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The Project Manager's New Year Wish List

12/23/2014

As we close the door on another year, I thought it would be a good time to look at the top five items project managers should have on their wish list for 2015.

Respect of Their Team

Nobody has the right to receive respect from their team; this can only be earned by reputation or deed. Within project management, respect of your team is essential...

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My Wish List for Project Management in 2015

12/22/2014

This is a first for me…a Christmas list for project management, or maybe a New Year's resolution for the project management world. At any rate, here are a few things that I'd like to see happen for project management in 2015. As you read, please consider the changes, additions or deletions you'd like to see happen and share with everyone so we can openly discuss. Thanks!

Now for my thoughts on the look of project management for 2015:...

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4 Signs You Have the Right Creative Team Assembled

12/22/2014

Do I have the right people for the project? That is always on the mind of the project manager – and probably senior management personel in the organization. And in a smaller creative organization, those people on the project may be everyone you have on staff. That doesn’t mean you are limited by that – you can always go out and try to find 1-2 additional creative staff to help round out the organization if you find you need particular expertise that you don’t currently possess.

But instead of looking at the negative today, let’s look at the positive. Let’s consider 4 signs that you may have just the right people to do what is needed to do to get the job done on your latest ad campaign or marketing venture for your new big client...

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Using Visual Planning for Easier Project Management

12/22/2014

Whether you are a “visual” person who needs to see in order to understand or an auditory person who prefers to hear in order to best comprehend, I think we can all agree that a visual planning system for project management is a great way to go. Especially if it is meeting our project scheduling, project status reporting, and resource management needs in a way that can make our lives easier and can help us disseminate information throughout the organization (ours and the customers’) to those who need it.

Yes, for PM, visual usually wins out. Charts, graphs, reports, percentages, and presentation slides abound everywhere you look and every meeting you attend. And status reporting and meetings…. Well, there are resource usage reports that highlight areas where your resources are overextended. Gantt charts are designed to provide a visual representation of how your entire project is laid out. Each task is represented and all dependencies, work completed, dates, and resources assigned are usually integrated into the Gantt chart visual view. And don’t forget about budget forecasting and analysis. For the projects I’ve managed over the years, I’ve created numerous ways to display this information very visually for my team, my executive management, and my customer. Sometimes what I have suffices, sometimes the customer and various stakeholders ask for something new which sends me off searching for or creating the best reporting scenario for the project at hand. Information is critical, and the delivery of this information can be critical to end user comprehension and adoption...

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How Detailed Do We Need to Be? - Part 1

12/19/2014

A project is a project, right? Well, sort of. But it does stand to reason that not every engagement needs to be managed to the same level of detail. Certainly a $5,000 two-week project doesn’t require the same up front planning and detailed documentation that a $5 million two-year project requires.

It is true, however, that every project needs documentation. Every project needs some level of status reporting. I think we can all agree to that statement as well. The question is – how much is enough? What is the breakeven point between project expense and project benefit? Beyond what point are we just burning through the project budget with our planning and documentation and not providing any additional benefit for the project, the customer, and those who may service or support the solution – or even take the project through a future phase? When have we hit that wall?

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5 Reasons Why to Choose activeCollab as Your Project Management Weapon of Choice

12/19/2014

In my latest installment of “5 Reasons Why…”, I am discussing activeCollab, a trusted project management tool that has been around for 7 years and boast users all around the world. Indeed, since 2007, over 150,000 companies have trusted activeCollab with managing their projects and relied on this powerful tool to enhance their productivity efforts.

Reliability. Most managers choose activeCollab for its reliability - a self-hosted version that works from anywhere and a Cloud version that prides itself with 99,98% of uptime in the first year of its existence. activeCollab is secure and stable enabling thousands of customers around the world to manage their work seamlessly.

Robust features. Being robust with features and easily adapted to the company’s needs makes it a good choice for project managers who don’t want to spend months transitioning to a PM software and training their employees to use it. activeCollab is the #1 choice for busy managers in software development companies, advertising agencies, design and photography studios, corporations with teams spread around the globe and more.

Uses native iOS and Android applications. With native iOS and Android apps, activeCollab makes it easier for people to access their work anywhere in the world being the perfect choice for freelancers and digital nomads but also corporate managers who spend a lot of time traveling.

Cool Notebooks feature for easy collaboration. Creatives use its Notebooks feature to collaborate in real time and edit content together seamlessly while software developers adore the Source module that allows them to attach code to tasks and develop amazing software together. Nonprofits and Universities enjoy a 50% discount on activeCollab Cloud plans saving money needed for greater causes.

Convenient invoicing feature. Invoicing is one of activeCollab’s most praised features with thousands of people exporting invoices every day After you make your template, activeCollab will always automatically create invoices for you making it easier to bill your clients and charge for your services.

activeCollab is a powerful and reliable tool used and praised by businesses around the world, enabling great projects every day. Over 500,000 projects are completed by activeCollab’s users so far. Join them, start your free trial today.

Adding PM Value to the Project

12/17/2014

Many times we find ourselves running the project methodically because we’re busy, we have lots of projects on our plate and things are going fairly well. Kind of like the saying, “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” But when we do that, we tend to miss doing the things that we do that can be adding value to the project, helping the project team, and helping to ensure the highest degree of satisfaction to our project client.

If you find that you’re not leading your teams well…they don’t seem to be taking direction and following your leadership, or if you are not experiencing the level of project success that you had hoped for, or if customers never seem quite as satisfied with your project efforts as you would like, then maybe it’s you and not them. And maybe it’s time to ask yourself, “Am I doing the right things right?”...

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Keeping Team Morale High During Slow Times

12/15/2014

No one is busy 100% of the time. And that’s good. There are times when we are all over worked and feel like we are working 30-hour days. That happens. But what about those times when things are slow in the creative industry? What about those times when the customers aren’t pounding on your door for projects for your creative team to take on? How do you keep everyone motivated? How do you keep them engaged, excited, and on top of their game? How do you avoid high anxiety levels…fearing layoffs and frustrations? It takes great management skills, a confident team, and some tricks on your part to make this all happen. I’m going to share with you some tips on keeping team morale high when things slow down – keeping your team members from fearing that their families are about to go hungry.

Through the years I've had instances where the company, division or business unit, or PMO was in doubt and I had to be creative and come up with ways to keep my team’s morale high during these seemingly down times. I look forward to your input as well as to what has (and hasn't) worked for you in these situations, but for now here are my top 3...

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A 5 Step Approach to Keeping Your Remote Project Team Successful - Part 2

12/12/2014

In Part 1, we began looking at the first two of my personal idea of five areas to focus on to ensure you get the most from your remote project team. I fully believe in remote project management and virtual teams as a way to utilize the best talent available no matter the location, and as a means to keep costs low and avoid some of the timing setbacks that happen when teams are “required” to be co-located.

Let’s continue by examining the next three on my list…

Always conduct weekly meetings with the project team

It’s not all about status meetings with the customer. Before that can even happen you need the most up to date information from your team that you can possibly get. To that end, I always conduct weekly internal team meetings 1-2 days in advance of a formal weekly meeting with the customer. That allows me to get status info from each team member, prep everyone for key discussion points during the customer call, and have all the info I need to get the customer a revised project schedule and current status report that will drive that formal weekly discussion. No surprises and a smooth customer meeting is usually the benefit from this effort...

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Managing Creative Differences Amongst Your Project Team Members

12/9/2014

Having a team that can think on their own is great. Having a team that comes to blows due to all that individual thinking is a different matter completely. Conflict resolution is one of those project management responsibilities that most of us project managers like to put down on our resumes and our LinkedIn profiles. However, in reality we try to ignore it, avoid it like the plague or pass it on to our project team member’s direct supervisor. We are the leaders - the chosen project manager for the engagement - and we should be able to manage our team as well as any issues or conflicts that arise between them during the course of the engagement.

But it is never fun…and usually it isn’t very easy either. And especially on the creative team everyone has a great deal of creative talent and individual thinking. That’s why they are tasked with ad campaigns, marketing undertakings, design projects and similar projects. They have the skills that our clients need in order to get the job done. Do they always think alike? Almost never…because we don’t usually want clones on our teams…that wouldn’t be very effective or productive, would it?...

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