Project Management for Dummies
Managing Projects with Microsoft Office Project 2007 (Exam 70-632)
Rita''s Pocket PMP Exam
Program Management Professional (PgMP) Study Guide
Enterprise Project Management Using Microsoft Office Project Server 2007
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Project Management: Free Project Management Videos
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PM Video Launched by PMConnection
PM Video is a collection of over 250 videos (webcasts, webinars) dealing with Project Management. Why just read an article when you can watch, listen and learn!
These files are categorized by Project Management, Microsoft Project, PMP Certification, Microsoft Project Server, Program Management, and Portfolio Management.
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Project Management: PM Audio Launched by PMConnection
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PM Audio is a collection of over 400 audio files (MP3’s, Podcasts) dealing with Project Management. Listen to them through your computer or download them to your iPod or MP3 player.
These files are categorized by Project Management, Microsoft Project, PMP Certification, Microsoft Project Server, Program Management, and Portfolio Management.
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Project Management: Microsoft Project Templates Added To Research Center
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PMConnection recently acquired a website (www.projecttemplates.4t.com) that provided free Microsoft Project schedule templates. PMConnection then added more free templates to this list! There are currently over 80 free templates in all.
These templates can be sorted by Title, Popularity or Date added. New templates will be added in the near future. These templates can be found within the Research Center , or found directly by clicking this link.
So if you are getting ready to start a new project, why not start with a pre-populated Microsoft Project schedule? Remember, saving time saves money!
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Project Management: Are you ready for Earned Value Management?
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Andy Makar, a frequent PMConnection.com contributor, is seeking your help in validating an assessment tool to determine when an organization is ready for earned value management.
Earned value management is a project management technique with well over 100 years of history. Despite the benefits found in implementing earned value management, the technique still lacks successful implementation in both private and public sectors.
The research projects purpose is to develop an assessment tool and validate it within the project management community. The research project?s proposition is EVM organizational readiness can be determined by building an assessment tool based on an EVM implementation model.
Your time and input into improving the assessment tool is greatly appreciated. As a project management community of practice, it is critical to incorporate real world feedback into the tool to effectively help other organizations assess their earned value
management implementation readiness.
To take the EVM survey, please visit:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=f9k37hX_2fGr3mKoJ79Hz9sg_3d_3d
To learn more about study, please read visit http://www.amakar.com for more information.
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Project Management: PMConnection Launches The Project Management Search Engine
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Why search the entire internet when you are looking for information related to Project Management? Why not search across only the top project management websites? “The Project Management Search Engine” does just that!!!
Try “ The Project Management Search Engine”  Details:
- Leverages Google technology
- Can be added to your Google Home Page. Add it from here
- Currently searches across nearly 80 top project management websites, including PMI, Microsoft Project Website, Gantthead, PM Forum and many more!!
- Searches across only the list of “Great Websites” listed at PMConnection
- See the full list of websites here
- Add your site to the list here
At PMConnection, our mission is to advance the Project Management profession.(period) Our vision is to be recognized throughout the world as a leading provider of valuable project management related information. Our first goal was to develop a central repository that pulls together information on the leading project management processes and tools. ( See About Us) Also since the beginning, we have hosted the “ Research Center”. Currently this database contains a list of over 2,300 articles. If you are looking for help with Project Management, Microsoft Project, or the PMP, this is the place to start!! And even though the Research Center has been the most visited feature of PMConnection to date, we wanted to give you more. So if you can not find the information that you are looking for within our Research Center, try “The Project Management Search Engine”. |
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Project Management: 9 Tips for Dealing with an Over Allocated Resource
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OK, here is the situation; you are looking into the future of your project and realize you have an over allocated resource. What should you do?
Well, before we look at the various options, we must first understand how a resource gets over allocated.
A resource becomes over allocated when we assign more work to that resource the can be achieved within a particular time period, given that resources availability to the project. For example, lets say we have one person who is assigned to our project 100% of their time (or 40 hours per week). If we attempt to have that resource complete more than 40 hours worth of work next week (either on one task or a combination of tasks), they are now over allocated.
Here are some ways to deal with an over allocated resource:
- Do Nothing*: Perhaps the resource is only slightly over allocated. In this case we may choose to do nothing. It is anticipated that the resource will be able to give a little more (work harder) and complete the task within the given time period.
- Add an Additional Resource: Assigning an additional resource to assist with a task could reduce the amount of Work that resource A is required to complete.
- Reassign a Task: Perhaps it is a combination of tasks that is causing the over allocation. Reassign one task to another person who has the skill set and the availability to perform that task
- Extend the Duration of the Task(s)**: Extending the duration of the task or tasks allows the resource to complete the same amount of Work, but over a longer Duration.
- Delay the Start of a Task**: If it is a combination of tasks that is causing the over allocation, delaying the Start date of one of the tasks could eliminate the over allocation.
- Extend the Resources Working Day***: This involves asking the resource to work longer than 8 hours per day
- Extend the Resources Working Week***: You are now asking the resource to Work on a weekend day, or more than 40 hours (work longer).
- Implement Improved Technology****: This equates to "working smarter, not harder"! The analogy I will use is that we employ an air nail gun to build a fence instead of using a hammer and nails. The amount of Work or effort required to complete the task will be reduced.
- Reduce Scope*****: The last resort! So you are constrained...you have no additional resources who can assist, you have no additional budget to purchase improved technology, and you can not extend the duration of any tasks because it will cause the project to be late. Your last resort is to reduce the amount of Work needed to be completed by reducing the scope of the project. So instead of building the fancy Flash intro to a website, a standard homepage will be employed.
Here are some possible impacts of these options:
*Doing Nothing: As you can imagine, this introduces some Risk to your project. What if they can't or don't get the task complete? What will be the impact to the project?
**Extending the duration of the task(s) or Delaying the Start of a task: If any of these tasks are on the critical path of your project, you just extended the Finish date for that project!
***Extending the resources Working Day or Work Week: Either of these options could result in paying over-time, thus increasing the cost of your project.
****Implement Improved Technology: Undoubtedly this will come at an increased cost!
*****You better make sure you have approval from the customer or project sponsor before making choosing this option!!
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Project Management: Are Your Favorites Online?
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- Do you work on more than one PC in a day?
- Have you ever lost your browser Favorites do to acquiring a new PC?
- Have you ever been forced to work on a different PC and wished you had access to your own browser Favorites?
- Have you ever lost your Favorites due to upgrading or reinstalling your browser software?
If you answered Yes to any of these questions, then the following article may be of value. About ten years ago I found myself in a situation where I was working on three different PC’s in a days time. Like many users, I leveraged my browser Favorites to store links to various websites. However, I found myself going crazy trying to keep all of my Favorites up to date and in sync. Inevitably, I would be working on a machine and go to my Favorites, and not find a link I was looking for because I had actually bookmarked it while on another machine. Then I stumbled into a website called Hotsheet ( http://www.hotsheet.com/). This website is nothing but a categorized list of popular links. They do however offer the ability to create your own list of categorized favorites ( http://my.hotsheet.com/ ). This website not only altered the way I work, but it altered my life! I am a firm believer in never trying to remember what you can look up. By creating various categories and saving my links online, I am never more than a couple of clicks away from information I value. Myhotsheet has been the homepage for my internet browser ever since. And over the course of ten years, you can imagine that I have compiled an incredible number of valuable links. Today there are other websites that offer this same feature. Perhaps you feel an alliance to either Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, or Firefox. All of these organizations offer the ability to save your bookmarks online. These websites offer slightly different bells and whistles, but the main point is; now all of your favorites are saved in one location and can be accessed any time you are online, no matter which machine you use! So how does this relate to Project Management you might ask. - Leveraging bookmarks online can make you more efficient
- You can create “Project Management” or “PMP Prep” as a category for your bookmarks and save your favorite links.
- This concept of saving favorite links online is the basis for PMConnections Research Center.
If you feel compelled to move your bookmarks online, don’t forget to add PMConnection as one of your favorites! |
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Project Management: Microsoft Office Project 2007 Certification Program
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 Extract from Website:Project management is a growing discipline that spans many roles and departments within a wide variety of organizations. Microsoft Office Project has helped users around the world manage their businesses. In fact, today over 16 million user licenses of Microsoft Office Project have been sold, making it the leading project management client in the world. As project management has grown, organizations have asked Microsoft to help make it easier to identify individuals that have knowledge and expertise in the field and with Microsoft Office Project and the Microsoft Office EPM Solution. The Microsoft Office Project 2007 Certification program was created to help make the identification of skilled project managers easier. More Than Product TrainingMicrosoft Office Project 2007 certification is much more than just certification on a product. This program is specifically designed to help project managers apply and fully benefit from the leading standard in project management best practices and methodologies as established by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Microsoft Office Project 2007 certification is aligned with PMI’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge ( PMBOK Guide), enabling project managers that build on this foundational work to translate their skills directly to their day-to-day activities. The result is better project outcomes, greater efficiency, and maximum value from our products. This certification program also aligns with Microsoft’s support for the people-ready business, the company’s commitment to prepare users with critical skills and competencies that lead to successful project outcomes and greater efficiencies.
CertificationMicrosoft Office Project users can distinguish themselves in project management by attaining any of the four credentials of Microsoft Project Management certification. - Desktop Technology Specialist. Demonstrates competency in the use of Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007 to plan and control projects.
- EPM Technology Specialist. Demonstrates competency in the use of the Microsoft Office EPM Solution to plan and control projects.
- EPM Professional. Demonstrates competency of
experienced project management practitioners in the application of the Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 solution to the management of
projects, including multiple projects and programs.
- Portfolio Professional. Demonstrates competency of
experienced project management practitioners in the portfolio
capabilities of Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server, which enables organizations to report, analyze, and make business decisions.
Certification benefits by user include:
- Project Managers. Certification allows Project Managers to demonstrate and validate their application and tools competencies that map to PMI’s standards in various “knowledge areas” like Project Scope and Time Management, Cost Management, Human Resource Management, Risk Identification and Analysis, and more.
- IT Professionals. Certification helps ensure consistent user practices that simplify design, deployment, and system administration for better supportability and reliability.
- Business Decision Makers. Certification Helps match qualified project managers to specific project management roles and allows organizations to optimize project resource and work pipeline planning.
- EPM Partners. Extends the EPM University (EPMU) program to accelerate the ramp-up of staff and demonstrates a high quality bar to customers. EPMU delivers certification and curriculum to help partners and IT professionals design and implement EPM solutions.
Preparation for Certification
New training materials help prepare users for certification. These training materials are used by full-service independent Microsoft Certified Partners for Learning Solutions (CPLS) technology partners to deliver classroom or on-site training. Microsoft CPLSs are members of the Microsoft Partner Program that have earned the Learning Solutions competency. Purchase MS Project Here Purchase MS Project Books Here See related article "Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist Exam"
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Project Management: The WBS is Over-Rated
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I'm sure this title gets all the PMI® big wigs a little edgy! And for all of those PMBOK toters, you can now pick up your book (as I'm sure it just hit the floor!) and read the following article about real world project management.
What is a WBS?
WBS stands for Work Breakdown Structure. Examining PMBOK®, we see that the WBS should be created after the scope of the project has been defined. Creating a WBS involves subdividing the major project deliverables and project work into smaller more manageable components. (PMBOK pg 49)
The planned work contained in the lowest-level WBS components are called Work Packages (PMOK® pg 112)
We can all agree with this, right?
But here's the piece that most people miss, or don't fully realize when talking about developing a WBS; the Work Packages should be decomposed one level farther to determine the Activities. (PMOK® pg 127) This step is like "the missing link"; connecting the WBS to your Schedule Network Diagram (or MS Project). This is formally called Activity Definition.
What is Activity Definition?
Activity Definition is the process of identifying and documenting the work that is planned to be performed. (PMOK® pg 127) And once we know the scope of our project, isn't this the next biggest question; "What do we have to do to complete this project?"
So why is the WBS Over-Rated?
Well, if you are studying for the PMP exam or about to undertake a large project, it is not. It is very important.
But the WBS is nothing more than a tool. A tool to help you determine the activities that need to occur to complete the project.
So now lets examine this scenario; You have been assigned as the project manager for some project. The scope is well defined and the project sponsor as well as management believe this project could be completed in 3-6 months. Your team of 6 Subject Matter Experts has been determined. You have transferred the vision (scope) of this project to your team and are now about to hold your first planning session. All SME's will participate in this meeting. Given this scenario, a formal WBS may be over-kill. A simple brainstorming session with the team could allow you to determine all the project activities. In short, you will be performing Activity Definition without the need for a formal WBS.
You may even be able to perform Activity Sequencing during the same session! This is the process of putting all of the activities in sequential order by establishing the logical relationship between the various activities. And inevitably, this process of Activity Sequencing (especially when completed with the team), will uncover more activities that need to occur.
Closing
In closing, I'd just like to state that I'm not advocating eliminating the development of a WBS, I'm merely stating that in many real world projects, a formal WBS may not be needed. I believe project management tools and processes should be scaled to fit the project. And if the detailed activities of the project can be determined without the need for additional work, then why do it?
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Project Management: Project Managers Maturity Model
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Project Managers Maturity Model
Please make sure you read the title correctly. That is Project Managers, not Project Management! There are many organizations out there offering Project Management Maturity Models (the only one we will reference here is PMI’s OPM3 work). However, these maturity models are geared towards advancing an organizations level of project management capability.
Our Project Managers Maturity Model focuses on YOU, the project manager.
Consider this a grassroots effort if you will. At PMConnection, our mission is to advance the Project Management profession. (period) To help foster that growth, we've developed the following model. We believe that as an individual advances their knowledge up this maturity model, not only will the Project Management profession advance, but their organization will experience improved performance, and the Project Manager will benefit from salary increases.
You'll notice that advancing up this ladder involves improving knowledge of both PM proccess and tools. This approach could be debated by some, but now you at least have a path!
You will find our Research Center has been organized to align with each step on this maturity model. So no matter if you are about to manage your first project, or you have mastered project management in a MS Project Server environment, you will find information of value. (clicking on a step above will take you to all articles within our database related to that step) AND, the Search feature allows for more targeted research. For example, if you were search for the word "risk", you will find 16 great articles currently within the database associated with Risk (new articles added monthly)
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Free Project Management and Microsoft Project Schedule Templates here!
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The Project Management Mall - Now Open!
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