The Art of Project Management

Project Management is the procedure of systematizing and managing resources in such a way that these resources deliver and execute the task required to accomplish a project within a defined range, time, and cost constraint. Furthermore, it is the management approach of setting and attaining goals while optimizing the use of multiple resources such as time, funds, manpower, equipment, energy, space etc. over the course of a project.

Project management is an art and a science, an artistic science with a goal driven methodology.
Literally almost all the individual and business activity involves carrying out a non-repetitive task to achieve their definite goals.

So we all practice project management? Not necessarily!

A project is always provisional and a one-time attempt undertaken to achieve some specified result or outcome with definite start and end points. Each project must have a procedural and scientific approach. This art of management secures optimum results with nominal efforts resulting in maximum prosperity and contentment both for employees and employers.

The characteristics of projects being interim or a one-time undertaking can differentiate it from operations that are permanently enduring functional work to create the same outcome. However, there is a big difference between carrying out very simple tasks involving few individual business goals versus projects that involve complex blends of people, resources, budgets, workforces, and time constraints.

Therefore, this result oriented management process with technical skills and philosophy, scientific procedure and organizational methodology, results the requirement and development of project management today.

Any venture that is a collection of linked activities with a clearly defined start and finish point carried out in an organized manner, to achieve some specified goals is a project; and to make it successful it entails a management system.

To make a particular project successful it requires an effective solution that delivers to the standards required and within the established time and cost constrains. Project management is a series of activities embodied in a process of getting things done by working with members of a project team in order to reach the project schedule, cost and technical performance objectives; in addition combining the systems, techniques and workforce to control and monitor activities undertaken within the project.
Project management coordinates the resources necessary to complete the project successfully. The main objective of project management is a successful project execution. A project will be deemed successful if it is completed at the specified level of quality, on time and within budget.

Prime characteristics of project management are as follows:

1. Objectives oriented.


2. Change oriented.


3. Functional coordination.


4. Planning and control.


5. Constrains of time, cost, and quality.


6. Unique art.


7. Knowledge of multiple sources.


8. Better utilization of sources and tools.

Technical competencies for successful project management:

1. Risk Management


2. Integration Management


3. Scope Management


4. Procurement Management


5. Time Management


6. Communications Management


7. Budget Management


8. Quality Management


9. Human Resource Management

Project management ensures responsibilities clearly defined and resources focused on specified objectives. The project management process also provided a structure for communication within and across organizational boundaries. All the projects share similar features and follow similar processes. This has led to the development of project management tools and techniques that can be applied to all projects, no matter how diverse; however this managing process may face a variety of challenges as well.

Successful project management always is result oriented and should envelope its goals as follows;

1. Project must be completed.


2. Project must be competed within the budget.


3. Project must be completed within allocated time.


4. Project must perform to satisfaction.

Possibly because project management is so much associated with information technology (IT) these days, many relate "project management" only with technical skills; however in spite of the technological advancement, it is yet a universal fact that the human creative workforce lie at the heart of any organization and its systems, to overlook this artistic side of project management can lead to project mismanagement, resulting in project failure.

The fusion of art and science by developing a proficiency in the art and expertise in the science, a project management plan can boost the success velocity for their projects, and will be better able to accomplish projects on time and on budget, without sacrificing quality.

Sourcing for project management tool in Singapore, contact Alenu IT Today! at (65) 6884 5030.

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The Top 5 Skills of Good Project Managers

I have worked with and managed project managers over many years. Based on my own observations of what I did or did not do well on my projects, and similar observations about other project managers on their projects, I offer my assessment of the top 5 skills of good project managers:

1. Attention to Achieving the Project Goals - In many types of projects, especially technology projects, it can be easy to get wrapped up in the details and the technology and lose sight of the business goals. The focus of the team and the project shifts to a technology goal - for example, building an XYZ system - instead of the goal of solving the business problem. When that happens the resulting system may not meet all of the business expectations.
The project manager and the team need to clearly understand the business goals before detailed planning and work starts on the project. Then, the project manager needs to remind the regularly about the goals and how the project work relates to those goals.

2. Attention to Details - Probably the most-cited skill for project managers is attention to detail, and rightfully so. Projects of any size have hundreds and thousands of little details that must be attended to at the right time and in the right way throughout the course of the project. That's why senior managers should not manage projects... They are supposed to deal with the big picture, not the details.

It is not the job of the project manager to handle every detail, but it is the project manager's job to remind the team or ask the team about the details of the tasks they are doing.

3. Communication and Coordination with the Team - The planning and execution of the project is done in the day-by-day, week-by-week grunt work of the project. And it's done by the project manager working directly with the team to make it all happen... communicating and coordinating about their activities, the dependencies between the activities, the amounts of time to get the activities done, the issues that must be resolved, and so on.

Daily communication and coordination is the core of managing the project. It requires good organization and good people and verbal communication skills.

4. Problem Solving and Communication outside the Team - General problem solving is an important project manager skill because problems and roadblocks must be dealt with frequently. In most business projects, it usually means finding the persons outside of the team whom the project manager or team must work with and taking the appropriate steps to get the problem resolved. It may mean going up the management ladder to escalate the problem and get the necessary attention, prioritization, and resources directed toward the problem.

This particular skill set also involves communicating regular status to management about the progress of the project and issues that might be impacting work results, schedule, budget, etc. It requires excellent people and verbal communication skills and good written communication skills as well.

5. Customer Relationship Management - In business projects, it is important that the project manager maintain a good working relationship with the customer, whether the customer is external or internal. Managing the customer's expectations is a key part of this - not in a manipulative way, but in an honest and relatively open way. The customer needs to know what is realistic in developing the product and what is not, and customers always like to be kept informed about how the project is going and whether you, as the project manager, are responding to issues in the most effective way.

Managing the customer relationship also involves communication with management - keeping them informed about project issues, whether the customer is happy and quiet or unhappy and likely to escalate. Like several others, this area of performance obviously requires good people and communication skills too, as well as good issues management, which is all about tracking customer issues and managing them to the satisfaction of the customer.

Bottom-Line: There are many skills that a project manager must have, but if he or she does these five well, their probability of success with most projects will be high.

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The Advantages of Being a Project Manager

In its capacity of dealing with a project from the beginning to the end, from the planning phase through execution to its closure, the first advantage a project manager has is the fact he has an overall view on the project. He knows all its details and links; therefore, he is the most knowledgeable player as far as that project is concerned.

Besides this twofold knowledge of the project - theoretical and practical, the project manager has other type of knowledge that is critical to the success of the project: he is the client's agent, he knows the client's needs and only by knowing someone's needs, you may meet them thoroughly.

The project manager is also the only one who has full authority: he is the decision maker as far as the relevant project is concerned. He is the one who forms the team, assign roles, decides on conflicts, plans human resources, allocates tasks or influences stakeholders. But his authority goes further than over people, he is the decision maker when it comes to risks, schedule and budget.

And, last but not least, he has the tools and techniques to materialize his knowledge and implement his authority. As in any other domains, the time of pen and paper is gone with the wind. A modern efficient project manager, notwithstanding the fields he deals with - architecture or telecommunications, even if that activity has nothing to do with software development and he is simply in the constructions business, he needs to be computer proficient.

The software applications cover everything and given that, basically, any project manager is first a planner, they may prove crucial for saving time and money while maintaining quality, the very desideratum of any project manager.

This does not mean he needs to be able to edit a document in word, but he needs to be familiar with project management software, especially in the case of larger projects where to overview and oversee is impossible without understanding and being able to use a software application. With such a tool, he may plan everything from events and tasks to resources and workloads.

Certainly, he may use a desktop application but nowadays the web is key to access, control, multiple use and centralization of data. Of course, as it is often the case, the server may be down exactly when needed or the access may be so slow that you feel like jumping out off the window. But any technology has its weaknesses and strengths. And this leads us ultimately to the most important advantage a manager has against computers this time, given he is real: he may be dynamic, may exert control, cope with contingencies and have interpersonal contact, where the computer remains somehow stuck in the pure planning phase, where no adjustment to reality is feasible.

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Simple Project Management Methodology

Simple Project Management Methodology (SPMM) is a simple approach to managing projects with less than a five million dollar budget. There are countless project management frameworks and methodologies within the industry and most of these are extremely process intensive. The problem with intensive process methodologies is that when the project manager and project team are focused on process, they usually lose focus on managing the critical tasks of the project. What many PMO's, often, do not realize is it isn't process that delivers a project, rather, it is the completion of tasks and keeping the team focused that results in the completion of a project.

I have witnessed projects stall and fail, time and time again, because the project team was too focused on process, discovery, and methodology instead of delivery. So what is delivery exactly? In project manager terms, it is the standard where all projects and project managers are judged. So focusing on intangibles instead of deliverables will, almost certainly, result in failure. This is one reason why I have not subscribed to any specific methodology. Most methodologies, typically, focus on process and meetings, which are the two largest impacts to schedule and budget on a project. Process and meetings equate to less productivity, and can add a layer of unnecessary complexity to a project. If project staff are in meetings or working on process, they are not working on deliverables.

So, do I believe all methodologies are wrong or bad? Not at all. I believe that anything in moderation often has its place. However, the belief that one methodology will fit every scenario may not be realistic when it comes to project management.

So what does SPMM entail? It is a list of tools below utilized efficiently:

1) Global Contact List (Distributed upon updates - Containing Team Members, Sponsors, Distributors, or any other key personnel)

2) Team Contact List (Name, Title, Company, Phone, Cell Phone and Email)

3) Project Statement of Work (No more than 8 pages - 4 or less preferably)

4) Simple Document Repository (Discovery Folder, Project Folder)

5) Communication Plan (no more than 1 page)

6) Milestone Calendar (4 or less entries per month with alerts - Accessible to all Project Members)

7) Weekly Status Report (1 page or less, Overview, Risks & Issues and Milestones, CPI/SPI and or Burn Rate)

8) Discovery

a. Network Diagrams (Hardware Implementation)

b. Mockups and Wireframes (Software Implementation)

c. Workflow Diagrams - (Used when necessary)

9) Project Schedule (Updated twice a week)

a. Project Schedule Baseline

10) Budget Spreadsheet

a. Personnel Costs Sheet

b. Non-Personnel Costs Sheet

c. Budget Baseline

11) Risk and Issue Log Spreadsheet (Current R&I at top, closed R&I at the bottom)

12) Meetings (2 or less 30 Min. Standing Team meetings a week - Published Agenda)

13) "One on One" meetings with Task Owners (5 Min. 3 or less a week via Email when possible)

14) Transition Document and Signoff (No more than 5 pages)

The SPMM methodology is about efficiency and is a great technique to effectively manage a project. Further, it is also helpful when projects have stalled or failed because it increases all project team members bandwidth exponentially.

My personal experience has reflected that project budgets could be reduced by as much as 50% utilizing this method. Why? SPMM boosts productivity while reducing process and documentation, which can attribute to as much as 50% of a project's total cost, in some cases. Moreover, this methodology requires less staff. Many may ask, "Why less staff?" This is due to a reduction in work load where the team is effectively focused on tasks, instead of time wasted in meetings and writing documentation that is almost never read or archived properly. If staff is working effectively, it saves the schedule and budget because there is less effort within the project.

In conclusion SPMM = less tasks = less work = less points of failure = better chances for success.

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The Benefits of Planning Using Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project has been around in one form or another since the early '90s, but its usage amongst professional project managers is still not as widespread as you might think. There are a number of reasons for this, despite the fact that it is considered by many as being the industry standard benchmark for project management software.

One of the main reasons for project managers' apparent reluctance to embrace Microsoft Project is a lack of knowledge in respect of how the software works. It is notoriously difficult to successfully self-teach MS Project, largely because of a lack of understanding in respect of defining and linking project tasks. The problem is that the Task Sheet seems to suggest that one should enter task start and finish dates. This is in fact precisely the wrong thing to do as amongst other issues, it imposes what MS Project refers to as a 'constraint'. The wrong type of constraint reduces flexibility and can prevent MS Project from re-scheduling tasks should there be a change to the plan.

The correct way to define to tasks is in fact to specify only durations and allow Microsoft Project to set start and finish dates through its system of task linkage. Linkages define a dependent relationship between tasks and enable a fluid schedule to be planned. If for instance a task is delayed, the effect on any dependent tasks will be displayed on the Gantt chart giving the project manager forewarning of possible scheduling issues. This is perhaps the least understood aspect of Microsoft Project, especially for the inexperienced user and very difficult to teach one's self.

Another reason for project managers' reticence is a lack of understanding of the true scope of the software's capability. In the right hands, Microsoft Project is an immensely powerful scheduling tool, enabling the project manager to experiment with various 'what if' scenarios. The Gantt chart is the traditional way of representing the project's timeline and have long since been considered a highly useful visual tool. Traditionally Gantt charts would be drawn out by hand and a complex project could take some considerable time to plan in this manner.

One problem with the hand-drawn plan is the issue of re-scheduling should it become necessary. There is where Microsoft Project scores heavily against traditional methods. With a simple click of the mouse, tasks can be re-scheduled and the Gantt chart instantly updated by the software. This can potentially be a big saving in time and leaves the project manager free to do what they do best.

A further reason for some project managers' prejudice is perhaps a bad experience with the software in the past. Project 2010 is a much improved tool compared with earlier versions and most, if not all of the known issues, have been successfully addressed by Microsoft. As an example, the relatively poor financial reporting capability of Microsoft Project was dramatically improved in 2007 with the advent of 'Visual Reports'. These are graphs which are created from data which Project exports to Microsoft Excel. Excel automatically creates a PivotTable based on the data and finally converts it into PivotChart format. All this is done without the user requiring any detailed knowledge of PivotTables and PivotCharts but the result is a very comprehensive and user-friendly reporting package.

There are many reasons then why project managers have grown vary of Microsoft Project over the years, but I hope we have shown in this article that perhaps it is now time to take another look.

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Project Management - Event Chain Methodology

Event Chain Methodology is an uncertainty modeling and schedule network analysis technique focused on identifying and managing events and specific event chains that have an effect on schedules. This methodology assists in the mitigation of psychological heuristics and biases that may have a negative impact on the organization. It also helps to allow for the easy modeling of uncertainties that can appear in project scheduling. It is based on these principles.

The first is the probabilistic moment of risk. In real life, most activities do not continue indefinitely. They are, instead, performed on an individual basis and may not in any way relate to one another. Tasks are affected by external events that can occur anywhere within the process of their completion. Events can lead up to other events which then cause event chains to occur. They can have a significant effect on the outcome of the project. Quantitative analysis is used to come up with a cumulative effect of such even chains on the overall event schedule.

The single events or chains are those that have the most potential to affect the projects. The critical events or chains also have this type of potential. They can be determined by analysis.

It is also possible to track the events of a particular project. This can be accomplished even when a it is only partially completed and the data concerning duration, cost, and events that have occurred is available, it is still possible to refine information surrounding future events that could occur and this helps in the forecasting of the future performance of a particular project.

Event chain visualization is also used in project management. Here, events and event chains can be visualized with the aid of a diagram. This diagram is what is known as a Gantt chart. This enables leaders and other team members to view the information in a way that makes sense and depicts the data in a way that is easy to follow.

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The Legal System and Technology in the 21st Century

Technology has linked its way into just about every facet of human lifestyles. For your edification, this continuing discussion, as well as an addition to previous study formats. In offering this informational passage, the legal system is just one more profession that has been conquered by technology.

We are aware of the court stenographers and PC's that record and track our legal system, but what about the C.G.A. System? The Computer Generated Animation Presentation can be admitted into our American Court System. Admissible Evidence in criminal trial(s) has been recorded as a precedent case ruled on by the Supreme Court.

As reported by Asher Hawkins, of the Legal Intelligencer, differing arguments by six Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justices concluded that a Lackawana Common Pleas Judge properly admitted the use of CGA during a first-degree murder case in 2002. CGA has been portrayed on various television shows such as CSI Investigation(s) and Crime 360.

Justice Sandra Schultz Newman wrote, "Society has become increasingly dependent upon computers in business and our personal lives..." She went on the say, "With each technological advancement, the practice of law becomes more sophisticated and commensurate with the need to shed any techno phobia and become more willing to embrace the advances that have the ability to enhance the efficiency of the legal system."

Prosecutorial teams, including Forensic Pathologists and Crime Scene Reconstructionists presented a murder case to the jury; the prosecutor's version...the defendant did not possess and/or have access to this tool. One argument against this procedure in court is of a defendant, a poor person, is able to commission an equivalent production.

In other words, would the defense be able to match the expenses associated with the prosecutions presentation to the court? Another justice suggested it would be wiser to exclude CGA evidence if an indigent or poor defendant could not afford the costs of "equivalent production." The basic cost could be upwards of $20,000.00. Another legal professional commented on whether the cost(s) of CGA was worth the expenditure.

 The justices also took note on the fact that CGA's are becoming increasingly less expensive to produce and could be a vital tool in the rapid expedition of court cases. In any case, pre-trial motions that include CGA evidence should be treated with respect. Jury instructions and indigent (lacking food, clothing, and other necessities of life because of poverty; needy; poor; impoverished, destitute) defendants are needed with the court's permission for the presenting of such evidence.
The judges position was to make certain that Computer Generated Animation was fair and accurate while permitting defendants an opportunity to challenge its foundation.

It has also been noted by the justices, to make clear to the jury that it was not meant as a re-enactment or simulation, but merely an expression of opinions formulated by expert witnesses. Another justice stated his position..."I think it's a valuable tool, but a tool that needs to be used sparingly. I don't think it's necessary in every case." Newman also wrote, "The difference is one of mode, the law does not, and should not; prohibit proficient professional employment of new technology in the court-room.

This is, after all, the 21st century."

Each state has its own court system. There's also a system of federal courts. Decisions made during adjudication by federal administration agencies may be appealed to a federal court. Similarly, decisions made by state administrative agencies may be appealed to a state court. The definition for adjudication (adjudicate) is to render a judicial decision.

In the administrative process, the proceeding in which and administrative law judge hears and decides on issues that arise when an administrative agency charges a person or a firm with violating the law or regulations enforced by the agency. An administrative agency is a state or federal government agency established to perform a specific function. Administrative agencies are authorized by legislative acts to make and enforce rules to administer and enforce the acts.

Typically, a state court system will include several levels, or tiers, of courts - (a) trial courts of limited jurisdiction, (b) trail courts of general jurisdiction, (c) appellate courts, and (d) the states highest court (often referred to as the State Supreme Court). Anyone who is party to a lawsuit has the opportunity, and/or right, to plead his/her case before a trial court and then if he/she loses, before at least one level of appellate court. Furthermore, if a federal statute of federal constitutional issue is involved in the decision of the State Supreme Court, that decision may be further appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Have you ever wondered, with all the juris prudence (the science or philosophy of law, a body or system of laws, a department of law, Civil Law. decisions of courts, esp. of reviewing tribunals) activities flooding the land, how could the legal system function without technology?
Monica Bay, of Law Technology News, reported of lawyers at small firms, especially solo practitioners, have resisted adopting practice/case management (CMS) software - even though there's no doubt that it can help firms deliver faster, better, and cheaper services to their clients.

Several observers suggest that the initial threshold of setting up a management system intimidates firms. A software consultant, Tom O'Connor said, "Everybody loves technology but hates installing it."

Project Management has not been a topic stressed in many schools, according to an independent IT consultant from Minneapolis. A successful project management is dependent upon a large network of personnel. An effective Electronic Data Discovery (EDD) Project Network includes: clients, partners, legal IT staff, associates, paralegals, inside counsel, service providers, and technical experts.

Without a doubt, the use of (PM) Project Management to mitigate risk while delivering consistent, quality results that represents significant benchmark(s) in the maturing process of the EDD environment.

Used in many corporations to increase productivity, quality control programs such as Sigma Six, have been generating interest. Understanding why and where problems occur has a great impact on the decrease in mistakes. The application of these principles and practices on Electronic Data Discovery processes improve a lawyer(s) result(s) with increased quality and decreased costs. Reasons for rising interest in Project Management are recognition in the success depends on effective management.

Mitigating risk and lowering cost by applying "Electronic Discovery Techniques" offered a myriad of considerations, for example, matching time tables, securing outside IT experts, propose and follow "E-Discovery" protocol, engagement of a special master to monitor compliance and resolvement of disputes, use of checklist(s) containing critical steps and reminders for every step in and of a project, working service providers, working with attorneys to find answers to the right questions, as managing vendors require special attention to service level agreements (SLA'a).

Meanwhile, discover these definitions/terms of legal jargon that may help you in your administration, business, everyday life, and tech studies:

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Asset Management Software Online

Asset management software applications that are connected to an enterprise wide network or the Internet are referred to as online asset management applications. Connecting these applications to a network offers several benefits. In case of online asset management applications for manufacturing companies, trans-receivers are embedded in critical pieces of equipment which communicate with the asset management application allowing maintenance personnel to track the functioning of the equipment in real time, taking preventive maintenance measures and quickly attending to breakdowns.

 Online asset management applications also help companies manage their inventory from any location by simply using a Web browser.

Online digital asset management applications help information technology departments monitor all the hardware and software installed on the enterprise network. The advanced versions of these applications also help managers remotely control the hardware and software applications installed on the servers.

For media and advertising agencies, creative products like artwork, videos and images are also digital assets. Specialized web-based asset management applications for this industry help media companies automate the process of viewing, publishing, maintaining, and marketing their multimedia gallery or store. Software product development companies use online asset management applications for electronic distribution and management of the digital products they have developed.

Human resource online asset management applications help the HR department to track employee performance, manage talent and identify star performers. These applications also help in working out hiring plans, storing resumes, and tracking hiring status.

Several finance Web sites also offer their customers a feature to track their financial assets such as stocks and mutual fund investments online. These Web sites track stock price movements in real time and net asset values of mutual funds on a daily basis. Using the Internet a customer can log on anytime to these Web sites to get the latest status on their financial assets.

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Solve Scheduling Challenges by Using a Resource Scheduling Software

Are you still struggling with spread sheets as your primary resource scheduling tool? Well, I have good news for you. You can solve all these problems by adopting an efficient resource scheduling software. Indeed, handling so large volumes of information especially if your business has a large number of resources that are spread out in different parts of the globe is quite a challenge.

Tracking and recording a project manager's overall information including that of your employee's records on skills, qualifications and physical locations is indeed a difficult task.

 And, you don't want to fail in efficiently forecasting your future resource requirements or to provide an insight into their demand and supply, do you? Of course you don't and that's why you need to give up using the spread sheets, which are prone to human errors and confusion and start using an efficient resource scheduling software.

This article summarizes some of the benefits that you will gain by scheduling your resources efficiently;

Timely completed project

The aim of every project manager is to have a project completed within the planned time frame. Efficient resource scheduling will enable a smooth running of your projects without hitches or delays at any point. This will enable completion of tasks and activities as stipulated in the plan. The greatest gain from timely completed projects is that the expenditure will always fall within budget.

Higher profits from projects

When a project is completed on time and within budget, there is no extra spending or expenditure involved. As such, most of the gains from the project will be reflected on the profits and not in covering for the extra spending. These profits can be regularly repatriated back into the business for effective growth and for other projects.

Client satisfaction

The primary goal for any business owner is to make their clients happy through efficient service or products delivery. If a company completes its projects as planned, it will be able to extend these utilities to the satisfaction of its customers. These clients are the true blood for the business and if satisfied, they will most likely give back more business to the company hence prolonging the company's life.

A motivated human resource

Employees are the pillars of any company. One of the intrinsic motivating factors in any job is its dynamism and achievement of results. As such, timely completed projects will keep the employees motivated and hence keep them committed and dedicated to the company's vision as they break the monotony when one project is complete and they focus on the other on the line. These employees will end up working on their performance levels and hence their productivity will definitely increase.

While these benefits represents only a small portion of the benefits of an efficient resource scheduling software, its real value and more of its benefits can only be felt and witnessed by having do the job for you. Maybe these practices seem simple but remember, it is these simple practices that can be the most efficient, more so if you adopt the right tools for the job.

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Time Management - Plan, Prioritize, and Organize Your Time MoreEfficiently

As many of us are painfully aware, time is a valuable but limited resource that we never seem to have enough of. In the increasingly hectic and fast-paced world in which we live, there is a pressing need to learn how to manage time as efficiently as possible. This article presents a brief overview of why you need to plan, prioritize, and organize your time more efficiently.

To develop good time management skills is to embark on a journey taken by many people in the past. This journey is simply following a path of proven principles that will help us gain control of our time. It is a journey that can begin only after a person realizes the need to use time more efficiently.
Your time can be capably managed by planning, prioritizing, organizing and knowing how to effectively deal with competing activities.

First, planning ahead is a key component to managing your time. Carefully look at every activity that you will need to do in the week ahead. Next, prioritize in ranking order the items that are most urgent or have a deadline for completion. Finally, Organize your activities by scheduling each one in your daily planner, calendar, or personal digital assistant (PDA).

By actually scheduling the things you need to do in your calendar, you have in effect reserved a block of time to do these things, and you will be more likely to get them done than if you had not scheduled them.

Time management is an art in itself that includes arranging, organizing, scheduling and budgeting time. This helps us become more productive and efficient at work, school, and all other activities.
When it comes to learning about how to manage time more effectively, you will find many self-help books, articles, and other written material on the topic of time management. In addition to written material, there are many time management classes, workshops and seminars specifically designed to equip people with time management tools.

With a plethora of information available, there is really no good reason not to educate oneself in the fundamentals of time management.

In conclusion, we have seen that time management can be accomplished by planning, prioritizing, and organizing your activities. The list of people who can benefit from better time management is a long one, and includes students, teachers, factory workers, managers, business owners, artists, musicians, contractors, engineers, clergy, and countless others. The fact is, nearly everyone can benefit from learning the principles and techniques of how to be better stewards of time.

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Cost Benefit Analysis Template - Essential Tool For Project Managersand Business Owners

A cost benefit analysis or CBA is a simple and commonly used method to determine the advantages and disadvantages of implementing a planned action or project. Simply put, performing a CBA helps you decide whether a certain plan of action is worth implementing or not. In addition, CBA is an accurate means to find out if it is appropriate to allocate a company's time and resources for a proposed action.

CBA is carried out in terms of financial benefits and financial costs. As the term implies, cost benefit analysis essentially involves summing up the value of the benefits of a proposed action and deducting from it the costs associated with the action.

Because of the figures involved in a CBA, you might think that it is difficult to do. In fact, writing a CBA is relatively easier than other paperworks you have done for your company. You just have to make sure that your CBA is done accurately and thoroughly.

Writing a CBA can be easier and faster if you use a cost benefit analysis template. This document, which can be downloaded online, is ready to use by private business owners or project managers who want to ensure accuracy in their CBAs. The following are simple steps to create a cost benefit analysis.

1. Determine all the costs of a project or plan of action.

List all the financial costs that your company or business will incur throughout the implementation of the project.

2. Determine all benefits that you expect from the successful execution of the project.

Like in the first step, make a list of all the monetary benefits that the project will yield.

3. Assess costs and benefits.

To decide if a project is worth pushing through, weigh the pros and cons of implementing it based on the two previous steps. If the total costs are less than the total benefits, then it is a go-signal the proposed action will be a great investment of your company's resources.

Seeking for project management tool, call Alenu Today! at (65) 6884 5030.

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Utilize Money, Time and Resources Efficiently With RequirementsManagement Tool

A software company can reduce rework through effective requirements management. It is essential to have clear understanding of requirements so that it can give a clear and accurate vision to the development team to pursue their activities.

Executing requirements management process requires a lot of activities such as requirement definition, analysis, verification and change management along with little investment. It has been noticed that improving requirements, defect, test, change management processes have led to a reduction in rework cost & cost of quality and eventually, reduction in overall costs.

Every business wants to keep a check on budget and capital in hand & those who have effective web-based requirements and change management tool can reduce rework and add value to their business output. Reduction in rework motivates the development team in building unique and innovative solutions and leads to better customer satisfaction.

Here under are some advantages of having requirements or change management tool that can help you to meet client's expectations and your project deadlines:

1. Provides greater visibility of goals that need to be attained by the team

2. Meeting client's needs more effectively and efficiently

3. More control over the team and project development

4. Scaling to meet the changing requirements of the client due to changing trends or other unavoidable factors.

5. Evaluating contract conformance by linking requirements to design items, test cases and other important requirements

6. Improving quality by collaborating with Development team to meet the client's expectations

7. Impact analysis capabilities help you to control costs and manage schedules to deliver the project on-time.

8. Provides complete lifecycle traceability by integrating with popular design and development solutions.

A good requirements and change management tool will reduce development cycle time and aid in long term maintainability of applications and products. The main objective of adopting requirements management is to ensure timely delivery of quality products to the clients at competitive prices.

A proper requirements management tool will help you gain control over growing requirements of different products or services and will provide a guideline to work together in order to provide quality product or service and reduce rework for quality output. The tool is secure, scalable and reliable and if used with SAAS model you enjoy reduced TCO and easy pilots.

Are you able to manage your client's requirements in an efficient manner? If not, then you must switch to a better and robust requirement management tool like Requirements Management Pro, Requirements Management Plan etc. With better tool for requirements, defect, change, test management, you will not only be able to manage your client's requirements but will also be able to deliver quality projects on-time.

Seeking for project management tool, contact Alenu Today! at (65) 6884 5030.

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Practical Project Management - Choosing The Right Project ManagementMethodology

In short a project management methodology is all the steps you need to undertake to successfully deliver a project. This methodology will list all the project phases, activities and tasks required for successful completion of the project. It may also describe all these phases, activities or tasks in more detail and should also include all templates you may require. It may also, where applicable, provide you with practical examples.

In order to select the right project management methodology, you must first define your requirements. This will include describing what content you need, for instance must it list every project phase, action and activity. Must it be industry specific or can it be generic and should it also include the processes specific to your industry or organization. Further you must define the features it should include for managing your projects, such as reporting and tracking features and importing and exporting of information.

Another very important step is to review what you already have. This could be an existing methodology, documents and templates. If you have something that works 80 percent and maybe only need a bit of tweaking, why reinvent the wheel? Maybe you only need a few more templates or documented and formalized processes.

You may also want to do a bit of research on existing methodologies that are out in the market. These may come packaged with all your requirements, templates and features you have described already and can then easily be adopted for your specific needs.

If neither your current methodology or any market available methodologies provide for what you need, you can also look at taking best of both worlds and customize your own and existing methodologies to better suite your needs. This may be a bit more time consuming, but the benefit here is that it will closer fit your exact requirements.

Finally, when you have accessed all options and decided on a specific project management methodology, the most important action is that of implementing your selected methodology. In order to fully implement your methodology you must ensure that everyone adopts your methodology, you provide appropriate training on the new methodology, you communicate your methodology to all stakeholders, and you use your methodology in all your projects and ensure that you continuously improve your methodology.

By ensuring that you stick to these 5

 steps, you can select the appropriate methodology and successfully implement and use it in your project management.

Sourcing for project management tool in Singapore, contact Alenu Group Today! at (65) 6884 5030.

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The Ideal Project Manager Specification

The following provides the ideal project manager specification including general requirements they must meet along with the Hard Skills', the 'Soft Skills', the attitudes and the behaviors that we should look for in our Project Managers.

General Requirements

Successful Project Management is a combination of approximately 20% hard skills and 80% soft skills. The hard skills relate to the actual processes, procedures, tools and techniques comprising Planning, Organising, Monitoring and Controlling while the soft skills relate to the Project Managers attitudes and behaviours. In addition, I believe that a truly excellent Project Manager must become a Master of Paradox.

Overall, the Project Manager is responsible for delivery of the assigned Project on schedule, within budget and meeting the expectations of the client. In addition, I believe that the Project Manager has a responsibility to provide a positive experience for the people working on his project team.

Hard Skills

An excellent Project Manager will have a deep understanding and ability to accomplish the following:

• Prepare a proper top-down, structured Project Plan comprising a Product Breakdown Structure, Work Breakdown Structure, Gantt chart and Dependency Network. Plans should identify not only all of the products that will be delivered during the Project but also all of the activities that will be required to be accomplished to deliver the products. The activities should be broken down into various levels with the lowest level to be monitored comprising 5 - 10 day activities. The plan should also identify the project budget broken down into the level of detail required to be managed by the Project Manager.

• Define the proper organisation, resource requirements, hard and soft skills required of the resources, etc. to deliver the Project to which he/she has been assigned.

• Manage and monitor the Project Plan to ensure successful completion of the Plan activities and delivery of the Project on schedule.

• Manage and monitor the budget to ensure that the project is delivered within budget.

• Define the content/format of and prepare the various Achievement Reports to be distributed on an agreed timeframe.

• Establish, implement and manage processes and procedures covering Configuration Management, including Change Control, Risk and Issues Management, Documentation Management, Product Assurance.

• Establish and implement a team culture within his/her assigned Project.

Soft Skills

The ideal Project Manager will also have what I like to call the 'Right Stuff'. The Right Stuff includes, among other things and in no particular order:

• Enthusiasm

• Passion

• Energy

• Commitment to Excellence

• Commitment to Success

• Sense of Humour

• The ability to motivate his/her team

• Self-motivation

• Excellent communication skills

• Good negotiation skills

• Honesty

• Openness

• Approachability

• Empathy

Masters of Paradox

In addition to the Hard and Soft Skills identified above, the Project Manager needs to be a Master of Paradox.

They must have a big ego to have the confidence that they can deliver most anything while at the same time they must have a small ego to enable them to give most of the credit for successful delivery to their team.

The Project Manager must be not only a manager but must also exhibit the skills of a leader. The leader establishes the direction in which the project should go while at the same time the manager identifies the steps that must be taken by the team members to go in that direction.

The Manager must be able to handle the ambiguity that sometimes is inherent in a Project and be able to live with it but at the same time search for perfection.

The Manager must be able to handle the complexity of the project, and some projects are very complex, while at the same time be always searching for simplicity and making things clear.

The Manager must be able to have the helicopter view and understand the big picture and how his/her project fits into the overall scheme of things. In addition, he/she must be able to get into the details, see the small picture, when required, and then be able to step back up to see big picture view.

The Manager must be impatient and expect things to be done with a sense of urgency while at the same time understand that in some cases he/she must be patient in establishing the relationships that are required to run a successful Project.

Sourcing for Singapore project management tool, reach us Alenu IT Now! at (65) 6884 5030.

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Project Management Body of Knowledge

PMBOK!

Is that a word, or am I stuck on the use of acronyms for texting my friends? No, actually, it's a phrase used extensively in the Project Management industry. It stands for "Project Management Body Of Knowledge". It's a standard (ANSI, IEEE) established by the Project Management Institute (PMI) and is internationally recognized set of processes for managing a project. Very similar to the SDLC (Software Development Live Cycle) processes.

The PMBOK is utilized by many major organizations, such as Boeing Aircraft, Fujitsu, and thousands of others. Just like the Software Development Life Cycle, the PMBOK defines a set of steps that need to be followed for insuring that a project is clearly defined, managed, and completed.

Why Use PMBOK?

Now just why would someone, or a team, want to utilize the steps defined in PMBOK? Here are some good reasons:

* It is an established and widely accepted standard. Meaning that you would be following the best and proven course of action toward having a successful project.

* It provides a path and course to follow from beginning to end. This helps to prevent not identifying expectations, requirements, or issues that could affect a timely delivery of a project.

* It not only identifies the steps, but also the level of knowledge needed for the project, and the types of tools that should be in place for managing the project.

* It provides a method for wrapping your arms around a project and clearly identifying the scope, the requirements, the time frames, resources, and the associated costs.
Why Not Use PMBOK?

Overkill is the biggest reason. If your project is only a week worth of work, why spend an additional week laying it out under the PMBOK standards? If all you need to do is hang a picture on the wall, you don't drag in the 200 pound tool rack on wheels! But knowing where to draw the line is where experience and skill comes into play.

What if your project requires several developers and will last 3 months? Would it be wise to follow PMBOK for the project? Absolutely! However, you would want to adapt the process to the scope of the project. An additional week of project management for such a project could end up saving you and your customer weeks or even a month or more of resources and expense.

The PMBOK Process

So just what are the steps involved with using PMBOK? Here's a brief overview:

* Initiating:

o Approval for the project.

o Get commitment from the customer and your team.

o Define the overall direction and gather requirements.

o Secure the necessary resources for the duration of the project.

o Validate that the project conforms to the customer's business
.
* Planning

o Define the project scope - specifications.

o Define the objectives and deliverables - specifications.

o Create the project schedule and allocate the resources.

o Establish a method for sharing information throughout the project.

o Define all the required steps and activities for accomplishing the project.

o Sequence the defined steps and activities - Project plan.

o Estimate the total effort required.

o Define the potential risks and possible risk avoidance processes.

o Define the estimated costs involved.

o Obtain funding for the project.

* Execution

o Coordinate the resources and activities.

o Coordinate the Quality Assurance.

o Communicate status to all involved parties as needed.

o Stick with the plan!

* Monitor & Control

o Manage the team and the customer.

o Measure the progress, maintain motivation.

o Respond to issues, take corrective measures, escalate, and resolve.

o Communicate, communicate, communicate!

o Manage the risks.

* Completion

o Complete the defined activities.

o Gather results, compare against initial plan.

o Appraise performance of resources. Note for future projects.

o Close and deliver the project.

This is not completely a top down sequence of processes. The Execution and Monitor & Control processes continue to work with each other through the duration of the project. If a Change Request comes in, or there is a change in the business requirements (new management?), then you might even need to go all the way back to the Planning phase and readjust the plan, resources, and costs.

Where Can You Get More Information?

By doing a Google search on "PMBOK" or "PMI", you'll get a wealth of links. Most of these will point to the Project Management Institute (www.pmi.org). You can also find books on Amazon.com for PMBOK.

To be a successful developer, you need to at least have a good understanding of how to manage and implement a complex project. Using a SDLC or PMBOK guideline will go a long way toward helping you to have a successful project.

Sourcing for project management tool, contact Alenu Now! at (65) 6884 5030.

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Three P of Project Management - Project Scoping & Planning, Process andPeople

Project Management has become more and more important as the life cycle of the product is getting shorter and shorter. If you just take a good look at the mobile phone, how many color of mobile phone do we have 10 - 15 years ago? I believe, it has only one color and there are not many models around as well. But, let's look at the situation today, how many models and color of mobile phone do we have today? I don't think I'm able to count.

So, why does the product life cycle have to do with project management?

When the product life cycle is getting shorter, companies have to keep introduce new products to the market. And, when you need to introduce more new products, we always need R&D which involves project management and new product introduction (NPI). Therefore, project management skill has become an essential skill in an organization.

Now, if you look at the definition of a project according to Wikipedia, a project is defined in the field of project management, consists of a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a product or service. As the product life cycle becomes shorter and shorter, I believe one day everything that we produce may be just a temporary endeavor, even services.

Again I want to emphasize that project management has become a very important skill that all managers and leaders should possess.

In this article, I'm going to discuss the important 3P of Project Management. They are:

• Project Scoping and Planning


• Process


• People

Project Scope and Planning:

I can't emphasize more on the importance of project scoping. A lot of project managers just jump into action immediately when they get a new project. Recently, I have seen an experienced project manager that did not really work the details of the project scope and the consequence is the project failed. If you subscribe to this PMzine, you should have the project management templates and don't just download and keep them.

 Go through them one by one and customized them to suit your own situation and environment. Then, work with team to come up with a work process that the team can use to manage your project. This is the next important part - Process, that I am going to discuss in the next part.

Based on your team and your experience, you can work out the project scope as detail as possible. You can use the information learned from past projects or work the details with your sponsors who has experience in a similar type of projects.

Next, work out your project plan. Use the work breakdown structure (WBS), break your project activities as small as possible. Of course, you need to plan all your resources. Most project management will teach you in this aspect so I'm not going to discuss more over here.

Process:

Why process is so important but a lot of project managers actually are ignorant about that. They feel that a project is always something new and there is no standard process of running a project. They are right in the sense of every project can be something new or fresh but the way we manage a project is always almost the same. That is why there is a standard process that we can follow based on the company working culture, and business environment.

So, what you can do is the work out a process together with a team of project managers. First, you list down the past projects that you team has gone through the past years and categorized them accordingly. After that, select one of the categories and go through the whole process of working on those projects and at the same time, list down the issues or challenges faced during the whole duration of the projects. From there, basically you can see a standard process which can be duplicated most of the time. This will include your communication process, procurement process, risk management process, etc.

People:

People are the most important factor that will determine the success or failure of the projects. I have seen a lot of time a project fails mainly is caused by people. So, first question to kick off a project is to ask whether you have the BEST team members in your project team. A lot of time project manager just inherits the project team and sometimes worse still, they inherit a team of misfits of discarded human resources.

How do you expect a project team to be successful when you don't have the best team player in your team? Have you seen a soccer manager put all the worst players into a team to represent them in a tournament? No way!

One of the key ingredients to success lies in the team member selection. Remember to always select your best team players for your project. Next is to ensure that the team can work as a team rather than many individuals. So, the team building process is very important at this point. A project manager must know about the concept of team dynamics and how to ensure he can build teamwork among all his team members.

If you can get your team to work as one in a standard agreed process towards the project scope that is defined clearly, I believe you will have a great project. I hope this will help you to manage your project successfully.

Sourcing for project management tool, call Alenu IT Now! at (65) 6884 5030.

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Project Management - Managing the Bid

The bid/no bid decision was "bid", so now we have to organise the response to the Invitation to Tender (ITT) from our customer.

Your team already have their copy of the ITT for review and they have had a brief look at it, in order to understand the project sufficiently well to know whether the company is capable of carrying out the work. Now the Project Manager, the Technical Lead and the Commercial Manager, as a minimum, must review the paperwork in detail, responding to every single paragraph in one of three ways.

 These are "compliant" (yes, we can meet this requirement) "non-compliant" (no, we cannot meet this requirement) or "partially compliant" (we can meet part of it and this is what we recommend). Each individual response will form part of the overall Compliancy Matrix which will be laid out as a table, listing each requirement and our responses.

In addition to the Compliancy Matrix, as a minimum, the Customer will require a Project Management Plan, and Technical Response and a Commercial Response.

As well as the detail of how the project is to be managed overall, the Project Management Plan will include a Programme Plan showing dates and milestones, detail of how sub-contractors are to be managed plus Quality and Configuration Management Plans.

The Technical Response will give details of how each technical requirement will be met.
The Commercial Response will contain, as well as a response to the contractual terms and conditions, the price and payment requirements including a stage payment plan, if required.

If there are to be bought-in good and/or services included, the Procurement Manager will need to feed sub-contractor technical responses, costs, timescales, payment and commercial requirements to the appropriate members of the bid team.

The Bid Manager will co-ordinate all this activity. He will create a plan of exactly when inputs to documents will be required, to allow time for them to be word-processed, proof read, reviewed and approved, corrected, bound and published. This will cover all compliancy responses, narrative, costings and plans.

The Bid Manager will call regular meetings to review progress. In the case of a bid with a short timescale, these will be daily. If time and resources permit, the members of the bid team will be co-located for the duration of the bid, allowing for constant consultation and exchange of ideas.
Finally, the delivery of the bid must be arranged at or just before the exact time designated in the ITT.
When the bid is delivered, the team breathe a huge sigh of relief and wait for the customer to start asking questions.

Seeking for Singapore project management tool, reach us Alenu IT Now! at (65) 6884 5030.

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The Advantages of Network Monitoring Tools and Applications

The utilization of properly configured network monitoring tools and applications can be used to proactively monitor, maintain, support and help stabilize your technical systems around the clock with little or no manual intervention required. As such, serious potential problems can be rapidly identified before they turn into critical issues that may affect the stability of your entire infrastructure or company.

 For example, disk utilization can be monitored with user-definable alerts configured to be delivered directly to your system administrator or network support engineer only when certain thresholds are met and/or exceeded so that a server crash can often be avoided or potentially anticipated with enough to advert a potential disastrous situation.

Disk utilization is just one of hundreds of components that can be actively and proactively monitored by some of the more robust network monitoring applications and network management tools currently available in our marketplace. In addition, there are many items and services that should be regularly monitored to ensure the optimal uptime and optimization of your network environment.

These items typically include:

- Device Availability

- Critical Application/Service Status

- Disk Utilization

- Memory Utilization

- Response Time Monitoring

- Back-up log checks

- Anti-virus log checks

- Event Log Monitoring

- Monitoring custom performance parameters

- Server health check and analysis of key trends

- Critical Alert Notification

- Asset Tracking

- Remote Access

With all the detailed data that is captured on a daily basis, detailed and comprehensive reports can be quickly created and may be used by your management team and associates to help support your corporate and strategic planning, budgeting process and formulation, as well as enhance your regulatory compliance efforts

Be proactive, implement a comprehensive 24/7 monitoring solution in your infrastructure environment today and sleep easier at night!

Sourcing for project management tool, call Alenu Today! at (65) 6884 5030.

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Working With Subprojects And Master Projects

Managing projects is not a trivial job. You need to have the necessary skills, experience and of course the right project management tools to help you. But when it comes to managing large projects things are becoming even more complicated.

Sometimes companies need to manage large projects that extend on several years and that require a huge amount of work to be completed. This kind of projects are too big to be handled as a whole and must be decomposed in several smaller parts. Each part is treated as a separate project with its own assigned project manager and its own budget and time constraints. However all these projects are related and are actually subprojects of a master project.

The idea is that the program manager is running multiple projects and all those projects are managed by other project managers. As a program manager, you need to see a consolidated schedule view to see how the program is doing. The master project should offer the structure of the subprojects and show the dependencies between the projects. Of course resources can be shared so that overallocations and overtime costs to be detected and correctly computed.

Updates are bi-directional between master and individual projects. So when a project manager performs changes on a subproject all those changes must also appear within the master project. And the reverse: if any updates are performed in the master project by the program manager those changes must also appear in all the affected subprojects.

Benefits of Using the Master Project/subproject Breakdown Structure

One of the main reasons to work with subprojects is that the project is very large. So it would be a good idea to break it down into smaller and more manageable parts. If lower level project managers have a better knowledge and experience on certain areas of the project it makes sense to make them responsible on those tasks. Delegating tasks will also make work more efficient.

But managing inter-project dependencies might become a difficult task without a proper structure. Not to mention detecting the critical path! However working with subprojects gives the possibility to detect critical path for different areas. Also in this way it is easier to detect resource overallocation across multiple projects.

When working with large data there might appear privacy problems. Plus each stakeholder might only be interested in just some parts of the projects and not the whole data. By breaking the project there can be established different access rights.

Having multiple managers responsible to plan, control and update activities requires concurrent access from several users. For this it is needed a control module or a so called Server module to serialize all the performed actions. This way the management work can be done in parallel increasing the efficiency.

Seeking for project management tool in Singapore, reach us Alenu Group Now! at (65) 6884 5030.

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Online Project Tracking System

Project Tracking refers to the management of projects. This consequently tracks the tasks, assignments, events and the activities related to the project. It is also an indicator that intent to measure the money spent on the particular task. Project tracking system tracks your projects to accumulate you on track.This software also tells you when you are late. It supports you to create Project Plans, Run Reports and use Time sheets.

Online Tracking system tells you that you are on time or under budget. It also tells you that how much of the project has been accomplished to date and how much is still to go. You can use this online tracking to track your budget, implement tracking for your schedule, track resources, changes and issues. It keeps you track by using your dashboard and it also stay you on track at all times.

Online tracking tells you if your project is on the track. The dashboard endeavors the latest in tracking technology. It displays you the status of each task, your progress against agenda and the total spend to date. Tracking system goes one step greatly by maintaining you with intelligent reports for tracking. So, you can keep an eye on the condition or status of your project at any time.

 As you know that project is a one-time enterprise to accomplish certain objective by a specific time. You see that each project is rare although similar projects may also exist. Every project has a definite beginning and a definite ending. Project management is the course of overseeing planning, organizing, scheduling, leading, communicating and controlling of task to achieve the outcome on time and within budget.

Project tracking charts comforts you and identify problems and it also find out their basic cause. By using this online service of tracking you can easily stay on the track and deliver the reports successfully.

Online project tracking improver the team productivity by giving up- to- date project information is available to team members online in real-time. It reduces paperwork and it virtually eliminates employees idle time, by accommodating them with an accomplish task schedule and a project development plan. Time tracking is also entails in the project tracking system.

By using time tracking for projects you can simply track time which actually has been spent. "Time Tracking" is crucial project management activity and it helps you convey your projects within the schedule.

Sourcing for Singapore project management tool, contact Alenu IT Today! at (65) 6884 5030.

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The Importance of Project Closeout and Review in Project Management.

Description

The well known English phrase "last but not least" could not better describe how important the project closeout phase is. Being the very last part of the project life-cycle it is often ignored even by large organizations, especially when they operate in multi-project environments. They tend to jump from one project to another and rush into finishing each project because time is pressing and resources are costly.

 Then projects keep failing and organizations take no corrective actions, simply because they do not have the time to think about what went wrong and what should be fixed next time. Lessons learned can be discussed at project reviews as part of the closeout phase.

Closure also deals with the final details of the project and provides a normal ending for all procedures, including the delivery of the final product. This paper identifies the reasons that closeout is neglected, analyzes the best practices that could enhance its position within the business environment and suggest additional steps for a complete project closeout through continuous improvement.

Project managers often know when to finish a projects but they forget how to do it. They are so eager to complete a project that they hardly miss the completion indicators. "Ideally, the project ends when the project goal has been achieved and is ready to hand over to customer" (Wellace et. al, 2004, p156).

In times of big booms and bubbles, senior management could order the immediate termination of costly projects. A characteristic example of that is Bangkok's over investment in construction of sky-scrapers, where most of them left abandoned without finishing the last floors due to enormous costs (Tvede, 2001, p267). Projects heavily attached to time can be terminated before normal finishing point if they miss a critical deadline, such as an invitation to tender. Kerzner (2001, p594) adds some behavioural reasons for early termination such as "poor morale, human relations or labour productivity". The violent nature of early termination is also known as 'killing a project' because it "involves serious career and economic consequences" (Futrel, Shafer D & Shafer L, 2002, 1078).

Killing a project can be a difficult decision since emotional issues create pride within an organization and a fear of being viewed as quitters blurs managerial decisions (Heerkens, 2002, p229).

Recognition

The most direct reason that Project Closeout phase is neglected is lack of resources, time and budget. Even though most of project-based organizations have a review process formally planned, most of the times "given the pressure of work, project team member found themselves being assigned to new projects as soon as a current project is completed" (Newell, 2004). Moreover, the senior management often considers the cost of project closeout unnecessary. Sowards (2005) implies this added cost as an effort "in planning, holding and documenting effective post project reviews". He draws a parallel between reviews and investments because both require a start-up expenditure but they can also pay dividends in the future.

Human nature avoids accountability for serious defects. Therefore, members of project teams and especially the project manager who has the overall responsibility, will unsurprisingly avoid such a critique of their work if they can. As Kerzner (2001, p110) observe, "documenting successes is easy. Documenting mistakes is more troublesome because people do not want their names attached to mistakes for fear of retribution"

. Thomset (2002, p260) compares project reviews with the 'witch hunts' saying that they can be "one of the most political and cynical of all organizational practices where the victims (the project manager and the team) are blamed by senior management". While he identifies top management as the main responsible party for a failure, Murray (2001) suggest that the project manager "must accept ultimate responsibility, regardless of the factors involved". A fair-minded stance on these different viewpoints would evoke that the purpose of the project review is not to find a scapegoat but to learn from the mistakes. After all, "the only true project failures are those from which nothing is learned" (Kerzner, 2004, p303).

Analysis

When the project is finished, the closeout phase must be implemented as planned. "A general rule is that project closing should take no more than 2% of the total effort required for the project" (Crawford, 2002, p163). The project management literature has many different sets of actions for the last phase of the project life cycle. Maylor (2005, p345) groups the necessary activities into a six step procedure, which can differ depending on the size and the scope of the project:

1. Completion

First of all, the project manager must ensure the project is 100% complete. Young (2003, p256) noticed that in the closeout phase "it is quite common to find a number of outstanding minor tasks from early key stages still unfinished. They are not critical and have not impeded progress, yet they must be completed". Furthermore, some projects need continuing service and support even after they are finished, such as IT projects. While it is helpful when this demand is part of the original statement of requirements, it is often part of the contract closeout. Rosenau and Githens (2005, p300) suggest that "the contractor should view continuing service and support as an opportunity and not merely as an obligation" since they can both learn from each other by exchanging ideas.

2. Documentation

Mooz et. al (2003, p160) defines documentation as "any text or pictorial information that describe project deliverables". The importance of documentation is emphasized by Pinkerton (2003, p329) who notes that "it is imperative that everything learned during the project, from conception through initial operations, should be captured and become an asset". A detailed documentation will allow future changes to be made without extraordinary effort since all the aspects of the project are written down. Documentation is the key for well-organized change of the project owner, i.e. for a new investor that takes over the project after it is finished. Lecky-Thompson (2005, p26) makes a distinction between the documentation requirements of the internal and the external clients since the external party usually needs the documents for audit purposes only. Despite the uninteresting nature of documenting historical data, the person responsible for this task must engage actively with his assignment.

3. Project Systems Closure

All project systems must close down at the closeout phase. This includes the financial systems, i.e. all payments must be completed to external suppliers or providers and all work orders must terminate (Department of Veterans Affairs, 2004, p13). "In closing project files, the project manager should bring records up to date and make sure all original documents are in the project files and at one location" (Arora, 1995). Maylor (2005, 347) suggest that "a formal notice of closure should be issued to inform other staff and support systems that there are no further activities to be carried out or charges to be made". As a result, unnecessary charges can be avoided by unauthorized expenditure and clients will understand that they can not receive additional services at no cost.

4. Project Reviews

The project review comes usually comes after all the project systems are closed. It is a bridge that connects two projects that come one after another. Project reviews transfer not only tangible knowledge such as numerical data of cost and time but also the tacit knowledge which is hard to document. 'Know-how' and more important 'know-why' are passed on to future projects in order to eliminate the need for project managers to 'invent the wheel' from scratch every time they start a new project. The reuse of existing tools and experience can be expanded to different project teams of the same organization in order to enhance project results (Bucero, 2005).

Reviews have a holistic nature which investigate the impact of the project on the environment as a whole. Audits can also be helpful but they are focused on the internal of the organization. Planning the reviews should include the appropriate time and place for the workshops and most important the people that will be invited. Choosing the right people for the review will enhance the value of the meeting and help the learning process while having an objective critique not only by the team members but also from a neutral external auditor. The outcome of this review should be a final report which will be presented to the senior management and the project sponsor. Whitten (2003) also notices that "often just preparing a review presentation forces a project team to think through and solve many of the problems publicly exposing the state of their work".

5. Disband the project team

Before reallocating the staff amongst other resources, closeout phase provides an excellent opportunity to assess the effort, the commitment and the results of each team member individually. Extra-ordinary performance should be complemented in public and symbolic rewards could be granted for innovation and creativity (Gannon, 1994). This process can be vital for team satisfaction and can improve commitment for future projects (Reed, 2001). Reviewing a project can be in the form of a reflective process, as illustrated in the next figure, where project managers "record and critically reflect upon their own work with the aim of improving their management skills and performance" (Loo, 2002).

 It can also be applied in problematic project teams in order to identify the roots of possible conflicts and bring them into an open discussion.
Ignoring the established point of view of disbanding the project team as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary overheads, Meredith and Mandel (2003, p660) imply that it's best to wait as much as you can for two main reasons. First it helps to minimize the frustration that might generate a team member's reassignment with unfavourable prospects. Second it keeps the interest and the professionalism of the team members high as it is common ground that during the closing stages, some slacking is likely to appear.

6. Stakeholder satisfaction

PMI's PMBoK (2004, p102) defines that "actions and activities are necessary to confirm that the project has met all the sponsor, customer and other stakeholders' requirements". Such actions can be a final presentation of the project review which includes all the important information that should be published to the stakeholders. This information can include a timeline showing the progress of the project from the beginning until the end, the milestones that were met or missed, the problems encountered and a brief financial presentation. A well prepared presentation which is focused on the strong aspects of the projects can cover some flaws from the stakeholders and make a failure look like an unexpected success.

Next Steps

Even when the client accepts the delivery of the final product or service with a formal sign-off (Dvir, 2005), the closeout phase should not be seen as an effort to get rid of a project. Instead, the key issue in this phase is "finding follow-up business development potential from the project deliverable" (Barkley & Saylor, 2001, p214). Thus, the project can produce valuable customer partnerships that will expand the business opportunities of the organization. Being the last phase, the project closeout plays a crucial role in sponsor satisfaction since it is a common ground that the last impression is the one that eventually stays in people's mind.

Continuous improvement is a notion that we often hear the last decade and review workshops should be involved in it. The idea behind this theory is that companies have to find new ways to sustain their competitive advantage in order to be amongst the market leaders. To do so, they must have a well-structured approach to organizational learning which in project-based corporations is materialized in the project review. Garratt (1987 in Kempster, 2005) highlighted the significance of organizational learning saying that "it is not a luxury, it is how organizations discover their future".

 Linking organizational learning with Kerzner's (2001, p111) five factors for continuous improvement we can a define a structured approach for understanding projects.

This approach can be implemented in the closeout phase, with systematic reviews for each of the above factors. Doing so, project closure could receive the attention it deserves and be a truly powerful method for continuous improvement within an organization. Finally, project closeout phase should be linked with PMI's Organizational Project Management Maturity (OPM3) model where the lessons learned from one project are extremely valuable to other projects of the same program in order to achieve the highest project management maturity height.

References

1. A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2004, 3rd Edition, Project Management Institute, USA, p102

2. Arora M, 1995, Project management: One step beyond, Civil Engineering, 65, 10, [Electronic], pp 66-68

3. Barkley & Saylor, 2001, Customer-Driven Project Management, McGraw-Hill Professional, USA, p214

4. Bucero A, 2005, Project Know-How, PM Network, May 2005 issue, [Electronic], pp 20-22

5. Crawford K, 2002, The Strategic Project Office, Marcel Dekker, USA, p163

6. Department of Veteran Affairs, 2004, Project Management Guide, Office of Information and Technology - USA Government, p13

7. Dvir D, 2005, Transferring projects to their final users: The effect of planning and preparations for commissioning on project success, International Journal of Project Management vol. 23, [Electronic], pp 257-265

8. Futrel R, Shafer D & Shafer L, 2002, Quality Software Project Management, Prentice Hall PTR, USA, p1078

9. Gannon, 1994, Project Management: an approach to accomplishing things, Records Management Quarterly, Vol. 28, Issue 3, [Electronic], pp 3-12

10. Heerkens G, 2002, Project Management, McGraw-Hill, USA, p229

11. Kempster S, 2005, The Need for Change, MSc in Project Management: Change Management module, Lancaster University, [Electronic], slide 16

12. Kerzner H, 2004, Advanced Project Management: Best Practices on Implementation, 2nd Edition, Wiley and Sons, p303

13. Kerzner H, 2001, Project Management - A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling, 7th Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York, p594

14. Kerzner H, 2001, Strategic Planning For Project Management Using A Project Management Maturity Model, Wiley and Sons, pp 110-111

15. Lecky-Thompson G, 2005, Corporate Software Project Management, Charles River Media, USA, p26

16. Loo R, 2002, Journaling: A learning tool for project management training and team-building, Project Management Journal; Dec 2002 issue, vol. 33, no. 4, [Electronic], pp 61-66

17. Maylor H, 2005, Project Management, Third Edition with CD Microsoft Project, Prentice Hall, UK, p345

18. Mooz H, Forsberg K & Cotterman H, 2003, Communicating Project Management: The Integrated Vocabulary of Project Management and Systems Engineering, John Wiley and Sons, USA, p160

19. Murray J, 2001, Recognizing the responsibility of a failed information technology project as a shared failure, Information Systems Management, Vol. 18, Issue 2, [Electronic], pp 25-29

20. Newell S, 2004, Enhancing Cross-Project Learning, Engineering Management Journal, Vol. 16, No.1, [Electronic], pp 12-20

21. Organizational Project Management Maturity (OPM3): Knowledge Foundation, 2003, 3rd Edition, Project Management Institute, USA

22. Pinkerton J, 2003, Project Management, McGraw-Hill, p329

23. Reed B, 2001, Making things happen (better) with project management, May/Jun 2001 issue, 21, 3, [Electronic], pp 42-46

24. Rosenau & Githens, 2005, Successful Project Management, 4th Edition, Wiley and Sons, USA, p300

25. Sowards D, 2005, The value of post project reviews, Contractor, 52, 8, [Electronic], p35

26. Thomset R, 2002, Radical Project Management, Prentice Hall PTR, USA, p260

27. Whitten N, 2003, From Good to Great, PM Network, October 2003 issue, [Electronic]

28. Young, 2003, The Handbook of Project Management: A Practical Guide to Effective Policies and Procedures, 2nd Edition, Kogan Page, UK, p256

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