In PMBOK’s phases of project management, the third phase (Execution) and the fourth phase (Monitoring and Controlling) often feel as though they are one and the same. But, make no mistake – they are not, no matter what methodology you are using.
Although, they are tied extremely close together. In fact, it’s sometimes necessary when you reach Phase four to return to Phase two and begin planning again. However, it’s probably more realistic to look at phase three and four this way:
In Phase three, you execute your original project plan. But, it’s pretty rare that all of your project tasks are happening simultaneously. So, it’s quite possible that while you’re executing Task 2 (Phase 3), you’re monitoring Task 1 (Phase 4) to make sure the work is going according to the project plan (Phase 2).
In project management, does it make any difference if time tracking is on a weekly, daily or monthly basis? Apparently, it does and it’s often underestimated. Savvy project managers have proven that a single mishap can can have a ripple effect on your plan, unless it is caught early.
Alternatives to weekly status reports typically involve using social media technology tools. These applications provide many alternatives to static, boring documents. When the goal is to keep sponsors, stakeholders and staff informed, effective project managers choose the most attractive medium.
KPI measurement tools allow a business to appraise its approach to providing a service, marketing goods or engaging in any other type of activity. The easy adaptability to virtually any business environment makes these tools a favorite of project managers. Can you use them to monitor performance?
Are you having difficulty with your employees? Ever wonder if you’re simply a bad boss and your project team is lurching behind every corner looking for ways to get rid of you? If you’re frightened, you should be!
If you have interest in becoming a construction project manager, you should take a closer look at what the job entails–it is a hard but rewarding career. In this article, you can read about the typical duties of a construction project manager to help determine if it is the job for you.
Using informal internal e-newsletters to keep your project stakeholders notified helps you keep your project on track. Everyone stays informed when you published timely information about critical project details in an engaging manner that everyone looks forward to reading.
If you need help with conducting an inventory of your assets, this article along with the template provided with it will help you maintain an updated record of all your assets. So read on, and you’ll never again face difficulties in keeping track of your business assets.
Scanning and shredding paper documents improves efficiency and lowers cost. The law, however, requires retaining some documents in the original. An understanding of the laws and policies related to retention of original documents therefore becomes imperative to assert or safeguard rights.
Project management, especially the oversight of multiple projects, can get very complicated very fast if proper methods have not been decided on for developing a reliable project tracking system. In fact, the failure to successfully manage multiple projects is one common cause of project failure.
Emails have displaced the traditional letter as the default method of written business communication. The sheer volume of spam however makes most people selective in reading and replying to emails. The key to effective emails lies in crafting eye catching email to get recipients to respond.
Process methods refer to the ability of the people, machines, and materials to produce output that constantly meets design requirements or set customer standards. It compares actual variability to process specifications, and the lower the variability, the greater the process level.
This production downtime tracking system created in Excel 2010 utilizes several features and formulas to make data entry and report generation easier in order to analyze where and why production time has been lost.
A research critique involves examining the quality of all steps of the research process. The guidelines for critiquing qualitative analysis include considering the extent of detail provided, consistency of facts, justifications, adherence to ethical considerations, and overall appearance.
If you’ve got the most important meeting of your career coming up, you want to ensure attendees will show up and on time! What’s the best way to get the message across about your meeting? Here, Jean Scheid looks at effective choices with free template downloads.
Because different members of the project team often have different roles for which they are cut out for, the project manager might not be familiar with the popular software testing techniques being used by her team members. For this reason, it’s important to review the different methods.
Whether you are in the throws of a team brainstorming session or contemplating the solution to a problem all by yourself, you want to generate as many quality ideas as possible. But, what if you are stuck? Try out these suggestions designed to inspire creativity in problem solving situations.
Manufacturing efficiency entails production in the least time using the least resources. Downtime is the time during which a machine is out of action or unavailable for use; it contributes significantly to manufacturing inefficiencies. Manufacturing efficiency and downtime cost have direct linkage.
What are successful business men and women wearing to meetings these days? You can’t simply put on your favorite digs and rely on your brain power if you expect to make a good impression. In today’s economic climate, it’s best to stay on your toes and dress competitively–and conservatively.
Choosing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track project progress is an important decision for a project manager. In this article, we’ll go over four key examples of KPIs, as well as tools and representations to measure the progress of your project.
“I never get what I want from the meetings I host…I have an agenda, but somehow things don’t go as per plan.” These golden rules show you how to plan and host successful business meetings.