Tag: Project Management
Free Network Creation Diagram Tools
What project management is good at is making the complex simple, or at least manageable. There are, of course, lots of different ways to achieve that goal, many of which are employed during the life cycle of a project.
A project network diagram is one such tool that helps simplify a complex project plan, enabling a project manager to see the big picture. It’s important to have an overview of any project, see when it starts and finishes, and quickly note all the points in-between that intersect and how they work together.
But some might avoid network diagrams, thinking of them as those dense schematics that depict the nodes and connections in a computer network. That would be a mistake. Project managers need tools, and the project network diagram is a great one.
What Are Project Network Diagrams?
A project network diagram is a visual representation of the workflow of a project. A network diagram is a chart that is populated with boxes noting tasks and responsibilities, and then arrows that map the schedule and the sequence that the work must be completed. Therefore, the network diagram is a way to visually follow the progress of each phase of the project to its completion.
Project managers use a network diagram to track the project, allowing them to see the progress of each element. Then they can share the status with the rest of the project group. This is especially helpful for those who better understand information that is delivered visually. For those team members, network diagrams will help with the performance of their tasks and increase the project’s productivity.
Another aspect of the network diagram is that it literally illustrates the project’s scope. That’s because the network diagram collects all the actions and outcomes of the project.
Types of Network Diagrams: ADM & PDM
Network diagrams can be divided into two types, the arrow diagram method (ADM) and the precedence diagram method (PDM).
As expected, the arrow diagram method uses arrows to represent the project activities, with the tail of the arrow being its start and the point the finish. The length of the arrow is the duration of the activity. The arrows connect nodes or boxes that are symbols of the start and finish of the activity in sequence.
In the precedence diagram method, each node or box is an activity. There are arrows, but in this case, they represent the relationship between the activities. That relationship can be one of the following:
- Finish to start: This means an activity cannot start before another activity is finished.
- Start to start: Use this when two activities can begin simultaneously.
- Finish to finish: Use this when activities must finish together.
- Start to finish: Use this when one activity cannot finish until another one starts.
Advantages and Limitations of Network Diagrams
Now that you know what a network diagram is, let’s take a more critical look at the pros and cons.
Pros of Project Network Diagrams
Starting with the pros, network diagrams are a boon to project planning. The technique collects all the necessary tasks that are needed to complete the project successfully. This attention to detail before starting a project will help identify the critical activities and where float, or the time a task can be delayed, might exist.
Having made a network diagram is also a great way to set deadlines and, having all the tasks laid out on one chart, it makes it easier to order the material resources and equipment needed to accomplish them. This description of resources will help with cash-flow and assembling the right team. Additionally, having the tasks on a network diagram, and being able to see where they’re dependent on other tasks, can help resolve issues as they arise during the project.
Cons of Project Network Diagrams
There are also limitations. Making a project network diagram takes time and costs money to produce. Also, the network diagram, depending on the project, can be overly complex and difficult to discern visually. That defeats one of its main purposes. Of course, there can be errors when making it or other unknown factors that can influence it outside of the data collected; all of this can make the network diagram misleading and potentially damaging to your project.
Some don’t believe in the necessity of a network diagram, that there are other tools that cover the same ground. For example, there is the Gantt chart, which is also a graphic representation of the project timeline with tasks, duration and dependencies. But a Gantt chart can also allocate resources, update project status and track tasks and time.
Free Tools for Making Network Diagrams
There’s only one way to know if a network diagram is for you or not: try it. Lucky for you there are a lot of free online choices.
Google Draw
Google has a tool for everything you do, so it almost goes without saying that they have one for network diagrams. Google Draw is completely free, it can help you make flowcharts, UML diagrams, entity relations, mock-ups and, of course, network diagrams.
Data is stored on the Google Drive, but it can also store data on Dropbox and OneDrive. Google draw can import from a variety of different file formats, and it has 27 languages and is easy to share. It’s fast and has real-time collaborative support when connected to a Google account.
On the downside, there aren’t a lot of templates and shapes to choose from. It can be a bit of an uphill battle to learn if you don’t have a design background. Google Draw is best if you want to collaborate with other Google features and only make network diagrams occasionally.
Dia
Dia is an open source tool that can be used to make network diagrams. It’s fairly easy to learn and can make basic network diagrams. Dia saves XML formatted documents, which are reduced automatically to save space. It’s available for Linux, Mac and Windows.
Dia is free and makes a good entry-level option for people looking to get familiar with making network diagrams, as well as UML diagrams and flow charts.
The software has a good user interface, which helps users, and is also easy and fast to install because of its small file size. However, the software doesn’t have visual appeal. It’s a bit too simple, and some have criticized it as ugly because of its black and white design, which could be improved with color.
Gliffy
While Gliffy is free, the free version is very limited. If you like it, you’ll probably want to pony up for the full version, with a subscription cost. The cost is tiered, $14.85 every three months for a single user, which can make 200 diagrams, but none of which integrate with Google Drive. A single user business account is $29.85 for three months, which includes unlimited diagrams, but it still won’t integrate with Google Drive. For that you’ll need the business team package, which costs $59.88 a year. The fact that the diagrams are easy to make and collaborate with will probably help with the transition from free to paid.
Gliffy is a web-based app and not suited if you’re looking to make more technical diagrams. However, for a project management network diagram, this is a good first step into network diagramming.
After you’ve given these free network diagramming apps a spin and get a feel for how they handle, take a look at the list of cloud-based project management software on projectmanagementcompanion.com. Try them free for 30-days with this trial.
How to Create an Action Plan
An action plan is a proposed strategy or course or action. Specifically, in project management, it’s a document that lists the steps needed to achieve a goal. That is, an action plan clarifies what resources you’ll need to reach that goal, makes a timeline for the tasks to get to that goal and determines what team members you’ll need to do it all. The information from the action plan will assist in the creation of Gantt Charts, project schedule or plan. So what are the fundamentals in the creation of an action plan, the following are a few tips on how to build one.
Commence by creating a simple template to save time. The template should consist of action step, due dates and resources who have been assigned the task. It is best to use a tool to keep you on task. By using a tool, a specific online tool that everyone’s using, then everyone has access to online and real-time data.
And number three is you need to on board everyone into the tool, so that it works for everyone and not just a few people. By having everyone committed to using the same tool, then you ensure that you have real-time data that everyone can access.
The fourth one is to set up alerts that work to help you become more efficient. These could be things like tasks. By having alerts on when tasks are added or changed, it helps you become more efficient in what you’re doing, helps other people on the project be alerted to the changes. Also, when milestones are completed, that way, everyone knows when major tasks have occurred or completed on the project.
And then notes. Notes are great for collaborating on tasks or even documents, such as a requirements document or some other documents that are important for the project.
The following are some considerations;
Number one: focus on the priorities of what is due now. That way, people, or team members, don’t get overwhelmed by looking at all the things that are done, but they get focused on “Let’s get these completed now.”
Number two: mark completed tasks as completed. That way, you don’t have to keep looking at the same tasks. They’re already finished, done, completed. Get them out of the way, so you don’t keep looking at them.
Number three, assign someone to every task. Be sure that you know who is accountable for every task. And that way, if you have questions, something’s not getting done, you know who to go to.
Lastly discuss pending or late tasks, ensure that you find out when there are barriers or reasons why some things aren’t getting done. Sometimes they need you and your help to get things done.
So, these are the fundamentals and a few tips to help you make your action plan. And if you need a tool that can help you manage and track your action plan, then review our software tool reference page.
PRINCE2 Process: The Reigning Project Management Methodology
We continue our series on PRINCE2, as
previous posts covered PRINCE2 Fundamentals and roles. This post is
concerned with the 7 phase processes of PRINCE2.
The 7 phase process of PRINCE2
The PRINCE2 process is broken up into 7 (surprise!) phases:
1. Starting up a project
- Someone submits a request for a new project, called the project mandate. The project mandate is very brief, covering only why the project is necessary and what it will ideally accomplish.
- Someone assesses every project mandate to make sure the company is capable of taking on the project.
- If approved, the person who initiated the project then submits a more detailed project brief, which covers the actions, resources, manpower, etc. needed to execute the project.
2. Directing a project
- The project board reviews and evaluates project briefs based on business justification and viability for another round of approval/disapproval.
- The project board decides what it needs to do in order to organize and execute each approved project, and what/how they’re going to delegate to the project manager.
3. Initiating a project
- The project manager creates the Project Initiation Documentation, including a comprehensive project plan and baselines for 6 performance targets: time, cost, quality, scope, risk, and benefits.
- Initiation documents are sent to the project board for approval. Once the board is confident in the project plan, they give their approval once again and work begins.
4. Controlling a stage
- The project manager breaks down the project into smaller “work packages” and passes them off to team managers and teams to complete.
- The project manager oversees the progress of work packages during each stage and steps in to help overcome roadblocks or correct any mistakes, if necessary.
- Team managers coordinate detailed daily work and act as the link between the project manager and individual team members, helping to make sure everything goes according to plan.
5. Managing product delivery
- The project manager checks progress against the project brief and makes sure deliverables meet PRINCE2 quality expectations.
- The project board evaluates completed work packages and either approves them or requests revisions/changes.
6. Managing stage boundaries
- The project manager and project board review each stage to make sure the project is progressing according to plan and meeting project assurance requirements.
- At each review, the project board decides whether to continue with the next stage or to abandon the project completely.
- Project managers hold a retrospective with the project team to record any lessons learned and improve the next stage.
7. Closing the project
- When the project is complete, the project manager wraps up any loose threads, including PRINCE2 documentation, outcomes, and reporting.
Types of PRINCE2 documentation
Throughout the 7 stages of PRINCE2, records are kept so the project stays organized and on track. These records are also used to report to the project board, check deliverables against quality requirements, and improve future work processes.
- Business case: Detailed description of why the project is needed and its expected benefits to users and the business.
- Risk register: Lists the probability and potential impacts of risks and opportunities.
- Quality register: A running log of quality checks that ensure deliverables meet expectations.
- Issues register: A list of problems and concerns from project team members.
- Lessons log: Notes on lessons learned to apply to the next work stage and/or future projects.
- Daily log: A daily diary written by the project manager that reports activity and progress.
PRINCE2 in project management
Interested in learning more about project management? Check out our Project Management Certifications, your ultimate introduction to the fundamentals of project management, curated best practices and resources for project management beginners, all in one place.
MAKING THE MOVE INTO PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Taking the first step in any career is never an easy task, and this certainly applies to the Project Management discipline. The following are some observations made when making the transition into such a challenging and rewarding profession.
1. Choose the right
organisation and the right job scope.
If you are taking your first step into Project Management, it’s very unlikely
that you will land a role immediately. Most Project Management professionals
establish their career in operational roles, with a certain amount of exposure
to various projects. Hence, it’s really important for you, as a starter, to
choose the right organisation, and a job scope that will give you good
exposure. This will enable you to transition into Project Management gradually.
The organisation should ideally run lots of projects and allow you to work with
different people.
2. Take the opportunity
to assess your suitability.
Once you have gained some exposure to projects you should take the opportunity
to assess yourself as well. Make sure you can say “YES” to the following
questions as well. These are the key questions that will tell you if you are
ready for a career in Project Management.
- Can I communicate well with different people?
- Do I have the interpersonal skills to deal with different types of stakeholders?
- Can I work under pressure to meet tight deadlines?
- Do I have plans for all my activities, priority lists for my tasks, and targets for my performance?
- Am I a detail-oriented person?
3. Get qualified!
In the Project Management discipline, recognised qualifications are just as
important as experience. You will improve your credibility and reputation
within the organisation by demonstrating your willingness and ability to learn,
your level of commitment, and your passion for the discipline. The Association
for Project Management (APM), APMG-International, and Project Management
Institute (PMI) are the three most important bodies offering globally
recognised qualifications such as APMP, PRINCE2, CAPM, PMP, PgMP, etc. They
will offer an excellent grounding in best-practice project management
methodologies and principles that you can apply in a wide variety of workplace
scenarios. The type and level of qualification will depend on your experience,
the expected performance and the scale of the projects. They can range from
introductory to very advanced level. Do some careful research and decide one
that perfectly aligns with your needs.
4. Continue
learning and create your own opportunities.
Professional development is a never-ending journey. For any project that you
work on, be it big or small, the key thing is to keep learning. Lessons learned
from one project will be a massive benefit on another. You will find out that
the best project managers are those who know how to identify problems that they
encountered in the past, admit them, and figure out how to eliminate such
issues moving forward.
5. Raise your
profile.
Finally, make yourself known to the managers as well as HR by continuously
showing your desire, your goals and your competency. This will make sure that
when a good opportunity comes, or there’s a need for a bigger challenge, you
will be among the first to be considered.
The Project Management profession is very rewarding, especially if you get a sense of fulfilment delivering a concept into practical working outcome.
Project Management for Start-ups & Entrepreneurs: A Quick Start Guide
Project management can appear very formal to an outsider.
That’s because project management maps out a specific, seemingly inflexible, process for initiating, monitoring and closing a project, all according to an established methodology. And if you’re an entrepreneur or working at a start-up, the rigidity of these project management systems can feel constraining. Still, the need to have a framework around which to focus your team and resources is critical to any business success.
However strict and formal project management might appear, it can be adapted to fit your situation. There are many different methods, approaches and project management software, depending on your industry and type of project. Plus, there are new ideas coming into the fold all the time, including hybrid methodologies that get the best of both worlds.
So, how can entrepreneurs and teams get the most out of project management, regardless of their start-up environment or business life cycle?
Start with a Vision
First, to use project management effectively, you must begin your project with a vision. You need to have some clear idea or goal that your team can focus on. To get somewhere, anywhere, there must be a destination. This destination must have a specific outcome that impacts your organization or those you serve.
Start-ups and entrepreneurs often try to do a million things at once with limited staff, so crafting a vision is essential for ensuring project success. Well, how do you establish your vision?
Be Specific
You need to spend a bit of time and energy thinking through what you want to achieve and what impact you want to have. It isn’t enough to say something like, “We want to grow our business.”
To give projects a sense of purpose and focus, you’d need to take this general idea and sharpen it. You’d say something like, “We want to grow our business by 10% this quarter by creating a new service line for our existing customers.”
This is a pretty simple example, but it drills down from a vague idea to a specific set of goals. This applies to any type of business, because all projects need to have focus, regardless of the industry.
Make a Plan
Once you have your goal or your outcome in place, the second step in implementing project management is to create a plan. A pothole for projects is not following the plan you made to complete the project.
However, sticking too closely to your plan can lead to another problem: a project plan that locks like handcuffs around the team, not allowing the team to have any flexibility in the way that they tackle the job or approach their roles.
Stay Flexible
As an entrepreneur or start-up, you must be comfortable with change. Change happens, and when you’re blazing a new trail, being able to pivot is key to success. Whatever plan you create today is only a starting point for where you are going to go in the future.
But you still need to have a plan that starts with the end in mind. Where are you going? When do you need to get there? What kind of resources do you have or need? What other factors are involved in getting this project completed?
So, the plan is important but can change. To schedule your plan, make a project timeline with milestones, or major phases of the project, to break down the steps or tasks you’ll have to take to complete in order to finish the project in the time allotted.
The greatest gift you can give your team is the gift of flexibility in reaching the goals and milestones. As stated above, in too many instances, we can create plans that are rigid, which pin us to one path.
Flexibility is important for your team, because if they are working hard and intelligently, the solutions and actions that they take might not be obvious and should be allowed to evolve with experience.
Execute the Project
Now it’s time to move the project to the execution stage. This means turning your team loose on the project.
Often when people and organizations are not hitting peak performance, they skip the first two steps and jump right into this stage of project management. The problem with that is that they fail to ask themselves, “Why?”
For example, if you want to mock up a new feature, have you asked yourself: “Why do I want the new feature? Why do I want to create a new product? Why am I doing a mock up and not something else?”
Don’t Waste Resources
An inefficient organization (and start-ups can’t afford to be inefficient) can spend a lot of time expending resources on things that never should have received valuable resources in the first place. That’s probably the number-one takeaway from project management: do the due diligence of asking yourself the where, what, why, when and how before beginning any project.
As far as the actual execution stage of the project, if you’ve created a thorough plan and worked backwards from a deadline to create a realistic schedule and task list, everything should be in place to start and proceed on track. Of course, you’ll want to monitor and report on the project progress to make sure you’re hitting your benchmarks.
Monitor Progress
How will you measure your success against your milestones and schedule? Ask yourself these questions: “Are the plans and milestones still relevant to achieving the goal or outcome? Are we on, ahead or behind schedule? Is the outcome still relevant to our business or are we just completing what we started?”
You should be constantly asking yourself and your team these questions until you have hit your goal. In addition to asking such questions, you should be monitoring KPIs and other metrics throughout the project. A project dashboard can be a huge help when it comes to tracking metrics on a daily basis.
Know When to Fold ’em
One roadblock that start-ups and entrepreneurs encounter is the unwillingness to recognize and accept sunk costs. By this I mean, if your goal or outcome isn’t relevant anymore, but you’re so far into the project that you won’t let go. You think it might have a negative impact on the team.
The best thing to do is to quit things that need to be abandoned. Knowing when to quit is a bit of an art. If you struggle with it, read Seth Godin’s book The Dip. He writes about knowing when to quit and when to stay the course.
Wrap It Up
Finally, you should wrap up the project. At this point, you should have achieved your outcome and have something significant to show for your time and resources.
Archive Your Documents
Collect the lessons learned in a framework that you can use for future projects. Note things that worked and things that didn’t. Spend time thinking about schedules and resource usage, making notes of what you expected and what actually happened.
You might want to collect your communications schedules, reports and other documents that you can use to create templates for future projects.
Lessons Learned for Future Projects
Creating a resource that helps you accelerate the kick-off of future projects is the key to ending a project well. Depending on your nature and your organization, these documents collected may be complex, or they may be loose.
Again, the important thing is to make sure you have collected things to look for and things to avoid so that you don’t have to relearn everything every time you start a project.
I think if you can think of your projects as four simple phases, it will make it easier for you to use project management principles and this will allow you to not only make project management something you can add quickly, but effectively as well.
Entrepreneurs and start-ups need nimble software to plan, monitor and report on their volatile projects. Projectmanagementcompanion.com has many cloud-based project management solutions to choose from that offer real-time dashboard and an online Gantt charts, giving you the flexibility you need to respond quickly to change. See how they can help your project by taking a free 30-day trial.
4 Keys to Driving Employee Engagement (Infographic)
By Emily Bonnie, 15 August, 2017
Nobody works 100% of the time. We all take breaks, whether it’s time spent browsing the web, socializing, grabbing a snack, or even napping.
70% of employees are disengaged at work, which is currently costing American companies up to $550 billion annually in lost revenue.
So how do you fight disengagement and keep your team motivated and focused? Try these four proven techniques to wake up your workforce:
4 Types of Effective Employee Motivation
- Intrinsic: Invest in your employees’ professional development and education, and assign tasks that help them learn new skills and apply their interests to their work.
- Extrinsic: Offer rewards and other perks, such as flexible scheduling, to create stress-free work environments.
- Personal: Get to know and show respect for your team.
- Peer: Tap into people’s generosity and competitive nature to help them work harder.
What’s keeping your teammates’ heads out of the game? This infographic by CompanyFolders explains what turns employees into disengaged drones, and what you can do to bring them back to life.