in the second edition useful?
How To Achieve Realistic Schedules?
Posted on July 10, 2008
Filed Under project management tips | 4 Comments
When the software project starts one of the critical things is project deadline. But in most cases deadlines come and go, come and go. And as the deadline is missed, it is moved a week or two ahead, but that actually doesn’t change anything. That is why we all need realistic schedules and stuff from the management like “CEO said we must build the tool until February 12th” or “our competitor releases in a week, we MUST finish in 5 days” simply doesn’t work. You can tighten schedules as much as you want, it won’t help. You need a real project schedule (sometime inside the project teams there actually exists two types of schedules: one for the upper management, to make everything look nice, and the other for team members).
It is very hard to define the exact schedule for a software development product, there too many risks to be taken into account, so what can we do to get the best results?
- Set the deadlines and milestones as the project moves ahead. Yes I know the classic software development approach says that all the planning and estimating has to be done before the programming (implementation) starts. I personally think that agile software development approach is the most realistic. Project is conducted in small iterations (1-4 weeks) , where each iteration is an entire software project: including planning, requirement analysis, design, programming, testing, documentation.
- Trusted and reliable project team. First of all - all team members should be allowed to estimate the tasks, related directly to them. Secondly - from marketing, to documentation team, an active participation in project processed is a necessity if we want the most realistic schedules. This brings more confident and responsibility to the team.
- There are no identical projects. Every project by itself is unique, and it’s a common problem when the managers and project members estimate the new project as it is the “same” as some other project. E.g. if you have create a website using .Net it doesn’t mean that you can easily estimate any site that needs to be developed under .Net. Experience in the similar projects is a great of a value for the project team as long as it is not used for 100% comparisons and estimations.
- Work closely with the customer. Effective communication with customers is one of the project success factors. It is ideal when customer participates in product testing, provided notes are very valuable, because they can actually point out bugs that are critical. Usually developers and customers evaluate bugs differently. Close collaboration with customers of the project will help you to avoid developing features that will never be used.
Unreal schedules forces project teams to waste time, valuable time that could be spent finishing the software. Only when project members, prior project start, will recognize that the projects are hard and that it is hard to create accurate schedules, only then the project can be managed and developed in a realistic way. F.Brooks addressed this issue year ago in his paper No Silver Bullet, and it is still actual today. As well you can read more about realistic scheduling in a software development project here (article from IBM). What techniques do you use? Share your tips As well you can check the reviews of online project management tools.
What Are Main Project Management Challenges?
Posted on July 10, 2008
Filed Under project management tips | Leave a Comment
Every project is unique and temporary and requires different management approaches. Because projects have different characteristics than ongoing operations, they introduce a new set of challenges. Here are some of the challenges that project managers face:
- Unrealistic deadlines - For project managers “on time” can be quite a relative term, managing deadlines and schedules is one of the most common challenges project managers deals with every day, read my previous post about achieving realistic schedules.
- Team. Every project has different team needs. The number of people needed-and their different skill sets-is different for each project. Where do these people come from? Where do they go, once they are no longer needed? These staffing problems may be compounded if several projects are running simultaneously. If all projects hit their resource peak at the same time, it could place an impossible burden on an organization. And if all the projects should end around the same time, the company may be forced into layoffs.
- Communication. One of the main reasons why projects fail is lack of information and communication between team members. Comindwork gets this obstacle out of your way, it provides all what you might need for effective project communication - project RSS, project blogs, project wiki, instant email notification, case video replies. You have the tools, so why not to use them?
- Estimating. In order to evaluate potential projects, organizations need accurate estimates of costs and schedules. But because each project is different, estimates may contain more assumptions than facts.
- Stakeholders participation. Usually it is hard to get input from end users and customers during the project, especially for distributed teams. Today with lots of online project management and collaboration tools available this will make it much easier for all of the stakeholders to collaborate and communicate.
This list of difficulties and challenges could go on, but it is clear that that for a successful project you will need strong management leadership. You fail or succeed in any case you earn invaluable experience, analyse your projects, learn from the team and always keep moving forward! What do you think are about project management challenges?
Free Online Project Management with ProjectOffice
Posted on July 9, 2008
Filed Under BaseCamp Alternative, Online Project Management Tools, Project Management Tool Reviews | 6 Comments
I have high expectations for ProjectOffice, that is developed by Seavus Group headquartered in Sweden. I was informed that it has been in open free beta for almost a year now, so I believe that soon we should see some changes. At first look I loved the site design, and I expected the system design to look similar and I wasn’t disappointed: the interface is clean and neat, the navigation between the tabs is easy and fast. I especially liked the way dashboard is organized and that you organize in the way you want using drag and drop feature.
Some other notable features from there website:
- MS Project Export/Import (but this feature is still nor available)
- iGoogle, Netvibes and Pageflake gadgets
- you like desktop software? download Buzzer to keep track of your projects in ProjectOffice
- project flow management through Gantt charts
- issue tacking
- knowledge sharing through wikis
- time and expense management
While this tool definitely has all the basic needed features for effective project management and very nice and easy to use interface, I’ve noticed quite a few things missing and some stuff not working:
- wiki didn’t work they way it should - the main point about wiki is to be able quickly create and link pages to each other, I was actually struggling with it, i could create a wiki page, but security error prevented me from editing it, I wrote an email to their team, but as of now I didn’t get the response;
- though it claims to have wiki, it is still is very different from the wikis that you are used, and it doesn’t look it support standard wiki syntax;
- no RSS integration, which is a real need when speaking about wiki, how you will know that something was updated? if RSS is not planned, maybe they should an ability to notify the project team, when wiki document is added or updated;
- adding team was unusual, it should be available with one click (later I found that “team”=”resources” so this might look unusual till you get used to it);
- system responce time could be better;
- a great feauture - associate issues to projects or tasks
- should ask to change the password after the first login, this is a common feature when upon registration your password is automatically generated;
- for now history is available only for issues, but in their blog they promise it for tasks and wikis in the nearest future;
- nice feature that when you are viewing Gantt Charts you can switch to full screen, this makes really lot more easier to view it, but there is a problem with it, how to return to the previous view? you need to reload the page, maybe this issue is only for FF 3…
- for now history is available only for issues, but they promise it for tasks and wiki in the future. If you ask me, history is a must for wikis, how you will track changes, when different people can make changes?
Conclusions. For now, ProjectOffice might be a great tool for small teams and freelancers, it’s main advantages are: it is free, it is easy to use, has a great built in set of features (even the Gantt charts). For average and big companies it might not the right choice just yet due to slow response times, no customization and hosting options (you can compare it to Comindwork, that offers full customization to your business needs and hosting on your own servers), no SSL security support (small or big, companies always want to get the maximum security). But as I mentioned at the beginning of the post I liked a lot the design and the ease of use. We should keep in mind that it is still in beta and that it will be improving. I will be checking back to see the improvements in the future.
P.s. I didn’t find any information on the pricing, but I am sure that it will not stay free when it will launch from beta.
Time Management Tip: How To Set Priorities
Posted on July 8, 2008
Filed Under Fun Project Management, Project Management Acronyms, time management | Leave a Comment
Very often we can heat people complaining “i don’t have enough time”, “I wish I had more time”, but I believe that the problem is not that there is not enough time, we just need to learn to manage and use our time effectively. One of the key things in effective time management - setting priorities, check this short video for more details:
Do you know any effective time management tips that you would want to write about? let me know, I’ll do my best
Email Based Management With Wrike
Posted on July 8, 2008
Filed Under BaseCamp Alternative, Online Project Management, Online Project Management Tools, project management software | 1 Comment
Fast and simple project management application, it has only necessary features, nothing more to fill your head with. At first Wrike might remind you of Outlook tasks a little, but is much more effective then that. For non tech users there might be quite a learning curve, but if you’ve mastered outlook emails and have some MS Project basics you will do fine. So lets sign up, login and start our project.
Sign Up proces. Really easy, but some people might not want to sign up, because it requires your credit card info. Wrike offer free 30 day trial, and you can easily suspend your account anytime. I think that they would get a lot more sign ups if they would offer some free basic 1 project 1 user account, you know all the buzz about freeconomis
Features. I will not be talking about all the features, just about the ones that caught my eye as being worth attention. First of all Wrike pays a lot attention to email integration (i think because still as of today a lot of people are using emails for planning and communication, instead of more effective tools). Actually it has a two-way email integration, not many project management tools has this feature. Wrike can send you by emails your daily to-do list and reminders. You can email Wrike to create tasks. This is how it works: send an email to wrike@wrike.com, in the subject field you can indicate the name of task, the category and even the due date, but you get even more because you can add responsible or related users by adding their emails in TO or CC fields. Without doubt this will be one of the favourite features of project managers who does most of communication by email.
I really liked that in Wrike you can easily and quickly create the hierarchy of project tasks and it is instantly reflected on the Gantt charts(this screenshot took me only 10 min to come up with, keep in mind i’ve never used it before):
And i loved the drag and drop feature in the Gantt Chart and i forgot to mention that you can actually have multiple hierarchies. Some other features that ‘d like to point out is RSS integration, customizable reports, time tracking and SSL security. For a full list of the features and their description head to Wrike.
Prices.
Pricing starts from as low as 3.99$, but the pricing differs from most other similar tools, as it offers pricing per user, i’ve already mentioned that you need to provide your credit card info in order to sign up. But if compared to other online project management tools, Wrike costs slightly more, and are you ready to pay more? is it worth the money? i think it is, but it is up to you to decide if Wrike is the right tool for you and your company.
Conclusion. Wrike is neat and straightforward tool, you can just get things done. It’s strong side, of-course, is the heavy email integration - create tasks, assign tasks, create users, set due dates using just your email. I think that Wrike would be a great choice for small companies(that need to collaborate online) for managing small to average projects. It has good web interface, though the best feature is management by email (a little bit old school technique) and if you’ll be participating in lot of projects and you’ll have a big project team i think it might not be that effective. Other things that i didn’t like was the dashboard view(it is too plain ,when you have a lot of tasks it just looks like lots of text) and that it is feature limited. But don’t get me wrong i still think that Wrike is a great project management tool, and you will definitely love it, if you are looking for a tool with good email integration.
Teamwork Video
Posted on July 7, 2008
Filed Under Team | 1 Comment
Now this is what i call teamwork, i wish all project teams would work so well, but on the other hand we see the result, but we don’t actually know what did it cost to that team to achieve this:
Project Management Is Changing The World
Posted on July 7, 2008
Filed Under project management, project management tips | 5 Comments
Every day project management and project managers are changing the world, would all those things happen without proper management? maybe, wirhout real leaders? never.
- A World Health Organization (WHO) “vaccination army” runs a blitz to attack polio, vaccinating 4.2 million children in a 50,000-squaremile area in three days in southern India.
- A commercial aircraft manufacturer is designing a new model aircraft to be built from lightweight composites, resulting in fuel savings of 20 percent over similar-sized airplanes.
- NASA teams send sophisticated robots and probes to other planets in our solar systems, furthering our understanding of Earth and its origins and is building a base on the moon
- Nanotechnology researchers manipulate matter at the molecular level, developing materials that hold incredible potential to revolutionize manufactured products, from building bridges to transmitting electricity to the clothes we wear.
I could go on ans on about the amazing stuff that people achieve everyday, it makes me more determined to know more, to gain more knowledge about project management so that one day i could say, that my work reallt matters.
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