Network accounts that are over-privileged can create huge problems for organizations and network administrators, including unnecessary risks and vulnerabilities to network security.  From entitlement creep to non-human accounts, learn more about how to deal with this issue and mitigate the risks... 

by Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, CAL, CPD, PMP, RYD

What version upgrade are you releasing related to how you do projects? How long until the upgrade is fully uploaded to your operating system?
If your project skills were like software, what version upgrade are you releasing? When?
​
Yes, I say upgrade – because even if you’re already on version Project Skills 5.0, there are still ways you could create new experiences with how you do projects...

​By Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP®, PMI-ACP, RYT, Chief Cheetah and Founder of Cheetah Learning

Project Managers – and all professionals, really – pursue credentials in their field for a variety of reasons: to advance their knowledge and skills, to build their reputation, to earn a promotion, to get a pay raise… All of these are perfectly valid reasons for seeking a credential. Those Project Managers who really stand out from the crowd, however, are those who view credentials (like the Project Management Professional – PMP or Cheetah Certified Project Manager – CCPM) as a starting point for their careers and as a means to increasing their impact as a Project Manager...

​Just reading this subject line - "What are Your Project Management Training Options" almost makes me feel like I'm asking you "when do you want to have that root canal?"

But this is precisely the problem with improving projects - it doesn't have to be as bad as a painful dental procedure to learn more effective ways of doing your projects. 

Nor does it have to be extremely boring or some type of mandatory training everyone knows is good for them, but no one wants to go to, never mind implement what they learned afterward.   

And that is the problem with regular project management training. 

(Check out Cheetah Learning CEO Michelle LaBrosse's blog post that explains how and why she got into creating the most engaging project improvement learning approaches on the planet).

With Cheetah Learning - they are more about results than they are about just offering a fantastically fun, easy and rewarding learning experience.

Becoming better with Projects the "Cheetah" way means:

1. You'll do things just a little differently - even with changing course a degree you can create a significant competitive advantage.
2. You'll pursue projects with new energy.  You may actually start fewer projects, but you'll finish those much quicker.
3. You'll inspire and influence those around you to rise to the occasion and improve with you. But not by anything you say, more by what you do.
4. You'll attract other top performers to work on projects with you.
5. You'll find yourself feeling more powerful and less frustrated as you will be using a project management method that has proven effective over the past two decades.
6. You'll reach for more aggressive goals as you will have a more guaranteed chance of achieving them.
7. You'll see many more dimensions to getting a return from your efforts.  This extends well beyond the standard measurements of ROI.

But I want to warn you about a problem with the majority of Project Manager training approaches.

They ask for months, even years of your time, and you aren't even guaranteed you will have all the much success applying the theories after all your hard work.

Do you really have the time for that?

With Cheetah, you and your group significantly reduce the time it takes to learn and implement effective project management techniques.

This is truly an evidence-based approach to managing your projects - everything you learn WORKS. It's not just PM theories that have no place in the "real world."  Cheetah Learning have extensively tested every part of their Project Management programs over the past two decades.  

They have a range of Project Management programs designed for every level of your organization.  Click here to read more about their group project management programs.

Cheetah Learning knows how valuable your time is, and they don’t want to waste yours...or theirs.

That’s why Cheetah Learning doesn’t have long, drawn-out study courses.

Cheetah Learning doesn’t cram you full of bullet points and slideshows and they don’t force you to become a caffeine junkie.

They also know humans don’t truly retain information that way. At least, not in the way that helps you become the best version of your project management self.

They are dedicated to being the best and they firmly believe that anything valuable in this world is gained through passion and doing things the right way for YOU.

If you’re serious about becoming better at managing projects,  then I firmly believe you should postpone the root canal and take the next step. 

Click Here to Schedule
a one on one meeting to discuss how Cheetah Learning can improve your projects

And use code "BRADCCPM" for 10% off their incredible Cheetah Certified Project Manager training to learn Cheetah fast and become the best leader you can be - it will truly change your life.

In the digital era we are in today, competition is the fuel that drives most businesses and individuals to give their best, with the knowledge that people are presented with different options to choose from. This is exactly why digital marketing has gained a lot of attention because of the immense impact it has on modern businesses.

Social media has become the leading space in which people sort out almost all technology-related needs also, websites such as serpbook.com help businesses in their quest to gain unmatched rankings in multiple search engines through SEO.

So much thought has been put on website functionality in a bid to provide value to users, and persuade them to develop a routine of continually visit certain sites. It is undeniable that both developers and social media marketers are doing a good job as far as search engine optimization, an you need to move with the tides if succeeding in your online business is your ultimate dream.

Now that you are a social media marketer, SEO tools are not a new concept to you. If they are, then you need to read on! The good news is coming. 
You must have tried so many marketing techniques for SEO, but are you sure you have covered all ground? Enlisted here are 6 tools that you should definitely add to your list if you haven’t tried them yet:

SEOquake

This is a reliable SEO extension for browsers that concentrates on optimizing a page’s content. It does this by combining fully featured SEO analysis. Interestingly, SEOquake can totally stand alone and still give you desired SEO results for your site.

The uniqueness of this browser plugin is that it is fast, and can analyze the metrics of any page on your site, and other sites you take interest in. additionally, this amazing tool shows backlink information on specific URLs; hence showing you how your site is keeping up with the competition. This way, you will be able to determine whether your social media marketing strategy is working, or you need to make adjustments in specific areas.

MozBar

In the field of SEO, this tool is renowned for its effectiveness and for the fact that has widely been used by social media marketers who run top sites across the world. Moz picks up data from more than 10 different search engines, and gives you a wholly analyzed reports in real time.

Once installed on your device, this tool can give you insights from SERP as well as offer you with more site analysis that help in optimization. 

MozBar has a variety of SEO features for custom searches, SERP metrics comparison and rankings.

SEOptimer

This is a metrics optimizer that acts as an audit by monitoring and reporting on every aspect of SEO on your site. It identifies loopholes and alerts you on possible areas to fix – especially technical ones. 

The SEOptimer checks for Meta keywords, images and alt text, external and internal links, Meta descriptions and page titles, which are significant areas for successful optimization. The aftermath of using this tool is a clear report that include tips to improve the optimization of your site for better rankings.

Google webmaster

Google is ranked as the most popular search engine. To make even better, the developers have designed tools that are ideal digital marketers who take SEO with the seriousness it deserves. Google Webmaster is one of them.

This tool is specifically for monitoring and analyzing your site to give you a report of what search engines think of your site. It also points out errors like indexing issues, bugs, among others that might contribute to the sluggishness and poor rankings of your site.

Google incognito window

This tool may seem like a cheesy way to optimize your site, but its efficiency draws it to our top list. 

The incognito window updates you on searched key words customized by users. It allows you to practice accuracy and become specific in keyword ranking thus helping you make sound decisions in terms of content development for social media marketing.

XML Sitemaps

This tool allows you to create a sitemap in a format that can directly be uploaded to webmaster tools.

XML Sitemaps gives search engines an easy time to understand the structure of your site during crawling. Simply put, they act as advisors to search engines on what to crawl. 

Once crawling is done right, optimization is attained not only for your pages, but also for your site’s domain.

Since social media is inevitable in today’s market, having the above SEO tools to walk hand in hand with your social media marketing strategy will ensure that you outrank your competitors, and become a market leader to emulate. Have them in your digital toolbox!

1+1 = $20,000.  Wait, that doesn't make much sense does it?  Have I lost my mind? Are you reading this correctly?

No, neither of us have lost our minds, let me show you how the math works out: 

1. A worker bee named Barb wanted to get ahead in her career, but she didn't know how.
2. Her not so evil stepmother paid for her to take the Cheetah Certified Project Manager program.
3. She took the course and completed it with flying colors.

That certification helped her make the leap from what was a ho-hum job for her in accounts payable to a leadership role in Event Marketing in her company. 

It was here where she could let her freak flag fly and actually became quite an influential Project Manager. 

By finishing the projects she led quickly, she was asked to lead the most important projects there (and since it was in event marketing she got to travel all over helping to host these events too).  

She wasn't just more happy with her work life, she also earned a $20,000 pay raise with the recognition and status more to her liking.  (Plus she is now doing what she loves - interesting how that often happens).

1 project worker bee + 1 Cheetah Training Course = $20,000

Are you ready for some math like that?

Move past the professional doldrums and get working on that bank account of yours.

It all begins with a class registration. Click here to register for the Cheetah Certified Project Manager program.

About every month I present a new PM app/service of the month that, in my opinion, displace excellence within the Project Management profession. My choice for June - the well-deserving MindGenius 2018. 

MindGenius 2018 is a Project Management tool which lets you plan, schedule and manage all project related tasks. Break down ideas and information to understand Project Scope and determine requirements and engage the relevant stakeholders to agree Project Scope and vision. Easily create your Work Breakdown Structure from your plan. Dynamic views allow you to switch easily between, planning, Gantt chart and tasks. Identify dependencies, milestones, constraints and critical path.

Use MindGenius and you will truly evolutionize the way you think with MindGenius.  Are you a visual thinker? Then MindGenius is for you... think visually with powerful mindmapping and project management features built for your best work

Check out these videos to see what MindGenius is and how it has changed in 2018.  And signup for the free version to try it.

​What’s New in MindGenius 2018 
Creative MindMapping
Project Mangement 
Solution Finder 

In this latest installment in what is becoming a potentially monthly offering, I'm presenting five more project management related tools and services that PM professionals should be checking out.  I know the people behind this products, I've worked with them for awhile and I can vouch for their professionalism and dedication to supporting their products and you as the customer and end user. 

​Please check these five vendors' offerings out and let me know your thougths... and as always... let me know if you have any favorites I should be featuring in future months.  Thank you!

Standard Time

Have you considered Standard Time® for your manufacturing project management? Standard Time may be the lightest MRP/ERP you have ever encountered. Its minimalist approach is a refreshing change to the “million-dollar” implementations out there. It’s got lite PM with time and materials tracking built in.

Start by building a project to represent your manufacturing work order. Then track actuals against estimates with barcode scanners on the shop floor.

The video above is a nice starter. Once you see the value of scanning on the shop floor, you’ll want to collect all your project actuals the same way. Manufacturing project management doesn’t get easier than this!

Now that you’re up and running with Standard Time, consider branching into other areas. How about inventory management? Tool control? Or assembly lines? Associate your work orders to assembly lines, and see which lines are booked, and which can take on new projects. You will find nearly every manufacturing MRP/ERP solution in this tidy package named Standard Time.

Download a free copy today!

Proggio

Proggio is a collaborative, timeline-based, project management software solution for teams. It builds project plans clearly, manages your team’s tasks, and provides a detailed portfolio management level view - all from the same data source. The smallest “Done” progress update by any team member is reflected immediately in any other management view in the Proggio platform.
​
Proggio is relevant for any market segment, because it structures the project to center around people and teams. Proggio acts as a backbone for team activity, giving it structure, effective visual representation, and direction. This helps Proggio provide the highest possible effort to value ratio.
​
Proggio’s user base is growing every day, spread across different market segments and team sizes. 

Proggio features a smart timeline alternative for project management. It’s so much more than a Gantt chart. With it, Proggio breaks clear of the frustrating inability to convey a visual representation of a project to the team (and to management!). This visual clarity drives greater engagement and momentum with the team and stakeholders.

Proggio is the result of the hands-on experience of seasoned project managers, who spent years running various sized projects in global corporations. The founders saw powerful industry trends developing ahead of the curve - they realized that DevOps and Continuous Delivery were starting to affect other fields outside of software development. Project management, itself such a critical part of the enterprise environment, was lagging behind the business world, and new ideas that would disrupt the industry were inevitable. It was time for a project management solution that lined up with the clarity and usability of tools used in other segments - and in that realization, Proggio was born.

 

Built around the dynamics of team success, Proggio’s platform is fully integrated top to bottom. From task management tools that keep everyone in the team on target and on track, to an automatically updating project portfolio management view - Proggio has it all, based on the same dataset. Any progress report by a single team member is being reflected immediately on the executive management Portfolio view.

Proggio provides a powerful platform for all kinds of organizational projects, from ad-hoc task forces to complicated and highly integrated long-term projects. 

See the difference for yourself - get your 30-day free trial here

TimeLinx

TimeLinx PSA turns Infor CRM or Sage CRM into a complete lifecycle project and services automation (PSA) system, enabling you to:

• Quote, budget, schedule, track time, record expenses, and report in a single system instead
  of multiple, disconnected applications.
• Calculate costs and expenses automatically and feed them directly to accounting without retyping or copying from spreadsheets.
• Increase profits by delivering the right work, on time, within budget, and with less overhead.

TimeLinx can automatically compute and synchronize revenues and costs with your billing, accounts receivable, payables, job cost, G/L and other modules of your chosen accounting system.

TimeLinx PSA Features include:

• Approvals
• BI/Reporting
• Attachments
• Budgets/Finance
• Change Orders
• Contracts
• Cost Optimization
• Equipment
• ERP Integration
• Expense Tracking
• Issue Tracking
• Portfolio Gantt Charts
• Project Gantt Charts
• Materials Transactions
• Milestones
• Mobile Access
• Product Transactions
• Project Templates
• Project Tasks
• Teams and Roles
• Timesheets
• Rate Management
• Resource Allocation
• Resource Scheduling
• ​Risk Analysis​

​
​View and download a free whitepaper: Transforming Workflows Into Profits

Sleek New User Interface

The updated User Interface is sleeker with a new look and feel, making navigation through the product easier than ever before. In addition the template and picture libraries have been updated to offer inspiration when needed. ​

Enhanced Project Management

The project management capabilities within MindGenius have been expanded in a number of ways. Firstly, adding a project milestone has been made simpler and you can track progress easily with the ability to overlay up to 10 snapshots of your project at any given time onto your Gantt chart, highlighting when and where project delivery differs from your original plan. Resource, priority and cost information is available straight from your Gantt chart as well as the ability to add task information directly from within the Gantt chart. ​

​Simple Task Management

Task management is a breeze with MindGenius 2018 with task information such as due dates, resource allocation or deadlines displaying right on the branch in the map.

Viewpath

PROJECT SCHEDULING

Organizations of all sizes are under intense pressure to improve the speed, accuracy, and agility of their project management and capacity planning processes, while also balancing the related risks and costs of these endeavors.

Viewpath is a feature rich solution, offering a powerful yet easy to use project and resource management toolset that is simple to deploy, instantly scalable, and has “anytime-anywhere” availability.

CORE FEATURES

• Portfolio Management
• Interactive Dashboards
• Sensitivity Analyses
• Baseline Variance Management
• Cost Tracking
• Control Access/Visibility

CAPACITY PLANNING

Supporting both top-down and bottom-up resource staffing processes, Viewpath makes it easy for project and resource managers to communicate requirements and decisions throughout a project’s lifecycle, giving you greater visibility into resource demand and capacity planning.

By providing a graphical analysis of resource and role utilization, Viewpath helps project teams maximize resources in a dynamic environment. This allows managers to see where resources are being used across all programs and projects, as well as their forecasted future use. Viewpath’s centralized system shows resource conflicts to project and resource managers, eliminating unexpected delays or unforeseen resource limitations.

CORE FEATURES:

• ​Predictive Resource Allocation
• Visually Interactive Resource Charts
• Individual and Team Views
• Cross-Project Allocation
• Weighted Planning

TEMPLATES

Regardless of the size of your organization, standardization across projects is a critical. Viewpath makes it possible to automate the creation of new projects using customizable templates. Once the core of each project is built, you can customize the project with its specific needs, enabling your team to quickly and consistently create new projects.

Increase productivity and execute faster across distributed teams.

CORE FEATURES:

• Unlimited Templates
• Project Standardization
• Simplify Project Creation
• Consistency in Project Data

INTEGRATIONS

Getting work done can involve multiple tools. To accommodate this, Viewpath integrates with popular business systems and cloud applications to enable secure collaboration and data sharing across enterprise business processes.

Whether it’s accessing field service work orders, or integrating with CRM solutions, Viewpath allows you to supercharge your organizational productivity with partner-built solutions

Share knowledge across the organization to more quickly resolve issues and capture project information across the different platforms your different teams need to use.

Viewpath is a powerful project and program management tool that eliminates the chaos of project management. Viewpath was created on the foundation that project management should be simple and organized. The Viewpath application is used by clients ranging from enterprise companies managing large multi-year projects to small businesses needing to track tasks and complete projects efficiently. Users can select their own views choosing to view a project time line Gantt chart or a simple task management list.

Utilizing cloud technology, Viewpath enables collaboration between users around the world to work on the same project and share progress, comments/questions, and view resource availability all in one place. Each Viewpath user has their own personalized home screen within the app showing tasks they are assigned to across all projects, percentage complete, and any discussions and documents accompanying a project.

Most projects are complex in some way – especially high tech projects. Not all project managers get to choose their projects or even get to personally choose their team members once they land as leadership on a project. I know I usually don’t. I get to request a warm body with a skill set, but rarely have I been given the luxury of choosing actual names. That may be the case for senior management as well – the gate keepers of projects and resources who are selecting project managers and team members for projects based on need, skill set, availability and specific requests.

What is everyone looking for? I know when I’ve been in this position a couple of times and been allowed input as well, here are a few of the criteria I’ve looked for…
​
Knows the proposed technology and material. Learning curves can be the downfall of a project. So can rework. And poorly defined requirements. All these things can happen if you have business analyst who is not up to the challenge of the technical material at hand and the chosen technical solution for the project. That’s why it is imperative on a technical engagement that is long, complex, visible, or all of the above, to have a business analyst assigned who is technically up to the challenge and not just “ready to learn” or “fake it till he makes it.” That could be disastrous to the schedule, budget, project manager and team…and to the customer...

Here is Jack's story...

​Jack was a top engineer who had problems finding the time to study for the PMP exam.  He was a busy man - married with two kids and his job as Project Manager in Health and Human Services was time-consuming.  

He never planned to take the PMP, but life had other ideas.

PMP certification became a requirement for his job, and Jack knew if he didn’t pass he’d have to start looking for employment elsewhere.

He hadn’t studied for an exam in over a decade - he was stressed, anxious, and uncertain if he’d be able to pass, and he worried about how to care for his family if he didn’t succeed.

He signed up for Cheetah's 4-Day Accelerated Training Course for the PMP and passed on his first try.

Not only did he keep his job, he received an increase in his salary and was able to better care for his family and securely launch his children into adulthood.

Do you want to be like Jack and stop the uncertainty and start your path to success, register for our course today?​

Register for Cheetah's 4-day Accelerated Exam Prep for the PMP