Group items tagged

This article, written by PCub3d, a project management consulting company, for Microsoft, provides a general overview of the importance and structure for communication planning in project management.

Here is a free communication plan template laid out in Microsoft Excel. The template was provided to Microsoft by PCub3d, a project management consulting company.

Project Management 101 For users new to project management in general, we offer a short document entitled Project Management 101. This is a quick introductory manual which focuses on the major parts of the project management process. This document is a first stop for anyone interested in managing their projects in an efficient and organized manner. 

OneNote is a great product from Microsoft, and it's basically a digital series of binders that you can create and customize. You can create and label binders, sections, and individual pages. You can add notes, checklists, links to web pages, embed documents...almost anything you find can be placed there. The two most beneficial features: everything you put there can be made searchable, and your binders are sharable via SkyDrive (Microsoft's cloud) and by emailed link. A project manager could use this for anything from their own simple notes to an official file of collaborative information about a project! View a demo at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote-help/demo-what-is-onenote-HA010168634.aspx.

I use OneNote all the time and wonder how I managed without it! I tried Evernote, but the bugs finally drove me away and then I discovered OneNote. I don't know why Microsoft doesn't promote it better... it's a great tool!

I am also a big fan of OneNote. I use it a lot to share information with other teachers.

I posted this in our class discussion, but it occurred to me that it is really a great project management resource for those people who might feel daunted by difficult conversations. It it a resource that will help improve your EQ. In short, the book talks about how to identify when a crucial conversation needs to take place, how to plan for it and how to execute it. There is also a two day course that you can attend or maybe even lobby to bring into your office for PMs. The website for that is here: http://www.vitalsmarts.com/products-solutions/crucial-conversations/ You'll also find that Vital Smarts, the company that produces this training, has a lot of other EQ related resources.

We have a couple of copies of this book lying around my office. I hadn't connected it to project management. I will have to check it out.

Many people I worked with at the Colorado Department of health use this approach. The state has invested in offering the course to employees. While I never had a chance to take this course, I've heard really great things about it. One thing that has made a difference for people I know who have done this, they did with a staff team. That way everyone is using a common approach. That seems to really support implementing what they learned.

A blog outlining the top 10 free online project management software, because we can't all buy MS Project. This blog provides a brief overview of each software as well as links to the full site.

I'ts great to have all of these in one place. It allows you to compare them together. Two I have looked at for use in Education are ZOHO and Huddle.

Great add Brook! I came across this article when I was searching for a PM tool for our office. I've tried Basecamp before and I like how intuitive it is. Have you tried any of the other ones?

Sharepoint is a great project management tool, most especially for eLearning. Our online department utilizes it to manages tasks and build online resources for the department. It's a great place to share files and also comment on those files. It has discussion boards and announcement boards. Users can view files and edit them with versioning.

I agree that SharePoint is a great collaboration tool, although it's nice to have someone around who is an expert with using it. Sometimes it can be a little hard to handle. My favorite thing about SharePoint is that you can set up a workflow where a project manager can approve all document updates and new content before it goes live on the site. The manager can even leave comments to help the person revamp their submission. It's a great cloud-based collaboration and information management tool!

I agree, Melissa - it is a great tool but a bit cumbersome. We have a Sharepoint SME in our office who is working on revamping all of our sites. I am hoping it will make our teams use their sites to their fuller potential. If you have a content management plan, it is fantastic - but it can spiral out of control very quickly!

Zoho offers a suite of online web applications geared towards increasing your productivity and offering easy collaboration. Zoho's online office tools include a word processor, spreadsheet application, presentation tool, hosted wiki, notebook, CRM, Database software, etc. I have used it for some of the database applications. They also have a Project Management tool. The collaboration tools could also be used by members of a project team to share documents and to work together on projects. Here is an interesting story that I found on their site: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1855616,00.html.

In this article, Preetam Kaushik explains what Kaizen is and how it is used in project management. It is an introduction to Kaizen - a philosophy developed by engineers while manufacturing cars at Toyota. It basically involves continuous improvements in all stages of any process with every small improvement making its own contribution to the final process.

Just in case someone has been living under a rock, I'm adding this. I can't tell you how many times people at work email files hundreds of times when we could all just collaborate in Google Docs. We used Google Hangouts to chat in former projects and could actually see when each other was typing something. Love it!

I agree with Jen. While GoogleDocs is a great time saver I wish you could do more with formatting, pasting, etc. The formatting also differs if you download the doc onto a Mac which can be a pain when working with a group. Overall, though I think it is a worthwhile collaborative tool.

Good call. My team spent an entire meeting demonstrating how to use Live Meeting via Outlook, only to later find out that it costs our company each time we initiate a call. I mentioned Hangouts as an alternative, and nobody had any idea what I was talking about, despite the fact that all of my teammates have Gmail. Yikes! Sometimes its scary how much we don't know!

I came across this Word file while doing some research on change mitigation. It's from the North Carolina Enterprise Project Management Office site. It has a lot of sample documents on managing project change as well as some theory.

A methodology for managing a project is a logical step-by-step process for successful planning, control and delivery of the project. Typically a methodology in project management describes every step in depth, so that a project manager will know what they will need to do in order to deliver and implement the project on time, on-budget and to the customer's satisfaction. The project management methodology developed for the WVU Health Sciences Center is a streamlined approach due to the types of projects that will be managed.

This site offers a nice succinct, streamlined, one page PM process break down; summarized in a flow chart with links to each individual stage of the process. It also has additional links for PM books, services, and templates. A useful link for getting people started in PM.

Wow, John, what a find! I wish I had this a few months ago when we started this course. I've been looking for a simple visual that still manages to encompass most of the detail that goes into the project process. I love the printable color-coded version (http://www.consulting.ky/files/project_management_process_diagram_large.jpg). I plan on hanging that up in my office. I could also print a copy for each project, and use it as a sort of checklist. The other things I love about the site is that it lists specific deliverables for each stage. Love it! It's definitely more usable than the visuals in our Carroll book, since it's more detailed.

Thanks, this looks to be an excellent resource, and it has that guy on the side that looks at your pointer.

I am reading the book written by the founder of this group. It is an enjoyable read and this company also runs a helpful blog. I think it is great for people and organizations that feel challenged by having those difficult conversations.

Looks interesting. Seems like a good communication resource.

Looks like a good support system for project managers!