Project Management Companion

Project management can seem like a daunting discipline, but once you get a grasp of the fundamentals, and combine that with some intuition, you’ll be on your way to leading successful projects, no matter your situation. Perhaps you have unexpectedly been assigned to lead a project and a big promotion is on the line, or maybe you’re a team member who wants to better understand their role in the project. Regardless of the situation understanding the fundamentals involved in project management is important. There are many articles within the project management companion site which can assist you in broadening your outlook of project management so you can reach your true potential. What Is a Project? A project is a sequence of tasks that lead toward a singular goal. Projects have boundaries, such as the time, people and resources needed to complete the project. These all depend on what results you want to achieve and when you want to achieve them. Those results are your outc

What project management is good at is making the complex simple, or at least manageable.  There are, of course, lots of different ways to achieve that goal, many of which are employed during the life cycle of a project. A project network diagram is one such tool that helps simplify a complex project plan, enabling a project manager to see the big picture. It’s important to have an overview of any project, see when it starts and finishes, and quickly note all the points in-between that intersect and how they work together. But some might avoid network diagrams, thinking of them as those dense schematics that depict the nodes and connections in a computer network. That would be a mistake.  Project managers need tools , and the project network diagram is a great one. What Are Project Network Diagrams? A project network diagram is a visual representation of the workflow of a project. A network diagram is a chart that is populated with boxes noting tasks and responsibilities,

An action plan is a proposed strategy or course or action. Specifically, in project management, it’s a document that lists the steps needed to achieve a goal. That is, an action plan clarifies what resources you’ll need to reach that goal,  makes a timeline for the tasks to get to that goal  and determines what team members you’ll need to do it all. The information from the action plan will assist in the creation of Gantt Charts, project schedule or plan. So what are the fundamentals in the creation of an action plan, the following are a few tips on how to build one. Commence by creating a simple template to save time. The template should consist of action step, due dates and resources who have been assigned the task. It is best to use a tool to keep you on task. By using a tool, a specific online tool that everyone’s using, then everyone has access to online and real-time data. And number three is you need to on board everyone into the tool, so that it works for everyone a

How crucial is a project timeline, and how much time is spent on composing one. It is normal to commence a project by sketching out a rough schedule, primarily because it is considered mandatory. At times it may be felt that this step is an unnecessary formality and possibly a waste of time. This is because we have learned that project timelines are hardly ever accurate. Dates are set with the best intentions, but it never takes long for things to run off the rails and render that calendar not only useless but a discouraging reminder of slower than anticipated progress. When this occurs frustrations are understandable, and to some extent common. But before you point the finger at your timeline, it’s worth considering how  you  could be contributing to these frustrations and inaccuracies. Some frequent mistakes that project managers make when scheduling and how they can be fixed. 1. You’re working backward Whenever you have a new project on your team’s plate, here’s what