Sat.Aug 11, 2018 - Fri.Aug 17, 2018

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Winter Is Coming: Project Management Lessons from Game of Thrones

ProjectManager.com

“A bruise is a lesson… and each lesson makes us better” – Arya Stark. Project managers can get pretty bruised by the lessons projects throw at us. But we deserve a little time off too. And, if you’re like me, you’ll spend some of it in Westeros. But that’s good, because we can learn plenty of project management lessons from Game of Thrones and the world George RR Martin has created.

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What Project Managers Should Know About Monitoring Project Risks

Project Risk Coach

Many project managers do a great job of identifying risks. Some even evaluate risks and develop response plans. However, project managers get busy as their projects progress and fail to monitor their risks, resulting in challenged or failed projects. Here are some key factors that you should know about monitoring project risks. Do Project Managers Really Control Risks?

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3 Easy Ways To Make a Gantt Chart (Giveaway + Free Excel Template)

Rebel’s Guide to PM

If you manage projects, you will have come across a Gantt chart. Even if you don’t manage projects but are involved in project teams, or you manage Agile projects – Gantt charts are everywhere. Enter to win a one year license for Office Timeline, perfect for creating Gantt charts in Powerpoint, by clicking here. I have used Microsoft Project for many years and it creates great Gantt charts.

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Will a Project Management Certification Help Your Career?

LiquidPlanner

Let’s say you’re well-qualified in your technical skills—be it Java, programming languages, infrastructure, networks or system administration. Qualifications take time and effort, but as well as learning useful skills, you’re also building confidence—your own and the others’ confidence in your ability to do a great job. But what if you’re switching from a purely technical role to one that involves managing projects?

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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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What Does Y=f(x) Mean? How to Use This Powerful Six Sigma Formula

ProjectManager.com

Some people look at math and shut down. Managers are not usually those people. They know that there are formulas that must be used to solve certain business and process problems. But there are different types of managers, just as there are different types of people. Some are more skilled as leaders than they are as mathematicians. Math is required, of course, but some managers still might be perplexed by certain equations, such as the commonly used Six Sigma formula Y=f(x).

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The Trouble with Methodologies and Why Frameworks are Better

Rebel’s Guide to PM

This is a guest post by Laura Copas and Steve Sewell at Change Troops. At Change Troops we’ve noticed projects, programmes and change initiatives becoming increasingly complex, and the biggest threat to their success is methodologies. Methodologies are everywhere. They bring with them the enticing promise of an easy way to make organisational or personal change, if only you follow the prescribed route.

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Tips + Tools For Managing Efficient Virtual Teams

The Digital Project Manager

Any HR professional can tell you: the remote workforce is expanding. In fact, a 2017. The post Tips + Tools For Managing Efficient Virtual Teams appeared first on The Digital Project Manager.

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How to Make Your First Day of Work Awesome

ProjectManager.com

You did it! You’ve landed that new job you’ve been trying so hard to get. Unfortunately, transitioning into a new work environment, with new people, new procedures and new office tools can be stressful. Who are the people on your team? What project management tools do they use to work together and communicate? The learning curve can be difficult.

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How to Write Status Reports that are Worth Reading

LiquidPlanner

Status reports are a critical part of project management. We all write them, but hardly anyone reads them. I don’t know how many times I’ve had a stakeholder claim to not know something that was in a status report…on the front page…in bold…with arrows pointing at it saying, “ This is very important. ”. Okay, that last bit was an exaggeration, but the rest wasn’t.

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

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 expend

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Software Review: Vizzlo [2018]

Rebel’s Guide to PM

I first wrote this Vizzlo review in 2016, and this review has been updated to reflect changes in the tool since then. General Information. Name: Vizzlo. Vendor: Vizzlo. Hosting options: Web only. Cost and plans: Free plan (includes Vizzlo branding on your images), Premium Plan at $11 per month, plus options for businesses that include sharing images between teams from $15 per month.

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Pulse of the Profession 2018: The Project Manager of the Future

Inloox

New technologies bring rapid and continuous change to our workplace. In order to not only react to those but use them to make projects more effective and profitable, project managers need to adapt and keep on learning. In the future, the role and the tasks of a project manager will be something like the following: Ensure top drivers of project success As PMI’s research shows , there are three top drivers of project success: the investment in actively engaged sponsors, the avoidance of scope cree

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How to Make Your First Day of Work Awesome

ProjectManager.com

You did it! You’ve landed that new job you’ve been trying so hard to get. Unfortunately, transitioning into a new work environment, with new people, new procedures and new office tools can be stressful. Who are the people on your team? What project management tools do they use to work together and communicate? The learning curve can be difficult.

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Show respect!

Kiron Bondale

I’ve previously written about the importance of courage and discipline for agile teams, so let’s review another important quality – respect. The Oxford English Dictionary provides two definitions for which are apropos: A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. Due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights of others.

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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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Handling Unplanned Work

Leading Agile

Technical teams who are building or supporting application software usually work from a prioritized list of improvements, new features, and ideas to try out. (Scrum calls the list the Product Backlog.) They have a plan for completing the items on the list. Except in cases when the totality of the work is completely understood in advance, contemporary practice involves rolling-wave planning or multi-horizon planning in some form, whereby teams pull a subset of items from the top of the list and w

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DoD defines agility

Scrum.org

Big organizations use Scrum as a driver of agility. But often after launching, management start focusing on the speed of development instead of quality. DoD is often weak and the company's agility is reduced as a result. In this article we will use system diagrams to analyze the reasons why it happens and why DoD defines agility. . DoD defines frequency of releases.

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Creed Over Greed: Motivation and Purpose

Leading Answers

There have been a couple of news stories in the news recently that reveal some important facts about motivation and purpose. Ex-Tesla Workers Are Still Believers. Some people’s reactions over being fired from Tesla surprised many analysts. Rather than the normal angry barbs (and I am sure there were plenty of those) what made the news were the messages of thanks from, now ex-employees, explaining how they enjoyed their time there and were glad to be a part of it.

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The Value of Project Management Skills… Transferability

Online PM Courses

Project Management is a valuable skill-set. Project Management skills enable you to deliver big, complex, important changes. And organizations are prepared to pay for that. This is what makes Project Management a career option. But not everyone wants to build a. Project Management career. You may have got the skills of Project Management for a specific Project.

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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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10 LinkedIn Groups every Entrepreneur & Project Manager should join

Taskque

Starting a business is not everybody’s cup of tea. Trust me, Entrepreneurs, business owners, and project owners cannot succeed without soliciting the help of a group(s) of people who have that experience and can guide them better. Without these networks of people, it becomes a challenge for small business owners & project managers to scale their business on their own.

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Scrum Mastery: 5 Steps to Leverage the Organization

Scrum.org

This is the fifth in a series of posts exploring Scrum Mastery. In our first post, we introduced the 4 dimensions of Scrum Mastery: Team Identity, Team Process, Product Value, and the Organization. In this post, we will explore the Organization dimension. How is the organization enabling you to maximize the benefits of Scrum? . How is the organization holding you back?

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10 Ways to Improve Team Communication

Teamweek

Team communication is one of the key factors in being successful. As a project manager, it’s possibly the most important tool in your arsenal. Constantly looking for ways to improve team communication should always be at the top of your list. It’s not just about talking; we all know how to speak. It’s about communicating with a purpose and conveying information in an understandable manner.

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Can Agencies Positively Impact Client Strategy?

Function Point

How can your agency positively impact your client’s business strategy? It’s a good question and one that can lead to a myriad of possible opportunities, for both clients and their respective agencies. From an organizational structure to go-to-market strategies, there are a number of ways that creative agencies can assist their client in achieving their goals.

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Acclaim Projects Helps Deliver Innovation Projects on Time and on Budget

This large intercity transportation company for people and freight employs 100+ IT employees and contractors across North America and Europe and spends $10MM annually for approximately 50 inflight projects. The company needed the right financial tools to budget for innovation initiatives and real-time information on spending and forecasting. This transportation company turned to Acclaim Projects by Sopheon to help deliver projects on time and within budget.

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Focus on Strengths Not Just Weaknesses – the Value of Appreciative Inquiry

Green Project Management

I always enjoyed the message from the featured image above. As a management consultant, validator, and assessor I am often engaged by organizations to analyze their operations and systems to identify opportunities for improvement. I have also spent a couple decades on advising on how to implement better practice methods and processes around various disciplines […].

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The difference between the ‘forecast’ and the ‘Sprint Backlog’ in Scrum

Scrum.org

There is a difference between the forecast and the Sprint Backlog in Scrum. Exactly what this difference is, has eluded me for some time, and it may very well be unclear to you too. The difference may seem subtle, but can have real practical benefits as you will learn below. The way I used to look at forecast & Sprint Goal. In the slides of the Scrum courses I teach, the results of the Sprint Planning are listed as: Sprint Goal ; f orecast ; Sprint Backlog.

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15 Teamwork Software Alternatives for Project Management

Teamweek

Doing project management without using the proper software tools has become nearly impossible, especially over the last few years. With more companies hiring remote workers, online collaboration tools are becoming a crucial part of every business in this industry. Programs like Teamwork have come into the picture as a cloud-based means to improve communication, organization, and production.

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How Project Management Solution Is The Real Replacement For Excel

Celoxis

For years, Excel has been a preferred tool for project managers and teams across every industry. Using excel at work is a prudent move, it gives businesses the tool they need to drive more efficiency and productivity in their day-to-day work process. However, as technology continues to evolve, industries and businesses must reshape every aspect in order to keep a competitive edge.

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From Concepts to Actionable Insights: Powering Digital Transformation Success

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

70% of most digital transformation projects fail. Learn how you can quickly improve that success rate. To be successful, digital transformation involves the strategic application of digitalization to improve a business’ entire system of production, procurement, sales, operations, human resources, and financial management. In short, to basically transform the way a company makes money and delivers value to customers.