When companies start, they usually begin with a few software tools that are either free or have low initial cost. They commonly use emails for their communication needs as well as spreadsheets for information management. However, these tools have limitations, and when business starts to grow, companies quickly realize their need to have an effective project management software. Project management is crucial for companies to accomplish goals, reach milestones and achieve growth. It is therefore critical for an organization to know when it is time to invest in a project management software.

3 Business Needs that can be managed by a PM Tool

In an effort to help identify the three indicators that make a company upgrade to a project management system, Genius Project, a leading provider of project management software solution, conducted a survey and published the result in their white paper. In that survey, they interviewed 150 software buyers to gather their foremost reasons for purchasing and investing in a PM tool. In the past, most software companies focused on larger businesses that resulted in unaffordable or bloated solutions that small and growing companies have no need for. However, these have dramatically changed over the years, and now, companies have more options to choose from and are more ready to invest regardless of their size.

1. The need to manage deadlines, track status updates and budgets

According to the result of the survey, the first sign that prompt companies to consider investing in a project management tool is due to their need to manage deadlines, know what phase the projects are in, and enable project managers to report to department managers if the cost are still within or has exceeded their budget. An effective project management system will enable project managers to have a real-time view of the status of projects, warn them of coming deadlines, and allow them to generate and distribute reports easily to all stakeholders.

2. The need to implement a process workflow and systematic approvals

The second sign or indicator that companies need a PM tool is because they have a process that requires completed, interdependent tasks to go through and follow a workflow, as well as go over systematic approvals. To successfully implement this workflow in an intact and complete manner, project management systems like Genius Project should have a role-based engine that can manage all kinds of processes, allows for revision and approval, provide notifications, and include features such as document management, automatic distribution of information, and customization of pre-configured workflows.

3. The need to track time and billable hours

Closing the top three signs why companies need a project management system is the requirement to track time and billable hours. Many projects are considered failures because they proved to be more costly than advantageous. Thus, it is a primary requirement to be able to track the time of resources, the cost of tasks, billable hours to invoice clients, and manage complex billing rates of resources while staying competitive in the market. An effective project management solution should first of all be easy to use in terms of directly entering time and expenses into projects. Also, it should be able to provide weekly time and expense reports, workload and capacity reports, and project progress and cost reports.

Summary

Companies that are already in the growth stage with a stable process are ready to invest in a project management system. Since more and more businesses are becoming project-centric in their strategy, it is also a compelling reason to study and decide well in utilizing a PM tool that will be very useful in helping manage demand, requirements, schedule, resources, budgets, delivery and other important business processes. It will also help protect all the work and efforts of the company as it accomplishes its objectives and achieve growth. Since the market is currently crowded with various tools, it is equally essential to carefully consider the right project management software that would cater to one’s business needs.

Genius Project is a highly scalable project management software that has configurable dashboards and reporting features, workflow management, time and expense tracking and many other features that can adapt to an organization’s business process and needs. It is ready to accommodate a wide variety of project teams and project types in every industry.

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Most organizations believe that project management is critical to project success and business performance. Project planning tools assist in efficiently managing various resources and organizing tasks so as to successfully complete a project within the specified timeframe. Therefore, project planning tools play a very important role in managing projects and ensure organizational success. Due to the huge demand for planning apps, more and more project management apps are being developed. The real challenge is to choose the right project planning tool which suits the needs of the project and organizational goals.

The first step in the selection of a project planning tool is to identify the purposes of using the tool. Do you need to map out project plans and schedules? Do you wish to integrate communication tools? Do you intend to collaborate on documentation? There are innumerable project management apps to choose from, but you have to decide what functionalities you want to use.

Here are the basic project management features to look for while making a choice:

• Time tracking– This feature helps in measuring the overall productivity and allows project managers to set deadlines, log the time spent on each task and report what was accomplished during that time.
• Budgeting – The budgeting feature allows to track expenses, multiple rates and currencies, cash-flow requirements, material cost, labor charges, etc. Estimating project costs becomes easy and is accurate when project management software is used. Also, the Invoicing process can be automated.
• Resource planning– Resources could be people, equipments or empty rooms. Resource planning monitors the availability and capacity for each.
• Risk analysis– This feature helps in maintaining data regarding risks & threats, risk probabilities, sensitivity analysis, etc. This ensures an accurate analysis of the project life cycle and helps in mitigating risks.
• File sharing– An important component for collaboration, file sharing facilitates having a central location for all documents relating to the project. Whether the data is hosted on local servers or in the cloud, file sharing should provide data security as well as an easy interface that keeps everything organized.
• Email integration– This feature prevents team members from having to navigate between two different platforms while working on a project.
• Issue tracking– This feature helps to monitor various problems and allows team members to report issues that require urgent attention. Issue descriptions are tracked in real time, with notifications created for status and systems affected.
• Gantt charts– Gantt charts provide a wide-angle view of the project through a visual timeline. This feature allows you to see what tasks team-members are working on, monitor deliverables and actual results.

 Other important factors

• Scalability–The project planning tool should be scalable to keep up with a growing team and meet your requirements. You can consider software which has hierarchical user roles where tasks could be assigned accordingly.
• Vendor Support–You need to ensure that the software provider has a support portal and provides email or phone support, a helpful set-up guide and demo sessions.  Also, the frequency with which vendor releases newer versions or incremental updates of the software have to be checked.
• Reliability- To ensure reliability of data, it is important to check how regularly and efficiently the vendor will be backing up your data, in case of cloud based software.

Conclusion

The choice of a project management tool depends primarily on project requirements and management strategy. You may either choose a single tool to provide a bit of functionality in a large number of areas or select a single tool to address an important area like time-tracking or material management. Last but not the least; go through the user experiences and price of each tool, you will end up selecting the best one.

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“What If” You Managed Your Resource Plan Better?
By Kristyn Medeiros
How are you getting the truth?
I talk to people every day who struggle with resource capacity and demand planning. It’s a challenge to see what people are working on and if people are available to take on more projects. Often times they are focused on the […]

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Anyone can get a PMI®-ACP Agile Certification but not from any institution. Unless an education provider has been reviewed and approved by the Project Management Institute (PMI), they cannot provide credible project management training. Registration under PMI means that the educator abides by established criteria for quality assurance. This is a control that protects learners from getting low quality education that does not prepare them adequately for the needs of the market.

The Certification Process

Membership of PMI

While it is possible to get your PMI®-ACP Agile Certification without being a member of PMI, membership offers benefits such as lower fees for exams. It is therefore not mandatory for project managers to be members of PMI during their course of the career. If a learner chooses to not be a member, they will be required to take the PMI®-ACP exam preparation course which involves 21 contact hours. There is no set timeline for finishing this training so it is up to the learner to manage their training provided they have 21 hours at the end of that period. For members of PMI, the exam prep course is part of the benefits of being a member and assistance will be offered on how to cover that requirement effectively.

The Exam Process

The application to be a member needs to go under a review period of 3 to 5 days after which an acceptance or reject notification will be sent. It is only after an approval notice that the exam fee will be paid and scheduled. Unlike the preparation period, there is a time frame during which the exam should be taken. During the period of one year after approval for taking the exam has been granted, a learner may attempt the exams for up to 3 times. Choosing an exam center should be doe according to the preferences and convenience of the learner and this is important because it avoids issues of delay and missed exams.

The PMI-ACP Exam comprises of 120 questions that should be completed within a period of 3 hours. This paper is supposed to test the learner’s knowledge of Agile Tools & Techniques as well as Agile Knowledge & Skills. Passing this exam means that you have certification valid for three years but can be renewed after this time elapses.

Agile Certification Requirements

To be eligible for the PMI®-ACP Agile Certification, candidates must have general project experience and a total of 2000 hours experience on project teams which must have been within the last 5 years at the time of application. Having an active PMP® or PgMP® certification helps to fulfill this requirement.

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The Tech Contracts Handbook: Cloud Computing Agreements, Software Licenses, and Other IT Contracts for Lawyers and Businesspeople is an easy reference guide and training book that is useful for practicing lawyers and non-lawyers on cloud computing agreements, software licenses, and other IT contracts. It is a step-by-step guide that aims to simplify contract jargon and help in contract negotiations including sample contract languages.

Book Details

This second edition book comes in paperback as well as Kindle edition. It has 275 pages and is almost 9 inches thick. The book was published in January 2016 under American Bar Association. The cover has a very techy look with a background of 0 and 1 bits. ISBN-10: 1634251784; ISBN-13: 978-1634251785

Price

$25.94 for the book edition and $32.09 for the Kindle edition

Target Audience

This book is a helpful tool for anyone who closes IT businesses. Its target audience are lawyers and business people – contract managers, procurement officers, and people dealing in sales. The main advantage of using this handbook by lawyers or non-lawyers is the use of conversational, basic English that is easily understandable. Basically, anyone who needs help with their contracts could make it their go-to reference guide.

What Customers Say

Ian Ballon, Executive Director of Stanford Law School, stated that it is a concise book that has to be on the bookshelf of every lawyer who is dealing with tech contracts.

H. Ward Classen, legal counsel at Accenture, stated that the conversational tone of the book makes it an easy read, allowing even the beginners to absorb its content.

Midwest Steve (Amazon) said that it is a great reference for technology contracts and helped him improve specific clauses in the contract, and that was already worth the price of the book.

Content, Approach, Style

The Tech Contracts Handbook covers topics like Software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscriptions, Warranties and Service Level Agreements (SLA’s), Data security and privacy, Indemnities, Disaster recovery (DR), Non-competes, Limitations of liability, Clickwraps, Open source software, Non-disclosure agreements (NDA’s) and confidentiality, Technology escrow, Copyright and other intellectual property (IP) licensing, Internet and e-commerce contracts and much more.

With this handbook, readers can easily refer to this as a manual whenever in doubt and offers tips for drafting contracts. It also provides easy understanding especially to those who are not well-versed in law to better understand contract terms before heading into a negotiation.

Why Buy the Book

The Tech Contracts Handbook is very affordable and worth every penny because of its easily understandable nature. IT contracts knowledge is very essential now because of the changing landscape of the IT industry and this books provides easy, friendly approach in explaining the otherwise complex jargons of contracts.

Books that Complement

Project Management for Supplier Organizations by Adrian Taggart is a great complementary book with case studies and examples focusing on businesses that provide goods and services to projects.

Win Friends & Customers by Lawrence J. Bookbinder is another great book that shows how developing a good network and relationships can be substantially beneficial to your business.

Author

David Tollen is an author with a target audience of both young people and adults, and is also a legal trainer and a lawyer. He is the founder of Sycamore Legal, P.C. in San Francisco. He is a multiple award-winning author of fantasy novels which are instructional in nature because it teaches history and science. His first book, ‘The Jericho Novel, A Novel About the History of Western Civilization’ won him multiple awards and accolades.

$25.94 for the book edition and $32.09 for the Kindle edition

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10 Things Successful Project Managers Never Tolerate
By Harry Hall
Project managers are not just managers. They’re leaders. Project managers shape and influence their project culture for good or bad.
Tolerance can be a great trait. However, project managers must be deliberate in what we will tolerate and what we will not tolerate. Project managers must refuse to […]

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A Construction Project Manager (CPM) needs to have a complete understanding of the designing and construction process along with the knowledge of modern business management. The CPM has to formulate the construction project with a finite time-frame and desired outcome. Construction Project Management aims at meeting the client’s requirement so as to produce a functionally and economically viable project. Specific objectives of the construction project have to be clearly defined during the strategic planning process. There may be changes in the objectives during the course of the project due to resource constraints and other conflicts. Project Management in Construction is a very challenging and complex task because construction projects are dynamic and unpredictable. There are many tasks, stages and procedures involved, all of which may change during the course of the project. You should possess great communication skills, problem solving skills and knowledge of the construction process in order to efficiently manage the construction project.

New to construction project management?

If you are new to construction project management, you have to learn about budgeting, financing, scheduling, handling conflicts and legal issues, etc. The CPM should be skilled to handle various aspects of construction such as public safety, quality management, time management, material management, cost management, calculations and working drawings. A CPM in one sector is differentiated from a CPM in another sector on the basis of the knowledge of the construction site, which could be residential, institutional, commercial, industrial, etc.

Innovative concepts first

The planning for a construction project begins with the creation of innovative concepts for a facility which will meet market demands and owner’s needs. Innovative design concepts are beneficial in reducing costs and improving the aesthetics, comfort or convenience of a well-designed facility. However, innovative design concepts should be tested for technological viability and economic feasibility, in order to provide a safe and sound facility at a reasonable cost.

The functions of a construction manager include the following activities:

1. Specifying project goals and defining the scope, budget, schedule and deadline of the project.
2. Strategic planning for the tasks to be completed and other aspects of the project. The CPM organizes the tasks in the following ways:
3. Sequential: Here, the project is segregated into stages, in a consecutive sequence of tasks.
4. Parallel: Here, independent tasks happen simultaneously.
5. Staggered: Here, different tasks may overlap each other.
6. Setting performance requirements and selecting project participants.
7. Maximizing efficient use of resources through procurement of skilled labor, materials and equipments.
8. Implementing project tasks as per the plan and schedule and controlling every possible element of the project.
9. Creating a communication system to keep all stakeholders and team members well-informed about the progress of the project so as to avoid potential conflicts.

Management of a construction project involves the tasks of a traditional project manager along with adequate skills and knowledge of the construction industry. Strategic planning, strong leadership, a well-defined scope, a responsible team and healthy work relationships can make any project a success. Use the best app for task management to efficiently manage and successfully close your construction projects.

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A project manager is a title spanning across various industries, such as technology, architecture, and even construction. Lots of business owners and employees see similar companies hiring for this role, but many may want to know more about what the value add might be. Project managers bring organization to a team that otherwise struggles to stay on task and meet deadlines consistently. This can apply to teams large or small, and even can span departments.

Signs that your company may need a project manager:

• Employees having a hard time keeping track of what is on their plate
• Deadlines being missed on a somewhat consistent basis
• Internal disagreements over priority of work
• Issues with finding/keeping track of completed work
• Clients, other team members, and other departments “in the dark” on statuses of projects
• The key to finding and hiring a good project manager for any business is to ensure that the person has the following qualities:
  • Highly organized
  • Able to stop and change gears “on a dime”
  • Can manage others effectively
  • Builds solid relationships with clients and team members

Finding Fabulous Project Managers – Three High Level Tips

1. Chemistry is Key

As a project manager, I never fail to support and drive my team. If a project manager doesn’t have a solid relationship with the people doing the project work, the projects will suffer – either in quality, budget, or time to completion. The better connection the PM makes with the team members, the better the work will be. Make sure if you hire for this role, you introduce the candidates to the people they will be working with at the very least. If you can, include them in the interview process. The interaction and chemistry is extremely important.

2. The old adage “Time is Money”

Every single deadline that slips can cost you, and working smarter not harder is a necessity. Make sure the PM you are looking to hire has methods to evaluate how to cut down on time spent, without losing quality. The first thing I assess when I join any new team is how time is being used. The biggest culprit: Unnecessary meetings. In my most recent position, daily stand-ups were held in addition to daily scrum meetings. I cut the scrums from 5 times per week to twice a week, and added in one meeting per week for product, marketing, and design to meet to get their goals aligned for upcoming work. This freed up 3 hours of time per week, across 3 developers, one database architect and 3 engineers, for a grand total of 21 hours per week freed up, and could be used for work on the projects.

3. Seeking the Right Tools to Prepare Your Team to Succeed

There are many useful tools out there to help organize workloads, remind yourself of deadline countdowns, share progress statuses, and so on. I have my personal favorites, but they are tailored to the tech industry, so I will talk about what’s important for finding the best tool for whatever umbrella your potential PM may fall under. First, never start with cost. Start with a list of what may work best for organization of the work. Do you need a tool that allows collaboration inside of it? Does it need to integrate with an existing platform, or be as user-friendly as possible? Create a list of “must haves, nice to haves, and cherry on top.” Start searching for all the programs that meet the must haves, then see what’s affordable. If none of them meet your budgeting goals, see if the program has a way to remove some of the “nice to haves” to reduce cost, either by limiting the amount of users, data stored, or removing some of the bells and whistles that may not be needed.

Conclusion

All mentioned above are great starting points for you to determine whether or not hiring a Project Manager would be right for the company you’re at. Have a discussion with your team to see what their thoughts are on adding this extremely valuable position!

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A project management software is one which seeks to satisfy all or a considerable level of the nine areas of project management as stipulated by the Project Management Book Of Knowledge including; cost, quality, communications, Integration, time, scope, human resources and risk management. In line with this, it is also pertinent to state in clear and general terms, the steps involved in software development which includes; planning, design, implementation, testing, deployment and maintenance. Having expressed the above facts, it is not far fetched how the former enhances the latter.

Conceptualization

The first stage of every unique endeavor is conceptualization, planning and design, and in doing these, there is always the follow ups regarding the requisite resources that will fulfill the planned design. A good program that manages integration of financial, material and human resources creates the platform for team building and resource assignment. This makes it possible for all participating human resources to have a full understanding of their members, tasks and assigned material resources.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is one of the oldest and most important aspects of a successful outcome in any endeavor. It is done at every stage of the project from start to finish and especially where there are bottlenecks. A team that has been inaugurated must brainstorm via the program’s enabling interface by virtue of the enterprise solutions, intranet or internet where all responsible resources assemble to define the way forward for a project or proffer solutions to a problem in the ongoing task or project.

Implementation

Implementation of tasks are very sensitive in quality assurance and as such, in managing the separate tasks that make up the entire project, the software aids its user, to assign resources to tasks. This makes it easier for tracking the resources usage and cost of implementation, prorated or fixed. It also keeps the user and other parties assigned to a particular task, abreast of their responsibilities in terms of timing and delivery. Again, a provision for foot notes on every task in a good program is of unlimited importance because of the quality and scope that is expected at every stage of a project.

Supervise

The ease to manage and supervise a task or the entire project is of great importance owing to the time value of resources, so any form of impediment that will affect the critical path of a project is avoided. In using the program, the user navigates easily among the menus and tabs and could have a simple view of overlapping windows integrating and communicating the status of each task, that make of the entire project. This implies that the user or supervisor could see the percentage of work done and the overall stage of the entire endeavor at any point in time and as updated duly.

Milestone Activation

An unforgettable, strategic and one-stop feature of an enterprising program is milestone activation. This is quite essential as it relates and further explains the progress report, to all the internal and external parties that are involved in the project. A requirement for this, is that, it must be predetermined and unanimously agreed upon by all the related parties and once achieved, is made know and celebrated by all Without much ado, having articulated the above reasons, it is obvious that there is indeed an indisputable necessity in applying Project Management for software development.

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Kanban, which is a Japanese term, indicates a billboard or signboard and is a scheduling system for managing a software development process in an effective manner. It gained wide popularity when Taiichi Ohno, an engineer at Toytoa started using it in the late 1940s to enhance the manufacturing efficiency of the company. He got this idea from a bizarre source-the supermarket. It was found that clerks at the store were restocking their grocery items by the inventory of the store and not that of the vendor’s supply. The clerks ordered more only when an item was on the verge of getting out of stock. What drew the attention of Toyota was the timely delivery by the grocer.

Engineers at Toyota started perusing their strategies and built a new approach, which is now known as the Kanban system. This technique helps to match the inventory with the demand and attain improved levels of quality and output.

The improved visual nature of the system enabled teams at Toyota to correspond conveniently on the tasks needed to be completed and by when. It also adopted hints and suggestions along with clear processes, which assisted in the trimming of waste and improve the overall value.

Why Kanban Words Today

The current workforce may be equipped with high-end technologies but there is still loads of information that makes its way as words on the screen of a device-for instance, task lists, spreadsheets and emails to name a few. Information overload is something of great concern these days. As a result, the effectiveness of this work approach has gone down significantly.

An ordinary image can be equal to a thousand words according to scientists. The human brain processes visual data 60,000 times faster compared to text. In such a scenario, Kanban can help leverage on the power of visual information with the aid of sticky notes presented on a whiteboard to build an image of your task at hand. Having a look at the different stages of a project within your team allows you to communicate with them and also receive their feedback.

Four Important Principles of Kanban

The core elements of Kanban method are as follows:

1. Visualize Task

By chalking out a visual model of your task and workflow, you can easily notice the flow of work within your team. Making the work visible with the help of cards, bottlenecks and blockers can immediately result in improved collaboration and communication.

2. Restrict Work In Process

If you restrict the amount of unfinished task in process, you can drastically cut down the time for an item to make its way through the Kanban method. It also staves off difficulties resulted by switching of task and reducing the requirement to reprioritize items on a consistent basis.

3. Emphasize On Flow

You can easily optimize your Kanban arrangement by making use of work-in-process limits and establishing policies that are team driven. This will make your work flow smooth besides aiding you to gather metrics to study flow. You can also get a hint on the top indicators that can impose to be a threat in the future by scrutinizing the flow of work.

4. Regular Improvement

Once you get acquainted with the Kanban style, it’ll act as a backbone for all your tasks. Teams gauge their effectiveness by keeping a track on their work flow, output, lead times, quality and much more. Your team’s performance will be greatly improved by continuously experimenting and analyzing the system.

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