I’ve already discussed Comindware and it’s Comindware Tracker product as  functional solutions for your organization’s needs in the areas of IT Help Desk, Software Development, Human Resources, and Office Management.  These come as standard offerings in the Comindware package.  But does it also think outside of its own box?  Yes it does.  Comindware can be a productive and powerful solution for other areas of the organization including marketing and finance and any business unit or area or processes where you may want to:

• Organize and manage tasks, sub-tasks, and projects
• Simplify issue tracking
• Collaborate more efficiently and share files
• Automate workflow processes
• Keep everything organized with flexible notifications and reporting

With Comindware Tracker, you can. With a few clicks, you can create secure, collaborative Workspaces and easily customize them to your exact needs.

Custom Workflow Automation, Tracking & Task Management Made Easy

For automating workflow processes you can start with any of the included standards-based workflow process management templates. Or, you can design a custom process from scratch. Either way, Comindware’s visual Workflow Builder makes this process easy with interactive drag-&-drop controls and fill-in-the-blank fields. No special skills or IT programming is needed.  With Comindware’s flexible ElasticData technology, you don’t have to formalize everything up front. Start with a few simple process steps, specify work item owners, and deploy in minutes. You can easily modify processes later on-the-fly.

Comindware Tracker includes free Comindware Task Management, providing team-oriented task management functionality so you can organize and manage tasks, sub-tasks, and projects. It also includes document/file management capabilities and integrated collaboration features. Unique ConnectStep technology connects workflow steps in your processes by automatically generating next-step tasks as work items transition from one process stage to the next. Along the way, each person receives clear tasks and can work and manage these tasks along with their other work. With everything managed in a centralized system, users can keep track of what’s going on with real-time status views, reports, and dashboards.

You can customize Comindware to automate, track, and efficiently manage just about any business activity. Some examples include workflow management processes and tasks associated with:

• Work requests
• Marketing materials
• Cases
• Or any other collaborative work item you want to track

For more information about the Comindware suite of products contact Comindware or you can try it out yourself.  Visit their site to try it for 30 days.

Wikipedia defines desktop virtualization as separating the personal computer desktop environment from a physical machine using the client–server model of computing.  Likewise, VDI, or virtual desktop infrastructure (or interface) is the server computing model enabling desktop virtualization, encompassing the hardware and software systems required to support the virtualized environment.

Many enterprise-level implementations of this technology store the resulting "virtualized" desktop on a remote central server, instead of on the local storage of a remote client.  Therefore, when users work from their local machine, all of the programs, applications, processes, and data used are kept on the server and run centrally. This allows users to run an operating system and execute applications from a smartphone or thin client which exceed the user hardware's ability to run.

If you were already interested in VDI, then you probably already knew what it was.  But when you didn’t know is that we have a FREE webinar tomorrow (Thursday, 10.18) on VDI best practices.  Register now to learn more about this and the best strategies for your organization to plan when initiating a VDI implementation.  We look forward to your attendance….

VDI Best Practices:   How to Ensure a Great Customer Experience When Deploying Citrix

Did you know that 50 percent of desktop virtualization initiatives fail?  Most challenges are due to poor user satisfaction, poor performance and escalating costs.  With such an important initiative, you cannot afford to take a 50/50 chance for success.  

Join the webinar VDI Best Practices:   How to Ensure a Great Customer Experience When Deploying Citrix on Thursday, October 18 to increase your odds of project success and ensure user satisfaction from day one.  You’ll learn from virtualization expert Roy Francis of FusionStorm who has years of experience working with customers to successfully deploy desktop virtualization projects that overcome user problems. 

Learn how to better prepare for your desktop virtualization initiative, and then once deployed how to ensure a great user experience.  We will discuss:

• The pitfalls to avoid when implementing desktop virtualization
• Tips and tricks for overcoming user challenges
• Considerations for migrating to XenApp 6.5 and Windows 2008
• How to address performance and scalability considerations

WEBINAR DETAILS

Date & Time: October 18 @ 2:00 pm ET (New York) | 1:00 pm CT (Dallas) | 11:00 am PT (Los Angeles) | 9:00 pm CET (Paris/Berlin)

Presenters: Dorsan Delisle (FusionStorm), Bala  Vaidhinathan (eG Innovations), Rick Ruskin (eG Innovations)

Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/171221233  

We look forward to seeing you at the webinar!

With literally hundreds of project management software solutions now flooding the market, how do you choose?  Well, most likely you figure out what your key critical need is – or perhaps your top 5 needs – and analyze the masses against those needs.  You could ask for demos on each one, but imagine how time consuming that would be.  Or, you could try out Comindware and see just how flexible the web-based project management and workflow management solution really is. 

Comindware’s solution is built around it’s ElasticData technology which brings tremendous flexibility to the workflow management process.  And then Comindware’s ConnectStep is another unique feature that connects the steps in a collaborative workflow process and automatically generates next-step tasks so you can work more efficiently.

With ConnectStep, next-step workflow tasks can actually be automatically generated for you and assigned as work items.  This can be done as these work items are created and as they progress from one step to the next according to user-defined workflow processes. By automating these workflow processes and task generation, team members can focus on their specific tasks while Comindware efficiently moves things along.  Yes, it’s that easy.

Does Comindware stop with PM and workflow efficiency?  No.  Actually, Comindware is a complete solution for your enterprise.  It can serve your organization as:

• A collaborative software development solution
• An full-featured IT help desk solution
• A human resource solution providing your HR staff with incredible information access and flexibility
• An overall office management status and reporting tool

Comindware’s flexibility makes it easy to define and automate organizational workflow processes and connect these with next-step tasks to better orchestrate collaborative work efforts. By organizing and automating work efforts into tasks, every individual’s tasks in the organization and their associated due dates are clear and they can manage these auto-generated tasks along with their other tasks.

Contact Comindware for more info or you can elect to try it for 30 days.

Is Desktop Virtualization the answer?  While VDI may not be for everyone, or it may not be for everyone right NOW, it probably is the answer for about 90% of us.  For the other 10%, well, it’s probably the answer a little further down the road.  If you were to attend IT conferences about 4 years ago you would have been hearing all the buzz about desktop virtualization.  A lot of money was being spent on it with little consistency in meaning and performance and not much to show for it.  It certainly wasn’t yet the answer for an enterprise transformation.  However, now CAN be the time for that enterprise transformation and – if done right – it could end up being the best initiative your IT organization has ever taken on.

A FREE upcoming webinar on VDI best practices can help your organization determine if it is a move you should make…and help you decide how to make that transformation.  The webinar will be held on Thursday, October 18th and signup information follows the brief webinar overview below.  We look forward to your attendance….

VDI Best Practices:   How to Ensure a Great Customer Experience When Deploying Citrix

Did you know that 50 percent of desktop virtualization initiatives fail?  Most challenges are due to poor user satisfaction, poor performance and escalating costs.  With such an important initiative, you cannot afford to take a 50/50 chance for success.  

Join the webinar VDI Best Practices:   How to Ensure a Great Customer Experience When Deploying Citrix on Thursday, October 18 to increase your odds of project success and ensure user satisfaction from day one.  You’ll learn from virtualization expert Roy Francis of FusionStorm who has years of experience working with customers to successfully deploy desktop virtualization projects that overcome user problems. 

Learn how to better prepare for your desktop virtualization initiative, and then once deployed how to ensure a great user experience.  We will discuss:

• The pitfalls to avoid when implementing desktop virtualization
• Tips and tricks for overcoming user challenges
• Considerations for migrating to XenApp 6.5 and Windows 2008
• How to address performance and scalability considerations

WEBINAR DETAILS

Date & Time: October 18 @ 2:00 pm ET (New York) | 1:00 pm CT (Dallas) | 11:00 am PT (Los Angeles) | 9:00 pm CET (Paris/Berlin)

Presenters: Dorsan Delisle (FusionStorm), Bala  Vaidhinathan (eG Innovations), Rick Ruskin (eG Innovations)

Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/171221233  

We look forward to seeing you at the webinar!

More enterprise desktop virtualization (VDI) projects fail than succeed, so doing it right the first time and understanding what doesn’t work well or hasn’t worked in other organizations is critical to your project timeline and to your company’s financial bottom line.  Any enterprise-wide VDI implementation project is going to be a complex, long-term project that must be coordinated across business units, divisions, personnel, workloads, security…etc, etc, etc.  You get the picture.  Not only do you need to add the right infrastructure, but you must also convince upper management that it is the best path to take, and you must convince the end users in the organization that they aren’t losing functionality and that adoption is critical to project success.

An upcoming webinar on VDI best practices can help you with this type of undertaking and will lay the groundwork for what you need to do to make it successful.  The webinar will be held on Thursday, October 18th and signup information follows the brief webinar overview below.  We look forward to your attendance….

VDI Best Practices:   How to Ensure a Great Customer Experience When Deploying Citrix

Did you know that 50 percent of desktop virtualization initiatives fail?  Most challenges are due to poor user satisfaction, poor performance and escalating costs.  With such an important initiative, you cannot afford to take a 50/50 chance for success.  

Join the webinar VDI Best Practices:   How to Ensure a Great Customer Experience When Deploying Citrix on Thursday, October 18 to increase your odds of project success and ensure user satisfaction from day one.  You’ll learn from virtualization expert Roy Francis of FusionStorm who has years of experience working with customers to successfully deploy desktop virtualization projects that overcome user problems. 

Learn how to better prepare for your desktop virtualization initiative, and then once deployed how to ensure a great user experience.  We will discuss:

• The pitfalls to avoid when implementing desktop virtualization
• Tips and tricks for overcoming user challenges
• Considerations for migrating to XenApp 6.5 and Windows 2008
• How to address performance and scalability considerations

WEBINAR DETAILS

Date & Time: October 18 @ 2:00 pm ET (New York) | 1:00 pm CT (Dallas) | 11:00 am PT (Los Angeles) | 9:00 pm CET (Paris/Berlin)

Presenters: Dorsan Delisle (FusionStorm), Bala  Vaidhinathan (eG Innovations), Rick Ruskin (eG Innovations)

Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/171221233  

We look forward to seeing you at the webinar!

Is desktop virtualization the right move for your organization?  There are definitely upsides and downsides with going the VDI route.  If you’re interested enough to click on the link for this article, then you are probably in a position to care about those upsides and downsides and how they will affect your organization.  Issues that need to be consider, obviously, include security, scalability, ROI, support, performance, and the upfront cost of servers and other equipment to support this type of  undertaking. 

An upcoming webinar can help you answer these and other questions for your organization.  The bottom line concern is for the best possible outcome for your organization and your customers and the challenges you may encounter on an VDI rollout project.  If VDI is a consideration for you at this time or in the near future, I highly recommend the VDI Best Practices webinar on Thursday, October 18th.  A synopsis of the webinar and how to signup follows…

VDI Best Practices:   How to Ensure a Great Customer Experience When Deploying Citrix

Did you know that 50 percent of desktop virtualization initiatives fail?  Most challenges are due to poor user satisfaction, poor performance and escalating costs.  With such an important initiative, you cannot afford to take a 50/50 chance for success.  

Join the webinar VDI Best Practices:   How to Ensure a Great Customer Experience When Deploying Citrix on Thursday, October 18 to increase your odds of project success and ensure user satisfaction from day one.  You’ll learn from virtualization expert Roy Francis of FusionStorm who has years of experience working with customers to successfully deploy desktop virtualization projects that overcome user problems. 

Learn how to better prepare for your desktop virtualization initiative, and then once deployed how to ensure a great user experience.  We will discuss:

• The pitfalls to avoid when implementing desktop virtualization
• Tips and tricks for overcoming user challenges
• Considerations for migrating to XenApp 6.5 and Windows 2008
• How to address performance and scalability considerations

WEBINAR DETAILS

Date & Time: October 18 @ 2:00 pm ET (New York) | 1:00 pm CT (Dallas) | 11:00 am PT (Los Angeles) | 9:00 pm CET (Paris/Berlin)

Presenters: Dorsan Delisle (FusionStorm), Bala  Vaidhinathan (eG Innovations), Rick Ruskin (eG Innovations)

Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/171221233  

We look forward to seeing you at the webinar!

In the project management world or the consulting world no one ever really wants to say, “I told you so.”  Why?  Let’s consider you’re saying this to your project client.  If you are uttering those words – even if you were right from the beginning – it means the client isn’t happy, the client just paid a lot of money for something that doesn’t fit their needs, or you may look smart, but they’ll still be upset with you because you haven’t delivered a workable solution ….no matter what you said from the outset.  “I told you so” doesn’t help.  “I told you so” won’t make things better for you.  And “I told you so” certainly won’t make your customer feel comfortable.

What do you do to avoid all this from the outset?  What can you do differently to make this right with your customer and put yourself as the project manager or consultant in the best possible professional light with your project client and everyone you’re working with on the project?  The key is to ask good questions from the start, plan well, look for answers beyond just what the customer is telling you, and certainly involve more than just the project sponsor during the planning phases of the project.  Here’s what you need to do:

Come in without blinders on.  Always try to go into every new project without any pre-conceived ideas of what the solution should be, what the problem is or what technology should be involved in the solution.  Basically, come in with a clean slate.  No tunnel vision – no blinders.  Treat every project like the new project that it is – treat it as a new day in your life, a new trial to overcome, a new mountain to climb.  Start fresh and develop and draft a new project schedule with fresh tasks for THIS project using a tool like WorkZone to map out tasks, resources, and timeframes based on what you know right now.  Basically, you need to forget what you’ve done in the past and look at the new project for what it is…an entirely new project.

Question everything that doesn’t seem right and question some things that do.  Nearly every project customer comes into the engagement with a solution in mind.  It’s human nature to try to come up with a solution before seeking help.  They think they have the requirements in hand for what they need.  They think they know what the real problem is.  They think they know what is needed to fix their problem. 

As the project manager you need to look past that and dig deeper.  Assume they might only know a piece to the real puzzle.  Ask questions.  Meet with their end users and subject matter experts.  Have them map out business processes that interact with the old and new solutions.  There’s often more to it and if you don’t find it now, you’ll be doing re-work for an unhappy customer later.

Document, document, document.  Document everything.  I can’t state that clearly enough.  Ok, it’s impossible to document everything, but you get the picture.  You work on detailed requirements with your project customer as you try to fine tune the real problem and document – in detail – what is needed to meet the problem or issue and develop a usable end solution.  Obviously, your team needs to document those requirements, all assumptions made, all risks anticipated and all issues encountered along the way in order to effectively and efficiently and successfully develop the end solution.  But it’s not an easy process and it’s not something everyone is very successful at completing.  Force yourself and your team to do this well on your project – you will never regret it.

Always get official customer signoff/approval.  Next, be sure to always present documented requirements and a documented statement of work to the client once you think you’ve jointly come to agreement on the real issue and what it’s going to take to create a solution.  And then get their formal approval and official signoff on the documented items.  This creates the baseline from which you and your team will develop a solution.  Any deviations from this baseline become change orders to the project.  Without well-documented requirements, it’s nearly impossible to make claims to any change orders and you’ll find yourself doing lots of free work and losing complete control of the project budget and schedule.

This article is brought to you on behalf of WorkZone – a sophisticated yet very user-friendly, collaborative project management tool. View a product tour of WorkZone to see if it is going to work for your projects. And if you’d like to take a more personal approach, feel free to request a demo from the WorkZone site.

By Cornelius Fichtner, PMP

If you are about to start studying for your Project Management Professional (PMP) exam, you’ll want to make sure your toolkit is bursting with things to help you on the journey to becoming a PMP. There are so many options to consider when looking at the study materials on the market that it can be difficult to know where to start.

First, don’t be overwhelmed by the choice. The tools that your colleagues and classmates are using may not be the right ones for you. How do you learn best? Choose study materials that will help you prepare for PMP certification in a way that best suits your learning style. You’ll also want to consider your budget. Don’t feel that you have to buy really expensive exam preparation tools. There are products on the market that are both efficient and cost effective. Reading what other students have to say about the study tools they use can also be helpful: check out independent review sites.

Still stuck for where to start? Here’s my guide to the top 12 most popular PMP exam preparation tools.

1. PMI's Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide)

The PMBOK Guide is the workbench of PMP exam preparation tools. It’s the foundation that everything else is built on. This is the most “popular” study material simply because everybody has to read it for the exam! Remember that PMI members get a PDF copy for free.

2. PMP Exam Study Guides

These are also known as PMP exam prep books. They cover the same materials as the PMBOK Guide but in more accessible language. They often explain the concepts in ways that are easier to understand and to learn.

3. PMP Exam Courses

Training courses come in many varieties. You could attend a course online or in a classroom. You could study at your own pace or with an instructor. You could choose a boot-camp or to study over many weeks. Look for a PMP exam course that will give you the required 35 contact hours.

4. Exam Simulators and Free Questions

These are the torch in your toolkit, helping you shine a light on your weaker areas. Taking sample exams via an exam simulator will help you assess your readiness for the real thing. You can find free questions online, but these only go so far, so be sure to sign up for a professionally created simulator from a PMI Registered Education Provider. Some PMP exam study guides also come with a CD or DVD which contain questions.

5. Podcasts

Podcasts can be in audio or video format. A PMP podcast is very easy to carry around with you and has the benefit that you can listen to or watch it wherever you are. Some of these are so elaborate that they actually fall into PMI’s Category F (“distance learning”) for PMP Exam preparation courses and even offer 35 contact hours.

6. Flash cards

Flash cards allow you to study and memorize the concepts that you need to know for the exam. You can make your own and carry them with you at all times, so you can test yourself in spare moments. Another alternative is electronic cards that you can use on your phone.

7. Apps

Apps are becoming more and more popular and there are lots to choose from. For example, there are games that teach you the ITTOs, there are apps that teach concepts with mnemonics and others that test you with questions. Check out the iTunes app store for additional ideas.

8. Formula study guides

Study guides for PMP formulas are a precision tool. They will help you review and learn the formulas required for the exam in a way that makes it easier to recall them under pressure.

9. Lessons Learned

Don’t underestimate what you can learn from others. Talking to colleagues who already have their PMP certification can be an invaluable resource. If you can’t talk to anyone, read what others have to say about how they studied, what they studied and what their experience was like. You could also get a mentor to help you prepare, and learn from his or her experiences too.

10. PMI Chapter

This is the spirit level of the toolkit, helping you stay centered and motivated. Tap into your colleagues at your local PMI Chapter. They may have a study group that you could join. At a minimum, you’ll be able to talk to PMPs about how they managed their journey to PMP certification.

11. Brain dump sheets

A brain dump sheet is a way to recall information under exam conditions. It’s a personal study tool that you can shape to fit the way you study best, and it’s becoming more popular. Create a sheet of paper with all the key information on and then practice writing it out until it’s second nature. Then you simply have to do that in the exam and all the key information will be at your fingertips!

12. Internet forums

There is lots of information on internet forums – and many of them are free. Chat to other students about how their exam preparation is going, or ask advice from seasoned PMPs.

Whatever tools you choose, it is important to study regularly. Try to spend some time on your PMP studies every day. The study materials you buy should reflect the fact that you’ll be using them on a daily basis, so that might influence what you invest in. Tools like electronic versions of flash cards, books and guides are very portable and can be used whenever you have a spare moment.

Finally, studying for your PMP is a difficult job, so choose PMP materials that you enjoy using and find fun! That will make your revision more enjoyable and the PMP credential an achievable target.

About the author:
Cornelius Fichtner, PMP is a noted PMP expert. He has helped over 16,000 students prepare for the PMP Exam with The Project Management PrepCast and offers one of the Best PMP Exam Simulators on the market.

You wouldn't head out on a family vacation without some idea of where you were going, what you were going to do when you got there, and how long you were going to stay, right?

Then why would you try to run your business without answering any of those questions?!

As knowledgeable or as passionate as you may be about your industry, you can't expect to see success if you're flying blind.  Until you come up with a plan, you and your employees will never be on the same page.

And that's where visual planning comes in!

Visual planning is a business term that simply means coming up with a strategy for your business -- whether it's a plan for a new product, for a special project, or for the way your company operates as a whole.  After all, unless everyone knows what the end goal is, you won't be able to work efficiently to get there!

Thanks to visual planning software (like what we offer here at Ganttic), you can keep everyone on the same page, without having to hold a bunch of meetings or waste a ton of time.  Instead, everyone can have the details of the plan right on their computer screens.

That way, when it comes time to reschedule something, change something, or evaluate something, everyone will be able to see it.  Plus, everyone will be able to see what everyone else is responsible for.  It's like getting a bird's eye view of the entire project!

Luckily, visual planning isn't tough to do.  In fact, here at Ganttic, we designed our software to be as user-friendly as possible (with things like color-coding and click-and-drag).  That way, you spend less time fiddling with the software and more time working towards your goals…

…Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?!

This article is courtesy of Ganttic - the robust, web-based resource planning and project scheduling tool.