Introduction.

Already available for your PC, iPad or iPhone – LiquidPlanner is now available as an Android PM app for your Android based device. This means that Project Managers can now access LiquidPlanner’s features anywhere and anytime on an Android enabled device – be it a tablet or smartphone. Even better – it’s currently available as a free download from Google Play.

What does LiquidPlanner offer?

LiquidPlanner - Now available as an app for Android phones

How LiquidPlanner works.

LiquidPlanner works by performing millions of calculations that feed in to complex algorithms to enable it to provide predictions as to the progress of a project and the likely flash points requiring special attention from the Project Manager. These not only facilitate automated scheduling and integrate the necessary collaboration between the project teams – but will also automatically carry out an analysis of the state of the project, to provide those insights as to the projects’ progress, that would take weeks for the PM or their colleagues to reach. So, for an Android PM app that’s free – that’s surely something worth having?

Android PM App is a post from: Enterprise PM

Introduction.

When you need input from team members, regarding how to approach and solve a particular problem, it is essential that the Project Manager provides a point of focus for the process(es) to center on. This is, of a course, one of the many ways by which the Project Manager facilitates his/her staff to help them achieve a desired outcome. So, by providing a definition by which the mechanics of the work to be done will be followed – you’ll allow the team members to focus their thoughts/efforts on the process(es) by which it will be achieved. Needless to say, failing to provide a process focus will simply mean that the team members work in isolation and become fragmented in their approaches to solving the problem.

Arriving at a process focus.

To arrive at a helpful process focus for your team members you have to satisfy yourself that the process is suited to the task and is fit-for-purpose. Secondly, think carefully about the individuals that will be working on the task, as your process focus needs to cater for their individual personalities. So, the bigger the team the more complex this aspect becomes. Thirdly, and following on from that previous point, decide whether or not to assign specific responsibilities to individuals; or can you be confident of them all working cooperatively as a team without constant monitoring from yourself? Two final points here are – whilst making sure the task will stretch those working on it don’t make the process over complicated or beyond them and always, always, have a plan B!

Lot's of things to think about with process focus.

Process focus success.

Having read the section above you might think there are a lot of potential pitfalls in process focus. The fact is, the same as everything in Project Management, it’s really all about using your interpersonal skills to prepare the way. This begins with selecting the right people for the process in the first place and knowing which facilitation techniques will work with them. Involving and encouraging them from the start is also vital, so before laying down the mechanics of what you want done make sure you organize meetings to get their input so that they’re relaxed, interested and involved from the start.

Process Focus is a post from: Enterprise PM

Introduction.

The one massive problem with the job title of Project Manager is that, sadly, to many folk a manager is someone who tells other people what to do. Now at some time or other a Project Manager working in pretty well any environment may well need to tell his or her staff what to do – but to be a truly great Project Manager that should only ever be a rare event indeed. Instead you need to be able to facilitate others to meet the demands that the project expects of them. So, what is the importance of facilitating and how should you set about becoming a facilitator?

Why should you aim to facilitate?

In the working environment, tell most people what to do and they’ll do it – to the letter. But therein lies the problem, they’re likely to do exactly as you tell them, whether they know it to be right or wrong and will do no more or less. That would be a managers approach. A facilitator will take a different approach to getting a task done. First of all they’ll realize it probably involves more than one person with more than one skill set and, almost certainly, will benefit from extra input over and above the initial work required. So a facilitator will, where appropriate, put together a team of people, quite possibly an inter-disciplinary team, to work on a task/problem and will then leave them to solve the task/problem.

Fundamentals for facilitating.

Facilitate your staff by working them in teams.

Regarding becoming a facilitator and we’ll expand more on this in later articles, to begin with simply try shifting your management style so that it incorporates more of the following activities. 1) Getting staff used to working collaboratively in teams. Giving staff individual tasks to complete is all well and good but how more effective might they all be if all of their talent(s) were to be shared? 2) Give the teams autonomy to make decisions, subject to their being collective agreement about the decision and it having undergone an appropriate level of scrutiny within the team. 3) Be prepared to provide some seeding of ideas to collaborative teams in the beginning. Remember you may well throw together a fairly disparate group of individuals who are unsure how to begin working in a team – so be prepared to kick-start them and, at least initially, monitor their progress.

The Importance Of Facilitating is a post from: Enterprise PM

Introduction.

Getting the essentials for PM is, well just simply essential. If you don’t get all the basic essential things correct and in place – then quite simply you’ll never succeed as a Project Manager. We spend quite bit of time here at Enterprise-PM making sure that you’ve got all the latest tips, tools and techniques to keep on top of your game as a Project Manager – but what about those considering a career as a PM or those that are just starting out in their Project Management careers? Well, we hope this will help those people in particular with our essentials for PM.

Being effective.

Your worth as a Project Manager will be determined by how effective you are at the job. It really isn’t a question of how well qualified you are, what your experience is or even how many hours you put – the only true measure of how effective you are is all about getting the job done on time and in budget. However, there are three caveats to those two things in that to be truly effective you must also ensure – they are that the project is completed according to the standard(s) required, which means you show effective planning for the project and then the effective management of the tasks to be completed in order to deliver the project as a whole. As a newbie to PM your question here, now, should be – how will you achieve all these things?

Find online Project Management courses.

Becoming an effective PM.

Hard work alone will not enable you to become an effective PM, as you must be able to communicate your desires and plans to those responsible for delivering the various parts of the project. This basically means that you have to have tremendous human resources skills whereby you can manage others by influencing them rather than dominating them, inspiring them to share in your vision and empowering them to work with confidence and to their fullest capacity. Having the interpersonal skills to accomplish those things takes time and requires a high level of visibility from you in the workplace. Ultimately that means that you have less time to spend in the office yourself – which in turn means you must make the very best use of all the modern Project Management technology and tools available to you. So, if you aren’t already an expert or qualified user of things like PERT diagrams, CPM, GNATT charts etc – then find out now about online courses for Project Managers that will teach you the essentials of PM using those and similar tools and technology.

Essentials For PM is a post from: Enterprise PM

Introduction.

We’ve previously run articles about Project Management apps for tablet computers and, of course, made a feature of PM apps for iPads. With the latest version of the iPad, iPad HD, just released – we thought it a good idea to look again at PM apps for the iPad and can now add to that previous list the new version of OmniPlan which is itself due for release later in the year.

OmniPlan.

OmniPlan on the iPad.

The price, the cloud and other Omni products.

Expect OmniPlan to be available from the the Apple app store for around $100, half the desktop price. However, being a universally available and shareable app means that you’ll need to access cloud services – so there’s an added cost. You’ll need to use iCloud for this as well as other ‘cloud’ storage systems, like Dropbox, do have compatibility issues with the Omni file formats, which are specifically written for Mac OS X with extensions for iOS. Some readers may be aware that Omni also produce other software useful to Project Managers such as OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle – all of which are also available on the iPad platform.

iPad PM Update is a post from: Enterprise PM

Introduction.

An essential skill for any Project Manager is the ability to communicate directly with other people effectively, which in essence means being able to clearly deliver your message through whatever medium is most appropriate to the designated audience(s) of that message. Of course the success with which you deliver your message is a complex process in itself and goes way beyond having successful MS PowerPoint skills. Speaking of which, there are plenty of articles elsewhere dealing with the effective use of MS PowerPoint, so this article focuses on addressing your ability to personally address an audience.

Virtual and Real communication.

You need to appreciate that the way you communicate in the real world may well need to be different to the way you communicate in the virtual world. Taking the most simple example here if as a Project Manager you send an email around to explain a decision, or request input, you can be very direct and matter of fact about it. However, if you wanted to convey the same message face-to-face with other people it will be important to have regard to the facial expressions you use, body language/hand gestures and voice tone etc. Also, even if you wanted to express the same message through face-to-face contact and through a video-conference the way you conduct yourself in the real world will have to be different to the virtual world. Remember that when in a video-conference for communication to remain coherent it is vital that only one person speaks at a time. So, whereas in the real world you might talk over an interruption to continue with your message, in a video-conference you will have to give way to the other person.

Audience diversity and culture.

Don't be caught out by cultural differences in your presentations.

Project Management Communications is a post from: Enterprise PM

Introduction.

We thought about calling this article PM don’t, but then we thought you might think it was an article about doughnuts for Project Managers – which entertaining as that might have been, it isn’t. Instead this is a short article listing a couple of the things it really is essential that Project Managers shouldn’t do, hence the title – PM errors.

Estimation errors.

Good project planning can reduce project errors.

By and large Project Managers tend not to involve many of their senior staff in estimating schedules and even quantities of materials needed for a project. As far as many Project Managers are concerned involving too many people simply leads to vast over-estimates in time required for jobs and/or the materials needed to accomplish them. Excluding team members from the scheduling process can be a mistake. As the PM you must be open to their recommendations/suggestions, after all, as the PM you have the final say anyway. Don’t forget too that your ‘final say’ can be further informed if you also refer any scheduling estimates to your Business Analyst(s), the Project Architect and even the end-user, to check with them that the advice you’ve been given is in keeping with their thoughts too.

Ignoring recording progress.

Never feel that you’re so busy, or worse too important, as to not keep up to date with recording the progress that the project is making. Having developed a project plan you must keep returning to it and maintain it as a record of work done/completed. Without developing proper documentation for the project, if a critical member of staff leaves you will not be able to effectively lead the team of people they were responsible for until a replacement can be brought in – wasting time and resources. Also, here we need to say something about ensuring your project progresses successfully. At the beginning of it progress will seem slow and can demotivate some staff. So, whilst your project plan will have all sorts of long-term objectives and mile-stones, build in to the plan some short-term ones to be achieved early on in the life of the project. These will help to get you into the habit of recording work completed into your project plan and will help your staff to work to deadlines from the beginning.

PM Errors is a post from: Enterprise PM

Introduction.

With the tough economic conditions of the last few years continuing through 2012 and with evermore complex projects to manage – the need to make sure that Project Managers are even more on top of their team and stakeholder management skills will be paramount. Project Managers can help themselves here, to make sure that those things run smoothly, by fully utilizing project management tools and the new smart resource management systems that are being made available. So, just what should the Project Manager of 2012 be aware of?

Collaboration aides.

Project collaboration – the key to success in 2012.

Good news for Project Managers.

If all that sounds like Project Managers will be finding themselves rushed off their feet in 2012, even more so than usual, there is at least one piece of good news for Project Managers as 2012 begins. That is that, despite generally rising unemployment trends at present – the recruitment opportunities for good Project Managers has never been higher. Of course, the more successful projects you have under your belt the more opportunities will present themselves to you. However, if you have got some down-time between projects, then don’t waste it but make sure your PM qualifications are up to date or enroll for Project Management Professional certification.

Project Management In 2012 is a post from: Enterprise PM

Introduction.

There is currently a wealth of Project Management tools available to the Project Manager. From the usual stalwarts of PRINCE II and MS Project to less well known, but still useful ones, like Basecamp, 5pm and newbies like Asana. However, Project Managers ignore at their peril the fact that these, albeit sophisticated, software programs are just tools to help them perform their jobs and will not, of themselves, secure project success.

PM tools analyze data.

Data input errors are easily made!

The first thing to remember here is that PM tools merely analyze data that’s entered into them. They do not, or at least not yet, gather that data and, so, are reliant on the data being input to it. If the data being input is incomplete, out of date or just plain wrong – then any analysis the PM tool announces will be at best inaccurate if not downright wrong – meaning your project could be seriously out of synchronization with your overall project plan. So, tiresome as it may seem you do need to exert some control and checking over the data being input. Depending on the size of the team you’re leading this might require you to personally oversee the data entry or to at least randomly check data entries – all the way up to having a dual entry system. Just remember the old computing adage – GIGO, Garbage In Garbage Out!

You’re the problem solver!

Another potentially fatal trap that Project Managers can fall into is thinking that PM software can solve problems for them. Unfortunately we don’t yet live in a world where software is so clever as to solve problems by itself, despite what you might read in Robert Harris’s excellent “The fear index”. When an unexpected situation arises you need to get out there and determine the solution yourself, sitting in an office staring at a computer screen will not offer you any help. Finally here, don’t be over reliant on using the PM software for all of your communications. Keeping people informed of meetings or formal decisions through the software is fine but, by and large, everyone prefers the personal touch when it comes to being asked questions or discussing their work – so get out there and use your interpersonal skills every bit as much as your software ones.

Project Management Tools Limitations is a post from: Enterprise PM

Introduction.

Our final part in this short series of articles about meetings is concerned with how the Project Manager should run a successful meeting. Strange as it may seem there is actually a formula to running successful meetings – which begins with making sure that you don’t begin the meeting in such a way as to guarantee its failure. To begin with, according to the formula, your reasons for calling a meeting should either be to obtain approval for a plan that you have or to seek opinions before formulating a plan to be submitted for approval. Those things could just as easily be labeled as seeking a solution to a problem or discussing problems – but it’s much more proactive to address a meeting in terms of plans rather than problems, as discussing problems will inevitably descend into an opportunity for the delegates to score points over one another.

A good start will lead to a good end.

Meet and greet your delegates to put them at their ease.

Meeting minutes.

The last part of the successful meetings formula is generating meaningful minutes. A verbatim transcript of everything said, or even the majority of what was said, is really of no use as the minutes for a meeting. The purpose of meeting’s minutes for the Project Manager is to express three things. Firstly, the decisions that were made in the meeting – who made them and what the decision were. Secondly, any resultant actions that need to be taken. Following on from a meeting there is inevitably more work to be done, so the minutes need to clearly show what’s to be done and who’s responsible for it. Lastly, the minutes will need to include supporting notes that help to explain the reasons for decisions or actions being reached. Don’t forget too, on a procedural basis, to include in the minutes things like the start and end time of the meeting, who was there, agreement on the minutes for the previous meeting, matters arising from the previous meeting and matters to carry forward to the next one. These procedural points might seem tiresome – but if ever you’re ever challenged on a decision in future a meeting, they could be invaluable!

Meetings – 3 is a post from: Enterprise PM