Project Management Knowledgebase

I'm posting this link to Debra Fine's website. I've read two of her books: "The Fine Art of Small Talk" and "The Fine Art of the Big Talk." While they're not directly about project management, they do relate to the ability to communicate and build relationships both personally and professionally. The content of these two books has helped me build rapport and relationships with teams and stakeholders, open discussions about sensitive topics and project difficulties, and improve my ability to get what I want out of conversations big and small. I would recommend these books to any PM looking to get better at communicating.

Debra, that book sounds very useful to integrate EQ with the PM experience.

Perhaps this is an obvious post, but I still run across people who don't have a searchable, organized or unorganized online notebook, notepad, or repository of anything and all things you want to remember or keep track of. I've used it for smaller projects, to contain all of the lengthy articulations that are then hyperlinked to more formal Word documents or Excel charts. It's a phenomenally useful tool.

I love Evernote because it's accessible from several mobile devices. I especially like their app (I'm using Android), because it's easy to use and fast. You could add multiple people to the account and share checklists, wiki-like notes pages, and calendar items. I'm not sure it would be ideal for huge projects with many parts, but it would be perfect for organizing a small collaboration or just for organizing your own work.

Michael, Thanks for sharing this app and your experience with it. This tool sounds just like the tool I need to track and remember all my pending tasks.

From their website: "Free, simple, fast online meetings. Share your screen instantly with anyone." I couldn't say it better myself. Join Me is a pretty great tool if you have meetings with remote members of project teams. The premium version has all of the features of WebEx and then some, and you can get a 30 day trial of the premium version for free. Even the free version that is available after the 30 day trial is useful. No one has to download anything or have a program installed except for the moderator (and it is a very simple download). The moderator gives everyone a code, they go to a website and type it in and can immediately share screens. My advice: Use Microsoft Paint to enhance your Join Me meetings by using it like the WebEx whiteboard.

Andi, thanks for sharing, sounds like a cool alternative to expensive or complicated ways to create an online meeting. I will try it for a couple of online interviews I need to conduct.

According to the description it is an issue tracking app. This is very useful for managing a project by prioritizing tasks by tracking timelines, milestones (enter title, due date, and the goals or focus for each milestone). The app integrates client emails and also in the message creation it is possible to attach files up to 50 MB in size. To create a project the PM only needs to write the project title and description.

This website looks like a great resource for project managers by offering some very unique courses in this profession.

This is a specialized site in project management practice that provides a central site tool, references, news, projects, training offers and many other resources to help people interested in joining a PM community online. Their mission description is to help project managers be successful mainly by providing connections, information, technology resources, and advice. I found this page very helpful in this area and with a good collaborative and iterative structure.

I think this FB page has a good value as I found this social media site has a huge influence and is adding users constantly. The site provides news, videos, resources, galleries, and other ways to engage with the area of PM in an easy and accurate way.

I subscribed to this podcast (it has a free option) I liked because it is short (each episode is around 30 min long) and gets directly to the point, so it helps me to understand better some concepts we discuss in our class. I listened to the interview in the Episode 266: PMO and Capitalizing on Diversity (Free) This one gave me a perspective about how to integrate diversity in PM. The other episode I listened was Episode 261: How to Identify Project Stakeholders (Free) , so I learned a little more about this confusing topic for me. I also enjoyed the British accent; I finally can catch what they are saying! I think my English skills are improving: double check!

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!

A great overview of Conflict Styles as well as an interpretive guide to Conflict Style Inventories such as the TKI and Kraybill (Style Matters).

I was researching information on writing an effective business case when I came across this blog. It's written by a practicing PM, which makes it interesting to me because I'm not officially a PM. The author's posts cover a variety of topics that are informative and interesting, and she gives a lot of helpful tips about project management. I especially like how she tags her articles and gives them simple titles, which makes it easy to skim over the pages and find something that piques your interest. Also, the articles are a good length for quick information-gathering.

This is a pretty neat tool I came across the other day. It's called Quizlet, and it lets you create flashcards and other games... for Free! I like it because you could use it to send out some pre pr post training materials, (acronyms, terms, ect.)

This is great! I use Brainscape.com to put in flashcards for my Spanish students. There is an app in the app store that pairs with it called "Flashcardlet" so that you can do flashcards on your mobile. I don't know if there is android app for it, but I'm sure there is.

Having seen the previous post on Evernote, I thought I'd add my alternative to it . I use Springpad to keep track of smaller projects on the go and various "to do" lists.

I really need to bite the bullet and incorporate something like this for travel/busy weeks. Have you tried Evernote? If so, why do you prefer Springpad? Thanks.

I like the Springpad interface better, but here's a good article that compares the two. http://lifehacker.com/should-i-use-springpad-or-evernote-504486764

Teambox is an online tool for project management. It's free for up to 5 members on a team, so it's great for small projects. I love apps and websites that help keep me organized, so I am all over Teambox. The downside is that currently there isn't a gantt chart function, but It looks like they may release one in the next update.

If you want a way to make the most beautiful Gantt charts you've ever seen... use Smart sheet. It's not free, but there is a free trial. I wanted to make a one page Gantt chart, that was vertical rather than horizontal, and I didn't want to pay money or download open project, and smart sheet came to the rescue. It does have more features, like assigning tasks to your team members... but I really only used it to make the Gantt chart of my dreams.

Thiscourseprovidesanoverviewofprojectmanagement, includingtheprojectlifecycleandprojectcontrol documents.

This is a link for the University of Michigan Project Management Methodology - designed for use in managing the Information and Technology Services (ITS) projects. This site has several document templates with column descriptions to help with comprehension of different steps for managing projects. It has a nice excel template for project deliverables for people who need a little help getting the ball rolling in excel.

Shirky: "When ecosystems change and inflexible institutions collapse...." Article giving a broader perspective to our readings about - the new organizational model

In Peter Senge's book 'The Five Disciplines: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization' (1990), one of disciplines is personal mastery. In this lesson, you'll learn what personal mastery is and some examples will be provided to illustrate the concept in action. You'll have an opportunity to reinforce your knowledge after the lesson with a short quiz.

…organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.

Are you challenged with managing multiple projects - here's a video with some good tips to help you (focusing on planning to manage your projects).