Managing Small Projects - Five Tips For Success

Finishing projects successfully is always a challenge. Projects without good management have almost no chance of succeeding because the odds are greater that something will go wrong than that everything will go right. The Project Manager's job is to guide the project to a successful conclusion by closely monitoring activities and events and making adjustments as necessary to keep the project on track.

Here are some tips that can be useful in steering your project to a successful conclusion.

1. Make sure that the project has been clearly defined.

It's difficult to hit a target if you don't know where or what it is. When you get the project management assignment there should have been a project charter that defines the goals and objectives of the project. If you don't have that, then your first step should be to work with the project sponsor or your client to create one.

As a project manager your job will be to finish the project on time, within budget, and with the desired results. Without a clear understanding of all three of these, you're in trouble the moment you start. You have to know in which direction to steer the project before you begin. This is no time to be timid. It's up to you to insist on having all the information you need.

2. Plan for problems.

All projects are subject to certain levels of risk. You should try to identify the risks associated with your project and develop plans for handling them if they arise. Look for areas where things are apt to go wrong, where resources might become unavailable, and where information might have been inaccurate or inadequate. When you schedule the tasks and develop the cost estimates, try to build in enough slack time and budget surplus to handle the risks you've identified. You may not always be successful in building yourself a comfortable margin, but at least try to include some time and money for general contingencies. If nothing else, your contingency plan can serve as a reduction buffer if you are required to reduce the cost or schedule of the project later on.

3. Use tools you understand.

Use good project management tools to keep the client and team members updated on project status. You can use software tools to do much of the tracking and reporting, and almost any project management software package will do the job. Project management software is usually complex and feature rich, with more reports and functions than you will ever use. But the choice of software is not as important as the fact that you and others are properly trained in its use. Without training on the software package, you are better off managing the project with spreadsheets or paper forms.

4. Get to know your team.

Project management skills are largely communication, planning and people skills. You must work through others to get the job done. It is your leadership that will have the other team members following you on the narrow path to success through all the obstacles and things that can go wrong. Building rapport with the team members with the client and others is an important part of getting the job done. Approach them with respect and dignity and expect them to do the same and they will be more likely to respond if the time comes for heroic effort.

5. Stay out of the workload.

Many project managers wind up in trouble because they try to provide some of the labor needed to finish the project. An active project is no place for a working manager. Experience has shown that when a choice must be made between doing the work and managing the project, doing the work always wins. It natural to think that maybe you as a project manager can help with some of the work in order to catch up on tasks that are at risk. But your job as project manager is not to do the work yourself, but to inform the project sponsor and client that the task is delayed and what the impact will be if you are unable to get additional funds or resource to do the job. Of course, there is always the possibility that they will tell you to do the work yourself -- but then nobody said that a project manager's job was easy.

Jake Alexander is a former Information Technology professional with experience in managing multi-million dollar projects involving mainframe computer installations and, more recently, software development projects. He owns and operates http://www.managingsmallprojects.com a web site that provides resources and information to the new, drafted, or reluctant project manager

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By Jake Alexander

What You Need to Know About Popular Software - Open-Source Software

Open-source software (OSS) is computer software whose human-readable source code is widely available perhaps under copyright. People may then modify the software and redistribute it, whether modified or not. Development is often a public, collaborative process. It is claimed that open source software may save consumers $60 billion per year.

Let's look more closely at some of the distribution criteria. Any redistribution must include the source code. Reasonable reproduction costs are allowed, but the software is usually downloaded free via the Internet. Modifications must be distributed under the same terms as the original product. Discrimination against individuals, groups, or fields of application is forbidden. The license may not specify use of any technology.

Open-source software stems from the free software movement that started in 1983. The word free can mean no cost or at liberty. To avoid this ambiguity, people started using the term open-source software. Netscape released its Internet browser source code as open source. Yet the company was sold for several billion dollars even though users didn't have to pay to download the browser.

Here are several principles of open-source software development. Users should be treated as co-developers. They can add valuable features to the software. According to Linus's Law, "Given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow." The more users the more testing environments. Microsoft has partially adopted this principle by making beta versions of software such as Windows 7 available to millions of people. The software should be released early to get more people involved as soon as possible. The fixes should be added quickly rather than towards the end of the project. The software should come in at least two versions, one with more features and the other more stable.

Does open-source software work? Let's examine some of the successes. Linux is a widely used operating system, in essence a variant of the decades-old Unix operating system. Many organizations have adopted Linux replacing Microsoft Windows based systems. Firefox is the second most widely used Internet browser. Open-source software doesn't always come in second. For more than a dozen years Apache has been the most widely used Internet web server. It is well integrated with other open-source software such as Linux but also works with Microsoft Windows. If you want the latest Apache updates and fixes (and presumably most web hosting companies do) you will get them first for Linux and only later for Microsoft Windows. The Perl programming language is nicknamed "the Swiss Army chainsaw of programming languages" because of its adaptability and flexibility.

How do people make money when the open-source software is given away free? There are several answers. Some people and companies make money from consulting and training fees. Another possibility is charging for advanced product versions. For example, the popular open-source database MySQL can be downloaded for free and literally millions of people have done so. Companies that need the Enterprise version will be ready to pay the relatively moderate fees. There must be something right with this business model; MySQL was recently sold to Sun Microsystems for more than $1 billion.

Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet. He teaches Linux and Windows operating systems plus other computer courses at an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his new website http://www.php4windows.com which teaches you how to download and run PHP on Windows computers, even if they are "obsolete" For a break from computers check out his global wine website at http://www.theworldwidewine.com with his new weekly column reviewing $10 wines

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By Levi Reiss

Construction Project Software

Construction project software is excellent for increasing productivity and giving more effort towards increasing customer satisfaction. This software is used for many purposes, but most importantly you can use it to organize your ideas, employees, and building projects.

When it comes to your ideas, it is important the the software you purchase can create plans for your construction business. Being able to take down all your ideas for your business allows you to visualize the future and helps your business grow quickly and efficiently. Planning your future projects is an excellent way to improve the way you run your construction business and can shave thousands of dollars off of your expenses.

Your employees can be controlled more efficiently with construction project software. When you begin a project you need to know which employees you will send to the job site. With the software you can generate reports that can be distributed to managers. With these reports your managers can keep track of which workers are going to which project.

With Construction project management software yo can maintain the information for each building project easily. When a customers asks for certain jobs to be completed at their home of commercial area, you need to tell your managers what they have to do at each project site. With software, as soon as a project is ordered you can print out reports with the exact jobs that need to be done at every project site.

If you are looking to save money by reducing expenses and improving customer sates faction by increasing efficiency, you need construction project software.

Additional Resources Construction Computer Software Building Construction Software Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=George_Christodoulou

By George Christodoulou

What Makes a Good Project Management Software?

A good project lifecycle software program is a valuable asset to any business today especially when they are trying to secure approval for any project that they wish to undertake. However, when it comes to choosing the right kind of program you need to take a look at the various different models available and see which of these will best suit your requirements.

Below we will take a close look at the various different models none of which can be interchanged with the others and look at their weaknesses and strengths. The one that you choose should be one, which can easily identify the risks that you may face and so help you to reduce the chances of these risks occurring.

Model 1 - Pure Waterfall

This is the classic of all the models we are going to be discussing in this article and is ideal where you have clearly understood requirements or when working with technical tools or infrastructures.

The main strengths of this model are that it can save you money during the planning stages of the project. As well as it can be used by those people, have plenty of technical knowledge and those who do not. However, there are disadvantages the main one of these being that this particular model can be somewhat inflexible when being used.

Model 2 - Spiral

This particular model allows you to break the project up into much smaller chunks so not only is it much easier to handle but can also being divided around between those that are involved in the project.

The big advantage to be gained from using this model over the pure waterfall one is that at every stage of the project it can be tailored to suit those parts of it. Nevertheless, it is somewhat more complicated to understand and so is not really the kind of program one should be using where there are people who have little or no knowledge of such programs.

Model 3 - Modified Waterfall

Is very similar to the pure waterfall model; however, with this one you are able overlap phases of the project as and when you need to. Nevertheless, it still provides you with the capability of being able to divide the project up into sub projects, which makes it much easier to cope with through out the projects phases.

The biggest advantage to be had from using this kind of project lifecycle software model is that it provides a lot more flexibility than the pure waterfall one does. Moreover, it allows you to use the program in much the same way as the spiral one does. However, this can cause problems when mistakes are made because communications have faltered.

P Abbey owns and operates http://www.projectmanagementsoftwaretips.com/projectlifecyclesoftware.html

Project Lifecycle Software

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By Paul Abbey

Components of Construction Project Management Software

Most of the time project management is the concept that is majorly used to efficiently use and manage the resources the way they are supposed to be handled. Projects are generally the starting point of a future product or service which builds up with time as the project projections and outcomes comes out positive as expected. Every project has unique terms and ways of management and process control. Therefore, it becomes very important to understand the limitations of any project which a project manager should overcome and try to turn them in favor of expected growth.

When we talk about construction project management, it’s actually different from the term project management as we are only going to talk about things which are relevant from a construction stand point. This also includes selection of construction area, cost involved etc. Also, with the involvement of digital software’s, construction work can now be projected in a simple way. You can use project management software to feed in the relevant information about your project which can later be used to build up reports to present to the clients. Use of construction software also ensures that you have not left out anything silly and have covered everything required.

Using project management software you can enter an estimated budget to keep a track of your complicated project details making it easier to breakup things in small and petty reports, in other words, a nice construction estimating software. One of the major components any construction software should provide is better data management. Thus simplified management is one of the major requirements. Using the software structure you can have appointments sent and received with proper communication channel like email which also helps in resource management as well. This software can also be installed on multiple employees’ computer where they can be given a task over the network fully controlled by the software itself. Another good component is the time and billing report which is used in paying the employees on hourly/weekly bases for the work they have done.

Next important component of the construction project management software is the layout designer which can be used in designing the floor plane with all the relevant information including the carpet takeoff measurement. With editing features, you can rework the floor plan and add new measurements which would automatically be adjusted within the final layout. With some software’s you even have the information using which it can show both the carpet takeoff and material takeoff related to the data input.

You now understand your construction requirements and would like to have construction project management software which has all of it. With that being said, you are now ready to further search online to find out the relevant software that would best fit at a competitive price. Read the description and other relevant documents careful to fully agree on the fact that this software is good for your business.

With lots of technical knowledge and little bit of support from the software you are ready to succeed on your own terms.

Caitlina Fuller is a freelance writer. One of important components of the construction estimating software is the layout designer which can be used in designing the floor plane with all the relevant information including the carpet takeoff measurement. With editing features, you can rework the floor plan and add new measurements which would automatically be adjusted within the final layout. With some software’s you even have the information using which it can show both the carpet takeoff and material takeoff related to the data input

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By Caitlina Fuller

Microsoft Project Management Software - Maximizing Today's Complex Project Management

Today's project manager is required to perform a multitude of key business functions and navigate through complicated array of tools and reporting resources in order to start, manage and successfully complete a project. Project managers need to be agile, intuitive and relentless task managers of many business concepts. This facilitates the need to have a tool that performs optimally and can adapt as fast as a project manager does on a day to day basis. Just as a paintbrush is an invaluable tool to a painter, Microsoft Project Manager offers this same value to a project manager.

The activities that a project management can be expected to manage can consist of following: Analysis and design of objective and events, assessing and controlling risk management, analyzing the results based on the facts achieved, allocation of resources, acquiring human and material resources, assigning tasks, communicating to stakeholders, controlling project execution, defect prevention, defining the products of the project, directing activities, estimating resources, forecasting future trends in the project, increasing / decreasing a company's workers, issues management, issue solving, identifying, managing & controlling changes, organizing the work, planning the work according to the objectives, project closure, quality management and tracking and reporting progress. One can see the activities and day to day functions that are needed for a project manager to successfully complete a project are numerous. Each component listed above is its own distinct portion or phase of a project but, eventually all identified components link, interact or are directly/indirectly reliant on one another.

Project Management tools may include: financial tools, cause and effect charts, status reporting, PERT charts, gantt charts, event chain diagrams, RACI diagrams, run charts and project cycle optimization. In order to reach the projects ultimate goal of completion, the project manager needs to rely on and have a very well endowed project management tool box at his/her disposal. The tool box needs to be available at a seconds notice to deploy immediately. These tools need to be flexible enough to adjust to the project managers evolving business needs and allow for succinct and reliable tracking. Hosted Microsoft Project Server makes all of this and more available to today's project manager. MS Project Server 2007 offers a solid infrastructure to work and deploy project after project from. Most importantly as the project manager utilizes Microsoft Project Manager it will become very evident that this tool offers an agile and very scalable solution to today's project management needs.

For today's project manger the Microsoft Project Manager and the Hosted Microsoft Project Server offered through Phase 2 International will link all of a project managers needs together. This tool will offer even more stability and agility if managed through MS Project Server 2007

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By Alice Lane

Microsoft Project Manager - The Value of Organization

As one looks around during the day we are all confronted with varied degrees of organization. We wake up in the morning and choose from a selection of cloths that may be organized by clothing type like pants, shirts etc. After we finish getting dressed in the morning we may get something to eat from the pantry that is organized by canned foods, cereals or snacks. We open the refrigerator and choose from foods that are grouped by drinks, vegetables, meats, dairy and fruit.

After breakfast is finished the next phase of the day starts with going to work. At work we start a series of activities that are designed to complete some type of task, build something, manage a process or orchestrate some type of business flow. A business tool that can help us organize any number of issue and processes at the office is the Hosted MS Project. This software allows its user to succinctly manage, organize and plan a business project from start to finish.

Many project managers quickly realize that there can be numerous documents and contacts to track and archive. Without the proper organization system, important material can be lost, financial documents can be misplaced and team assignment information could disappear. This could all lead to misappropriation of funds, delays in project completion and loss of production tracking for a projects sub tasks. There is a solution that assists with the organization and tracking of these types of things. It is called SharePoint MPP. This application helps track your business documentation, staffing and centralizes your internet and intranet links.

A final tool that can complete your business organizational needs is the MS CRM hosting system or the Microsoft Customer Relationship Management software. This tool allows your business to fully track their clients profiles, leverage real time client data and create dash boards that pull together all of your critical data into central points to use as needed during critical business making opportunities.

To learn more about useful ways to organize your business life contact Phase 2 International and reference Hosted MS Project, SharePoint MPP and MS CRM hosting to unlock the tools to organize your business needs quicker, faster and affordably

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By Alice Lane