ITrace Consulting

[...] initial resources and little contingency, can be delivered successfully by an experienced project manager working with a well-defined business case and a well-motivated team. With effective [...]

[...] project activities. No wonder they make excuses to miss these meetings! How can you, as project manager, structure a weekly status meeting so team members are engaged, informed and willing to [...]

[...] be available to make decisions and resolve issues (that are outside the jurisdiction of the project manager) within two hours. [...]

[...] knowing which ones to tackle first and how to do that. Identifying risks The first thing a project manager needs to be comfortable with is the idea that you can never identify every risk that may [...]

[...] ;s available out there and what tools might support your particular project-management needs? Project managers use software to support six different types of project-management functions. This article [...]

[...] it would be great to have a recipe for project success – something that guaranteed project managers a great outcome on their projects. So I started thinking about what that recipe would look [...]

[...] Many project managers believe extra resources make all the difference between a project success and failure. But [...]

[...] design choices introduce implementation risks. The existence of unknowable risks means that project managers need to make the risk management process cyclical, and therefore reassess a project as it [...]

[...] The project schedule is probably the most important document a project manager will put together. I print mine [...]

[...] how they interconnect. This type of project plan provides a powerful way to define the project schedule, understand the critical path for a project, and assess and allocate staff resources. It [...]

[...] budget because equipment purchases ate even beyond what your contingency allowed, and now a project sponsor or customer may be questioning the overrun. You should be able to pinpoint the authorization [...]

[...] How to Interview the Project Sponsor The ugliest words in project management can occur when the project is over: “We can& [...]

[...] threat is escalated to someone outside the project who can decide what to do, perhaps the project sponsor, and the same should happen with opportunities. [...]

[...] their place to agree to change the scope of the project – that is the job of the project sponsor. Second, if you agree to every single change you’ll never reach the end of the [...]

[...] that different resources are going to have a different impact on your project. Tools such as Microsoft Project will have a function called ‘levelling’ resources which allows you to adjust [...]

[...] tools allow you to collect time in a way that more or less integrates with your task. Microsoft Project has powerful tools that allow you to request and receive timesheets via email that then flow [...]

[...] Project Management Software that can help you manage projects. What kind of software is out there and which tools [...]

[...] schedule. 2. Create A Gantt Chart When all your tasks are uploaded into your project management software, you can use it to create a Gantt chart. This is a graphical representation [...]

[...] Holding Project Weekly Status Meeting Many project team members prepare for weekly status meetings with a sense of dread and resignation. These [...]

[...] you have and what you might be lacking. You take advantage of the strengths you have in your project team by assigning them to the areas where they will add the most value. And you use your knowledge [...]

[...] to ensure your project meets its objectives. Then you can allocate each task to one of your project team so they know exactly what they need to do. So that they know when to do it, add some dates to [...]

[...] all, you need to know what you are doing before you can start doing it! Sit down with your project team and get some tasks defined. Establish what order you should do them in and then you’re [...]

[...] meetings often subject people to long motivational speeches, an overly detailed review of project tasks and even the unpleasant prospect of speaking about their specific progress in front of project [...]

[...] capture the discussion and save it for you to refer to later. They can also speed up a lot of project tasks as you can have access to the project experts straight away. 4. A Process For Managing Risk [...]

[...] Fixed dates can cause issues with automatic scheduling because they do not move if other project tasks move. An activity could move forwards or backwards (say, if you complete it early) but a [...]