All Posts in ProjectManagement

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Project management plays a vital role in proper planning and executing a project and to successfully accomplish a goal within a given time frame. In India, the project management jobs in project-oriented industries is expected to reach 21.7 million in 2027, according to Project Management Institute [PMI]. We should create and monitor project methodology standards, provide advice and create an environment to support our project managers.

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As per a recent analysis by PMI, project managers contribute to a nation’s productivity, which supports GDP that in turn contributes to the standard of living. It is estimated that the GDP at risk due to the project management talent shortage is US $23.4 billion in India.

Our customers are spending significant services amount on consulting, implementation and system integration. Hence, going forward, our constant engagements would be on how to improve the customer service and satisfaction, enhance employee productivity and shorten project timelines. We should start building assets that can help us align for this and proactively suggest best practices based on what we have learnt from projects with other clients. We need to package our existing thought process that can help bridge gaps between expectations and reality. We need to ensure that our project management capability helps minimize the risks, control costs, improve speed to market and make substantial improvements in our margins.

Let’s delve into some of the best practices that we should implement to enhance the project effectiveness.

Project Governance – There must be a common governance structure and framework at the beginning of each project, outlining day-to-day operations with short term and long-term goals clearly laid out, and certain parties must be tasked with the responsibility of ensuring completion of the said goals. This includes pre-determined points at which the progress is evaluated and decisions about next steps are made. These decisions should be duly recorded and thoroughly communicated down the chain of command, if they are to be effective.

Monitor project management quality – Quality assurance in project management involves regulating and managing the services that the project delivers, ensuring that the quality and consistency is retained. The aspect of quality control incorporates a process of monitoring specific project results to check if they are met or not. The project management team should be aware of the following concepts:

  • Prevention [keeping errors out of the process] and inspection [keeping errors out of the hands of the customers]
  • Special cases [unusual events] and random causes [normal process variation]

Advice project managers on risk management – The risk control phase includes risk management plan which supports to address a risk, based on suitable cost-effective control strategies. Here, the focus is to proactively minimize the risks before it occurs or to reactively recover it from the loss and restore the normal process state. Apart from being advised, the project managers also need to evaluate risks and find out ways to mitigate it. They also must identify potential risks in a timely manner.

Analytics/Metrics development – Analytics in project management provides continual improvement process. It also helps project managers to make tactical decisions, thereby improving project success rate. Project management analytics ensures that the projects are completed on time and according to specifications. Project metrics measures the success of the project. Some of the key metrics that can be used in project management:

a. Operational Excellence Metrics – It is at the core of every project and must be tracked and reported on for every iteration.

b. Business Value Metrics – These are used to determine the business value of a project like Return on Investment that indicates the bottom line of the return on any investment; Earned Business Value which is used to track the value of the requirements being delivered; Net Present Value which is used in capital budgeting and investment planning, to analyze the profitability of projected investment and Internal Rate of Return which is used to evaluate the attractiveness of a project.

c. Human capital – This represents the skills, knowledge, and values of the development teams and their readiness to do their jobs.

Project templates – Project template provides patterns to project deliverables, serving to increase understanding, save time and improve the quality of project outcomes. Project templates need to serve as per customer preferences as different audience have different needs. It acts as a repository for the work products created during project life cycle. Providing your project team with options for what deliverables they use and how they use them provides a fit-to-purpose approach to project deliverables that will improve your project team efficiency.

Best practices to be implemented post project go-live – Post implementation reviews should assess how successful the system is in terms of functionality, performance, and cost versus benefits, as well as assess the effectiveness of the overall project life-cycle and areas of further development. Project managers can gain through historical views of similar projects which will show comparative efforts, cost and resource usage, that in turn provides a wealth of information to guide future projects.

About the Author

Vineet Kumar is the Lead Consultant BI & Analytics, 3i Infotech. You can find more about him here.

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A good project plan can make the life of a Project Manager (PM) as well as the team members easy. As a Project Manager, you have worked hard on the following activities:

  1. Collated and froze the requirements
  2. Formed a competent and diversified team
  3. Done the budget estimation and activity planning
  4. Done a detailed SWOT analysis

Many times things can drastically change once the project progresses and massive changes can have a major impact on the Project. It could also lead to a project closure e.g. The technology that is being used in the development becomes obsolete or holds no value due to which there are no takers for the product that was under development.

As per a report, more than half of the IT projects fail that result in millions of dollars in lost funds. Wirke that specializes in project management software has come up with an informative infographic that lists down some of the techniques that can be used to avoid Project Failure. The Cure for Project Failure - by Wrike project management tools

Infographic brought to you by Wrike hosted project management software

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A good project plan can make the life of a Project Manager (PM) as well as the team members easy. Project Manger can do a detailed tracking of the activities that are listed in the plan and since the tasks are well listed out, team members are very clear about the deadlines as well as its deliverables.

Creating a perfect Project Plan is a daunting task and as a PM, you need to ensure that there is no stone un-turned in order to create a perfect project plan. Wrike, a company that specializes in development of project management software has come up with an informative infographic that can be used as a guideline by Project Managers to create a perfect Project Plan.

10 Essential Elements for the Perfect Project Plan - by Wrike project management softwareInfographic brought to you by Wrike project management online software

We hoped you found this infographic informative! What are some of the traits that you as a Project Manager use to create a Project Plan, please share your tips in the comments section…

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How many times it has occurred that you plan to complete a certain activity in a couple of hours but end up spending much more than time what is expected. If you are leading a team, the same might also apply to your team members.

Image Source – Work Management

The delay could be because of unwanted meetings, resolution of blocker issues, unproductive use of project time, delay of dependent deliverables, etc. In some cases, the delay might enter into an infinite loop thereby adversely affecting the project deadlines and hampering motivation of team members!

It is estimated that 25% of the average worker’s day is wasted on inefficient work, which means that If you work an 8-hour day, that’s 2 hours wasted every day i.e. 520 hours/year. Hence, it becomes important to use right as well as efficient scheduling tools for project management.

Wrike, a company that specializes in the development of project management tools] has come up with a very informative infographic that highlights the challenges faced by leaders and team managers to ensure efficient Work Management.

Why Every Team Needs Work Management ToolsInfographic brought to you by Wrike scheduling tools for project management

Do leave a comment on the Work Management tools that you use for better management!

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‘Meeting’ is something that is applicable in our day to day lives, more so in a professional’s life. Many times, corporate employees have to spend the entire day in meetings and some of them might turn out to be entirely pointless. We already see many of you nodding their heads 🙂

Image Source – Meetings

Sticking to the agenda of a meeting becomes very critical since it not only involves you but also a set of team members attending the meeting. Hence, it is the collective responsibility of the meeting attendees to ensure that they do not digress from the core agenda in order to make the meeting super-productive.

Meetings can sometimes be quite hectic and an unproductive meeting at the start of your workday could ruin your remaining time in office. It becomes imperative to decide whether you really want to call for a meeting or whether you can do away with ‘that’ meeting by using some effective project management tools so that you can collaborate with your team in a much better manner. In order to be an effective planner of your activities, you need to use the right set of free [or premium] project management tools that can also be used for cross-site teams. Better project planning could eventually result in far lesser face to face meetings!

Wrike, a work management & collaboration platform used by high-performance teams has come up with a very informative infographic titled Should we have a meeting. We liked the overall presentation which is in the form of a flowchart with the core being ‘go vs. no go’ for a meeting. We hope that you use it for executing a ‘productive’ meeting!

Infographic brought to you by Wrike free project management tool

Should We Have This Meeting? - by Wrike project management tools

What are some of the methods you follow to have an effective meeting, do leave your suggestion in the comments section…

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There is a very good saying A Boss says ‘Go’ whereas a Leader says ‘Let’s Go’. Though the only difference between the two of them is the use of the word Let’s, it changes the entire tone of the sentence. The boss is ‘ordering’ his team whereas the leader is ‘leading’ his team! There is a vast amount of difference between a ‘Boss’ and ‘Leader’, you might be a good boss but that does not equate to being a good leader.

Image Source – Boss Vs Leader

Good leaders motivate their team members and they are a source of inspiration. They encourage their employees to improve their skills so that they can take the organization to the next well. They always have a deep sense of understanding as to when they need to manage, lead or pitch in a discussion. There are tons of differences between leaders and bosses; right from the manner they make crucial decisions, manage teams using project management tools, collaborate activities between cross-site teams using cloud collaboration tools, pitch to customers for contracts, handle employee feedback and appraisals, etc.

In very simplified terms, Leaders are respected by people whereas Bosses are forced to be respected by people. We recently came across this very informative Infographic from Wrike (a work management & collaboration platform used by high-performance teams) that highlights the glaring difference between a Boss and a Leader.

Infographic brought to you by Wrike cloud collaboration tools

Boss vs. Leader: The Never-Ending Battle Between Power and Leadership

What according to you should be the traits of a good leader, do leave your suggestions in the comments section…

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Your company has won a new contract and you are gearing to start the project. As a business project manager, before you chalk down the set of activities, tentative deliverables, roles & responsibilities of team members, risks, etc. it is very important to have a Kick-off meeting for the project. Kick-off meeting is an enthusiasm-generator for the customer and the team members involved in the project. As a project manager, you need to pull up your sleeves and plan activities using effective & productive project management tools so that you can focus on planning as well as execution.

One such platform is Wrike, a work management & collaboration platform used by high-performance teams. It is ideal for managing localized project teams as well as distritubuted teams. So, before you start working on your project planning, let’s have a look at some interesting tips for setting up a successful project kick-off!

10 Steps to a Kickass Project Kickoff: A Checklist for Project Managers

Infographic brought to you by Wrike business project manager