project management log

A project tracking system performs many tasks within a project management solution some of which include: tracking tasks, progress, time and budgets. It is able to let the project leader know if tasks are getting done in time, if the project is on track for completion, how much time is being spent on the project and if it is over, under or still on budget.

Successful project management relies on project tracking:

The biggest criterion for a successful project is to have it done on time, on budget and on schedule. Project management software helps project leaders achieve this through its many modules and different specialized uses. Project planning software is usually included in project management software as part of the package and helps the project manager to assign tasks and delegate duties so that the project gets done on time. The combination of project planning software and a project tracking system makes for a great combination for use by project managers
.

Benefits of a project tracking system:

The online project tracking system tells you if you are on time or behind, and if you are under or over budget. It also notifies you of the progress of the project so you know how much of it has been accomplished and how much remains. You can use this online project tracking system to track your project budget, implement tracking for your project schedule, track resources, changes and issues. Having all of this information at your fingertips, on demand and in real-time, helps keep your projects and your team on schedule.

Time tracking:

Time tracking is one of the biggest benefits of project tracking systems. Using time tracking enables you to keep tabs on how much time has actually been spent implementing the project. This information can be used to evaluate productivity and to make changes to the project plan if need be. The schedule of the project can be most accurately developed if the team leader is awa
re of the pace at which progress is being made.

Project management is the process of overseeing planning, organizing, scheduling, leading, communicating and controlling projects to achieve their desired outcomes on time and within budget. A project planning software and a project tracking system both support and identify problems within projects and their basic causes. By using online tracking services you can easily stay on target and deliver successfully.

This article has been brought to you by Tenrox, a project management and timesheet software solution provider.

That means we have a project waiting to be done and looking for some ways to manage it. Wouldn’t be useful in such circumstances to have some well known methods capable to help us to solve our problems? Of course it will be and the good news is that they really exists. But we have to be very carefull, because they will not solve the problem on our behalf, they will only help us. It’s our duty to use it properly in order to get the best results because they won’t guarantee the project’s success.
The first step in solving one problem is to realize that we have it. Trying to solve that problem leads us to the need of achieving some results. Breaking down the result into smaller pieces is the best thing we can do in this incipient stage. In the specialized literature the smaller pieces are called deliverables and the structure that will result is called the work breakdown structure. Work breakdown structure help us to create, keep together and gradually decompose the delivera
bles to a grade at which they can be assimilated with actions.
So far so good. Now we can think to a duration and a deployment in time for our actions. More than that we can see already different types of relations and interactions between our actions, begin to take shape. In the speciality literature the tool which allows this view is called the Gantt table. Using a project management software for this, like RationalPlan, will ease our work significantly, We can estimate now the materials, human resources and equipments that we will need to accomplish our project.
Materials are usually measured in quantities, meters or capita while the necessity human resources and equipments are estimated as hours of work, because that’s what we will pay. Based on the calendar we will attach to each resource we may end up with different rates for resources throughout the duration of the project. For example if we have a resource which have the normal working hours from 8 AM to 12 AM,
and our project calendar is from 8 AM to 4 PM it is most likely that that resource will accumulate overtime hours from 12 AM to 4 AM.
Now we can go to a higher degree of clarification for our project. More precisely we can assign resources to tasks. In RationalPlan this operation is straightforward and natural. More than this, with this software, we don’t have to worry about the overallocation issues because they will be handled in the next phase - the resource leveling.
Overallocation situations occurs when a particular task or many simultaneous tasks requires more resources than allocated. In RationalPlan those resources will appear in red, in the leveling view.
A supplementary step in our project management can be the defining of additional costs for tasks (excepting those with the assigned resources). Although these cost can occur, they are not mandatory. In RationalPlan the view associated with this step will show also the total and task distributed costs for
all tasks in the project.
Last phase of our project management is the tracking of the evolution of the project. In RationalPlan the view associated with this phase provides a way to monitor the project evolution while updating the schedule with the information about the tasks completion. The completed part of a task will be marked in the Gantt chart with a strike-through, darker color.

Stand By Soft is the provider of RationalPlan, a powerful project management software capable of handling multiple interrelated projects and covering project management areas starting with WBS construction, project planning and scheduling to progress tracking etc.

Every business organization has its fixed objectives and plans to fulfill the needs of their clients and customers. There will be various projects which need to be handled carefully and to complete it successfully on time. The main aim of every business organization is to develop and earn profits too. To develop or boom the business of your organization you must ensure that the energy levels of your employees are high and they have fixed goals in their mind. This is mainly important for middle management employees as for the reason they are considered to be the best driven force for the low level employees.

In a business there would be various projects which need to be handled carefully and to complete it successfully on time. But it is certainly not possible for the owner of the organization to handle every task at and finish it on time. For this purpose he/she will require qualified persons to handle the given task. Such employees which are employed to complete the
specific task are known as project managers. A team will be formed under them with the help of the senior employees or by the owner himself. After the formation of team work to be done will be explained and further to that delegation of work will be done.

Person who is being appointed has project manager must be confident and motivated and at the same time he/she must ensure that the team is also motivated. In majority of the cases it has been noted that in the starting phase of the work every employee will be enthused and will perform its activities in a well manner. But as the days passes some of employees will start to lose their interest and will not be motivated. And at this point of time the role of manager is very important. They must take the responsibility as project management speakers to boost the energy level of employees and bring back their interest in work.

Some companies hire the service of Project management speakers. Since they are highly expe
rienced their job will be to motivate people in various aspects. They will give motivational speech and will share their knowledge on how to handle and take care of the given task. They will various tips which will turn out to be very useful and easy to follow. Even the person who is handling the whole task can take benefits from such speech and tips.

Project management speakers will share knowledge about the work, what are the difficulties in accomplishing the task, and by what means they can achieve successful results. As they are highly experienced in their speech many look towards them as their role model. The speaker will also ensure that in future such kind of problem is not arising. And if in any case employees feel they are getting de-motivated then they can very well seek help from the company project manager. As for the reason every tips will be shared among them in depth.

Rhonda Victoor is a specialized author for inspirational keynote speakers. She has written many articles on various topics like Project management speakers, Womens leadership speakers, executive speakers, financial planning speakers, accounting speakers, High energy speakers.

Below is the list of skills required for you to be the best manager in your career:

People Management Skills: Project Management can be defined as a set of activities performed in all phases including initiation, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, closing to ensure the project is completed on time and under budget. Most of the activities defined in Project Management are performed by people. Manager’s most important, and most difficult job is managing people. They need to hire, train, lead, motivate, and inspire them. Project success is all about people success. Projects don’t fail. People do. Hence, the first prerequisite is to have a solid understanding of people management if managers want to successfully manage a project.

Communication Skills: Managers need to request information; discuss problems; give instructions; interact with stakeholders both internal and external customers to complete their project. Also, they have to communicate on all
levels in order to inform about the project status when managing a project. Hence communication skill is very important for a project manager. Furthermore, as the work place become more global, it is important for them to have good presentation skills are part of communication skills.

Project Management Skills: Generally, project managers typically involve from inception to all the way to closing phase. Hence, basic project management skills needed for them to get things done quickly. Also it would help them to make the most efficient use of resources and make them more organized and details.

Problem Solving & Decision making skills: Both skills are closely linked. Managers make many decisions to make the project successful. Most of the time, they gather more information about problems & issues; analyze; list out possible solution; pick up the best solution; implement and verify the solution to manage projects. Hence I would consider this skill also a requir
ed skill for them to successfully manage a project.

Listening skills: This is another area a manager needs to concentrate. This skill helps him to understand the teams’ problems which are very important to manage people. If managers improve their listening skills, they can greatly improve their people management skills.

Self-confidence: This skill inspires confidence in others. In order to work at highest potential, managers need to have a mindset that they are capable enough and have the ability to manage even stressful situation. Staying in comfort zone; fearing failures and to avoid to the extra mile to achieve better things would make bring their confidence level down.

Team player: In an organization (or in a team), everybody is a piece of puzzle that should be connected to get the whole picture. It was proven that two minds are better than one. Hence this skill also helps a manager to become a best manager in their career.

Professionalism: C
orporate scandals & unethical activates are rising in today organizations. Even PMI has updated PMBOK latest version to make ethics as one of the important factor in PMP and CAPM exams. Managers should abide by the code of ethics designed by their organization, avoid unprofessional activities such as stealing company secrets, discrimination, harassment, bribery etc, and guide their team to do the same to improve their company’s reputation.

To summarize, project managers are unique and multi skilled, in that they should be able to function in almost any environment. Some managers are very successful in their career, and others feel that they are not able to manage things well. Sometime, even a manager who has a MBA from a world class University fails to manage a project. The skills highlighted here can help you to become a best manager in your career. These skills can be learnable through training, education, experience and practice. Hence prepare a plan now. If you
put out a two year plan today to improve your skills, you will be marked as a best manager by your employer in 2012.

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I recently met one of my best friends, who are working as a Director for training in an Information Technology (IT) organization in the US who came to India for vacation. During our meeting, we had an interesting discussion about the certifications available for IT professionals. As you may know, thousands of certifications are available in the market place and it is very difficult to find out the most important certifications for a candidate who works in an IT organization. He suggested me the list of best certifications that I mentioned below for IT professionals and highlighted who can go for the PMP certification:

Project Management Certifications (CAPM, PMP and PgMP)
Microsoft IT Professional certifications (MCAD, MCDST, MCITP, MCPD, MCSA and MCTS)
Cisco certifications (CCDA, CCDP, CCENT, CCIP, CCNA, CCNP, CCSP and CCVP)
Hardware, Networks & Operating Systems (CIW, CompTIA, LPI, RHCE, RHCT, SCSECA and SCSA)
Programming & Web development (Oracle Databas
e Admin, SCJD, SCJA, SCJP and SCWCD)
IT security Certifications (CISSP, CompTIA Security and MCSA)
IT Management Certifications (CBAP and ITIL)

Project Management certifications help you to successfully manage your projects. Microsoft certifications help you to acquire knowledge required to perform a particular job role well. Let us say, for example if you take Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD) certification, this would help you to acquire knowledge required to build, deploy, optimize, and operate applications successfully by using Microsoft Visual Studio and the Microsoft .NET Framework. Several certifications available similar to that I mentioned here from Microsoft for you to improve your technical knowledge in a particular area.

Cisco certifications would help you to acquire knowledge required to plan, operate and troubleshoot complex network infrastructures including but not limited to LAN, WAN, Protocol, Switches, Gateway and Route
rs. Certifications under the category “Hardware, Networks & Operating Systems” would help you to become a successful networking professional. The CompTIA Network+ certification would help you to acquire knowledge in managing, maintaining, troubleshooting, operating and configuring basic network infrastructure. This is a good certification if you want to become a Networking professional. Likewise, Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certification helps IT professionals to acquire knowledge to configure networking services and security on servers running a Red Hat OS.
Oracle Database administrator and Sun certified Java Developer certifications would help you to improve your programming knowledge in a particular area and to become an expert in database management. CompTIA Security certification would help you to become an expert in system security, network infrastructure, cryptography, assessments and audits. The ITIL certification is getting popularity now. It helps you t
o learn more about the best practices for IT service management. Certified Business Analysts Professional helps you to improve your business analysis knowledge.

Now let us go back to our question. Is PMP best for you? The answer is it depends. It depends on where you want to go in your career. If you want to get into the networking field, you can go for CISCO and Comp TA Network certifications. If you want to become an expert in a particular area, you can choose the right certification from the list. But if you want to get into managerial roles, I would suggest you to go for project management certifications. It would help you to acquire knowledge and skills required to perform your managerial job. Its reputation and popularity increased dramatically. Companies have started seeking PMP certified Project Managers to fill in managerial jobs. Companies have started paying higher salaries for PMP certified Project Managers. So my answer to the question is, it really boi
ls down to your career preference.

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