Read authoritative reports and guides that inform you concisely about  complex issue and presents the issuing body’s philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help you understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision.

5 Ways To Develop Your Leadership Skills

Gower Handbook of Project Management 4th Edition

This Handbook was the first APM Body of Knowledge Approved title for the Association for Project Management.

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IDC: Digital Transformation, The Promise and the Challenge

The digital age has fundamentally altered both business processes and the technology that supports them. Fast-moving start-ups increasingly disrupt established industries, bringing new competition to the market.

Consider how car-sharing apps have hurt the taxi trade, how home-sharing programs eat into hotel profits, and how vacation sites have all but eliminated travel agencies. Similar transformations affect the healthcare, insurance, and banking industries, among others.

How did certain companies cause so much disruption in so little time? Some were born in the cloud, without the burden of an existing IT environment.

The pursuit of digital transformation and the need to compete in fast-changing business environments challenge CIOs and other IT leaders.

This white paper examines the advantages and challenges of migrating enterprise workloads to the cloud along with associated data. It discusses the benefits of working with a third-party cloud services provider and how to choose the right provider to meet enterprise needs.

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Ai, Analytics and the Future of Your Enterprise

Everybody’s talking about big data. Huge promises have been made about its role in driving enterprises forward. But few organizations are realizing its true benefits.

For those able to put data to good use, there’s much to be excited about. Data is transforming not only businesses, but entire industries, and the world as we know it. Today organizations are harnessing big data to do things like transform healthcare, provide eyesight for the visually impaired, and bringing us closer to autonomous cars.

Of course, none of these technologies would exist if not for the ‘Big Bang of Intelligence’, in which new algorithms, parallel systems and big data came together to unlock a world of fresh opportunities. Together, they are powering the fourth industrial revolution.

Tapping into the power of big data can be daunting. So we’ve looked at the strategic areas your organization can focus on. This ebook provides an overview of emerging trends and the 3 challenges of big data.

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Understanding O365 Security Concerns

The focus of this white paper is the security limitations within Microsoft Office 365, as well as the overarching security management problems that most organisations face today. The limitations in the native Office 365 security tools are the result of both inherent gaps that exist within the platform and the under utilisation of some features that have caused decision makers to not fully address the security implications of key elements in the platform. Compounding the problem is the use of multiple clouds, which makes security management difficult – if not completely untenable – given the common practice of using a unique security solution for each application.

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Project Management Guidebook

The Method123 “Project Management Guidebook” will provide you with expert guidance and help you deliver projects like a pro every single time!

To download the Guidebook, click the button below.

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The Future Of Project Management

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Project management is an integral function across all industries and organisations. With the rise of globalisation and digitisation, there is an increasing demand for skilled project management professionals to manage and lead projects on budget and on time. Principles and practice in project management need to evolve in line with an increasingly digital economy. But what does this mean for the future of the industry?

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Project Charter Template

This template assists in all phases of scope definition. Clearly identify project objectives and deliverables, then build out task lists as well as resource, financial and quality plans to outline the work ahead. This document is what shows why a project is important and how those reasons will be addressed.

Get your free project charter template!

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Why You Need a Project Charter

There’s a reason for initiating a project, and the project charter is the document in which you outline those reasons. You also include how the project is going to be structured to meet the goals of the project, so it is a success.

Some of the things described in a project charter is the vision, objectives, scope and deliverables of the project. Then you’re going to need to address everyone’s responsibilities in the project, from the stakeholder on down. Finally, you want to explain how you are going to take on the project—that is with what resources, the financial expectations and quality?

This free project charter template is what you’ll follow to create the document to present to a senior management person within the organization, usually called a business sponsor. First, you need to fill out a couple of other documents. These are the business case and feasibility study. Once all these documents and the project charter have been approved, you are ready to begin the project.

So, what the project charter is doing is setting boundaries for the project. You are going into detail about the project’s scope that will account for all the deliverables the project is supposed to achieve. Once you have a project charter then you have to assemble your team and get planning, executing, tracking and reporting.

How to Use this Project Charter Template

1. Executive Summary

Here’s where you sum up the various sections that will follow in greater detail in this document. Be concise, you are only outlining what will come, like a table of contents. This part of the document will cover definition, organization and plan, risks and issues and assumptions and constraints.

2. Project Definition

You must have a clear picture of what the project is in place to achieve, and here is where you want to state that purpose. This is where you note the vision of the project, what its key objectives are and how you are going to meet them. What is the scope of the work and how will the deliverables be produced? Answer these questions, the details of which follow.

To describe the vision of the project be concise. It should really be said in only a sentence. Boil it down, and don’t forget to make it achievable.

For the objectives, you want to list those crucial to the project. Each objective should be a statement which details what the project is going to achieve. These must be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound, which can be easily remembered as the acronym S.M.A.R.T.

The objectives can be broken down into sub-objectives. These can include business objectives, which are business-specific. There are also the technology-specific technology objectives.

When detailing the scope of the project you need to take into account what processes, and how they will change, organizational areas that will be affected, what locations will et impacted, how data might be altered, what applications need to be installed or altered and which technologies will be deployed and/or decommissioned. Don’t forget to note what will not be affected by the project, too.

The deliverables can be collected in a chart, such as one that lists the item in one column, followed by its components in another and then the description in the final column.

3. Project Organization

When organizing the structure of your project start with the customers. Describe who they are and how they will use the deliverables from your project. These customers can be individuals, but they can also be groups. Remember, the success of the project is dependant on the deliverables matching the requirements of the customers. Make a table to collect this information.

Stakeholders have to be considered in this section, as well. List those people who are in or out of the project, but have a key interest. These can include company executives, legislative bodies and regulatory bodies. Create a table with stakeholders in one column and why they are interested in the project in another.

Now you want to define the roles in the project. What are the various people needed to take on the project? They may include a sponsor, review group, manager, team member, et al. Again, you want to collect this information in a table, with columns for: role, organization, resource name, assignment status and assignment date. If your project is larger, however, only list the key roles.

What are the responsibilities of the project? That’s the next item to note. For each role listed you now have to define a full set of responsibilities, performance criteria and the skills required. You want to attach a job description as well.

You next will need to build an organization flow chart that shows the reporting lines between each of the key roles you have already written about.

4. Project Plan

Begin with what your approach will be. How will you implement each phase of the project? Create a table with each phase listed and next to it the approach outlined briefly.

The overall plan can be scheduled in a Gantt chart. Here you can summarize the plan, outlining the sequence of each phase that you have collected in the table above.

You want to know what your milestones will be over the course of the project’s lifecycle. Those are major points in a project when a phase is completed. Make a table with the milestone, the date you want it completed and a description of what it is.

Then you want to list the dependencies. How will they impact other tasks and will they be impacted by non-delivery, as in are they task dependent.

Next, create a resource plan. In this you are going to summarize the duration and effor for each project team member. Begin with their role, followed by the start and end dates and the percentage of effort.

Now comes the financial part. Here you break down the category to the cost and the value. A more detailed financial plan can be developed in the planning stage of the project.

You next need a quality plan. This makes sure the various processes are being done to lead to the success of the project. So, therefore, you want to list the process — be it change management, risk management, issue management, etc. — and then describe it.

5. Project Considerations

Here is where you address the risks in your project. Describe what risk might arise in the project, note the likelihood (high, medium or low), the impact it will have (again: high, medium or low) and the mitigating actions you will take if it does happen.

Next address the issues, listed by priority. An issue, unlike a risk, is any event that is currenting affecting the project. Describe it, note the priority and what actions you will take to resolve it.

Now what are the assumptions identified with the project? And then list the constraints.

6. Appendix

Finally, you’ll want to attach any and all supporting documentation in an appendix.

Download Your Copy of the 2018/19 Sydney IT Salaries Guide

We’re excited to share the results of the 2018/19 Sydney IT Salaries Guide with you. Every 12 months, we create this guide to assist IT professionals in understanding the current trends for roles within the Australian market, and Sydney in particular.

This year we have used a new tool to compile our Sydney IT Salaries Guide, drawing on the responses of 1,683 IT professionals across Sydney. This has enabled us to investigate a far deeper range of statistics and uncover a wider variety of insights.

The key findings in this year’s guide include:

• The median Sydney IT salary has increased to $115,000, growth that suggests that Sydney’s IT professionals are in high demand throughout the market.
• The top three highest earning role types are Change Management, Project Management and Architect roles. As many organisations undertake large-scale transformation projects, the high demand for these roles has had a clear impact on the level of remuneration.
• The importance of flexibility to many respondents is reflected in the top benefits received, with working from home and flexible working hours both featuring in the top three.

Explore more sector-specific insights in your copy of the 2018/19 Sydney IT Salaries Guide

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The Five Hidden Costs of Spreadsheets

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451 Report on “Structured Work”

Find out how Wrike combines simplicity and powerful features to tackle the chaos of ongoing projects.

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GENERATION GAPS? MYTH BUSTING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT AGE IN THE WORKFORCE

Exploring the attitudes of hiring managers and professionals, our latest whitepaper looks at how employers can get the best out of multi-generational workforces.

The whitepaper explores: 

• What motivates professionals of different generations, including the importance of career progression, good leadership and lifelong learning
• Similarities across the age spectrum when it comes to preferred working styles
• The prevalence of inter-generational conflict, age discrimination and unconscious bias in the workplace

To view the full version of the whitepaper please visit our website by clicking the button below.

Down load the Robert Walters on Generation Gap

Boosting Results, Recruitment and job Seeker Experience

The results are in, and 41% of job seekers aren’t satisfied with the recruitment process. Sound familiar? We recently surveyed nearly 12,000 employers and candidates to find out what sets high-performing recruitment organisations apart and better understand stakeholder perspectives about talent acquisition. See what we learned in our new white paper.

Down load the White Paper on What Recruiters Expect

Time Management Strategies For the Knowledge Worker

Understanding the the evolution of time management strategies and prioritizing what works in the 21st century

Time Management eBook

Top Reasons Project Management Offices Still Fail and How to Protect Yours

In a recent survey, more than 70% of project management professionals report that project management is highly important to achieve their company’s desired revenue and profit goals.

Yet less than 15% report that their project management efforts are actually effective. How does your company compare?

Download our latest e-book to uncover:

• • Eight challenges that impact the effectiveness of project management programs

• • Expert insights on how to overcome these challenges

• • Benefits you’ll realize from improving effectiveness

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