Month: July 2017

Tips for a Better Project Management

Project management requires some efficient skills. These are important as you will have to meet the requirement to finish a project within the deadline. Project management demands your discipline, your initiating power, your planning power and your executing power to deliver the project within time and budget.

Here are some rules that you must follow to initiate a better project management.

  1. Agility is important

In project management agility serves the best purpose. You must divide the task in short phases that are easier to manage. You will have to assess the project at every step, so agility will help you to assess and reassess the project and adapt it according to the plan.

 

  1. Micromanage is not beneficial

As a project manager you are a leader and micromanaging at every step is not fruitful you should check and assess at every step but don’t control the flow by trying to make it perfect. Perfection is an illusion. You will only end up disrupting the work flow and ethic.

 

  1. Keep learning and improving yourself

There is no end to learning as technology is always evolving. Try to keep up with the latest innovations and incorporate them to make your project management skills better.

 

  1. Continuous planning

The most important part that a project manager plays is that of a planner. You need to plan in a detailed and organized way that will require the participation of your whole team.

 

  1. Work with diligence

Time is a huge constraint in project management Software. As a project manager you must be on every team member’s shoulder, motivating them and hurrying them to complete the task on time.

 

  1. Communicate well with your team

An efficient project management is possible when you communicate all the details of the project with your team. Don’t be vague, visualize the process beforehand and then explain them to you team thoroughly.

 

  1. Initiate open communication

Good and healthy workplace is possible only when you are open to receive concerns and queries of your team member. Make them feel welcome to ask you any questions they feel requires immediate answer. Be accessible through phone and email as well.

Things that define your project

Managing your project is indeed a tedious task. Many are unable to do that properly due to lack of guidance or unplanned approach towards the project. Let us discuss few simple yet effective ways which can considerably enhance your project management skills. First, you need to decide your project’s goal and then begin further in your project.

Understanding the goal

If you begin anything without setting a goal, then let me tell you, you will land nowhere. Understanding the importance of goal is very important as it serves as the foundation of your project. Often people comprehend the terms “Goals” and “Objectives” to be one and the same. But this is a completely wrong perception. Goal is something that we want whereas an Objective simply helps us to achieve our goals by defining what is more important for us.

Delivering the Goal

It may be different for different people. Some may ask you to deliver the goals in terms of quality; some consider the cost whereas others consider quality. But mostly, people will ask you to tie down to all the above aforesaid parameters.

Setting up the Scope

The Scope of a project is something that defines the depth of your project.  The scope of your project will define the extent of your work that you will be required to meet. Many project managers often look after scope as a range of activities that the project is going to encompass.

If you are able to define your project properly than half your work is already done. Make sure to define the goal, scope, and objective of your project clearly before beginning with any project.  Though they might sound like normal components of any project, but actually these are the points on which your entire project will depend.  One of the major things that cannot be overlooked is the flaw that might creep in while scoping your project. Be sure to pen down your inclusions and exclusions of the scope of your project and make them clear to the respective stakeholder associated with your project.

If you are able to follow these guidelines then there is no stopping you and your project could turn out to be way more successful than you ever thought of.

For more information please visit: https://casecamp.com/

The 3 key benefits of project budgeting

Budget is the most important element of any financial or high rated project. There is not much debate about the importance of budget in any organization because everyone is aware of how important it is to chalk out a budget from beforehand to manage the finance well. Well, one should be mindful of the fact that though the budget creation might initially take up some time its benefits might range from increasing financial support to a strengthened management team. Sometimes it so happens that a project without a budget might fall apart and left incomplete. However, the budget can be either fixed or flexible, but the three crucial benefits of project budgeting might stay intact forever.

The three major benefits of project budgeting are as follows:

  1. 1. Prioritization– prioritization is very necessary for any project. If the budget that has been set up initially is not enough for completing the whole project at once, a well planned budget will always enable to set up the priorities accordingly and help to organize that which part of the project needs to be completed first with the remaining budget while simultaneously deciding which part of the project can be initially put on standby. Another thing that budgeting does is to do future thinking easily. Suppose a project budget is insufficient for completion of it, budgeting will only help to gauge the additional amount that would be needed in future for further progress.
  2. Effective Management Tool– a budget enables effective finance management. While a team moves along the chalked out path, a budget can be an effective tool to keep a track and progress check. Budget even helps to decide and make the alterations or changes that are required in a project. While some projects are more tangible, others might be more far off. The budget would only help to chalk out the project well.
  3. Financial Roadmap– a budget is a financial pivot for any project. It works as an outline and guide for any project before it has even started, it helps in deciding the human resources according to the finance available.

Now you are aware of the important benefits of finance budgeting. So it is always advisable to chalk out a proper budget before starting off any project so that you get the best resource for your fixed budget.

For more details please visit: https://casecamp.com/

How to Manage a Complex Multi-Vendor Project Successfully?

There is no doubt that a multi-vendor project is very difficult to manage. For this reasons, the project’s outcome is not as well as it was expected. The conventional unsuccessful thoughts, lack of communication, an unsolvable chaos only leads to the deliverable products that are much below the actual standards. The vendors fail to understand the customer’s requirements along with being stuck in the complexity of multi vendors. This results in the lack of goodwill from the client’s end and can affect the further projects and vendors as well.

But there are certain ways which a multi-vendor project can be managed well. These are the key areas working on which the multivendor projects would improve.

  1. Communication – communication should be given the utmost priority in a multi-vendor project as most of the multi-vendor projects fail due to lack of proper communication between customer and vendor. It is always advisable to confront a person directly to solve the problem immediately, rather than sending emails and waiting for the reply.
  2. Performance Reports –it is imperative to get a performance report ready to check the progress of the project concerned. The reports must contain the problems, the solutions of the problems, the practical working areas, improvements and risks, migration plans (if any) and should be submitted on a weekly basis.
  3. Roles of assignment matrix – This need to be made clear to both the customers and vendors to avoid disputes during the project. Each and every person would be well aware of their responsibilities. Another reason why the roles and responsibilities assignment matrix should be defined in the early stages of the project is to avoid stakeholders from jumping during decision-making.
  4. Risk management– the most unwanted term of a project that cannot be avoided. It is very necessary to timely manage the risk without hindering the deliverables. Identify the risks (threats & opportunities) that could affect the Project objectives, Assessing the risks regarding their impact on the project. Planning steps to help reduce risk and finally Implementing the planned steps
  5. Change management– changing the management accordingly to improve the project. This might be costly sometimes depending on the alteration request made.

Following these steps would only make the chaotic mismanaged vendor work in a well planned and peaceful manner,