June, 2020

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15 Awesome Tools I Use To Manage My Projects

Rebel’s Guide to PM

Project management software tools are essential to manage projects efficiently. But they aren’t the answer to everything. In this article I’ll share my top 15 project management tools that I use for managing multiple projects. Most of what I use isn’t software-driven. In other words, even if you have no enterprise project management systems at work, you’ll still be able to put these tools to good use. 1.

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How to Effectively Engage With Multiple Project Stakeholders

LiquidPlanner

“Dear Elizabeth: I work with a difficult stakeholder population – there are a lot of them. My project has over a thousand people affected by the change my project is delivering, in multiple geographic locations. I know I should be doing stakeholder engagement and creating plans to work with them, but how do you get the one on one contacts with such a large group?”.

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Float in Project Management: A Quick Guide

ProjectManager.com

Projects are made up of a large number of tasks, and keeping track of those tasks is a primary role of a project manager. Sometimes, the tasks in a project all run smoothly and independently of each other, and there are no complexities. Other times, however, there will be a large chain of dependent tasks that make things more complicated. What happens if a task needs to be completed today, but the person responsible for it is waiting on another task that hasn’t been completed yet?

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All hands abandon plans!

Kiron Bondale

Articles have been written about the importance of doing just enough planning to develop confidence in what we are proposing to do as well as the perils of either too much or too little planning. But even a good enough plan can become obsolete at some point and we need the wisdom to know when it is time to jettison it. A common portfolio management anti-pattern is the inability of gatekeepers to terminate low value projects in a timely manner.

Planning 289
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Understand Digital Debt, Form a Team, Set Goals, and Plan Roadmap for Transformation

Understanding digital debt is crucial before digital transformation. Assemble a team to assess internal operations, market pressures, and digital debt's impact. Define future digital vision with measurable goals. Refine hypotheses and conduct market analysis. Develop a roadmap for transformation with defined projects, cost estimates, and governance.

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Make an impact as a T-Shaped project manager

Rebel’s Guide to PM

This is a guest post from Charlie Davidson. Charlie Davidson. Have you ever heard of a T-shaped developer? It’s a common phrase used in software development where the developer has broad experience in their role but is also profoundly skilled in one specific area. The horizontal bar of the “T” represents their broader skill set. The vertical bar shows the more extraordinary and specialised skill.

2009 344

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What Is Microsoft Project Management Software? (Guide To MS Project & MS Teams)

The Digital Project Manager

The post What Is Microsoft Project Management Software? (Guide To MS Project & MS Teams) appeared first on The Digital Project Manager.

Software 276
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The 12 Agile Principles. Part One.

Growing Agile

Much is said and written about the Agile Manifesto that if I were to write about it, I’m sure it wouldn’t be anything that hasn’t been said before. There is less material out there around the 12 agile principles that go along with the manifesto though, so I’d thought I’d put out there my own thoughts around these 12 sentences that help us understand how to apply the agile manifesto in our daily work.

Agile 122
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4 Must-Have Features for a Kanban Tool

ProjectManager.com

There are many kanban tools on the market today, and they all have different feature sets. There are simple drag-and-drop tools for organizing to-do lists, planning systems for agile teams and hybrid tools for robust project management. After reviewing dozens of these tools, we’ve found that there are four specific features of a kanban tool that are must-haves for any serious user.

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How to Identify and Hire a Strong Project Manager

MPUG

Hiring a new project manager can be stressful and time-consuming. Most employers are looking for the perfect mix of ability and skills, and for someone with a personality that fits with the team’s culture. A recent CareerBuilder survey found that three out of four employers stated that they had hired the wrong person for a position. And, a wrong hire comes with a cost.

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Strategic Finance Essentials: A Project Manager’s Guide to Financial Impact

Speaker: Ketan Jahagirdar - Sopheon’s Director of Product Management

Empower yourself as a project manager with insights that directly influence the financial landscape and strategic direction of your organization! Join us for a deep dive into the world of financial strategy, as we dissect key metrics that drive CFOs and business leaders’ investment decisions.This session will equip you with the necessary tools to craft compelling business cases as well as a comprehensive understanding of the crucial distinction between capital expenditure and operational expendi

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Overcoming bias in project management

Rebel’s Guide to PM

This is a guest post by Roland Hoffmann. Are you biased as a project manager? You might be surprised! In this article we’ll talk about the different types of bias in project management. Roland Hoffman. A project manager is the linchpin of a successful project. Her leadership and guidance is of paramount importance during planning and execution.

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“Organize Around Products/Services” is a great addition to the Disciplined Agile principles

Kiron Bondale

The Disciplined Agile (DA) principles were recently refactored and as part of this refactoring, a principle was added: “Organize Around Products/Services” While it is just one of the eight principles, this new one aligns very well with lean thinking. It also addresses many challenges which leadership teams experience with agile transformations.

Agile 256
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What makes the difference between a GOOD Scrum Master and a GREAT Scrum?Master?

Scrum.org

Even though the global Scrum adoption is now at 75% ( source: 14th State of Agile report 2020 ), the Scrum Master profession is still difficult to grasp for many. I have encountered and still encounter many organizations struggling with understanding the role of the Scrum Master. These misunderstandings result in sub-optimal mixed roles (developer/scrum master, tester/scrum master, product owner/scrum master, project manager/scrum master) or the complete omission of the role (the team will pick

SCRUM 222
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PMO Leadership: How PMOs Can Evolve into Savvy PMOs

Planview

PMO leadership today is about more than being a purveyor of governance and delivering projects on time and on budget. The Savvy PMO fosters organizational agility, cultivates efficiencies, and drives growth strategies. They meet executive expectations for informed counsel on vital business decisions such as which projects to prioritize, where to focus spending, how to align and realign the workforce in response to change, and much more.

PMO 142
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20 Common Mistakes Made by Inexperienced Project Managers

You’ve read the PMBOK® Guide several times, taken the certification exam for project managers, passed, and you are now a PMP®. So why do you keep making rookie mistakes? This whitepaper shows 20 of the most common mistakes that young or inexperienced project managers make, issues that can cost significant time and money. It's a good starting point for understanding how and why many PMs get themsleves into trouble, and provides guidance on the types of issues that PMs need to understand.

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7 Tips for a Smooth Virtual Meeting

ProjectManager.com

Virtual meetings are commonplace in our digitally connected world. Whether they are used to connect teams from different countries, or to bring employees who work from home together for a conference call, virtual meetings can be crucial to a company’s success. Like clockwork though, almost every virtual meeting seems to run into some sort of problem.

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AMA: Agile Is Working With My Clients (With Ben Novack)

The Digital Project Manager

This content is exclusive to DPM Pro Members! DPM Pro Members get: Instant access to. The post AMA: Agile Is Working With My Clients (With Ben Novack) appeared first on The Digital Project Manager.

Agile 156
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How To Take Over An Existing Project [Free Checklist]

Rebel’s Guide to PM

Consider this. You’ve recently been asked to take over an existing project. Your handover hasn’t been that great. The previous project manager might have moved on to do something else and you’ve got the project as part of an internal reshuffle of resources. Or they might have left the company. Either way, you’ve got a team waiting on your direction.

PMO 507
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Does your Product Owner have a high OQ?

Kiron Bondale

An article from Harvard Business Review reminded me that becoming an effective Product Owner (PO) requires a lot more than interpersonal skills, empowerment, capacity and even product knowledge. In the article, the authors explained that leaders having a high level of Organizational Intelligence (OQ) stand a better chance of getting the organization to do what they want.

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The Big Payoff of Application Analytics

Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business. That’s what drove the five companies in this e-book to change their approach to analytics. Download this e-book to learn about the unique problems each company faced and how they achieved huge returns beyond expectation by embedding analytics into applications.

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Things Every Agile Executive Should Know

Scrum.org

Becoming agile is about more than just Jira and Scrum. To be a successful company, the entire organization must play their part. But how? An agile executive would know. In this Lunch and Learn, Robb Pieper, CEO of Responsive Advisors will discuss areas affected by the agile delivery with some general solutions to common problems in seven areas. We’ll look at topics related to complex domain business strategy, finance, accounting, people management, change management, contracting, and vendor mana

Executing 214
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If the Shu fits?

Growing Agile

Blogging doesn’t come naturally for me, I find it hard to find topics to write about that I think other people will find interesting. Why would anyone read something I wrote? Imposter Syndrome hits us all in different ways I guess. So I am following the advice of a dear friend who said ‘just do it’…. Now you may have stopped reading already, but for those that haven’t, I’d like to take you on a journey of Shu-Ha-Ri.

Agile 191
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Reset, Refocus: 2 Concepts and 8 Tips for Making Progress During the Pandemic

Leading Answers

It is a dilemma. We need to move forward. Not just to make progress on projects, but also to give people something else to focus on beyond the tragedy and fear filling the news. At the same time, we need to be sensitive to how people have been impacted. We need to demonstrate support and empathy. We need to be available to listen and help wherever we can.

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Why I Wrote The Book Metagility: Managing Agile Development For Competitive Advantage

The Digital Project Manager

The post Why I Wrote The Book Metagility: Managing Agile Development For Competitive Advantage appeared first on The Digital Project Manager.

Agile 179
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How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

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How has project management changed?

Rebel’s Guide to PM

We aren’t managing projects now in the same way that people managed projects years ago. The approaches taken by many companies and professional bodies to managing projects are different now to when I first started out in the field in 2000ish. So why has that happened and what have been the biggest shifts in how project management has evolved? There are a number of things that to focus on, even just comparing my own experiences from when I started managing projects over 10 years ago to the

2008 357
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Microsoft Project Do’s and Don’ts: Identifying Early and Future Task Tracking

MPUG

As project managers, I suspect we’ve all considered starting or completing work in the future. When you think about it, although jumping ahead to tracking future work could seem handy, this ability has the potential to cause some problems, too. Would your cost and work reports be skewed? Would resource availability be a problem? Are task dependencies still valid?

2020 111
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Complex Refinement with User Story Canvas

Scrum.org

The practice of describing requirements with user stories is widely accepted in agile community. It is also commonly used as a template for expressing the Product Backlog items. User stories describe different needs and wants of a persona who expects to get an improved experience from products and services comparing to the current situation. User stories motivate developers to solving user problems, not just performing technical tasks.

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Top Tools To Effectively Manage All Your Social Networks Under One Roof

Proofhub

8 Tools To Effectively Manage All Your Social Networks Under One Roof It’s a crazy time, isn’t it? More people are active on social media compared to the previous year with more than 4.5 billion people using the internet at this time. That means more audience to target for your brand! The worldwide use of social media is growing with Facebook being the most popular social media platform.

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From Complexity to Clarity: Strategies for Effective Compliance and Security Measures

Speaker: Erika R. Bales, Esq.

When we talk about “compliance and security," most companies want to ensure that steps are being taken to protect what they value most – people, data, real or personal property, intellectual property, digital assets, or any other number of other things - and it’s more important than ever that safeguards are in place. Let’s step back and focus on the idea that no matter how complicated the compliance and security regime, it should be able to be distilled down to a checklist.