Leadership skills of the Project Manager: the key elements of the role

The leadership of a project, in very few words, is the act of guiding a team towards the completion of a project.

It is obvious that it is a simplistic definition and that the true meaning of Leadership in a project is much more than that.

CONTENT INDEX

Different leadership styles
How (as project manager) do I become a GOOD project manager?
What does the sixth edition of PmBok on leadership say?
Communication is the key

It is about obtaining something well done through other people who, in turn, are happy to have done it.

Leadership is a soft ability; part art, part science

Everyone is obsessed with this topic, from professionals to companies.

It represents an important – and necessary – quality for a project manager.

We have been asked the following.

Can everyone be a Leader?

Can leadership be learned and taught or is it an innate talent?

This is still an open point on which there are discussions.

But one thing is certain: successful leadership can be monitored and studied.

Different leadership styles

If we analyze the management style of everyone involved in a project, we can find different ways in which project managers try to reach goals and set their job.

Most of these differences are based on the personality of the professional and on the style of leadership.

We tried to reproduce these differences graphically and this is how the Project Leadership Matrix was born, which you can see below.

It’s a tool that says what kind of leader you are, and with this knowledge it is possible to correct or change the style to become a better leader.

This matrix divides the leadership into four main types:

Reactive people leadership;
Reactive task management;
Proactive people leadership;
Proactive task management.

It is unlikely that a project manager fits perfectly in a single quadrant.

It is much more likely that every Project Manager is a mixture of two or more leadership styles.

However, in general, the best project managers are those who emphasize a proactive leadership style.

It is important to remember, though it may seem obvious, that people are not like activities.

Managers are often more comfortable with processes and methodologies, rather than with human beings.

However, the work is not done by automata and treating the team, which is made up of human beings, in an abstract and cold way means risking the disaster.

Here is where excellent project leadership must come. As a leader, the goal is to inspire and empower the team.

Planning, monitoring and reporting are certainly fundamental for the construction of a project, but the morale of the collaborators may not be quantifiable like a milestone on a timeline.

How (as project manager) do I become a GOOD project manager?

Knowing what good project leadership means leads to the inevitable question: how is it possible to apply this concept to reality in order to become a good project manager?

The aspects that many – excellent – leaders share are the following:

Keep the focus on the goal;
They are aware;
They create solutions;
They are analysts;
They can evaluate the risks;
They can generate a sense of urgency when necessary;
They are perspicacious;
They promote cohesion among collaborators;
They motivate the team;
They reach results.

These represent ten pillars on which it is possible to build a good leadership.

Leadership is difficult to teach through books, videos and courses.

Of course, you can learn the basics by reading, but the “practice” at work is another story.

What does the sixth edition of PmBok on leadership say?

It can be more difficult to manage a team, and a project in general, through leadership rather than authority.

However, leadership is usually more effective because it is built on trust and respect.

Leadership is particularly important at the beginning of a project to define the vision, communicate it to the team and start this necessary relationship of trust and respect.

This let all employees take part in the project objectives.

Good leadership skills will also keep the collaborators inspired and motivated to do their best.

In order to be a project manager with good leadership skills, it is important to recognize situations and select the appropriate action.

The PmBok summarizes the leadership as:

Lead team members and stakeholders towards a common project goal;
Doing things “through” the project team members;
Manage with respect and trust;
Communicate with, motivate and inspire the team;
Maintain the vision, strategy and communication of project performance;
Evaluate the performance of the project team.

Communication is the key

Clear communication is the most valuable tool that a project manager has.

Clear communication not only with the team, but also with the possible leaders and with all the stakeholders.

This quality is probably what firstly characterizes a good leader.

Communication is not only a means through which needs and desires can be explained but, if used correctly, it clearly transmits to the team what are the expected objectives, the requirements and the limits to respect.

This allows everyone to act correctly in an autonomous way.

The more team members know, the more they can act autonomously and make the right choices.

To ensure that communication skills are clear, a simple pattern, both for written as well as spoken communications, can be followed:

First of all, communication has to be compelling, as the message must arouse interest and involvement in the topic.
Secondly, commication must be persuasive. If you are not able to influence the person with whom you are communicating, you will not be able to change her/his way of thinking or her/his habits.
Finally, communication must be powerful. This means that we need to communicate effectively and efficiently. The correct result of communication should be the action.

Leadership for a project manager is a term probably easy to describe but represents a goal to pursue and to try to achieve throughout the whole working life.

What kind of leader are you?

Which are the most difficult aspects for you in the field of leadership?

Tell us about your experience.

Increase your leadership skills.

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How to apply the Kanban method to project management

The Kanban method was developed as a methodology to improve production efficiency.

The Japanese word “Kanban” means “billboard” in English and it was born in the company of Toyota, in Japan.

Today this method is widely used.

Nowadays, the Kanban method is not only used as a planning system for lean production, but also in Agile projects in order to manage the backlog of activities.

CONTENT INDEX

What is a Kanban Board?
What are Kanban cards?
How to use the Kanban method in project management
The Kanban method in the software

Actually, thanks to the popularity of Kanban, there are now countless project management tools that follow this method. The goal is to help people plan and prioritize.

The advantages of this method are different.

Kanban cards work like visual panels with virtual notes that can be added.

These notes can be moved to organize the order of activities or in order to prioritize the things to do.

Kanban is often used by software house to manage bug status. We use for example Twproject, to change status and priority to all our new features inserted in every releases.

Therefore, Twproject enables more flexible planning options, a quickier output, as well as more carefullness and transparency throughout the project life cycle.

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The Toyota company, where this system was first implemented, has created six rules that permit to apply the Kanban method to the production process.

Today, people and project managers of the most different sectors use the Kanban method for planning and managing activities and their priorities.

In fact, Kanban is a structured process of prioritization.

What is a Kanban Board?

A Kanban Board is like a blackboard.

A space in which Kanban cards stand for the individual activities that have to performed and are categorized based on priority and delivery.

Nowadays, Kanban cards are used mainly as online softwares, or in some cases are directly integrated in more complex project management softwares.

In general, they allow to track the work flow not only of a team, but also of the single collaborators.

It is particularly used by the software development teams that follow the Agile methodology.

It is used to define user history and the activity priorities in the backlog or as a collaboration tool for innovation.

If we consider the most basic (and more structured) form, the Kanban card can be divided into three levels:

Work/activity in standby;
Work/activity in progress;
Work/activity completed;

Obviously, the complexity of the card depends on the goal of the project.

As every task is completed, team members move Kanban cards through the different sections of the board.

Kanban cards allow to:

Visualize the workflow;
Limit the number of activities in progress;
Move an activity from one section to another;
Monitor, adapt, and improve the process.

What are Kanban cards?

The Kanban method can be considerated as a system of knowledge and the cards permit to represent each singular object of work or activity.

Each Kanban card includes the critical data for the specific activity to which it refers.

The cards have different colors that indicate the type of task performed.

Different colors can also refer to other distinctions that have been agreed upon at the beginning of the project.

Some of the ways a Kanban card helps teams and project managers:

Quick understanding of the details of every activity/task;
Easy communication within the team;
Information on documents;
Support with the future workflow.

How to use the Kanban method in project management

In order to manage different projects in an efficient and productive way, different methodologies are required.

In general, the Kanban method is an excellent tool for planning the project and prioritizing the activities.

It can increase team efficiency, optimize time management, as well as allow a more fluid and simple overall project management.

It is also excellent for supporting with resource allocation, workflow management and waste reduction.

Here is why in more detail:

Use the Kanban method to: Assign resources

The first step is to create the activities and then assign them to a team member.

It’s fundamental to make sure that the right people are working on the right job in the proper manner.

This will help to correctly manage the work, without blocking any other member of the team or delaying production.

Everytime a new project activity is added into the workflow, the right resource can be assigned to it in a easy and quick way.

Use the Kanban method to: Workflow management

The Kanban method is a perfect tool that allows to visualize the workflow of any project.

The workflow is a sequential series of activities and the Kanban card with its visual representation makes everything more understandable.

Thanks to the observation on how activities are related, collaboration within the team will be promoted and at the same time greater efficiency and productivity can be achieved.

Use the Kanban method to: Reduce waste

The reduction of waste, whether of resources or costs in general, is not only the rule of a lean system.

Every project manager is interested in obtaining results in this sense.

Kanban cards help in the identification of a probable expensive process.

Something that does not work as planned, an overproduction or a situation where team members are blocking the workflow are easily detectable.

The big advantage lies in detecting these factors before they become problems.

There is no limit to the number of cards, integrations and workflow management that the Kanban method allows.

This method can work not only in a small company with a single office, but also in a multinational company with offices all around the world.

The Kanban method in the software

The common thread that permits to use all the advantages of this method is a project management software.

For this reason, we added in Twproject the Kanban functionality in order to organize the to-do-list of the project.

The ToDo that in Twproject are used as cards can be easily managed with the Kanban multi-dimensional of TWproject.

Indeed, it allows to organize them in a fully visual way.

It is possible to move them and organize them by task, assignee, status or severity degree.

Shortly, a very flexible multi-dimensional Kanban.

Do you also use the Kanban method for your projects?

Use the Kanban feature to organize the to-do-list of the project

Try TWproject

A proof is worth a thousand words.

The digital project manager: when the project meets the web

What is the Digital Project Manager? It is quickly explained!

Nowadays, our routine goes in parallel with the digital world, we are connected 24 hours a day and – almost – anything is possible thanks to the Internet.

The work itself is largely digital.

For these reasons, the figure of the digital project manager is born, a specialist who knows the online business and knows the modern tools for managing online projects.

CONTENT INDEX

The digital project manager: What does he exactly do?
The tools and skills of the digital project manager
Job description

A digital project manager is not so different from a traditional project manager.

Even a digital project manager, in fact, manages tasks related to projects, such as the planning of the project, the communication with stakeholders, the management of the team and, of course, the delivery of projects within the deadline and without exceeding the given budget.

The difference is that they work in the digital space.

A digital space that is growing day by day and that offers ever more performing instruments.

One might think of the digital project manager as an exclusive figure for high-tech and software companies, but this is not the case.

Digital impregnates our lives, we are increasingly connected and this hyper-connectivity and hypertechnology becomes more “normal” every day.

Almost all commercial companies now have an online presence, that they try to improve and take care of.

Many people are beginning to understand that the presence on the web is no less important than a physical presence, like a branch of the company or the company itself.

This is the work space in which the digital project manager moves: a space of innovation, but no longer futuristic.

His figure is every day more requested by the market and its importance in a company that faces the web or intends to improve its online presence is increasingly essential.

Any company that pushes sales through its website, through search engine optimization, newsletters, social media marketing and copywriting may want to seek the help of a digital project manager.

The digital project manager: What does he exactly do?

The projects of a digital project manager work similarly to any other project, but we can find subtle differences.

Digital project management usually follows these five steps:

Discovery: the idea generation stage, in which new concepts or new technologies are explored, solutions are identified and risks assessed;
Project planning;
Production: work in concrete;
Distribution: that is, the work of evaluating and analyzing the product of the project, for example, a social media marketing campaign;
Maintenance: the digital project rarely has a definitive ending, but remains open for corrections and re-elaborations throughout its life. For example, a social media marketing campaign, while active, can be directed to another target audience, can be modified in the image, etc. depending on the results of the data analysis.

The digital project manager will assess the risks, plan the work and coordinate the tasks, direct the team and maintain the project “on time”.

He is also involved in the business development process that will go hand in hand with the brand and business development on the web.

In addition to managing the team and the project, these new digital managers have to deal directly or indirectly with customers and their needs.

Indeed, their relationship with the customer could have more influence than that of the sales team.

In fact, they will collect the “humor” of the customers, perceive their desires and direct the company management towards choices that could prove decisive for the business development.

What are the tools and skills required to be a good Digital Project Manager?

The set of skills and competences required for a digital project manager will be slightly different than those of the traditional project manager.

We can list the following:

CMS – Content Management System: software that allows the management of web content, without the need to use the webmaster. These changes can be made directly by the digital project manager, thus freeing developers who can concentrate on more complicated tasks;
Information Architecture: structure and categorization of information, content and digital processes;
Analytics: digital project managers need to know how to analyze and use data collected from tools such as Google Analytics. The data obtained are in fact fundamental for understanding and correcting the performance of the website;
HTML: this competence allows the digital project manager to perform some programming jobs personally, allowing developers to concentrate on more complex tasks;
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): being able to position your website in the first results of Google and search engines in general is crucial for online success. The digital project manager must know all the SEO tools that allow to promote the site in the best possible way;
Social media: these are used by a company mainly to drive traffic to their site and to improve brand awareness and online reputation. Knowing platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook is therefore essential for a digital project manager.

Job Description

Digital project managers are responsible for managing digital projects, which may include, for example, the launching of websites, online tools, applications for mobile devices, social media advertising campaigns and more.

They are experts in technology and innovation, with a deep knowledge of how technology works in order to achieve business objectives.

Digital project managers are methodical, have excellent time management and communication skills, both personal and online, and effectively manage projects respecting the requirements of quality, time and budget.

This involves drafting supporting documentation, such as risk analysis and plan and requirements specifications, to ensure that actual progress is in line with planned progress.

Digital project managers highlight risks and develop plans to tackle, stem and proactively solve these problems when and if they occur during the project life cycle.

In addition to risk management, they will also always be looking for business opportunities to explore in new potential projects.

Another task includes the creation of effective communication channels with the team and with stakeholders.

Gaining consensus on the project and ensuring that all the activities delegated to them are clear is one of their main objectives.

A digital project manager must also have great adaptability.

The digital space can present big changes every day and without warning and flexibility and a high spirit of adaptation are therefore fundamental.

Last but not least, the digital project manager must possess a technical and marketing language, but at the same time must understand and speak the language of the people of the web.

Speaking the right “language” will help the digital project manager better understand what online customers say, in order to contribute to the conversation and effectively communicate messages to others.

Are you a digital project manager? What are your digital projects?

Tell us about your experience.

Start managing your digital project.

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7 tips on how to manage winning projects

The success of any project depends on the ability of a project manager to have a specific methodical approach to each project.

The approach must be in line with the needs of the client and with the strengths of his team.

In order to manage a winning project, it is essential to create an effective working structure that is not a task that anyone is able to do.

Of course, most project managers know that workflow management, like any other tool that contributes to project management success, is important, but how to do it properly is often not so obvious.

Any project manager knows that the best project management tips and tricks come with time, with experience, but also with the advice of more experienced project managers.

Therefore, today we want to give you 7 valuable tips for managing winning projects.

CONTENT INDEX

Plan the day using time management techniques
Include stakeholders in important decisions
Communicate regularly with the team
Anticipate the possible deadlock situations of the project
Know your limits as a project manager
Stay focused on the details
Be updated on the latest project management trends

How to manage winning projects: Plan the day using time management techniques

For a project manager, time management skills are essential because we are dealing with a series of activities that often require rapid response times.

Planning the day will therefore be essential to maintain the overall organization and increase productivity.

For the planning of the activities there are appropriate project management software that can be a valuable help and that allows to keep track of the work done.

If you are not very tech savvy, even a simple to-do list, ordered by priority, can be a good organizational tool.

The most important and priority tasks will therefore be placed at the top of the list, while the less important ones at the bottom. Another idea is also to use different colors depending on the urgency of the activity.

Having a visual plan of daily activities helps to have a general picture. It helps to be aware of how to manage time for each specific task and for each individual resource.

As a visual tool we can only recommend the use of Gantt charts.

How to manage winning projects: Include stakeholders in important decisions

Despite having many responsibilities regarding the project, the project manager must never forget customers and stakeholders.

Good communication in a project is essential to keep the parties informed about the progression of the project and the need for program changes.

Some customers may have different expectations when it comes to communication, so already in the planning phase of a project, it is important to establish the frequency and the communication system to be used, which can be e-mails, phone calls, meetings, etc.

Establishing communication expectations in advance helps alleviate the uncertainty of stakeholders on the frequency and on the arrival of communications.

In addition, it can also help the project manager set the limits for when he is free to talk about the project and when he can consider himself too busy to have a conversation – unless it is an emergency.

How to manage winning projects: Communicate regularly with the team

Daily communication with the team helps to control misunderstandings and unclear needs.

Keeping your team informed at every stage of the project is essential for successful project management.

Good communication skills are a cornerstone of project management.

In other words, clear and frequent communication positively influences the way in which team members see their project manager as a leader, helps to control product quality and project duration, as well as foster risk management.

Furthermore, a study published by Procedia Technology found that some methods of communication are more effective than others.

The researchers found that communication works best in the following order, from the most to the least effective:

Electronic communication (with the right tools);
Written communication;
Verbal communication;
Visual communication;
Non-verbal communication.

How to manage winning projects: Anticipate the possible deadlock situations of the project

Even the best plans can go wrong. Even with a high level of planning and attention to detail, the project could still encounter some difficulties.

Paying attention to complaints from stakeholders or colleagues and other warning signs, such as a deadline or a cost overrun, is crucial.

Preventing a crisis will allow the project to continue without too many hitches, saving a lot of time and maintaining a cohesion among team, stakeholders and the project manager.

Unfortunately, not all complications can be avoided. Crisis management capabilities are essential to tackle the unexpected.

Project managers must be flexible and pragmatic, improvise and make precise decisions when needed.

How to manage winning projects: Know your limits as a project manager

Many projects are destined to fail from the beginning due to unrealistic expectations (you can see how can

Managing project expectations.

Establishing impossible deadlines or assigning too much work to team members will undoubtedly lead to untidy jobs and often to failure to meet deadlines.

Errors and delays in the work can direct the project towards failure, necessitating adjustment and “patching” work, extension of the calendar and going to undermine the trust of the stakeholders and of the team itself.

Taking the time to get to know the team you work with, will help you understand each person’s strengths and weaknesses and then assign the right tasks.

Delegating tasks to the right person is very important, because success depends on how team members can and are able to perform their tasks.

How to manage winning projects: Stay focused on the details

A common problem encountered by project managers is that project goals are not in line with business objectives.

A good project manager will define a strategic plan for the project that will bring the company back to success.

It’s too easy to get lost in minor details and forget what the goal is, so a well planned project goal is essential to success.

Having a fixed deadline and budget will help maintain a project structure, marked by milestones and a written list of requirements.

How to manage winning projects: Be updated on the latest project management trends

Upskilling is very useful, if not essential, for project management.

Unfortunately, with the high workload and stress of full-time work, it can be difficult to find the time to attend training or refresher courses.

On the other hand, there are many project management courses that are conducted online and most companies will be happy to reimburse their cost.

Professional development should never stop. The workforce is constantly changing, adding new tools and project management roles that did not exist until a few years ago.

To conclude, a project manager must be an expert in leadership, communication and organizational skills.

With the high workload and stress, it is essential to have the necessary skills to reach every goal.

Remaining responsible and aware of all aspects of the project will lead to success.

What are your suggestions for managing winning projects?

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The sixth edition of PMbok

General overview and differences from the fifth edition

At the end of 2017, the sixth edition of the PMbok was published.

Let’s start from the base: what is the PMbok?

It is the Project Management Body of Knowledge, a guide, published by the Project Management Institute – PMI, which aims to document, gather and standardize the practices generally used and recognized in project management.

“Generally recognized” practices means the ones that can be applied to most projects and on which there is a widespread consensus on their value and usefulness.

This means that sometimes the latest project management trends promoted by some consultants, even if interesting from an evolutionary point of view, may not be part of the latest version of the PMbok, because they are not “generally recognized” practices.

The PMbok made its debut in 1987 and it has evolved over the years, up to the current sixth edition of 2017.

But which are the PMbok changes from the fifth edition to the current one?

Let’s summarize the differencies in this article.

PMBOK sixth edition: Increase of total chapters

In the fifth edition of PMbok five groups of processes were listed:

Initiating
Planning
Execution
Monitoring and Control
Closing

The number of processes remain unchanged in the sixth edition, but what changes is the number of sub-processes within each process.

Furthermore, in the fifth edition there were a total of 13 chapters. In the sixth edition we find instead a new chapter that deals with the role of the project manager and its functions.

In addition to this, the skills and competences that a project manager must possess are now aligned with the so-called Triangle of Talent.

It is not enough to have technical skills, but due to the dynamism of the working environment and the evolutionary trends in the sector, it is necessary that the project manager possesses also additional skills. The most relevant include:

Strategic and corporate management: It is necessary to understand the progress and the functioning of the company business in order to adapt the project to it. The project manager must therefore possess the skills to analyze the competition, the market, know the legal implications, business models, etc.
Leadership skills: In the fifth edition of the PMbok, this skill is already explained, but the new edition gives it more emphasis. Among the leadership skills, we find emotional intelligence, problem solving, team building and the ability to influence and motivate the team;
Technical skills: This refers mainly to the sector in which a person works and the specific skills required for the project.

The sixth edition of the PMbok: The knowledge areas

In the fifth edition of PMbok 10 areas of knowledge were listed.

These still remain in the sixth edition, but two appear with new names, as specified in the following list:

Integration Management
Scope Management
Time Management is replaced by Schedule Management
Cost Management
Quality Management
Human Resource Management is replaced by Resource Management
Communications Management
Risk Management
Procurement Management
Stakeholder Management

Why these two changes?

The new term Resource Management refers not only to the human workforce, but also to the physical resources (such as materials, equipment, licenses, etc.) that can be part of a project and contribute to its success.

Time Management has been replaced with Schedule Management, so that the importance of project management planning is emphasized.

Moreover, in the sixth edition of the PMbok, each area of knowledge has four additional sections:

Furthermore, in the sixth edition of the PMbok, each area of knowledge will have four additional sections:

Key concepts;
Tailoring considerations: they must help to focus on the important processes of a project depending to its size and, of course, on the scope of work;
Developments and new project management practices;
Focus on the Agile and adaptive Methodology.

PMBOK sixth edition: The three new processes

The sixth edition of the PMbok lists 49 processes, 2 more than the last edition.

In reality the changes to the processes are 4 because the three processes have been added while one has been eliminated.

The Close Procurement process has been removed. This refers to the closing of vendor contracts, a task that in most organizations is not performed by the project manager.

Among the new processes added we find:

Manage Project Knowledge: born from the need to process the data of the market and the business in which the company operates to transform them into knowledge and “wisdom” on which certain decisions will be based. Knowledge is a power that will help the project manager to use data processing technologies and make decisions based on concrete analysis;
Implement Risk Response: PMI surveys have stated that most project failures are due to improper risk management. Therefore, implementing the risk response in the management of the project is a necessary addition;
Control Resources: this new process refers to the monitoring and control of the various resources present in the project and is aligned with the modification, seen previously, in the area of knowledge from human resources.

PMBOK sixth edition: 6 changes in existing processes

6 processes are renamed in the current PMbok edition, even if their content remains unchanged:

Perform Quality Assurance becomes Manage Quality.
Plan Human Resource Management becomes Plan Resource Management.
Control Communications becomes Monitor Communications.
Control Risks becomes Monitor Risks.
Plan Stakeholder Management becomes Plan Stakeholder Engagement.
Control Stakeholder Engagement becomes Monitor Stakeholder Engagement.

From Perform Quality Assurance to Manage Quality. This refers to the fact that, while quality assurance is a way to manage quality during execution, in reality there are also other qualitative aspects to consider.

This overall quality management is what reflects the name change.

The change from “Control” to “Monitor” indicates that, during the execution of the project, we monitor it to understand what is happening everyday and personalize the strategy to meet the changing needs.

Points 5 and 6 on stakeholders refer to the essential factor of understanding how to involve the stakeholders to ensure that everyone agrees with progress and results.

Who will be affected by these changes?

The role of the Project Manager is becoming more and more important and is spreading in every sectors; this is why the need to certify its skills increases.

The PMbok then becomes a fundamental text for all those who are dealing with an official exam to get the title of Project Manager.

Nowadays, there are five internationally recognized certifications:

CAPM – Certified Associate in Project Management
PMP – Project Management Professional
PgMP – Program Management Professional
PMI-SP – PMI Scheduling Professional
PMI-RMP – PMI Risk Management Professional
PMI-ACP – PMI Agile Certified Practitioner

Regardless of the type of certification, students and prospective Project Managers will refer to the Pmbok and, consequently, their work will for sure be influenced by the changes in the sixth edition of PMbok.

But not only.

Even a certified Project Manager must be updated on the changes contained in the new edition of PMbok.

Being up-to-date is the best quality of a serious and competent professional.

A careful reading of the new edition of the Pmbok will certainly be useful and a source of interesting reflections that could help guiding any type of project in an efficient and professional manner.

Leave us your comment or your impression on the new edition of the Pmbok.

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The 3 trends of Project Management

Project Management is not a static topic but evolves from year to year and follows the trend of industry and the world of work in general.

There’re trends, that we can clearly see, that are increasingly influencing this profession. Some of these started some years ago and gradually take hold, others have been born only recently and abruptly.

Knowing them is necessary to maintain a strategic vision of the profession and the sector.

Let’s see then what are the trends that will affect the project management sector.

CONTENT INDEX

The advent of artificial intelligence
Wearable technology
Smart Working and Remote Team

The Trends of Project Management: the advent of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is a very current topic and there’s a real debate around it.

As with any new trend, there are also in this case two currents of idea:

those in favor who announce it as the “reality” of the future;
and those who are skeptical, or even frightened, of the consequences that this evolution can have not only at work but also in everyday life.

Project management can also be influenced by artificial intelligence.

Therefore should we be favourable or frightened?

In particular, when we talk about artificial intelligence applied to Project management, we talk about systems that can manage projects and their progress without the need for human input.

Not only the simplest tasks will be automated, but an understanding of the key points of the project can also be developed. In this way artificial intelligence is able, thanks to this knowledge, to perform more complex tasks, make recommendations and even make decisions.

Moreover, an artificial intelligence system can save time by improving the results of a project.

Project Management managed by artificial intelligence is a service more developed and that goes beyond what is currently offered, for example, by so-called bots.

Not even an algorithm that applies machine learning to predict activity estimates can be called artificial intelligence, although interesting and useful.

The true potential of artificial intelligence in Project Management can only be seen when you start to connect boats and algorithms.

Now we try to hypothesize what artificial intelligence applied to the Project Manangement can do.

Here some concrete examples:

Combine the right resource with the right role: Artificial intelligence will allow not only to match the right resource to the right team/project, but also to select upstream the resources suitable for a given project
Reduce downtime: Artificial intelligence is able to analyse the performance and the progress of each resource and assign a task/project based on the real capabilities of the individual;
Create an ecosystem for knowledge management: When an employee for whatever reason leaves the company, part of his knowledge is non-transferable and goes away with him. In this sense, artificial intelligence can be used to centralize knowledge. This will avoid the so-called “starting from scratch” when a change takes place;
Improve the performance of the resource by reducing the effort to a minimum: How many times we have those days when we are not in “the right mood” and spend a lot of time on a simple task? How many times, on the contrary, do we manage to complete complex activities in a very short time? Artificial intelligence can help the project management system associate the best task to the right resource at the best time of day, suggesting the planning of activities in a personalized, unique and variable way;
Provide objective evaluation and vigilance without getting tired: By their nature, human beings can get tired and this can affect the quality and precision of work. An artificial intelligence system, on the other hand, is tireless and available 24 hours a day.

Of course, a system that integrates all these functionalities is not available yet, but in the near future all this can become a real.

There is still a long way to go and the potential of artificial intelligence in Project Management is not yet fully developed.

However, the goal of the new technologies is to realize and integrate these functionalities.

Project Management Trends: Wearable technology

The tendency in Project Management to the increasing use of Wearable Technology seems unstoppable.

By hearing wearable technology many think about glasses, headphones, and smartwatches, but the concept goes well beyond these.

Wearable technology devices not only help us count how many steps we take in a day or how many calories we burn but can even improve our productivity in a project.

In fact, wearable devices can provide data in real time and perform monitoring and localization functions.

These devices will establish a connection between workers and the digital platform.

In this way, the data can be used to analyse the workforce in order to increase efficiency and productivity.

Wearable technology can also simplify the process of managing daily activities. Time, as well as the progress of the activity, can be scanned and collected on virtual worksheets to obtain a precise image of the flow.

But the advantages of wearable devices are not finished yet, they can also help increasing the level of employee health.

Already today, a growing number of employers and companies are encouraging their workers to wear fitness trackers to measure their health.

In fact, it is widely demonstrated that an increase in fitness levels is related to increased productivity and job satisfaction.

In addition, many wearable technology devices have the ability to enable Project Managers to keep track of strategic aspects, such as the heart rate of the employees and the level of stress and fatigue, in order to maintain workplace performance.

This can lead to a decrease of the burn out cases due to projects that are too demanding for a resource.

For this reason, if an employee shows a high level of fatigue during a given activity, the employer can choose to delegate this task to one collaborator who proves more suitable and “fresher”, allowing the first employee of the team to concentrate on a lighter job.

Some companies all over the world are also using wearable technology for fitness tracking and they offer incentives to their employees according to these values. (For example, in America, cheaper health insurance is offered to employees who increase their fitness levels.)

The potential that wearable technology has in increasing productivity is the factor that is increasing its use in the workplace.

There are already studies and reports that highlight how the use of this technology actually increases productivity.

Project Management Trends: Smart Working and Remote Team

The sharing economy is proving that more and more companies are implementing the use of project teams with resources that operate remotely.

More and more workers are looking for flexibility. The ability to organize one’s time and hours of work and not being tied to a desk is becoming more and more important.

This trend is definitely destined to grow.

In Italy, Smart Working (or agile work) is a reality: 305,000 workers have switched to this modality of work. And the numbers will grow, especially in the large companies.

This is confirmed by the data from the latest research of the Smart Working Observatory at the Politecnico di Milano.

The benefits of Remote work are undeniable for the company:

Productivity is improved;
Absenteeism is reduced;
The costs for physical spaces are greatly reduced; in fact, several large companies are redesigning their offices, reducing the surface area.

Moreover, the Observatory registers a productivity increase of 15% for a worker who adopts an already tested smart working model.

The benefits of distance work and Smart Working also have an impact on the worker:

in fact, the Smart Workers are more satisfied than their colleagues who don’t adopt this working method.

Thanks to remote work the smart worker:

Reduces travel time and costs. As the Observatory also shows by implementing only one working day a week remotely, an employee could recover even 40 hours in a year.
Improves the balancing of professional and private time and space (the so-called work-life balance).

In the end, Remote teams offer great opportunities: more economy and more productivity if managed effectively and with the right tools. We’ll talk about it later in this blog.

In the meantime, a final reflection. The scenarios change but the basic objective of the project management remains the same: deliver a project within the pre-established time frame and without exceeding the budget.

This our analysis, we would like to know yours. Do you see other trends that can help to innovate and simplify the Project Management?

Leave us your comment or your impressions on the evolution of Project Management.

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5 Project Planning Mistakes to Avoid (Part 1 of 5)

Managing a project is complicated and making mistakes that can compromise the progress of all activities is very simple.

One of the most delicate phases from this point of view is the project planning one, errors made in this phase are in fact the most serious and can negatively affect the achievement of the entire project.

The problem is that often you notice that something is wrong when it is too late and there is nothing more that can be done to limit the damage.

In this article we will explain what are the most common project planning mistakes and what strategies you can put in place to avoid them.

Commons management errors are grouped into 5 categories:

planning errors
errors in priorities management
communication errors
errors of responsibility
errors of organization

Today we will help you identify those in the first group.

Planning a project is generally composed of two main phases. Both of these phases can face different critical issues:

Project analysis – phases and dependencies

When you start analyzing a new activity and you are about to schedule it, you need to keep in mind these 3 commons mistakes that could compromise the success of your business:

1) The scope of the project is too wide

Issue: Even if the goal of the project is clear, even described in detail with specs and agreed with the client, be focused only on the final goal, especially if the end date is long-term can lead to serious consequences. Managing big projects is very complicated, the variables involved are numerous and focusing on the final target can make you underestimate many small contingencies that make the project grow without control.

Solution: The best way to avoid having a wide scope is to brainstorm with your team until you are able to outline small goals that are easy to manage. This brainstorming is also very helpful to divide your project in phases. Sub-phases do not necessarily have to overlap perfectly with the sub-goals, they will be the guideline, the short-term fundamental steps you have to focus on to keep everything under control.

2) Micro management

Once goals have been identified both in the long term and, even better, in the medium and short term, it will be necessary to break down the project in phases with the help of what you identified above.

Issue: Regardless of the tool used to manage your project diagram, you don’t need to be too ambitious. Pay attention and do not fall into the opposite error of point 1: break your project down into too many activities, whose maintenance can become extremely burdensome.

Solution: When to stop? A phase, in particular if the root project lasts more than 6 months, should not last less than a week. This is not true in general and depends on a case-by-case basis but applies well most of the time. Under this value (activities that last just few hours) you can manage tasks with to-do lists, checklists, in a simple way by working with ToDo in Twproject, flexible than a Gantt chart. Using such tools will help your team work better, without needing your constant assistance, making them more involved.

3) The project does not follow a standard management methodology

Issue: For scheduling and manage your activities it is essential to use a tool that supports you in this work. If you do not use a software or, more generally, a planning methodology, the probability that the project become chaotic increases exponentially. Different projects, managed by different people, could be organized in diametrically opposed ways and can also use a completely different vocabulary that can disorient your resources.

Solution: Rely on a methodology, no matter what, as long as it is shared by your team. Initially it could be hard but over time, making it yours and modifying it to fit better with your needs, it will help you keep the team united under one method and one terminology. Use a software that embraces this methodology, a correct management of phases, of dependencies and schedules will reduce the delays and the misunderstandings drastically.

Analysis of timing and effort

Once diagram and phase dependencies have been created it is necessary to estimate effort and schedule them in time:

4) Too ambitious plans

Issue: A common planning mistake is to be too ambitious following exactly the expected time for the activities. When you face several phases, it is important to evaluate a certain margin of error that saves the project from numerous adjustments. Relying on the knowledge of your team is essential because they have a detailed knowledge of all the activities and possible risks.

Solution: Learn from your team and evaluate with them risks of each phase in order to give a realistic estimate. Relay on them not just on your experience.

5) Fail to plan due to customer pressure

Issue: It could happens that you fail to plan a project just because of customer’s pressure, who often have lots of requests, reduced budgets and no time at all. One of the most common mistakes is to give the customer the feeling that some activities are easy to implement or maybe free, errors made to acquire the project offering a convenient price.

Solution: Even if you want to offer a convenient price, talk about the project for what it is without discount in time of effort, this will help you avoiding misunderstanding with your customer. When you estimate a project, both in effort and in costs, do it without thinking about the agreed end date and the budget set. Once the realistic estimate is completed, match it with what the client expects and try to align the two versions. In this way you will immediately understand if the project is at risk of loss or at risk of delay without unpleasant surprises during its development. A correct assessment of reality and expectations avoids frustrations in the team and communication problems.

Conclusion

If you are a project manager you probably know that the list of mistakes you can make is much longer, but without a doubt these 5 issues are not only very common, but are also 5 of the most risky for achieving your goal.

As you see from the listed points we firmly believe that the use of a project management software, such as Twproject, could facilitate all of your work by avoiding many of the possible errors in planning a project.

A project management software will help you solve each of the 5 problems listed:

You can associate to your project discussions and meetings that highlight all goals to help you in the drafting of the phases
You will have a Gantt Editor that will help you create phases and dependencies and that will allow you to manage to-do list and checklist to avoid micro management
It will help you embrace a methodology and help you to standardize the terminology throughout the team
It will help you take advantage of your team’s knowledge for a realistic project estimate
You will be able to manage plans during quotation phase and development phase, always having clear times and costs

If you want to start now to rely on a project management software to help you avoid all these errors try Twproject.

Start now to recognize these errors and avoid them.

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5 Most Common Mistakes in Managing Projects

There are no two identical projects, at the same time all projects seem to suffer of similar problems.

Even the best project manager can, in case of important tasks, particularly long-lasting or if subjected to continuous requests for updates, fall into common errors that could lead a task to fail.

These frequent mistakes in managing projects can be avoided if you make a continuous analysis of your way of work and team health.

Commons problems, faced by every manager, can be grouped into 5 different types:

Mistake #1 Wrong Planning

The most common mistake in managing a project and certainly the one with the greatest impact is the wrong planning.

Starting from an in-depth analysis of your own internal processes is crucial. A correct identification of the activities, their duration, the dependencies and the effort that each of them requires will help you to identify a realistic task end date and to avoid critical stages. Tasks that start with a wrong planning, often too optimistic, generally suffer of great delays and frustration for the whole team.

A typical example is to repeat the error of selling a product at a certain cost, maybe to be competitive, despite the fact that it uses more resources than expected, so, without having a clear idea of ??how much it costs to your company. The solution could be to use a Gantt chart tool and templates that you can refine over time, this will help you improving your analysis, step by step. Ask your resources to describe in details the work done to create a knowledge base on which you will be able to make predictions increasingly consistent with reality.

Find out the most common project planning mistakes and how to avoid them.

Mistake #2 Priority Vs Emergency

As a project manager, you should have always clear the progress of your activitites, which are in late and on which you need to focus on your energy. Instead, your resources often find themselves involved in multiple tasks, with different managers, different habits, which make their organization very complicated.

Clearly highlighting their priorities is essential to ensure that they do not work by emergency, simply supporting the most demanding or pressing project manager. The analysis of priorities must be done with all the managers working with your team. The choice must be made by mutual agreement and respected by all without interference, the list of priorities consulted by the team must be valid and always updated.

Mistake #3 Broken Communication

Another common mistake in project management is to underestimate the importance of communication: One of the main causes of delays in projects is the lack of communication. The goal of the project must be clear to the team from the very beginning, desired end dates, and in general the whole planning.

It is also important to communicate with the working group in a constant and active way: resources must always be aware of how the task is going. You are late? Everything is alright? Tell your team, because they will adjust their to do list according to this information. Schedule weekly meetings and always keep everyone updated even using a dedicated messaging software.

To improve your communication and resource management you could start scheduling weekly meetings where each resource can share with the group the progress of their work: you could choose Monday to share not only what was completed but also to plan the activities of the new week, check the load of the operators and always make sure that your team is not overloaded.

Mistake #4 It’s Your Responsability

The responsibility is certainly on the project manager’s shoulders and for this reason you could often make the mistake of not trusting your collaborators always wanting the last word on every decision. It is actually known that delegating phases and therefore making the team responsible increase productivity significantly, the only precaution to be taken will be to have a solid communication with frequent meetings in order to recognize immediately if a phase is late or on a wrong path. Trust your team, it is the basis for the success of every project.

Mistake #5 Paper Management

We often underestimate how a project management software can help a work group to manage activities. A common mistake in management is to rely on a simple list of excel, maybe not shared, absolutely not usable to increase the productivity of individual resources, an aid that in reality turns out to be ineffective and obsolete. The latest project management software includes advanced features that drastically lighten people’s workload. A tool like Twproject, for example, includes interactive Gantt, prioritizable to-do lists, task chats and customizable dashboards. Features that will help you solve each of the problems listed above.

Probably reading this post you’ve found yourself in one of these descriptions, I hope not in all of them 🙂 however, do not miss the next 5 in-depth post in which we will analyze one by one these errors with practical suggestions to avoid them.

I want to start avoiding errors right now! Let’s try Twproject!

3 Useful Tips to Improve Work Time Management

Have you ever had the feeling that everything in your to-do list has maximum priority? If yes, which method do you use to identify what can be postponed?

Being a project manager, you know that managing project timelines is crucial; with a correct and realistic plan you will be able to work better, and all your team as well, if organized, will give its best.

There are several methods for improving work time management, each one focused on a different aspect of the problem: minimizing interruptions, identifying realistic deadlines, correct project planning, and organizing activities according to their importance. You have to find the method that best reflects your work strategy to maximize productivity.

Here are 3 effective methods that will help you improve your organization:

Define real priorities:

You think to have a high priority to-do list, but sometimes what is urgent can be confused with what is really important. Thanks to instant messaging systems such as Skype or Slack, working together with the team has become much easier, however, the number of interruptions has grown exponentially, with the result that you often receive urgencies that were not yours. The same e-mail, if used as a to-do list, introduces an incorrect concept of urgency, transmitting a sense of rush away from reality. The last mail always seems the most important.

You need to learn to recognize what is really important, what is urgent and what can be postponed.

The best moment to set and categorize your priorities is in the morning, as soon as you arrive at the office, even before checking your inbox.

To determine if a to do is really important you need to make some considerations about its effort, its due date, and its cost. Properly planning your job will greatly help you improving work time management, when a project has a clear end date and your effort has been established, you will be able to define its importance more easily.

How much is missing at the end of the project? How much time do I need to close this activity? Can I postpone it?

Once the sequence of project activities has been established, you can analyze the urgencies by placing them in the list already created. In general, interruptions are perceived as urgencies and must therefore be minimized. If an urgency, interrupting your concentration on a specific activity, leads to waste resources and reduces your productivity, it must be postponed. It is therefore important to use some strategies to minimize interruptions, for example check mail only in the morning and after lunch or use tools that tell your colleagues that you can not be disturbed.

Ask for help and delegate:

If you cannot complete an activity within the established schedule without delaying the project, it is important to ask for help. Hiring a colleague with a lower workload can save the project from an undesirable delay. In general, whenever possible, it’s always a good idea to involve and delegate your team. In this case, controlling their workload is crucial, not to overburden those who already have a dense to-do list.

A method that works very well is to analyze the list of priorities in a shared meeting so that you can balance tasks across all project resources. This improves the management of the entire team’s work time by maximizing productivity and improving team culture.

Using an agile approach to project management, for example, greatly helps the entire team to work on the time allocation and distribution method. This method requires that the team meets regularly to analyze deadlines on a small and selected activity list. By dividing the entire project into recursive steps it will be easier to keep control.

Stay organized:

To organize your team’s activities, it can be of great help to use a tool that tracks your things to do and lets you set up priorities. Writing a list of activities on a paper is risky: every change requires effort and you can not show it to anyone who works with you in real time.

If you rely on a software to manage your project timings, it will be easier to have a look at what to do and when, for yourself and for your team. For example, by entering a project with milestones, you will receive a notification when approaching, that will allow you to act promptly in case of delays, or by entering assignments to all resources, you can facilitate communication and swap activities, speeding up the process.

Another advantage, planning your activities with an ad hoc tool, is to be able to control your colleagues’ workload by identifying who is less committed, as well as having a history of how much they spent dealing with certain activities for an increasingly precise and realistic organization.

Conclusion:

By following these simple work time management tips you will learn how to manage your processes better:

Create a list of realistic priorities and minimize interruptions / urgencies: learn to identify important things against urgent things/interruptions
Share your tasks with your team by optimizing time: learn to balance work within your team, count on your colleague and delegate.
Use a project management software to maximize productivity: rely on a tool that can help you checking your ordered to-do list, keeping you focused on what has to be done.

If you want to learn more about how a project management software can help you, download Twproject and begin to improve your organization right away.

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One try is worth a million words.

How SCRUM methodology can help you minimizing project risks

Most of project managers have to face projects whose planning was done incorrectly, not in line with customer expectations, with the bad result of big delays and budget overflows, and maybe this has happened to you too.
It is true, companies are being renewed, working groups are heterogeneous and distributed, increasingly flexible, and often, this flexibility forces the project managers to review their processes in order to make them more flexible too. Agile methodologies is the perfect response to this need.

In the 1990’s, there was a significant deviation of the projects from planning and, above all, customer requirements, particularly in the software development sector that used the standard waterfall approach.
Now, as then, companies plan and evaluate the project according to the requirements initially established by making only one final product release that could leads to misunderstandings. The project, so managed, often ends late and out of budget.

Agile methods, such as SCRUM, arise from the need to move the project from the planned and contracted part to bring it closer to the client, its needs and satisfaction throughout the entire development process.
A company that decides to use this framework is able to minimize the risks by keeping track of the progress of the project cyclically. By involving the team and the customer throughout the process, it is much easier to stay aligned with planning and stay in times and budget.

What is the SCRUM methodology?

It is the most famous of the agile techniques, it is a framework, a set of procedures, for the iterative management of the development process from a default set of tasks. It is based on the idea of refining, iteration after iteration, the initial idea of the customer, according to what is released from time to time and to his feedback.

At the beginning of the project we defined a task list (backlog), then, cyclically, we select a prioritized subset executable in about 1-2 weeks (sprint), tasks are completed and at the end of the sprint is submitted to the client for the test. Each sprint includes meetings for prioritizing activities, sharing work progress, and a final one for review and analysis. These cycles are repeated until the end of all activities.
The aim of the SCRUM methodology is to have no misunderstanding, so that the customer can work with the team cyclically to guide the product in the right direction without any unpleasant surprises at the end of the project. Thus, there may be not a final release date, the project closes when the activity list is empty and the customer is satisfied.

This framework also facilitates the estimation of the project, in fact it does not require a complete and total estimate, just a cyclical estimate that protects both the customer and the company from incorrect estimates: if the customer has a limited budget will be limited his list of activities, if the customer has infinite budgets, he can refine and add activities until project completion in agreement with the company.

Why should I use an Agile Methodology?

Although the SCRUM methodology has born in the field of software development, it can be of help to many companies, not only by getting into it but by embracing the general philosophy.

We have recently applied the scrum method to digital marketing finding that also such companies can benefit from this framework, some examples:

1) Define a list of requirements / activities / desires with the customer as detailed as possible: this will help you estimate your project’s effort, make the client aware of any critical issues and protect you from any extra requests.

2) Prioritize the activities and estimate them with your team: this habit can be of great help in carrying out the project, involving the team in estimating, it will be involved and empowered, obtaining from them accurate information that resides only in the knowledge of the technicians. Not only that, the team that prioritizes activities, in fact manages its own workload and becomes more aware of it. Involving the team is the most effective strategy to estimate projects.

3) Organize management in production iterations: whether the customer interacts or the cycles are internal to the company, organizing productions into iterations forces each team to make the point of the situation on regular basis, immediately recognizing any deviations from the expectation avoiding useless delay.

4) Daily meetings for work progress: this activity, often underestimated, is in fact crucial. Updating the team on the progress of their work allows them to share more stressful moments and to help with delays by saving the project from bottlenecks.

The list of benefits that you may have by approaching agile methods are numerous, whether you follow the letter, or just apply the philosophy. The system cyclicity will allow you to improve over time, understanding with your workgroup what works and what does not.

If you decide to use a project management software that supports this technique, organizing your work better will be even easier, a software like Twproject, can guide you in improving internal processes giving you back control on your projects.

Start now managing your projects with SCRUM

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How to Introduce Project Management Software & Succeed

One of the biggest challenges, a project manager can face in a new team, is to change things for the better and let this changes take effect without the resistance of the team.

One of the most frequent examples is when a project manager decides to introduce a new tool for project management.

This moment of change, even if it is felt like very stressful, is actually a great opportunity for a company to improve its strategy and organizations.

So, what if you are that project manager? What if you really want to change things in your company organization with a new project management software?

Fix your expectations:

One of the most important things you need to do, before introducing a new software, is identifying your goals. You have to answer these 2 questions:

Which are the main reasons that bring me to search for a project management tool?
Which are the key features of the tool I chose?

these very simple questions can let you analyze what you are missing in your team now and which are the milestones you want to achieve in the future. Here are some examples:

“I really need to let everyone see what they are working on, stop wasting time with e-mails, pointing out problems and delay. The software I’ve chosen has great dashboards with the list of active assignments by priority.”

“I started searching for a project management software because we really do not know how much our projects cost. We wanted to track time and extract reports with resources costs. We chose the software that lets us manage resource costs easily, together with a time tracking tool”

Once you have your goals in mind be realistic and set some small achievements for your near future. Having realistic expectations is very important, actually it is a key point, if you expect to achieve unrealistic goals you will immediately face a sense of fail in your team, and this will bring the software to fail.

At the same time, if you do not communicate your expectations, no one will understand how much helpful will be this change and they will abandon the software.

No one said it was easy….

stereotype metapher leadership or exclusion — stereotype metaphor leadership or exclusion

Team communications, change is for the better..

The other key point about introducing a new software in a company, is to let everyone know, that this will actually help everyone working better, not just the project manager.

This, in some cases, is very difficult.

If you are the project manager of a cohesive team, maybe this will not affect you, but now I’m talking to all those pm, having a big team to manage, maybe a distributed one, with several people working in different ways. So, how to let them feel that changes are for the better?

It is not a software to control who is working and who is not. It seems a bad thing to say, but most of the time, these kind of software are felt like tools to control. They are not and you have to tell them clearly. It doesn’t matter if in the future you will get amazing reports of all worked hours, or if, thanks to the software, you will be able to see who is overloaded. The reason for changing is not to control, or at least it shouldn’t be ;-).

Be your own pm and organize your work better. Once the project manager has created the structure of the task, with dependencies and time frames all the team will be able to check their priorities, organize their to dos and manage their work in autonomy. If you, as pm, are able to let them understand the utility of this new responsibility you will have them on board.

These are just two examples of what you can point out to your team to let them know how helpful can be a project management software, let them know that is a tool for the whole team.

Get the best from the software

Following this easy yet effective strategy to introduce the new software in your company you will get in time amazing results. If your team will use the software, inserting and updating data with no effort, you will get something like:

Inserting estimation and worklog -> team workload and cost tracking

When the software is well introduced you will start inserting projects charts, assigning your resources with estimation and hourly costs. Thanks to this, and having your team inserting worklog you will be able to see your resources workload, control tasks progress and check costs, all data updated in real time.

Managing teams and agenda -> meeting and documents sharing

If you start using a shared agenda, you will be able to share appointments and create meeting easily according to task work-groups. check unavailability and the same connection will be created to easily share documents.

Read more here about managing distributed team agendas.

Using task checklist -> self management and responsibility

When a pm software is introduced, it can give you also the possibility to track to-do lists connected to projects. This is a very useful way for all users to organize, prioritize their work, finally they will stop using notes on the desk and no ideas or messages will be lost.

If you feel that your team needs a more structured way to work, it is probably time to introduce a project management software. Yes, it will be a big change but you can really get results if you follow our strategy. Our software, Twproject, can really give all the results mentioned above, all those features in one software only.

Introduce your team to Twproject.

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How to be an Innovative Project Manager (Infographic)

Despite what people think, being a project manager requires a lot of creativity. A project manager has to be creative managing his resources and their productivity lacks , emotions or peculiar ideas, be creative in communication with his own bosses, be creative managing large projects with unexpected delays…

So, how to stay creative even when your are managing complex projects? Here there are some suggestions:

Do meditate and don’t stay up all night – this is good suggestion in general. To be more productive and yet creative, studies show that you have to rest at least 6 hours per night. In addition to this, learning to meditate, can teach you the art of patience and to avoid to much stress accumulation.

Do be a sponge and don’t wait for inspiration – project management methodologies are there to try them out and find the best one fitting your projects. Agile methodology, waterfall, GTD, these are just few examples of methodologies to experiment. Try to be open minded to new strategy and learn to walk on unknown paths, teams are generally positive to a more structured organization that let them feel more secure and followed. If you are facing problems managing your projects and checking their progress you can use a project management software like Twproject that lets you work in different ways according to your needs.

Do trust yourself and don’t go it alone – even if you are the project manager do not forget about your team opinion. Trust yourself ideas and creativity but ask for their opinion too before going forward with an important decision. If a choice will fall back on your team too, it will be easier if they participated to the final decision. This will reinforce your team culture.

Do pay attention and don’t pass judgement – projects, from start to end are like a big creativity process, that requires your attention constantly. In this sense, you need to pay attention to everything happening in your company, if there is a problem that can impact on your projects too you have to operate immediately even in a creative way. Never stop analizing your delay and their causes because they may happen again, and a deep study can help you facing them in the future.

Do say “Yes, and…” and don’t say “That never works” – Do push back and don’t argue – here we are talking about team building, because you can’t be an innovative project manager if you do not have an innovative team and a team can perform its best if everyone is free to express his opinion, and you , as projects manager, have to learn to listen to them, even if you do not agree. To have the most innovative team you have to look outside of the box.

“Old pattern only bring to old results”

“New ideas require risk. People need to know it’s safe to express new thinking”

Source Entrepreneur.

How To Manage Distributed Teams – Sharing is Caring

These days, companies has to face an ever growing need for dynamic teams, shared groups of people working together through the internet. This need increases hand by hand with the difficulty of managing team dynamics and project updates.

For this reason, using conventional software like Microsoft project, built for managing projects in their best case scenario with clearly identified teams, could not fit the needs.

Many Projects – Lots of Teams

Big companies, and small ones too, with a high number of projects can see their number of teams increase accordingly, and when I say team I mean people that are actually working on the project. Even if your company has just seven colleagues like ours, and you have one team working on several different projects, you can face the same problem: a meeting for a project, a meting for another, uncounted e-mails refer to a projects, many refer to another, what a mess!

For this reason we cannot underestimate this trend and we better try to manage it.

Sharing is Caring

Actively work on a project often involves sending tons of e-mail to keep everyone updated on what is going on, share documents and information about progress and commitment, schedule meeting with customers and colleagues, share the list of to-dos to get the project done.

This continuous flow of information assumes that you have always in mind all those who compose a specific team. How many of you spend more than a minute checking the list of attendees to be sure that everyone has been added? What if someone is forgotten?

Distributed Teams – Somebody Help!

It’s clear now that we need something helping us managing distributed teams. But what if I told you that the solution is at one step distance? Dynamic teams are implicitly defined by your projects. No one knows better, who is involved, than project management software.

Node by node, different people could be assigned and different information could be shared. Simply looking at the team from the project’s point of view, you will see the work-group changing.

This simple yet effective idea, let you start from the point of view of your project: when you have an information to share you just need to focus on which is the specific project related, your team is already there!

Just open you projects management software, your changing teams are saved there!

If you have not introduced a project management software in your company you can try Twproject that solves this problem with a suite of functionalities that starts exactly by the work group created on a project.

Finally we will have the distributed teams problem solved and nobody will be forgotten.

If you want to read more about how to introduce a project management software and succeed you can read this post:

https://twproject.com/blog/how-a-project-manager-can-introduce-a-significant-change-and-actually-succeed/

We have the tools, we have the culture.

Try us for free!

Software Development Project Template – Free Download

Even if every company has its own peculiarity, we find, in our experience, that company with same business share also the same internal processes.

This is probably the reason why, often, our customers, ask us for project’s template that they can import and adjust in their own Twproject instance. This helps them starting with Twproject easily, refining processes on the go.

We got then the idea to share all these templates in a series of blog posts where you will find the template file free to download.

Which is the project?

Today we create a typical software development project template. Software, but also a different kind of product. We created this with one of our customers that has lunched its product on kickstarter, of course, we simplify the project, removing all tasks specific for its project.

This project is a great example, in fact, we recognize in it, all the common phases and dependencies of a software development project. It could work for our software house too. Of course, once imported, you can change it to best fit your company’ production process.

The first step of the project is to analyze competitors and collect ideas and requirements. This steps for example could be different if the software is owned by your company or if it is created for a specific customers, in this second case you will probably skip competitor’s analysis to focus on collecting requirements from your customer.

Second step is “development”, in this case we are talking about a web application, but it could work for a mobile app too.

Testing phase is not included but you could add if it is done internally instead of by your customer.

Last but not least we have documentation and the marketing Phase, which starts immediately and maybe before the beta launch.

The structure of the development phase is probably the most variable, for example you could have a series of beta releases instead of one, you could have internal testing and also a customer approval step. This are just some ideas of this project possible changes.

How can I import it?

Download the file below and open your Twproject instance. In the project list page there is a button with two arrows that will open a menu with the import functionality.

How does it work?

In Twproject every project could be a template for creating a new one. The copy function, in fact, is available in every project details page.

The best part, is that you can create really complex projects with a click but, at the same time, you can decide to copy/clone only small part of a single project, and re-use it in the same project or in a brand new one. Its up to you.

Our file is a complex project that you can just import and transform in your own template, adjust names, task duration and you are ready to go.

Ignore start date and task status, because your project will be relocated in time once you copy it.

Great right?

Click to download the template

If you created your own template in Twproject and you want to share it with us you can send them at info@twproject.com!

Our template can be exported in MPX format too, if you want it you can send us an email at info@twproject.com.

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Does Twproject use Twproject?

If someone would have asked me the most frequent question I get since I worked here at Twproject, I would answer without hesitation “Does Twproject use Twproject?” This is the most asked question by our customers and then of course “How do we use it?”

If I was a good marketer I should probably say:

“Yes, of course we use it, we have created a fantastic project management tool and we could not be able to find anything better out there!”

But you know that I am always honest with you so my real answer is:

“Yes, of course we use it, the most important rule in developing software is to eat your own dog food, if possible, and we are doing it every day”

Since the very beginning of Twproject development, we have used it internally to simply find the best answers to every day works problem and questions.

Twproject has born and developed to answers our own needs and at the same time the needs of thousands of company like ours.

Using it internally has helped us finding the most interesting ideas and of course tons of bugs 🙂

Now that Twproject is a well grown software we can actually say that use it internally also for managing our projects and here it comes the second most asked question “How do we use it?”

Here at Twproject we have several great people working in the design department, in the accounting one, we have the development team and the marketing one from which I belong.

Each of us use Twproject in a different way, and the great thing is that it works perfectly for all of us.

I have already written how to use Twproject for managing marketing strategies and this is mainly how I use it everyday so I though it could be interesting to find how one of our development guys use it, so I asked Roberto, our Twproject Lead architect.

Roberto manages the Twproject project with Twproject…. it’s our own tongue-twister 🙂

Roberto manages releases creating one task for each one of them, right now his working on Twproject 6.1, wow, I really said that? Twproject 6.1 is about to be released with some great new features so stay tuned!

“At the very beginning managing all features requests, bugs and ideas was really difficult, we were covered by ideas from our customers and from our self, moreover we had a lot of bugs to solve and excited customers that asked us a lot of customization”

Roberto and his team decided to organize all features and developments in different task releases (each of them under the main task called Twproject) creating a real road map of features and ideas for the future. In time, Roberto’s team has created great features like the Gantt editor (also released as javascript Gantt editor component on MIT license) with dependencies and critical path management, the great Twproject to-dos management with prioritization, personal order, gravity management, impact bar and scheduled to-dos notifications.

“Now managing Twproject road map is very easy, following a software product development is very easy with Twproject”

And here are his everyday Twproject tricks:

Collect all ideas, features and bugs in your current release

Use all Twproject classifications to insert your ideas, bugs and features in your current release, use Twproject issues for this kind of things. You can classify issues by tag or type and prioritize them with gravity to define an order of importance. Classifications can be refined during meeting with your team.

Give to the most important things a due date and let Twproject remind you of them

If you have things to do that you want not to forget about, just add a due date, in your Twproject home page you will always see all things requiring your attention.

Subscribe to all important events and cut out meetings

Twproject will notify you of all updates you have been subscribed, finally you will know exactly what your team is up to and you will reduce a lot of time spent in meetings.

Move forward to the next release

When you have closed some interesting features, bugs and you are ready to go out with your release, clone your task and bring to the new one all the open issues you have not closed yet. In Twproject every task can be a template for others! In this way all ideas and open bugs will follow you and you will never lose any of them again.

Record your time closing issues

Developers generally close a lot of issues in one day and every time you will do that Twproject will ask you “how much time did it takes?”, no better moment to record your worklog, no additional effort at the end of your day.

I really hope that this post will be helpful to all of those searching for a project management tool for managing software products.

Follow our blog to read more case of study!

We have the tools, we have the culture.

Try us for free!