Project Management Software

A RACI matrix assigns clear roles for each team member for the duration of a project. Every member of the project team is assigned a clear role and expectations: The post What Is a RACI Matrix? Definition, Examples, Uses appeared first on project-management.com. View the full article

The Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) “traces ” the project’s deliverables by establishing a thread for each requirement—from the project’s initiation to the final implementation. The post What is a Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)? appeared first on project-management.com. View the full article

Whether it’s investors or customers, stakeholders are important to every project. But what is a stakeholder? There’s more than one answer to that question. Let’s take some time to define what a stakeholder is, examples of stakeholders and free stakeholder templates that can help with stakeholder management. What Is a Stakeholder? A stakeholder is either an individual, group or organization that’s impacted by the outcome of a project or a business venture. Stakeholders have an interest in the success of the project and can be within or outside the organization that’s sponsoring the project. Stakeholders are important because they can have a positive or negative influence …

For any company to profit from a product, there must be a strategic plan in place to produce just enough to meet that need. Create too few products, and there’s a missed financial opportunity. Create too much, and money is wasted in production and warehousing. Aggregate planning is a technique to create an equilibrium between demand and capacity. It’s something every company that is producing something needs to know. Let’s take a look at what aggregate production planning is and some aggregate planning strategies. What Is Aggregate Planning? Aggregate planning is a method for analyzing, developing and maintaining a manufacturing plan with an emphasis on uninterrupted, c…

Before defining an issue log, let’s define project issues. An issue is any roadblock or unintended impact that directly affects your project’s timeline and or performance. It’s different than a risk, which can be defined as a potential problem or future issue that might happen in your project. An issue is something that has already come up in your project, and you need to identify and track that issue immediately. What Is an Issue Log? An issue log is a simple list or spreadsheet that helps managers track the issues that arise in a project and prioritize a response to them. We have created an Excel Issue Log template you can download for free. It’s an easy way for you to…

Businesses go through a lot. Managers must always be aware of the internal and external factors that can impact their business growth such as economic fluctuations, new competitors, new market trends and more. One of the most common threats to any company is called business disruption. Business disruption happens whenever a radical change occurs and affects how companies compete in a given industry. An example of business disruption could be the development of a new technology that renders the current methods useless. In this case, what can business managers do? Execute a business impact analysis (BIA). Business impact analysis is an important tool to help plan for the …

Projects are expensive. There are labor costs, material costs, overhead and operational costs. When a contractor bids on a construction project or a manufacturer takes on a job, they need to have an accurate forecast of the price for the project to make a profit, which is why job costing is so important. Making accurate estimates of construction costs requires an understanding of job costing, knowing what a job cost sheet is and what needs to be included in that costing sheet. We’ll go over all, plus explain when to use job order costing and provide an example of a job cost sheet to make sure the definition is clear. What Is Job Costing? Job costing or job order costing…

Different methodologies like PRINCE2 work for different projects, industries, tools and teams. These project management methodologies can be approached rigidly, or can be mixed, where a hybrid project management methodology of two or more are used to respond to the unique aspects of a project environment. Project managers who aren’t based in the United Kingdom might not be intimate with the PRINCE2 methodology of managing a project, which is the UK government standard. Although foreign to some outside of the United Kingdom, there’s still much to be gained from the PRINCE2 project management method, even if it isn’t adopted in its entirety. We’ll go over the main compone…

Before project management software, there were manual methods and traditional tools to plan, track and manage projects. This added time and effort, which exponentially grew with the size and complexity of the project. Paper-based planning, physical communication and manual resource management feel as if from another time. That’s because it is. While technology has pros and cons, few project managers and project teams dispute the improvements that project management software provides. Let’s explore how this project management tool is used, its features and the variety of commodities available and those that rise to the top of the list of preferred products. What Is Proje…

Project management is the planning & organizing of resources to achieve a specific goal. Learn about types and examples to get started. The post What is Project Management? Definition, Types & Examples appeared first on project-management.com. View the full article

Defining the project scope is a critical part of the project planning process. That’s because the project scope defines the boundaries of what will and won’t be part of the project work, which is essential when making the project budget and schedule. Naturally, scope management is an important area of project management and there’s a lot to learn about it. But before we jump into that, let’s start with the definition of project scope. What Is Project Scope? The project scope is the total amount of work that needs to be done to complete a project. To define it, project managers must break down the project into the tasks and deliverables that’ll be executed to meet goals …

Just as one wouldn’t drive a car without a dashboard as it provides valuable information on the vehicle’s speed, gas level and so on, no construction project manager should try to deliver construction projects without a construction project dashboard. A construction dashboard is one of the pillars of construction project management. Project management and program management both recommend using a construction project management dashboard and we’ll explain why. In the following blog, we break down what construction project managers should include in their construction management dashboard and even offer a free downloadable construction dashboard template to help get start…

Discover the features and benefits of Zoho Projects software. Read our review to see if it's the right fit for your project management. The post Zoho Projects Software Review: Features, Pricing, Pros & Cons appeared first on project-management.com. View the full article