Expert’s Advice on Project Management and Workplace Productivity

It's always true that the customer wants the best products and services. Employees want better salaries. Executives want growth. So everyone wants to grow.

But the truth is, it’s hard to deliver consistently positive results in an uncertain and continually shifting global marketplace.

Organizations that invest in SaaS project management spend 13 times less money because their strategic initiatives are completed more successfully.

We all know that proper management of projects is essential for any organization’s success, yet the message is not being realized.

“We reviewed this year’s Pulse of the Profession data, we were hoping to see improvement over last year’s results. Instead, we saw declines in many of the success factors we track. Even more concerning, the percentage of projects meeting their goals—which had been flat for the past four years—took a significant dip”.

                                                                                                      Mark A. Langley, PMI President, and CEO

To examine this situation further, Mark further surveyed executive leaders and PMO directors as part of this year’s Pulse research and found that, although many individuals are beginning to sharpen their focus on managing projects as a strategic driver, their organizations aren’t always in step.

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Introduction To Scrum Methodology

First steps towards the Scrum Methodology were taken in the year 1986, by 2 Japanese experts of commercial product development - Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka. They published an article - “New New Product Development Game” in the Harvard Business Review. (Yes 2 News!)

Interestingly, the Total Quality Management (TQM) came out of the manufacturing industry and so did Agile and Scrum. Hirotaka and Ikujiro referred numerous use cases from the automotive and printer manufacturing firms. And another striking similarity - the very evident Japanese connection again!

Through their research they ascertained that – small, self-organizing teams fed with clear objectives and when given the freedom to develop their own execution strategy are proven to be highly successful in achieving their goals – quality products and services!

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Knowledge Management Strategies for Successful Project Collaboration

 Collaboration is vital to the successful stewardship of any project, regardless of the industry or sector in which you operate. But no matter how good you are at wrangling large teams or conveying your desired achievements, ensuring that people work together effectively is impossible without the help of certain tools.

Two decades ago the cost of not being able to find knowledge efficiently was costing businesses $12 billion annually. Today, IDC estimates put this figure at over $31 billion, indicating that no organization can afford to overlook the need to facilitate cohesive collaboration by any means.

This is where knowledge management comes into play, providing you with an opportunity to make sure that critical information can be shared and expanded upon over the course of a project. But what are some of the strategies and solutions you should pursue and are there any pitfalls to consider?

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Product Update A Real-Time, 2-Way Sync Between Google Calendar and Orangescrum

 Hello Orangescrum’ers, we’re back with another product update!

Over the years, Orangescrum has helped users to organize their tasks, deliver projects in time and collaborate from a single platform.

However, it is difficult to keep track of all important assignments & deadlines through email notifications & many users have asked for the ability to sync their tasks and deadlines with Google Calendar.

The wait is over! Now, you can see all your important appointments, deadlines, tasks on your Google calendar with a real-time, 2-way integration with Orangescrum –#1 Task Management Software .

Why Google Calendar?

Google Calendar lets you organize your schedule and share events with team members and friends. With Google’s free online calendar, it’s easy to keep track of your daily schedule.

Also, Google Calendar is pre-installed on many mobiles and being widely used by businesses via G-Suite. It displays meetings, appointments, activities, and events in a single place.

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Project Management Reporting & Metrics

Every project is managed differently. Their failure and success are totally dependent on how well the project or task is managed. It requires general management skills to keep the project under control.

Since last few years, Orangescrum has been sharing knowledge, experience, and learning on project management through its blogs, eBooks, videos, and tutorials.

This chapter is a collection of Project Management Reports and Metrics along with tips and required information that you can use to make project management easier.

What Is Project Reporting?

 

Reporting... it's what a project manager does. No matter whether you are a travel freak or a professional learner, you must have created a report once in your life, either by hand or with reporting tools.

A Project Management Report is an overview of the current status of the project. It is a record of the state of a project at a given time.

According to the size and complexity of your project, the project report may be required weekly or monthly. This report is provided to all stakeholders to keep them up to date on the project progress.

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Agility The Paradox of Good Project Management

Being agile and quick in business is vital as the pace of change accelerates persistently and agile project management is taking the lead.

Could "Agile" be the best method to choose for project management?

This has been an ongoing debate for years. Essentially there are 3 groups of project managers;

Traditional Project Managers- Generally, they use waterfall methodology and frequently refer to the PMBOK (i:e- Project Management Body of Knowledge). They follow the best practices, models, and templates for effective project management.

Agile Project Managers- They’re quite different from their traditional counterparts. They focus on the team and consider success to be team driven.

Then there are Traditional Project Managers who want to play in Agile Environments, so they start looking for specific tools and techniques that they can “borrow” from the agile approaches. Often these folks take more of a hybrid approach to project management and agile approaches have become their mainstream.

Cutting to the chase

I don’t think you can be “agile” by approaching your projects with the same tactics you’ve always used for traditional or waterfall projects!

Agile is a jargon that has been zooming around the business world for nearly 15 years. Managers want to be quick, alive, and agile to all possibilities when it’s about driving their business forward, especially in this increased competition period. 

So it is not surprising that agile methods are becoming more popular as organizations seek to respond faster and more effectively to an increasing pace of change.

Agile methods involve breaking a project into a series of steps known as sprints, rapidly testing work and holding daily meetings or scrums to review progress.

For better understanding, let's take a small example

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Smart Goal Setting and Project Planning | Project Management Tutorial

Motivated people not only think about what they want to achieve, but they also give attention to processes and take actions to accomplish their goals. They frequently think about what blocks or obstacles they might encounter & where they can get help.

78% of a group of IT and business professionals reported that their business was not aligned with project goals.

All project managers vary in what triggers them. Most of them are motivated by 3 primary things- the opportunity to work with other professionals, the capacity to convince the organization, and the desire to meet the objectives with task accomplishment.

Project success depends on each person taking responsibility for their own actions and developing appropriate change and improvement goals.

Only 64% of projects meet their goal.  

Before you get too far into the project, you need to step back and plan the work. If you want successful project management, you need a bigger picture view of everything that needs to be done and how they can be leveraged.

That’s what proper goal setting and planning offers. Yes, it might slow down the start of the doing, but definitely, it can save you a ton of time in solving the flaws.    

Read on to get everything you need to know about proper goal setting and project planning. It’s our ultimate guide to taking off your project right.

SMART Goal Setting For Project Management

Goal setting is an essential part of project planning. Good project managers understand the importance of setting the right goal to deliver projects successfully and impress clients and stakeholders.

With projects getting bigger and complicated, project managers have to look beyond the general requirements, timelines, and budgets and start emphasizing on setting SMART goals.

Pause!

Before implementing SMART goals, do you know what exactly a Project Goal is?

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