WorkZone, the powerful, yet easy-to-use web-based project management software solution offers a bit of a paradox.  While user adoption is quick and you’re up and running with it on your projects and with your team much faster than most of it’s counterparts including Sharepoint, WorkZone still offers live world-class support – far more support than most other companies.  WorkZone’s support staff is available by phone or email to get your team up and running and to help ensure your ongoing success using the product to manage your critical project engagements.

WorkZone provides very clear online user guides, but they work on the assumption that most users never look at them. They actually prefer that you call or email them when you need help. It’s one of the things that makes WorkZone great project management software for small businesses and large businesses alike.

Whether it’s help using an advanced feature, best practices advice, or troubleshooting your web browser’s settings, WorkZone’s support staff is there for you (at no charge). They’re main focus is on helping you – the end user - use WorkZone to make your teams more effective and profitable.

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.

In the last post about Comindware – the web-based project management and workflow, issue and task management solution that provides the user with incredible data flexibility – I covered the Comindware Advantage support option at a high-level.  With Comindware Advantage, users receive world class value-added support with direct access to inhouse Comindware experts.  Let’s examine this package further in terms of summary and comparison against their other service level options:

Comindware Advantage package summary

Comindware currently offering one uniform services package that includes 8 hours of service Monday through Friday, 10AM-6PM EST, via email, chat and phone with one of their dedicated support professionals. In case of a business-critical issue, the first response to your support case will be made by an engineer within 2 business hours. The package also includes upgrade protection for the term of the contract so you will not have to pay for the upgrades of the products you purchased if a new version becomes available.

The first year of Comindware Advantage service is included in your original purchase of any Comindware product license. Right before the contract runs out, Comindware will offer you the option to extend it further to maintain all of your current privileges. The Comindware Advantage subscription extension is also a subject to their volume discounts that scale with the number of licenses you acquire.

A comparison table of what Comindware Advantage can provide you vs. the other levels of available service can be reviewed here.

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.

In this day of online everything we sometimes are only able to get our tech support from the sparse information posted on a vendor’s FAQs.  They often have a phone number or live chat setup, but it is often extremely difficult to make your way through the various options to actually get to a live person.  I find myself often giving up during the process.  That’s not the case for Comindware – a leader in project management, issue tracking, workflow management and task management software.

Designed with the business-critical nature of Comindware products in mind, Comindware Advantage provides world class, value-added support services. Coupled with upgrade protection that lasts for the whole duration of the Comindware Advantage contract, this program is a cost-effective way to maintain your Comindware-based infrastructure in top shape at all times. Included into your initial purchase of any Comindware product, Comindware Advantage program offers:

• Direct contact with a world-class in-house support team trained to address whatever issues or questions you have to throw at it. When in doubt about literally anything Comindware-related, make sure to check out our online resources and contact our support team to get the assistance you need;

• Faster response times to critical issues. If you indicate it that the issue is critical for you when contacting us, it will be treated with the top priority so we can get you up and running in no time. We are serious about exceeding our Customers’ expectations in any situation;

• Helping Customers meet their internal and regulatory process requirements and service level agreements (SLA). While our products are designed to optimize business processes and environments in the first place, we are taking this approach to the next level by helping you determine the best Comindware infrastructure approach and backing you in case something goes wrong. You can count on us to compliment your business continuity strategy related to Comindware products’ usage in your company.

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.

By Cornelius Fichtner, PMP

Studying for and earning your Project Management Professional (PMP)® Certification can be a costly affair, some training courses can cost upwards of several thousand US Dollars. However, there are ways to cut your costs and still have access to valuable and useful study tools. Below we will discuss several ways you can lower the cost of studying for and obtaining your PMP® Certification that does not include spending a lot of money. Read through our seven savings tips and you’ll see that lowering your cost for taking the PMP® Exam is not that hard.

Savings Tip 1 – Join PMI

If you are not already a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI), join. You are not required to be a member of PMI to take the PMP® Exam, but being a member can lead to substantial savings. The cost of membership is only $129 USD plus a $10 USD application fee, which is negligible compared to the savings you can see. First, you will receive a member discount of $150 USD for the PMP® Exam. Second, you will have access to resource material at a reduced cost or even free. As a member of PMI you will have access to a free PDF copy of “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)”, a savings of around $40 to $50 USD. Third, as a PMI member you will have access to PMI eReads which contains several PMP® prep books that you can read online at no cost.

Savings Tip 2 – Join Your Local PMI Chapter

In addition to becoming a member of PMI look into joining your local PMI chapter. Not only will you meet other individuals in the project management field, some of which are also working toward obtaining their PMP® Certification, local PMI chapters generally offer good inexpensive PMP® Prep courses. As a member of a local chapter you can save from anywhere from $100 USD to $300 USD (depending upon your chapter) on the cost of attending a PMI Chapter PMP® Prep course.

Savings Tip 3 – Buy Used

Look for second hand resources. When you are looking for PMP® Exam Prep Guides check out websites such as Amazon or EBay for second hand copies, just make sure to purchase the correct edition of the resource to go with the current exam.

Savings Tip 4 – Use Coupons

Coupons can be found for just about anything, and that includes PMP® Prep materials. When you have identified a PMP® Prep product you would like to purchase, take a few moments to do a web search for discount coupon, a few moments of your time can pay off. For example, the best place to find the most current coupons for The PM PrepCast is on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/PrepCast.

Savings Tip 5 – Look for Contests

Look for local contests, often companies will give away their PMP® products as marketing tools at PMP® Chapter meetings. For instance, we offer several of our products as a door prize at PMI Chapter dinner meetings around the world. Check to see if your chapter is giving away any free study resources at their meetings.

Savings Tip 6 – Look for High-Quality Low-Cost Courses

When you are looking for PMP Exam courses to attend, make sure to take your time when researching and comparing courses, there are many on the market to choose from. Keep in mind that the most expensive is not always the best and the least expensive is not necessarily the worst. Read the reviews and testimonials of those who have taken the course. If you cannot find a review or testimonial for the course on its website, take advantage of one of the many online PMP® Prep forums and ask if anyone has taken the specific course you are interested in and ask if they would recommend the course they have taken. The opinions and experiences of others who have paid for and taken a course can be very valuable, and it is free.

Savings Tip 7 – Look for High-Quality Low-Cost Exam Prep Products

Don’t buy the “cheap” stuff when it comes to PMP® Exam prep products like books, flash-cards, apps or formula study guides either. Do your research. There are many high-quality low-cost PMP® Exam prep products on the market to help you study for your PMP Certification. But you do need to take into account that there are also some “cheap” products out there that cost very little and offer very little in regards to actual valuable training. Look for customer recommendations to ensure you would be purchasing quality training materials prior to making any purchase.

Conclusion

Becoming a Project Management Professional can be a costly venture, but there are ways you can lower the cost. One is as a member of PMI you will reduce your exam fees and receive a free PDF copy of the PMBOK Guide to study. By also joining your local PMI Chapter you will have access to any PMP® Exam prep courses the chapter offers at reduced cost. You can also save on study materials by shopping for second hand materials, seeking out coupons, and even possibly receiving free promotional materials at PMI Chapter meetings. Remember that high-cost does not always signify high quality and low-cost does not always equate to low quality. Do your research and look for positive reviews and testimonials from those who have purchased PMP® Exam prep materials and have taken PMP® Prep courses. One low cost resource that will give you everything you need to prepare for your PMP® Certification is The PM PrepCast at www.pm-prepcast.com. This course is PMI R.E.P. approved and available at the fraction of the cost of similar exam preparation tools.

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.

In Part 1 of this series, I discussed negotiations for Scope impacts on your project.  I identified that issues requiring negotiations on projects usually fall into one of three main categories:  Scope, Timeline, or Budget. 

Unless the PM is being micro-managed from above by executive management or the PMO Director, the role of negotiator – at least from a customer-facing perspective, falls to the Project Manager.  For Part 2 of this series, we’ll look closer at Timeline Negotiations and Budget Negotiations and how best to handle each type with your customer.

Timeline Negotiations

Negotiations on timeline issues can take on many forms.  For me, the most common one has been the request for functionality to appear earlier than previously expected.  While this can sometimes be a major issue depending on the project, I try to take the phased approach if it is appropriate.  By this I mean, negotiating with the customer on implementing functionality in phases.  To do this, I follow these steps:

• Review the request for functionality
• Discuss with the delivery team experts
• Re-work an alternate project plan to move the requested functionality to early in the timeline
• Document a narrative for the customer outlining what needs to be pushed to later in the project to make it happen
• Conduct a formal meeting with both teams to present the proposal

So, basically my proposal is usually to restructure priorities and move the needed functionality to an earlier point in the timeline, implement it, and create later phases for the remaining functionality.  It may also impact the budget, but if it gets the customer the functionality they desperately need when they desperately need it, then they’re probably very willing to accept the budget it.  They always have been from my experience.

Budget Negotiations

The most common budget negotiations I’ve run into have been with either higher-priced resources needed or requested on the project or the need for some unexpected customer training. 

In the case of the resources, if it is warranted by the project due to some undocumented needs by the customer, then I’ve often been able to ‘sell’ the customer on the higher-priced resource.  If it’s the other way around – meaning the delivery organization wrongly assessed the resource needs, then the push needs to be to get senior management to agree to give your project the more skilled resource and bill the customer the same lower rate.  As the PM, you still need to explain that to the customer – never miss an opportunity to gain additional customer satisfaction by letting them know you’re always fighting for them.

In the case of the customer training – I’ve run into this several times.  And it doesn’t have to be customer training – you can insert any one of a number of similar items here.  But for me it’s usually been customer training.  The customer hasn’t realized the need for some training (usually due to a communication issue during the sales process), but it’s still needed and it isn’t cheap.  Work with the customer and determine options.  For me, it’s worked well to coordinate with both the customer and the training department to price a training session onsite for the customer rather than have the customer send everyone to the training department.  This results in significant customer cost savings while bringing in new streams of revenue to departments in your own organization.

Summary

For the most part in this series I’ve dealt with customer negotiations.   However, the need to negotiate also comes up regularly in your own organizations as you work to obtain resources, equipment, budget, etc.  The good Project Manager draws on experience from a history of customer dealings to enable them to effectively negotiate for things on their project with everyone involved in it.

This article was originally authored by me and appeared on the PM Tips website here.  The article is being used with permission.

Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM – the brilliant mind behind The PM PrepCast will be launching a new product soon - called The Agile PrepCast.

The Agile Prepcast will be launched in the coming 3 months. So be one of the first ones to receive their Early bird information newsletter PLUS get a 20% discount when they launch.
Simply sign up here: www.pm-prepcast.com/agile

The Agile Prepcast will offer:
●      21 Contact Hour Certificate
●      PMI-ACP sample questions
●      10 Key Concepts of Agile Development - Email Course
●      Access to Discussion Forum

The price for the The Agile Prepcast will be $129.99. But you will receive a 20% discount coupon on the day of the launch so you will only pay only $104.00. It's that simple.

With The Agile Prepcast you can ensure your readiness in taking the PMI- ACP exam.  Sign up to their email list now! www.pm-prepcast.com/agile

This post appears courtesy of Wayne Caccamo - Instantis

Before there were project portfolio management systems, didn't project managers and team members need to share project status, issues, risks and results more directly with each other through old-fashion conference room meetings, water cooler conversations and email for more distributed teams?

Nowadays, you have to find about these kinds of things through the "official" channel, your friendly neighborhood PPM system. In fact, you have to find out if the project you are working on actually "exists" by consulting with the PPM system. Many companies, including Instantis, have proudly quoted their customers exclaiming "if the project isn't in [insert PPM system brand here], it doesn't exist" as evidence of the successful and broad adoption of the system and the processes it automates.

To be fair to PPM systems, nothing formally or practically exists in an organization anymore unless it's recorded in a system including employees, orders, inventory, pay, warranties and so on. Further, the benefits of PPM systems, especially for distributed environments, in terms of productivity, decision support, visibility and accountability almost always outweigh the costs and any potential negative impact to traditional forms of PM collaboration.

Having said all that, PPM systems -- if they have not outright killed collaboration -- have definitely impacted the way project teams have traditionally collaborated and not necessarily for the better. For example, systems are better at representing the status in "quantitative" terms and the "qualitative" situation captured in human interactions can be lost. Further, human-to-human interaction promotes team cohesion and morale and is better at stimulating stakeholder engagement.

However, a new approach has been emerging for several years now that has the potential to right any potential wrongs of the past and take collaboration in PPM environments to heights never before imagined: social networking.

In fact, the collision of Enterprise PPM and social networking has been inevitable due to the inherently social and collaborative nature of project-centric work. As stated in our last blog post on this topic, this is exciting because this could unleash immediate and compelling business benefits in terms of improved project team and stakeholder planning, communication, collaboration and cohesiveness that can translate directly in to accelerated strategy, program and project execution.

The key to a successful marriage is ensuring social communications are context sensitive and collaboration is optimized for project-intensive environments. That's why we are so excited about Instantis EnterpriseStream™ which is the first and only purpose-built and “seamless” collaboration and social networking capability for PPM practitioners and stakeholders across the enterprise. 

Is negotiation part of the Project Manager’s role?  It certainly is.  In fact, without realizing it, the act of negotiating things on a project probably infiltrates just about every role occupied on a project…but it’s certainly most prevalent in the Project Manager role.

Reasons for Negotiation

Let’s take a look at reasons the need to negotiate may arise on an IT project.

• Out of scope work that needs to be included in current timeline
• Customer request for a different resource or skill set
• Customer training
• Budget issue vs. Timeline issue
• Functionality needed earlier than expected
• Data management issues and who handles them

The list can go on and on..these are just a few of the ones that I’ve personally run into on my projects.  The issues usually fall into three different categories:  Scope, Timeline, or Budget.  All of those topics above, when looked at in detail, can be slotted into one of these three categories.  For this article, let’s look closer at Scope Negotiations and how best to handle them with your customer.

Scope Negotiations

We all know that scope issues can abound on any given project – especially if some loose ends weren’t properly tied up during the sales process.  Again, my plug for inserting the Project Manager into at least a portion of the sales process.  When I worked at Rockwell Collins in the late 90’s and early 2000’s and all the projects were internal projects for internal business units – I WAS the sales process.  As was the case with all the PMs at RC, I handled meeting with the customer, documenting the business need, pricing the engagement and finalizing with the customer – and then presenting the proposed solution to a technology council for approval.  Sorry…enough plugging for the PM role in sales…for now.

Back to reality.  It will always happen that there will be scope issues.  When the customer says, “but I thought that was included”, you have to look at it from their side as well as your own.  Do some investigation.  Maybe Sales told them it was included.  Maybe the line was a little grey.  Or maybe you can see some bigger work that is coming down the line on the project in terms of scope and now is the time to negotiate.

At any rate, it’s about the give and take.  For most scope issues you’ll draw up a change order, identify the budget and timeline hits, and present the customer with what it is going to cost to add the additional scope.  If they balk, there may be some room for negotiation – for example, price the implementation of the new functionality but throw the training in for free.  Of course, you may need senior management approval for this – another form of negotiation, possibly.  Explain the need for customer satisfaction, retention and referral or possibly your vision for some bigger add-on work that you can see in the offing.

Another issue that can lead to major scope concerns and the need to negotiate is the lack of previously defined customer business processes or poorly defined customer requirements.  As the Exploration Phase gets underway, this issue really can come to light – if it hasn’t already.  As the PM, this is when I look for the opportunity to negotiate with the customer in terms of creating additional revenue for the delivery organization in the form of a change order. 

It’s obvious at this point of the project that (for example) a two week Exploration Phase is not going to cover everything that is needed.  Explain to the customer that in order to properly document the requirements and create a meaningful Business Requirements Document (BRD), Functional Design Document (FDD) and ultimately a Technical Design Document (TDD), then more time and effort needs to be dedicated to Exploration resulting in additional hours and $$ in the form of a change order. 

Explain that the increased effort added up front helping the customer define their business processes and requirements will result in a more solid solution being deployed to the customer at the end of the project.  It shouldn’t be too hard of a ‘sell’.

Summary

I’m not sure any of us really thought we’d be negotiators when we entered into the PM field.  But it seems to come up regularly on projects.   We’ve examined Scope Negotiations in detail here.  In the next article on this subject, I’ll discuss Timeline and Budget Negotiations and look at examples of each and how to deal with those both with your customers and within your own organization.

This article was authored by me (Brad Egeland) and originally published on the PM Tips blog site here.  It is being used with permission.

So MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews stated that he is 'glad' superstorm Sandy happened because it helped Obama win last night.  Here is the last paragraph of his statement....

"I'm so glad we had that storm last week because I think the storm was one of those things. No, politically I should say. Not in terms of hurting people. The storm brought in possibilities for good politics."

So he followed it up with an apology.  It doesn't matter.  Yes, we all make mistakes, but the bar was set long ago.  Howard Cosell wasn't let go from Monday Night Football for his "little monkey" statement and he used that term affectionately for his grandchildren and for athletes both black and white so no harm was meant there, but he was vilified endlessly for it and retired after that football season.  Imus was fired for making very inappropriate racist statements about the Rutgers women's basketball team.  Al Campanis, who once brought Jackie Robinson to school for his son's show and tell, made some remarks on "Nightline" that certainly came across as a bit racist, thus ending a 44-year relationship with his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers - though contrary to popular belief, he wasn't fired...he resigned.  And in December of 1978 as a 15-year-old, I watched in complete disbelief as the legendary Ohio State coach Woody Hayes punched Clemson nose guard Charlie Bauman in the throat after Bauman intercepted Art Schlichter's pass late in the 4th quarter thus securing a Gator Bowl victory for the Tigers.  Hayes was gone the next morning - ending a 28-year OSU coaching stint and his career. 

The thing is, public figures have to be held up to a certain standard.  And there are lines they just can't cross.  When they do cross those lines - right or wrong...the very wrong being Imus and Matthews and Hayes...once it's crossed even an apology can't bring it back and should not save their jobs.

What if someone said that it was a 'good' thing that Mark David Chapman gunned down John Lennon on a rainy December night in New York in 1980 because it helped the sales of Lennon's "Double Fantasy" album?  Did "Double Fantasy" sell more for Lennon and Yoko posthumously?  Almost certainly.  Was it a good thing that Chapman did what he did?  Absolutely not. 

There is no question that Chris Matthews should either step down from MSNBC or be let go.  111 people have lost their lives so far from that storm.  It doesn't matter who you voted for or what your political beliefs are.  That storm was definitely not a 'good' thing...politically or otherwise.

MSNBC - do the right thing.

Courtesy of Instantis – a global leader in Enterprise PPM

We are now winding down the data collection phase of our global study on IT resource and capacity management processes and maturity levels. As promised in we will continue to share and preview some of the results and conclusions. This week I took a look at current realized benefits of resource management practices and processes as well as desired and achievable benefits. By overlaying current benefits with targeted future benefits, we can identify the gaps between where the majority of organizations are today with their IT resource management initiatives and where they hope to go. As discussed below, the largest gap relates to the ability of the resource management process to positively impact project outcomes.

To understand current benefits, the following question and choices were provided.

(1)   Which business benefits, if any, does your CURRENT resource and capacity management process deliver (check all that apply)?

(2)   Given your organizational context, what are the 3 most desirable and achievable business benefits that your IDEAL resource and capacity management process would deliver (check up to 3)?

523 organizations responded to these questions and over 1,200 answers were selected to each question. The results are as follows:

Gaps between achieved and desired benefits in order of decreasing size are therefore as follows.

Note: The percentage below indicates the size of the gap which represents the difference between the percentage of respondents identifying the benefit as current or realized and the percentage of respondents indicating the benefit as ideal and relevant (but not yet achieved).

(1)    Increased project success rates and improved cycle times via timely assignment of the right resources (25%)

(2)    Improved budget and cost management through better planning, tracking and reporting on resource costs (16%)

(3)    Ability to accommodate incremental demand with existing resources via more granular and bottom-up project schedule information (13%)

(4)    Ability to plan capacity to meet project resource demands (10%).

Organizations are most adept at achieving basic resource visibility, ensuring higher priority projects are resourced and managing individual utilization rates.

As previously indicated, the biggest challenge by far is improving project success rates by ensuring that the right resources are assigned quickly. Organizations struggle with the process of allocating, assigning and deploying resources efficiently and systematically. Resource assignment was described by one respondent as “crisis based.” Based on other response comments there is particular angst in inventorying skills and locating the right resource for the job in a timely manner. By cross-tabulating this benefits information with specific questions regarding resource allocation and assignment processes, we hope to uncover the specific obstacles to increasing successful project outcomes.