With the release of version 8.7, Journyx ProjectXecute combines cross-project resource allocation and financial forecasting with a full set of tools for maintaining compliance and audit trails for government contractors.  The new features in this version allow companies subject to the Defense Contractor Audit Agency (DCAA) to manage contracts from the planning and bidding stages to successful completion and post-mortem analysis.

According to CEO Curt Finch, Journyx has many years of experience providing government contractors with the tools needed to automate compliant time management processes using their  Journyx Timesheet software.  Many customers have used the time tracking, rule enforcement, and approval workflow information to pass DCAA audits. 

Now that ProjectXecute 8.7 includes the complete DCAA tool set, government contractors can continue to maintain their compliant time process while gaining access to features for project resource planning, financial projections for contracts, and robust reporting on resource availability and project status/variance.  ProjectXecute also includes a variety of standard integrations with popular accounting and payroll systems to ensure accounting processes comply.

Time Management for DCAA

The tools for designing a compliant process start at the beginning with the capture of time fromtime-tracking for employees, and move up the chain through approvals to payroll and billing.  While government contractors aren’t really given a choice about whether or not to track their time, when the process is quick and hassle-free compliance is easier for everyone involved.  I found through my testing that ProjectXecute offered a nice variety of time entry screens that can be customized to fit many different types of employees in an organization.

Personal project lists and memorized entries give employees short cuts for getting time entered quickly.  Their companies are also able to set up rules and selection filters that ensure time is entered correctly. Notations for corrections can be a requirementmight be required and are available for reporting and audit support.  The software also allows nicely for workflow approval processes so as to ensure that the appropriate managers review employee time and corrections.  When all time has been reviewed and approved, integrations, such as the one for with popular software such as QuickBooks, allows users to move the time data into systems for payroll and billing. 

Project Resource Allocation and Financial Projections

Integrated with the time capture process Pare project tracking and resource allocation for project teams is integrated with the time capture process.  When developing a work plan for a bid, contractors can review future availability of the necessary resources using bar graphs that allow them to quickly identify where there is excess capacity or where additional hiring might be necessary.  They can also assign pay and billing rates to resources, which allows them to plan and adjust assignments to maximize profit potential.

The cost and revenue information is captured in highly configurable reports for both forecasting and comparing plans to actuals.  Text and graphical report types can be run directly in the browser with options to filter or /group data, show charts, run reports in different formats, schedule recurring reports and copy/email reports for distribution.  An Excel-based reporting engine that includes real-time access to the Journyx data provides even more customization options for charts, graphs and calculated fields based on pivot table reports.

Dashboards for Project/Resource Status and Analysis

Resource allocation views, combined with automatic warnings and alerts, allow project managers to keep the work on track.  For example, a project manager may receive an alert of an estimate change from a team member indicating he needs more time to complete an assignment.  The project manager can then use configurable dashboards to determine if adjustments are needed to meet deadlines for this assignment.  She can use reports and the bar graph views mentioned above to find available and qualified resources to that will assist in completing the assignment on time.  Availability views give a complete picture of the demands on resource time, including other assignments, administrative work, and scheduled leave and holiday time.

Project dashboards are also useful in determining why projects run late or go over the allotted budget.  With variance tracking, project managers and executives can see how and why the actual work deviated from the original project plan and come up with improvements to the estimation process going forward.

First Take
Journyx ProjectXecute 8.7 is a flexible program for managing resource availability and enforcing compliance for work performed on government contracts.  Project teams subject to the DCAA should be able to make good use of the resource allocation and project monitoring tools in the product while automating the required time management process all in the same system.  

Takeaway:  Dooster is easy to use tool that is both powerful and flexible.  In my opinion, the average project professional can be up and running with Dooster faster than any other project management software tool.  I literally stumbled on this nice web-based tool after doing some online searching for project management and task managed tools.  As you probably already know, there are hundreds of options for PM software now, but I’m recommending this highly as a tool to check out for 2012.

As soon as I logged into Dooster I felt comfortable, though I knew I was in for a different experience…which I considered a good thing at this point in my project management life.

I expected to find all the usual task management features, and I did.  How you load information in for tasks and collaborate is a different process than most MS Project-type users will be used to, but I’m certain that after you’ve setup your first project through their helpful tutorial process, you’ll understand how easy it is to use.  I liken it to my experience of switching from a Windows laptop to my Macbook.  It was a different way of life for a few minutes, and then it felt like I had always been there.  It made sense.

Who is it for?

Dooster is for anyone looking for a better way to organize their tasks or ongoing activities.  It’s great for project management professionals in small to medium sized organizations, but it’s also great for volunteers, entrepreneurs, homemakers…anyone looking for an easy way to get up and running fast to track tasks.

Typical Dooster users include any individual or business that wants to organize their activities in a better way.

Why use it?

The key challenges when managing projects, tasks, and team members are organizing time and assignments, communicating with team and customers, and collaborating to share information.  Dooster can help the project manager and team with all of these activities and the best thing is that it does it in an easy and cost-effective manner.

After playing with Dooster for a while and running it through its paces on some sample tasks, I could tell that it was very full-featured.  While it’s very different from your run-of-the-mill Gantt chart software, it gives the user a new and refreshing angle on task planning and management.  Look at it as keeping things fresh….

Special Features:

Helpful intro:  The first thing out of the gate is a demo.  As soon as you’ve signed up for the free trial, you’re taken to your dashboard and offered a setup video.  Works for me…  If you don’t want the video, then it takes you through the steps of diving right into your first project setup.

Task management: Dooster provides a very straightforward interface for setting up and tracking tasks for projects and for other non-project activities.

Status reporting: I really liked the Dooster dashboard features.  I could see nice, detailed status information across projects and tasks at a glance – something that other software programs struggle with as they often try to make it too detailed.  Dooster strives to simplify.

Timesheet tracking: Dooster includes a nice timesheet export feature for grabbing all task effort out into one reporting function.  Nice feature to aid in your expense and budget analysis and forecasting processes.

Communication & Collaboration: Dooster allows the user to easily assign tasks to one or more resources and then allows for email alerts of all comments and changes on project tasks.  All comments – from the program and through email – are centralized in the tasks themselves automatically keeping all information in one accessible location.

Support: I did test out support and found responses to be very timely and helpful.  No 2-day wait to get your questions answered.

What is wrong?

Not your standard Gantt software: You’ll want to think outside the box a little if your mind is stuck on managing projects using a tool like MS Project.  This isn’t your standard Gantt chart software.  It’s focused more on managing the tasks, but it does a nice job of status reporting and providing the global picture with its dashboard feature.  For those who can’t bear to live without Gantt charts in their lives, I have been informed  that introduction of the Gantt chart feature is not far off – work is in progress on that functionality.

Bottom line for Business:

Dooster is not likely going to win over large corporate entities tomorrow.  It is, however, great for small to medium sized businesses for managing projects and tasks and for anyone who wants to do a better job of managing their ongoing work and personal tasks. Signup for the free 30-day trial – you won’t be disappointed.

Rating: 5/5 stars

I’m rating this product highly because of its full compliment of features, its ease of use, and its price.

Specifications:

Product: Dooster
Web Site: www.dooster.net
Free Trial: Free 3 Project Signup
Company: privately held
Requirements: Current web browser
Packages: 4 projects up to 200 projects
Cost: from $3.97 per month to $97.00 month - additional pricing details at: dooster.net/pricing.htm

Have you ever had that project customer where no matter what you do, it seems like it’s never enough?  No matter how hard you try, they’re always looking for something more or something different?  I’m not really talking about being constantly dissatisfied with your service or project management expertise or really the engagement itself.  It’s more than that.  It’s almost like “they’ll know it when they see it,” yet they never seem to see it. 

There are usually two types of these customers:

1)    You do what they ask, but they always ask for more

2)    You do what they ask, but it’s never exactly what they want

Let’s look at these two types of perpetually dissatisfied customers in more detail and steps you can take to possibly make the situation turn out favorably:

The customer who always wants more

I had one of those on project I ran for about a year.  I took it over from a purely technical person – someone who was just assigned to get them the proprietary data the needed as a result of the sale of an internal business unit within the organization that I was consulting for.  After a period of time, it became evident that they were getting nowhere and need actual project management wrapped around the effort.

Every time I delivered the requested data to them, they would come up with something more that they wanted.  And it wasn’t like I could just throw up my hands and say “Enough!” and tell them to get lost.  No, it wasn’t going to be that easy because they were still holding on to a quarter of a million dollars of the final sale payment that was contingent upon them being satisfied with the transition of data and materials.

The only way I could close things out with this project customer – and I think the only way to handle any customer who continually wants more – was to go back to the drawing board.  I resurrected the planning phase and we sat down and mapped out exactly what had been provided to date, what they believed remained to be provided, and what the final signoff criteria would be in order to obtain the final sale payment.  I cared about their satisfaction.  My management cared about the money.  And the customer cared about the data.  This planning process set in motion the corrective action needed to fulfill everyone’s needs and ultimately we got it done and it was deemed highly successful.

For the project customer who continually wants more you have to go back to planning.  Because what they are really doing is pushing the scope further and further and if you don’t stop the chaos then everything on the engagement will suffer including the budget and the customer’s satisfaction.

The customer who thinks it’s never quite right

The case of the project customer who thinks it’s never quite right is similar in many ways to the customer who continually wants more.  But in this case, it’s not really a situation where the scope is being constantly pushed out.  It’s more a case of the requirements weren’t adequately documented and therefore you have no real yardstick to measure your deliverables against. 

I had this happen with an engagement I was working on for a major university.  I had my team going through some final issue resolution prior to deployment of a software solution.  Again, this is a case where I had taken over the project and was tasked with getting a final large payment for this software implementation.  My direction was to make the customer happy and get the money.

As we resolved issues, it seemed like the signoff criteria that the customer was willing to adhere to in order to release the payment was changing.  As issues were resolved, the response was often, “Well, this isn’t exactly how we wanted the software to perform” or some similar response.  It wasn’t really necessary to go back to planning, but it was critical that we halt the project right there and sit down formally to draw up (again!) what truly was the signoff criteria for deployment.  One key underlying issue that I discovered was that the project customer was concerned with where they would be post-deployment if issues continued to arise.  Once I found that out, I made post-deployment support and issue resolution for a three-month ongoing period part of the signoff agreement.  That got us over the hump and we were soon able to get through deployment and formal signoff…. and payment.

Summary

If you’re dealing with customers who are responding like this, it’s not the end of the world.  You just have to recognize it before you allow it to go on so long that it kills the momentum on the project, kills the customer’s confidence in you, and leaves you with a canceled project.  Go back and update the project planning schedule and perform any necessary re-planning or formally draw up new acceptance criteria and get the customer back on track with helping you keep the project going.

If you or your organization is in need of an affordable, easy to adopt, and fully functional project management and collaboration tool, you should check out Dooster.  Try it for free here.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were reporting to a PMO director and you wonder what value this person brings to the table?  You romanticize about how much more productive you would be if you didn’t have to jump through his hoops.  Better yet, you consider how much better off you – and all the other PMs - would be if you were running the show.  Or at least if you got to handpick his successor.  Am I striking a chord here?  Of course I am.

I’m going to state what I think a good PMO director needs to bring to the table.  I’m hoping on the couple of occasions so far where I’ve run the show that I did bring these things to the table.  At least I know I tried.  And I will say that sometimes the organizational chemistry and process flow doesn’t always allow for the utopia that I’m going to describe.  But getting somewhere close would be nice.

#1 – Manage the PMO, not a bunch of projects

The PMO director really needs to be a leader of people, not projects.  I’m so tired of seeing PM’s who are spending most of their time leading the big projects also acting in the role of PMO director.  It’s just not right.  The PMO director needs to establish processes, identify training needs, knock down barriers, make connections, and fight for the PMO’s presence in the organization.  He needs to be putting the proper tools in the hands of the PMs like reusable templates, the proper planning documents and an easy to use project management tool that makes project collaboration easy.  It’s how the viability of the PM processes is maintained. You can’t rely on the CEO to suddenly think what you’re doing matters.  Not when so many projects fail or have major issues.  No, someone must be championing the organization.  That’s the director.  If he’s leading five projects of his own, he can’t do that.  No one can.

#2 – Know your organization

The PMO director must know the organization.  He must know how get information, favors, resources, and support.  Unless it’s a startup situation, it’s very difficult to bring in an outsider as the director and have them be immediately useful.  It’s better to bring outsiders in as PMs and promote a good leader to this role.

#3 – Care about the PM’s, not the politics

The PMO director must be ready to fight for the project managers in the PMO like the PMs fight for their customers.  I’m sorry, but if I’m being pulled two ways – one way by senior management and one way by the customer – it’s usually going to be the customer’s concerns that I react to first.  Likewise, the PMO director should be more concerned about his organization and fighting for it rather than playing a lot of politically games for senior management – unless that is in the best interests of the PMO itself.  So many PMOs fail, they need a strong leader fighting to keep it viable.

#4 – Communicate well

Above all else – just like with any project manager – the PMO director must be a great communicator.  Company policies, processes, planning, etc. must all come from this individual.  And he must be a good listener because there are lots of project issues that arise that PMs need help with.  Their success must be his utmost concern.

Conclusion

So, can I fire my PMO director?  Well, sort of.  If the needs of the project managers are not being met and if the PMO is faltering because of a lack of organized, efficient, and effective leadership, then waiting will only mean projects will fail.  Customers will be lost.  The company bottom line will take a huge hit.  And so will careers.  Staying quiet is not in anyone’s best interest.  If it’s a common feeling (and not just your own grudge) that the PMO leadership is ineffective, it must be taken up the chain of command.  And yes, then you can fire your PMO director.  It would be your duty to do so.

If you or your organization is in need of an affordable, easy to adopt, and fully functional project management and collaboration tool, you should check out Dooster.  Go here to try it for free.

By Michele Borovac


Published by: Clarizen Work Execution Software

Today is an exciting day in our offices. Clarizen InterAct, part of version 5.3, is ready for use and includes major, new functionality that makes it easy to manage project tasks and reporting directly from any email application. InterAct is patent-pending technology which allows users to update projects, log issues or even turn on a stopwatch to track their time, all from their email without having to log into Clarizen. Now email is more than just a communications tool.

As you can imagine, we believe InterAct will change how people use email and Clarizen. The whole idea is to break down the silos of communications and make it easier for people to complete work and keep teams informed about progress straight from the application people already spend the majority of their day using. InterAct also safeguards tasks, issues and updates from falling through the cracks. We think InterAct will improve how teams engage with tasks, projects, managers, customers as well as one another.

Here’s a breakdown of the key features:

• Gives users the ability to engage with Clarizen from any device using any email client.
• Allows users to send email directly to Clarizen, which in turn, updates tasks and projects automatically without needing to login.
• Includes predefined mailboxes that help apply the most commonly used functionality within Clarizen, making it fast and easy to begin emailing Clarizen.
• Offers customization so emails can perform any action users are able to do within Clarizen when logged-in.
• Generates vCards for each mailbox in InterAct so users know which email address to use when sending messages for specific projects and tasks.

In addition to adding InterAct to Clarizen, we’ve worked on a few other features as a part of v5.3 that will improve productivity:

• Stopwatch: This feature will help users understand who is working on what, empowering teams with a new level of visibility into projects and resources. Using the Stopwatch is simple, especially when triggering it from InterAct, Clarizen’s iPhone app or online. The Stopwatch keeps track of time on any reportable work item and runs in the background. 
• Relations Summary Fields: Users can look up related objects and calculate formulas such as the sum, average, minimum and maximum of related entities’ fields.
• Single Sign On and LDAP Integration: Organizations can configure Clarizen to synchronize with their AD/LDAP system to enable single-sign-on and single logout to various applications, depending on the connection to the corporate network. The feature also offers direct integration so new employees, teammates or contributors are added as Clarizen users.

All of the new features are now available for Clarizen users. We’re eager to see how InterAct and the other features improve collaboration and make getting work done more efficient. As always, we look forward to your feedback and please let us know how else we can improve Clarizen. Enjoy!

Clarizen, creators of the popular web-based project management software of the same name, is starting to wow the PM industry all over again with their newest release – which was just announced on October 20, 2011.  Clarizen InterAct, which is part of the Clarizen version 5.3 release, is a patent-pending email server that takes email from being a communication tool to being an execution engine. 

The capabilities InterAct adds in terms of project communication for project managers such as myself can really be a game changer.  Users can now customize mailboxes and build their own rules to perform just about any operation in the software including initiating or updating projects, logging issues, or performing time-tracking functions, to name a few.  InterAct improves how project teams collaborate, work assigned project tasks, and engage with their project managers and customers using something they already use throughout the workday – their email system.

InterAct features include:

• Gives users the ability to engage with Clarizen from any device using any email client.
• Allows users to send email directly to Clarizen, which in turn updates tasks and projects automatically, without needing to login.
• Includes predefined mailboxes that help utilize the most commonly used functionality within Clarizen, making it fast and easy to begin emailing Clarizen.
• Offers customization so emails can perform almost any action users are able to do within Clarizen when logged-in.
• Generates vCards for each mailbox in InterAct so users know which email address to use when sending messages for specific projects and tasks. 

Additional features new to Clarizen version 5.3 include:

• Stopwatch: Helps users understand who is working on what, empowering teams with a new level of visibility into projects and resources.
• Relations Summary Fields: Users can look up related objects and calculate formulas such as the sum, average, minimum and maximum of related entities’ fields.
• Single Sign On and LDAP Integration: Organizations can configure Clarizen to synchronize with their AD/LDAP system to enable single-sign-on and single logout to various applications depending on the connection to the corporate network.

To learn more about InterAct and Clarizen v5.3 visit Clarizen.com

Automation Centre, award-winning developer of TrackerSuite.Net (www.TrackerSuite.Net), received a "Promising" rating from Gartner Inc. in its recent report, "MarketScope for Project and Portfolio Management Applications".

Gartner Inc., a premier information technology research and advisory company that delivers technology related insight to CIOs and senior IT leadership, developed this MarketScope report based on the current Project Portfolio Management software market, and how solutions within it support various scenarios for PPM, including those experienced by IT departments.

This report is intended for use by prospective PPM and Project Office software users to review vendors supporting processes for managing projects, viewing project portfolios and resources. Its evaluation criteria included: customer experience, offering strategy, the product and/or services delivered, the organization's business model and history of innovation, market awareness and responsiveness, and finally the track record of the organization.

According to Gartner, "... Promising vendors are a mix of PPM vendors and products - older, more established vendors, as well as newcomers with innovative thinking, lighter PPM footprints, interesting development strategies, or simplified PPM process automation overlooked by more established vendors in the market."

"We are very pleased to receive a 'Promising' rating in this MarketScope report," said Steven Birchfield of Automation Centre. "The marketplace for Web based / SaaS solutions for Projects and IT has exploded over the last several years, and to be recognized by Gartner as one of fifteen 'Promising' contenders within such a competitive market is not only an accomplishment, but we also believe it is assurance that our company’s vision is correct and that our product development is moving in the right direction."

For interested parties, a free TrackerSuite.Net demonstration site is available for evaluation. Register here for immediate access.

About Automation Centre

Automation Centre (www.Acentre.com) is a leading provider of advanced Project and IT Service Management solutions for organizations of all sizes. Automation Centre's primary products include TrackerSuite.Net, Tracker Suite (www.TrackerSuite.com) for IBM Lotus Notes, and TrackerOffice (www.TrackerOffice.com) for Microsoft Outlook/Exchange. TrackerSuite.Net is a trademark of Automation Centre. Tracker Suite and TrackerOffice are registered trademarks of Automation Centre.

About the MarketScope

The MarketScope is copyrighted 2011 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The MarketScope is an evaluation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the MarketScope, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest rating. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

by Damian Giannunzio

While a ruler of ancient Greece would be perplexed by a smartphone, he still understands what is required to maintain a prosperous kingdom. King Midas of myth and the modern CIO share a number of fundamental desires: stability, consolidation, and service. These are essential values that transcend time and retain their luster after thousands of years. And whether you’re trying to run a kingdom, small-to-medium business, or enterprise-level company, you are often occupied with acquiring or maintaining them.

Midas prayed for the ability to transmute anything to gold at a touch… but gold is a heavy anchor, as he soon discovered. Implementing a business plan without being fully apprised of a value proposition’s associated costs can be ruinous—golden apples are pretty, but hardly edible. The Midas touch opportunity that is virtualization requires careful review and understanding by a CIO.

Talk of virtualization, private clouds, public clouds, and everything in between has become so commonplace that you’re the unpopular and unprincipled dilettante at the ball if you don’t have an interesting anecdote to share on the topic. While the confusion persists, you’re still looking for the bottom line: Is this the direction that my business needs to move in? The field is still changing and advancing so rapidly that it can be difficult to find your footing on the shifting ground. So where do you begin?

The old way 
Businesses and enterprises alike are plagued with inefficiencies, runaway resource distribution, and escalating costs. The contributing factors are numerous but can be quantified generally by underutilization and inflexibility. While server sprawl and workstation profusion escalate, storage administrators are still aware of the fact that these resources are not at full capacity. Licensing constraints and application purposing dictate the need for resource assignment, leading to a situation in which some servers have to pull triple time while others are barely active. Production floors are saturated with PCs at varying levels of hardware tier and HelpDesk inboxes overflow with upgrade requests or reports of malfunction. Many businesses are still ignoring performance issues such as file fragmentation.

The problem is that this sounds normal. Because we have always dealt with the tight coupling of software and hardware, the solution path has traditionally led towards more distribution. Building out the network reactively has been simple to cost in terms of the production demands of the moment: a drive died, a new server is required, we need X additional workstations, etc. Purchase orders pile up for additional software licensing, IT costs continue to break ever higher glass ceilings, and we convince ourselves that this is growth.

While there have been amazing advances in continuity, server outages due to poor load balancing persist. Tools enabling the automation of these services are typically proprietary, which means hundreds of IT hours annually spent in learning, implementation, and maintenance for potentially hardware-specific tools. The thought of migrating the business to a new architecture can paralyze a server administrator with fear, yet little choice remains when expansion is the only answer.

Solutions exist. Disk fragmentation prevention or correction for direct-attached storage and other utilities can increase system performance for current infrastructures and resolve some of the fundamental issues driving these larger problems. The advent of shared storage gave us an introduction to the massive opportunities available in consolidation. True scalability, though, remains out of reach. We’re still subject to the pitfalls of storage islands and their rising energy costs.

Gold as light as a cloud 
Virtualization actually predates distributed computing. More than 30 years ago, IBM first implemented virtualization in order to logically partition their mainframes into separate ‘virtual machines.’ And the rationale then still holds true today: They virtualized in order to fully leverage their resources.

To understand the principal benefits of virtualization, let’s review the core concept: abstraction and separation of application from hardware. When you tie specific use cases to server or workstation hardware, you tie the survival, investment, and productivity of the use cases to that hardware. It is little wonder, then, that IT purchasing has become so accepted that preapproved budgets in the hundreds of thousands or even millions get rubber stamped with minimal review. The very survival of mission-critical applications currently rests on these hardware expenses.

Introducing an internal virtual infrastructure, or ‘private cloud,’ is the first step toward escaping the current model. Separation of application permits the evaluation of hardware expense as a cost distinct from simply being able to do business, giving companies a choice. At the same time, a virtual administrator can now leverage dynamic control over the resources available to that virtualized application, since it is no longer tied to one set of physical resources.

Virtualization also opens the door to new conventions for performance and IT. Stepping away from the model of ‘one system, one application’ yields new pathways for measuring the advancement and growth of enterprise. Putting a price tag on server or workstation usability, enterprise management, and energy costs gives the purchase decision maker more granular control on proper spending. Long-frazzled system administrators who have spent countless hours tapping pencil to forehead while desperately trying to word their proposals for IT investments are now able to eloquently and effectively communicate the need for innovation because we can see the cost of performance.

‘Public cloud’ offerings are rapidly multiplying as well. These remote virtual services offer the benefits of virtualization with even greater scalability and the reliability of dedicated virtual resources that may exceed by leaps and bounds the infrastructure available at any given price point for private cloud. These encompass every form of virtualization possible, from individual applications and file stores to workstations and servers.

In contemplating a transition to private/public cloud or a hybrid implementation of the two, it’s necessary to quantify what the realized benefits to your business will be. Consolidation and increased life of hardware is not an abstract concept—it’s reduced cost. Improved business continuity expands on previously understood and accepted data security standards. Improved performance means greater service levels, internally and externally. All of these are positioned as the value proposition for virtualization, and rightly so. They also need to be weighed against the costs of new storage requirements, the IT investments associated with implementation, and the new obstacles that virtualization can present. With virtual provisioning over shared storage, an administrator needs to understand and monitor resources with a far keener eye than ever before. More than one resource suffers when bottlenecks occur, and optimizing your new or existing virtual platform must be a paramount concern.

In the case of medium business to large-scale enterprise, virtualization will be the norm in a matter of years. It’s important to get educated now and to begin understanding not only the benefits but also the unique challenges of virtualization. Know when to virtualize based on your existing physical infrastructure and application use, and monitor the benefits as virtualization is instituted. Look before you leap, and get all of the gold your kingdom can handle without the heavy burden.

Damian Giannunzio is the product manager at Diskeeper Corporation (Burbank, CA). www.diskeeper.com.  Reprinted with the permission of WestWorld Productions, Inc. (www.wwpi.com). Copyright 2011. All rights reserved.

By: Cassie Doubleday

As remote communication becomes the increasing norm for clients, co-workers, employees, and managers, we as the sender need to think twice about how we write, and the possible ways our emails could be interpreted. 

I have to ask myself and you: do we really need to check the tone of our emails? Has it really come to a point that we’re unable to understand what’s being said to us via our screen? Or is it true what they say, “Face-to-face” communication can never be replaced”? 

Last year, Lymbix launched ToneCheck. The free product claims to be the solution to one of the biggest problems when communicating with people via email – misinterpretation of what the email really means.  We all have run into this problem. We send an email about a meeting or suggest an edit on a project and the receiver of the email takes it too personally. The result? You have an irritated employee/co-worker who thinks you’re out to get them.

It’s interesting because I’ve been using this product via my outlook and am going to implement it in my Gmail (just for kicks). What it does, is read what you’re writing, and based on your word choice and sentence structure, it tells you what the receiver may think you’re saying.  It claims to analyze emotional insight too. I’m still not 100% sold on that, but it does make me think twice about what I am writing.

This is a benefit and also problem. It’s time consuming to mull over and rewrite emails. It’s also time consuming to constantly worry that you’re going to upset someone when in fact you’re just being direct. It’s even more time consuming and mentally draining to deal with virtual conflict. Wouldn’t you agree?

The more I think about ToneCheck the more I realize that it isn’t necessarily the way we write our emails but rather the way we work in a team. Sure, we sometimes send an email that comes off different than what we intended, but, if the person you’re writing to already knows how you communicate, shouldn’t they be able to recognize that there’s no harm in those words?

This makes me think that it’s not our tone, but rather our team building and co-operation skills that may be the problem. If you’re going to be working virtually with a team, you may not get the chance to meet in person, so make your virtual introduction count. It will set the ‘tone’ for communications later on.

Here are three ways do this virtually:

1.     Skype

If you can, before you work with anyone virtually set-up a Skype meeting to introduce yourself and your company.  This is the new face-to-face. It will give the receiver a sense of who you are and put a face to the name in the emails they’re going to be getting.  Doing this first will provide long term benefits, and even make the way you interact more credible.

2.     Video Introduction

Video introductions are simple and easy. You don’t have to overdo it, just send a quick minute and half video about yourself, what you do and what you’re looking forward to in regards to working with this team.  It’s more personal and again, puts a face to the name.

3.     Send a Picture

If Skype or video are not available solutions, why not send a picture? A picture gives the person a better idea of who they are talking to – the face of the message.  This simple addition will add more personality to your email and increase the comfort level for you and your team.

While ToneCheck could be a solution to potential day-to-day remote communication misunderstandings, it could also create unnecessary worry and uncertainty. This is why it’s still the team building that provides security within us, our co-workers and the project.  And why it’s important to make sure that you have a good project management software, like Sharepoint Hosting 2010, which allows everyone to work in sync – not just via email.

If you’re going to be virtually working with a team, a proper visual introduction will give everyone that extra confidence boost needed in order to successfully and comfortably work together.

There’s no reason not to hold at least one virtual face-to-face meeting and I’m not sure there’s a need for ToneCheck.

Cassie Doubleday is a Canadian based tech geek and blogger with over three years experience in online social media marketing and online communities. She’s a Gen Y with a background in Public Relations. She often checks her tone. 

Click to view the free webinar.

Enterprise CIOs are in a bind. On one hand, their organizations are being asked to become more agile and lean. On the other hand, they are being asked to reduce operational costs. Is your path to enhanced business agility and operational efficiency in the cloud?

In this highly informative video, VMware, Tier 3 and Equinix provide you insights into:

• Opportunities for creating business agility and reducing operational overhead with Hybrid Cloud
  
• How IT can extend the benefits of their existing VMware virtualized environment by leveraging the application migration benefits of VMware- based Hybrid Cloud solutions
  
• What essential requirements to look for in your Enteprise Grade Hybrid Cloud Service Provider
  
• What fast, secure connectivity solutions and cloud marketplace services to expect from your colo provider

Speakers are:

• Nic O’Donavan – Solutions Architect, VMware
  
• Bryan Thompson – VP of Services, Tier 3
  
• Lou Najdzin – Vertical Development Director, Global Cloud & IT Services, Equinix

Click to view the free webinar.