Want to remember your good project ideas? Write them on paper

Paper? Now before you call me a Luddite let me tell you about Justin Rosenstein. First he’s a software guy. He is cofounder of Asana, which is a task-management application. He recently wrote a post for LinkedIn’s “Things I Carry” series in which he says “Computers are great when information is highly structured, but for brainstorming and early designs, nothing beats writing on paper. And I say that as a hard-core technologist who tracks every tiny detail of my life electronically.” Simply put, good ideas can come to you at any time and at any place, and having paper and pen around is a lot quicker than firing up the old laptop, or turning on the tablet and launching some app.

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3 Keys to Increasing Project Profits. Part 2

We are now on to Part 2 of this three part series on ways to increase or protect the profitability of the projects we manage. In Part 1 we examined the obvious area of budget management and ways we can handle the project budget, analysis and forecast to protect and possibly even increase the project’s profitability. In this Part 2, I’m going to discuss resource management and ways we can best manage our resource to keep our projects as profitable as possible. In Part 2 of this three-part series on increasing project profitability, we’ll examine the role of effective resource management in keeping project budgets on track. Equipment, third party vendors, and data center charges – among other things – get expensed to our project budgets. But far and away the biggest drain on project dollars is the efforts of project team members being charged against the project budget. These are the individuals charging probably anywhere from 20% to 100% of their time on a daily basis to our projects and they aren’t likely billing at cheap rates.

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What’s your project management legacy?

Tonight will be an emotional night at Headingley, the home of Leeds Rhinos . They will be paying tribute to Graham Murray former coach to the Rhinos, who died at the young age of 59, near the end of July. Many people say Graham Murray started the current golden era of the club – 6 rugby league championships and one … Read More >

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5 Consejos para la controlar bien la lista de tareas

Del Boletín mensual de ProjectManager.com propongo ahora 5 Consejos para la controlar bien la lista de tareas. Las listas de tareas son la base del plan de proyecto. Sin una buena hoja de ruta, será mucho más difícil producir el cronograma del proyecto. Después de todo, ¿cómo saber qué hacer? Todo proyecto debe comenzar con una lista de tareas completa. Estos son 5 consejos para crear listas de tareas estelares en sus proyectos. Tip 1: Trabajar con el equipo El Administrador del Proyecto solo no puede crear una lista de tareas completa para el proyecto, por lo que debe contar con la ayuda de su equipo de proyecto.

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3 Keys to Increasing Project Profits

Through experience I’ve found that project success is usually determined by one or more of three factors – on time delivery, on budget delivery, and overall customer satisfaction (which is often based somewhat on the other two factors and many other things we may or may not be in control of). For this three-part series, I’m going to be focusing on profitability on our projects – looking primarily at three key areas we can focus on during our project engagements to help ensure the highest level of project profits possible…or at least to protect what we are tasked with as a profit margin target. In Part 1, we’ll examine the most obvious area of budget management, before moving on to resource management and change management for parts 2 & 3. While working to keep the budgets on my projects as healthy as possible, I’ve narrowed it down to three keep steps that I follow from the beginning and then throughout each project engagement. I take these steps to try to effectively and efficiently keep the project financials as on track as possible because budgets that are not monitored closely can quickly become unmanageable and unfixable leading to project failure. Step 1 – Draft the initial budget All projects start with a scope or statement of work and an estimate which also may be the sale price of the project to the customer.

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What is the market like for project managers at the moment?

In this month’s Association for Project Management (APM) magazine, Project,  I took the reins for the monthly careers clinic column. What is the market like for project managers at the moment? A question we hear so many times from people who contact us at Arras People; but I ask, should that question not be reframed to, “What is the market like for someone like me at the moment?” Ultimately it’s the answer to this question that you’re really probably interested in. One of the great things about project management is its diversity; not only in the types of projects undertaken, the varying levels of complexity and the challenges associated with each sector, all of which filter down and impact the types of people required. The flip side of this diversity coin brings up the reality that many hirers do not share the view that project management is a transferable skill which can address all these variable elements! So back to the question, to find out what the market is like for you , it is imperative you understand what exactly you have to offer and where you sit in this diverse space. Sounds simple, but so many practitioners really struggle to define themselves clearly and concisely, which is a crucial part of selling yourself to the market. Knowing what you offer, be that sector specific, working in SMEs or large blue-chips, perhaps change management or even agile is really important

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