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Featuring Jerry Grammont, CEO, Mabï Artisanal Tea; Jori Miller Sherer, President, Minnetonka and Mika Shino, Founder and CEO, Issei Mochi Gummies.Moderated by Kc Ifeanyi, Executive Director of Editorial Programming, Fast Company. These executives have built their companies around their respective cultures, from creating iced teas derived from ingredients native to the Caribbean, to designing moccasins in partnership with Indigenous artists, to putting a fresh spin on Japanese mochi. Hear how they’re uplifting their communities and bridging them to the broader public—which is not without its challenges. View the full article

Featuring Brad Charron, CEO, Aloha and Carla Vernón, CEO, The Honest Company. Moderated by Yasmin Gagne, Staff Editor, Fast Company. When a company’s momentum reverses direction (or is even on the brink of bankruptcy), how does a leader pivot toward recovery and a return to success? In this panel, you’ll hear from CEOs who seized the reins of their companies when they were struggling—and managed to get things back on track. View the full article

Priority Notifications is a new Apple Intelligence feature that's rolling out with the iOS 18.4 update, which is currently in beta. It's one of the last AI features that we will see with the iOS 18 update cycle, and it goes hand-in-hand with Apple's Notifications Summary feature, though they are distinct. Perhaps because of the backlash Apple got to Notification Summaries, this feature isn't even enabled by default. You have to enable it instead. How Priority Notifications WorkLike many new Apple Intelligence features, Priority Notifications uses on-device AI processing to figure out what your most important notification is at any given point. Then, it surfaces those notifications (sometimes bundling up two or three and providing a summary) right to the top. When the feature is enabled and an important notification comes in, you'll see it a new Priority Notifications box above the rest of your pings. Like with many Apple Intelligence features, this box has that same multicolor glow all around it, so you can know it was made by AI. What exactly is important and not, is deemed by Apple's processing algorithms. In my testing, I found that things like missed calls, one-time codes for deliveries or logins, messages from my bank about transactions and emails from my work account always came up top. These will depend on the person and the use case, but overall, this feature is designed to help people who don't manually manage their notifications well. So, if you're always swimming in dozens of notifications from food delivery apps, shopping apps, or news apps, having a dedicated section up top to tell you when you've missed an important message or a call might be genuinely useful. How to enable and customize Priority NotificationsApple isn't enabling this feature by default, even if you've already enabled Apple Intelligence. To find it, go to Settings > Notifications > Prioritize Notifications and toggle it on. Credit: Khamosh Pathak Now, you can let Apple do its thing, and it'll try to figure out which of your notifications are truly important. But to improve things, you can go one step further. If you scroll down, you will see a list of all the apps that can feed into the Priority Notifications system. If you don't want to see any false positives, you can apps you don't want to see in the Priority Notifications box, like food delivery apps, news apps, and so on. Credit: Khamosh Pathak If you find that Priority Notifications isn't for you, you can come back to Settings > Notifications > Prioritize Notifications to disable it altogether. If you're feeling the notifications overload, you can also take some time to customize the rest of the iPhone notifications system so that it works for you, instead of against you. View the full article

Featuring Logan Eggleston, Pro Athlete, LOVB Austin Volleyball; Rosie Spaulding, President, LOVB Pro and Stef Strack, Founder and CEO, Voice in Sport. Moderated by Tania Rahman, Social Media Director, Fast Company. Women’s sports have finally been receiving the recognition they deserve. The goal now is to make sure this moment isn’t just a trend, and to ensure women athletes achieve the equity that remains elusive. Join this panel of executives and athletes to understand the strategy behind making women’s sports not just a cultural force but a thriving ecosystem of sustainable businesses. View the full article

Agile is a useful project management methodology when used correctly. Unfortunately, if the whole team is not familiar with it, things can become inefficient. To avoid that, all agile team members must know what a product backlog and sprint backlog are, both of which are essential for planning and prioritizing tasks in agile project management. These concepts also apply to scrum, kanban and other similar agile frameworks. What Is a Product Backlog? The product backlog is a list that compiles all the tasks and user stories that must be done to complete the whole project. But it’s not just a simple task list. An effective product backlog breaks down each of the backlog items into a series of steps that help the development team. The product backlog is important for product management, and the implementation of agile and it’s also one of the seven scrum artifacts that shape the scrum methodology. But even if it’s been planned out, the product backlog is not set in stone. Like most aspects of agile project management, there are going to be changes. Flexibility is crucial. Agile teams can get help managing a product backlog with project management software. ProjectManager is online work and project management software designed for agile and traditional projects. Our robust task list project view can collect product backlog items, set priorities, add descriptions and assign team members. Since we have multiple project views, teams can then switch to the kanban board view and collaborate to plan their sprints. Get started with ProjectManager today for free. /wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Manufacturing-overlay-CTA-TAsk.jpgProjectManager’s task lists help teams manage their product backlog. Learn more! What Should Be Included in a Product Backlog? While the concept of a product backlog is simple enough, it can be unwieldy, as it’s composed of everything that must be completed to bring in a successful project. One must know the project inside and out, and then have the skill set to break each of those individual tasks into a series of steps that can then be assigned to the team, who must not only complete it but understand it. Here are the most important elements of a product backlog. User Stories & Epics User stories are short, simple descriptions of a feature or functionality from the end user’s perspective, typically following the format: “As a [user], I want [feature] so that [benefit].” Epics are larger user stories that require multiple sprints or tasks to complete and are later broken down into smaller, actionable user stories. Technical Improvements These are backend or infrastructure-related enhancements that improve system performance, scalability, security or maintainability. Examples include refactoring code, optimizing database queries or upgrading frameworks. Bug Fixes Bug fixes address defects in the software that impact functionality, performance or user experience. These issues are identified through testing, user feedback or monitoring tools and must be prioritized based on their severity and impact. Research & Spikes Spikes are time-boxed investigations or experiments to gain knowledge, reduce uncertainty or evaluate technical feasibility. They are often used when teams need to explore new technologies, architectural decisions or complex requirements before committing to implementation. Non-Functional Requirements These define system attributes such as performance, reliability, scalability and security. Unlike functional requirements, which describe what the system should do, non-functional requirements specify how well the system should perform under various conditions. Dependencies & Constraints Dependencies are tasks or requirements that rely on completing other work items before they can be implemented. Constraints refer to limitations such as budget, time, regulatory requirements or technical restrictions that influence how a product is developed. Story Points Story points are a unit of measure used in agile project management to estimate the effort required to complete a task or user story. They consider complexity, risk, and time, helping teams gauge workload and prioritize tasks without relying on exact time estimates. Acceptance Criteria Acceptance criteria are the specific conditions and requirements that a product or feature must meet for it to be considered complete and acceptable by the customer or stakeholder. They provide clear guidelines for successful implementation and testing. Backlog Items Priority Levels and Status Backlog items’ priority levels and status help teams organize and track work in an agile backlog. Priority levels (e.g., high, medium, low) define importance, while status (e.g., to-do, in progress, done) indicates progress toward completion. What Is a Sprint Backlog? The sprint backlog is a subset of the product backlog. The sprint backlog comes from the product backlog, but it contains only the product backlog items that can be completed during each agile sprint. Think of it as the marching orders for the team as they go off on their short sprint. The complexity of the project will determine the sprint backlog, but overall the idea is to dedicate the team only to those tasks that can be completed during the sprint. Of course, if it is a complex project the sprint backlog can also grow in complexity and length. Unlike the product backlog, though, the sprint backlog is unchanged during the period of the sprint. It can be changed, but only during the sprint planning meeting. Once agreed upon, the items and steps to complete them are frozen for the length of the sprint. Product Backlog Example The product backlog example below shows the epics, user stories, bug fixes, spikes and technical improvements a software development team plans to work on over two different sprints. It also shows a priority level, story points, assignee status and acceptance criteria for each backlog item. /wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Product-backlog-example-2.png Sprint Backlog Example A sprint backlog contains the tasks the development team commits to completing within a sprint. Below is an example of a two-week sprint focused on improving user authentication and enhancing the checkout process. /wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Sprint-backlog-example-2.png Sprint Goal: Enhance user authentication and improve the checkout experience for a smoother purchasing process. Sprint Backlog Items: User Story: As a user, I want to reset my password via email so I can regain access to my account. (High Priority, Assigned to Development Team, In Progress, 5 Story Points) Implement the “Forgot Password” functionality (High Priority, Assigned to John, In Progress, 3 Story Points) Design the password reset email template (Medium Priority, Assigned to Sarah, To Do, 2 Story Points) Integrate email service for password reset (High Priority, Assigned to Mike, To Do, 3 Story Points) Bug Fix: Fix the checkout button not responding on mobile devices (Critical Priority, Assigned to Emma, Done, 2 Story Points) Technical Improvement: Optimize database queries for faster page load times (Medium Priority, Assigned to James, To Do, 5 Story Points) Spike: Research two-factor authentication (2FA) implementation options (Low Priority, Assigned to Linda, To Do, 3 Story Points) Non-Functional Requirement: Ensure password reset meets security best practices (High Priority, Assigned to Development Team, To Do, 2 Story Points) Throughout the sprint, tasks move through different statuses such as To Do, In Progress and Done, ensuring that progress is tracked effectively. We created the product backlog and sprint backlog examples above using our free product backlog template for Excel. However, while Excel templates can be useful for agile teams, they can’t compete with ProjectManager, a project management software for agile and product development teams. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Agile-sprint-kanban-board-redesign.jpg ProjectManager’s product backlog shows project tasks and user stories, as well as their deadline, who’s assigned to complete them, their priority level and percent complete. Managers can easily drag and drop these tasks to refine the product backlog. In addition, ProjectManager also allows team members to interact in real time. Who Owns the Product Backlog? The product backlog is created by the product owner, who is the project’s key stakeholder and therefore has a full vision of the project. The product backlog is a guide for the agile team and therefore must be written out clearly and simply to avoid any miscommunication or misunderstandings. To make the process as thorough as possible, it must be organized, and each item explained in full as part of the plan to move successfully through the project. The product owner knows what the customer wants and can work backward from there to make sure everything is done to meet that goal. That’s the product owner’s lodestar, and if the customer’s interests are always leading the backlog, the work will be effective. Who Owns the Sprint Backlog? The development team owns the sprint backlog in scrum. While the product owner is responsible for prioritizing and managing the overall product backlog, once a sprint begins, the development team selects the work they commit to completing and has full ownership of the sprint backlog. The scrum master ensures that the team follows scrum practices, but they do not control the sprint backlog. Only the development team can add, remove or modify tasks within the sprint backlog during the sprint, based on progress and new insights. Product Backlog Template We’ve created a free product backlog template for Excel, which allows agile project management teams to manage their backlog items and plan sprints. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Product-backlog-template-new.png How to Manage a Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog It’s clear that for the team to work effectively, they must understand the difference between a product backlog and a sprint backlog, and how these two scrum artifacts interact to move the project forward. 1. Identification of Product Backlog Items Identifying project backlog items involves gathering, defining and prioritizing requirements that contribute to the project’s goals. This includes user stories, features, bug fixes, technical improvements and research tasks. Inputs come from stakeholders, customers and the development team. The product owner ensures backlog items align with business objectives, while refinement sessions help clarify and estimate their effort. 2. Product Backlog Refinement or Product Backlog Grooming To respond to changes and adapt to an agile framework, agile teams constantly update their product backlogs. That’s known as backlog grooming or backlog refinement. It consists of adding, deleting and prioritizing tasks in the agile product backlog to maximize the efficiency of an agile workflow. This is done during an agile event called a product backlog grooming meeting. The product owner is responsible for overseeing this process, but everyone in the agile team helps. 3. Product Backlog Prioritization Product backlog prioritization ensures the most valuable and impactful items are addressed first. The product owner prioritizes backlog items based on factors like business value, customer needs, dependencies and technical feasibility. Techniques such as MoSCoW (must-have, should-have, could-have, won’t-have), WSJF (weighted shortest job first) and value vs. effort help determine priority. Regular backlog refinement keeps priorities aligned with project goals. 4. Effort & Complexity Assessment Effort and complexity assessment helps the development team estimate the time and resources required for backlog items. Techniques like story points, T-shirt sizing (S, M, L, XL) and planning poker are used to gauge complexity and workload. Factors such as technical difficulty, dependencies and risks influence estimates. Accurate assessments support sprint planning, ensuring realistic commitments and balanced workloads. 5. Sprint Planning During the sprint planning meeting, everyone on the development team should discuss what must be done and how it will be completed to determine what product backlog list and the items from that list are then moved to a sprint backlog list. At this point, each item on the sprint backlog is broken down into tasks or steps that will be taken to complete the item. All of this must be communicated and agreed upon. As noted above, once started there can be no changes to the tasks and steps needed to complete them. 6. Execution of Product Backlog Items This occurs during sprints, where the development team selects high-priority tasks from the backlog and works on them incrementally. Tasks are broken down into actionable steps, assigned to team members, and tracked using scrum boards or kanban. Daily stand-ups help monitor progress, address blockers and ensure alignment. Completed items undergo testing and review before deployment. 7. Sprint Review and Retrospective Sprint review involves the development team presenting completed work to stakeholders for feedback. This session ensures that the product aligns with business needs and allows for adjustments to the backlog based on insights gathered. Sprint retrospective focuses on internal team improvements. The team reflects on what went well, what could be improved, and action items for enhancing future sprints, fostering continuous improvement. Product Backlog vs. Sprint Backlog: Key Differences Understanding the difference between a product backlog and a sprint backlog is essential for effective agile project management. While both are key components of scrum, they serve different purposes. The product backlog is a dynamic, high-level list of all project requirements, while the sprint backlog is a focused subset of tasks selected for a specific sprint. The chart below highlights the key differences between the two. Feature Product Backlog Sprint Backlog Purpose Contains all potential work for the product Defines work committed for the current sprint Ownership Managed by the Product Owner Managed by the Development Team Scope Broad, covers the entire product Focused, limited to a single sprint Contents Features, user stories, technical tasks, bug fixes, research items Selected user stories, tasks, bug fixes, and sprint goals Timeframe Long-term, evolving over time Short-term, updated only during the sprint Prioritization Continuously refined and reprioritized Fixed during the sprint (unless critical changes occur) Level of Detail Can include high-level epics and partially defined tasks Fully refined and broken down into actionable tasks Flexibility Items can be added, removed, or reprioritized at any time Items are locked in once the sprint starts (except in special cases) What Does an Effective Sprint Backlog Look Like? By definition, the sprint backlog is easier to create. It’s smaller and more digestible, but that doesn’t mean it can be developed without thinking strategically about the capacity of the team and the resources at hand. If you give a team more than it can handle, the product gets bogged down. Teams might feel they can do more than they can, so it’s up to the development team and the scrum master, an expert in scrum methodology who guides through skill and experience, to know what the team can do by having a good estimation of their ability. Define Parameters for the Sprint Remember, a sprint is usually only over two weeks, though this time can differ depending on the size of the team and project resources, so the sprint length is another variable to determine. The sprint, while short, must not overtax the team or force them to rush and produce a sloppy deliverable. Therefore, as the sprint backlog and the steps necessary to complete are being figured out by the development team, brainstorm with them, and open a dialogue to determine what is feasible in terms of a strategy for the sprint. Before moving a task from the product backlog to the sprint backlog, the product owner and scrum master must be sure the team is clear on the steps needed to complete that task. Get them to sign off, so no confusion could cause trouble during the sprint. Don’t Forget to Prioritize It’s always a good idea to prioritize tasks on your product backlog from crucial to less important. This is a task for the product owner, being the one most intimate with the needs of the stakeholders. While the scrum master would seem a logical choice to help with prioritizing, it’s important to remember that the scrum master is only there to help with the process, not with the product. But that’s another term and process for another time. With knowledge of the product backlog and sprint backlog, you’re well on your way to using agile to help with your project management. It’s a great organizing principle, and one more arrow in your quiver. Agile Project Management Templates As stated above, agile is an important project management methodology used in many industries such as product and software development. There’s a lot to learn about agile and for that reason, we’ve created free guides and templates to help you manage your agile projects. Here are some of the most important templates to help with your product backlog. Requirements Gathering Template Our free requirements gathering template for Word can help you collect what information you need to solve the problem or achieve the objective of your project. This is where the product backlog starts to help stakeholders and users understand what is required. Once they all agree, teams can start to develop the tasks necessary to get there. Product Development Template You have the requirements, but you need to know the pathway to deliver the product to market. That’s where our free product development template comes in. It helps you organize all the parts so they work together to deliver the product on time and within its allotted budget. Get everyone involved in product development, from idea to product design. Agile Sprint Plan Template The whole point of having a product backlog is to prepare your team for upcoming sprints. Our free agile sprint plan template lets you involve the entire team in the collaborative process of planning for a sprint. See the phases of the sprint and fill in the details, which saves time and gets your team to work faster. Manage Your Backlog with ProjectManager ProjectManager is award-winning software that helps agile teams manage their product backlog and collaborate in planning sprints. Our multiple project views let agile teams work with the tools they prefer while giving other departments that might manage their work differently the features they require. All project views share real-time data so there’s a signal source of truth that keeps everyone working together. Manage Your Backlog on Kanban Boards One of the multiple project views in the kanban or scrum board, an essential agile project management tool. This visual workflow feature allows teams to manage their backlog on cards and then work together in planning sprints. Managers get transparency as cards move from one column to the next, representing the production cycle. If there’s a potential bottleneck, managers can reallocate resources quickly to clear it up and keep teams moving forward. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Kanban_Marketing_Wide_Zoom-150_Moving-task-to-different-status.jpg Track Progress With Real-Time Dashboards For a high-level view of the progress and performance of your team, we have real-time dashboards. There’s no setup required as with other inferior tools, and the software automatically captures and calculates six project metrics that are then displayed in colorful and easy-to-read graphs and charts. Managers get critical information that provides them with valuable insights in real time to make better decisions. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Dashboard_Construction_Wide_Zoom-150.jpg Generate Reports With One Click When you need more detail than the dashboard can provide, there are several real-time reports that you can generate with a keystroke. Get reports on project status, variance, costs and more. All our reports can be filtered to show only the data you want to see. It’s easy to share them as PDFs or even printed out, depending on how your stakeholders prefer to be updated. More data means a better understanding of your project for you and your stakeholders. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Reports_Wide_Zoom-150_Project-Status-Report.jpg Our software is collaborative to the core, which is what agile teams need to work better together, whether that’s managing their backlog or planning sprints. Comments can be made at the task level, you can even tag someone not in the team if you require their opinion. Teams can also share files. All updates are delivered by email notifications or in-app alerts so everyone is always working together. When creating a product backlog and sprint backlog, it’s crucial to have the right tools to organize, prioritize and assign all those tasks. ProjectManager is online project management software with a real-time dashboard to track the progress of the project and offers a robust online platform with kanban boards for teams to collaborate during sprints. Try it today and see for yourself with this free 30-day trial. The post Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog Management: A Quick Guide appeared first on ProjectManager. View the full article

Former Blair adviser Jonathan Powell is working behind the scenes to shepherd talks View the full article

Bidding and tendering are critical steps in winning a project. Learn how to structure a successful tender, along with proven tips to maximize success. The post Guide to Bidding & Tendering Process for Project Management appeared first on project-management.com. View the full article

With the April 15 deadline right around the corner, you want to ensure you're taking advantage of all the deductions you can. Andy Phillips, Vice President of H&R Block’s Tax Institute, says his tax experts are getting plenty of questions from filers looking to maximize every deduction available to them. I wrote about some wacky and unexpected tax deductions last week, but what about the most common ones that filers just don't fully understand? From gig worker perks to retirement contributions, here are the tax deductions every filer needs to know. Retirement contributions and traditional IRA deductions Phillips says that if you contribute to a tax-advantaged traditional retirement account (IRA, 401(k), etc.), you may owe less tax than if you didn’t contribute. With a 401(k), you might not even realize you’re receiving an exclusion if you have your contribution automatically made in conjunction with your paycheck. The money comes out before the taxes do, resulting in a reduction of your taxable income. With a traditional IRA, you can still get a tax deduction without requiring access to an employer plan. However, your tax break may be limited if you also participate in an employer plan. For self-employed taxpayers, SEP IRA and SIMPLE (Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees) IRA contributions are “above the line” tax deductions. See the other self-employed deductions below. Self-employment expenses As side hustles become ever more popular, it’s no surprise that self-employment expenses are more common. For example, if you pay for your own qualified health insurance, that may count as an “above the line” deduction. Also, you can deduct half of your self-employment tax above-the-line. On top of that, Phillips reminds filers you can deduct business expenses like internet costs, office supplies, advertising, and business travel from your business income. And, for qualifying individuals, you can take the home office deduction. Student loan interestPhillips reminds filers with student loan debt that you can deduct some or all of the interest you paid that year for a qualified student loan. In fact, federal student loan borrowers could qualify to deduct up to $2,500 of student loan interest per tax return per tax year. You can claim the student loan interest tax deduction as an adjustment to income—you don’t need to itemize deductions to claim it. Charitable contributionsYou will need to itemize your deductions if you want to deduct your charitable donations. "Many people find it worth itemizing these deductions," says Phillips, "particularly if you give regularly to a church or other charity." It’s also possible to deduct the current fair market value of goods you donate to charity. Make sure you get a receipt for your donations, whether they are cash or goods. And don’t forget to keep track of your mileage if you drive on behalf of a charity; that’s tax-deductible, too. Your kids—even newborns?You can claim all qualifying children that were born or adopted within the tax year you are filing. Even if your child was born on Dec. 31, your child may be able to be claimed as a dependent on your taxes. However, Phillips clarifies that if your child is born after Dec. 31, even though your pregnancy lasted most of the tax year, you’ll have to wait until you file the next year’s return to claim them. To be your qualifying child, the child must: Be related to you as your child, foster child, sibling, half-sibling, step-sibling, or descendant of any of them; Be under age 19, a full-time student under age 24, or permanently and totally disabled; Not provide more than half of the child’s own total support; and Live with you for more than half of the year they were alive. Not be filing a joint return with a spouse unless it’s to claim a refund of income tax withheld or estimated payments If you are a dependent who’s earning income, good news—your parents can still claim you as a dependent so long as other dependent rules still apply. Your earned income doesn’t go on their return. Filing tax returns for children is easy in that respect. However, you may need to report it on your own tax return. What can't you deduct from your taxes?While you're searching for all the possible deductions out there, you're going to hit a few roadblocks. Commuting costsUnfortunately, commuting costs are not tax deductible. Commuting expenses incurred between your home and your main place of work, no matter how far, are not an allowable deduction. Costs of driving a car from home to work and back, again, are personal commuting expenses. This is also true for fares you pay to ride any sort of public transportation to and from work. Phillips points out, though, that if you are a member of a reserve component of the Armed Forces and travel more than 100 miles away from home in connection with the performance of services as a member of the reserves, you can deduct your qualified travel expenses. Your cat's vet billsUnfortunately, deducting medical expenses for pets is not allowed as a medical expense on your tax return. Phillips says the only exception would be when an animal is a certified service animal, like a guide dog, to assist you. Service animals generally aren’t considered pets, though. If you have a physical disability or are hearing or visually impaired, you can deduct medical expenses for your pets if they are certified service animals. Expenses that may be covered include purchasing, training, and maintenance of the animal which includes food, grooming, and medical care. Remember to keep accurate records and consult with a tax professional if you have any questions or concerns. By taking advantage of these deductions, you can potentially lower your tax liability and keep more of your hard-earned money. View the full article

Technology workers in Kenya have held a vigil for a colleague who died in unclear circumstances after she was unable to travel to her home in Nigeria for two years. Ladi Anzaki Olubunmi, a content moderator for TikTok employed by the subcontractor Teleperformance Kenya, died last week and her decomposing body was discovered in her house after three days. It was unclear what caused her death, but colleagues say she had complained of fatigue and was “desperate to go back home.” Teleperformance Kenya told the Associated Press on Wednesday that they didn’t deny Olubunmi her leave to go home. Her family in Nigeria says she only traveled once since coming to Kenya three years ago. Content moderators working for subcontracted firms based in Kenya have in the past described working conditions that they say include lower than average pay, lack of mental health support, long working hours and intimidation. More than 100 former Facebook content moderators have sued the social media company over what they say is poor pay, horrible working conditions and unfair termination of employment by Facebook’s subcontracted Kenya-based firm, Samasource. Dozens of content moderators and data labelers working for various global tech companies met during Tuesday’s vigil and said that poor working conditions may have contributed to their colleague’s death. “There are more than 100 Nigerians working under Teleperformance company who haven’t had work permits for the last two years and so they have not been able to travel home despite having an annual return ticket benefit,” said Kauna Malgwi, a friend of the deceased. Olubunmi’s family was informed of her death a day after her body was discovered by a neighbor. Teleperformance emailed Olubunmi’s brother notifying him of her death and gave him contacts of Kenyan investigating officers who he could call for information, autopsy and burial arrangements. “The family cannot afford to take her body home, so they are considering asking her church in Nairobi to bury her,” Malgwi said. —Evelyne Musambi, Associated Press View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Here are four updates from past letter-writers. 1. An employee is out to get my star performer, and no one else cares (first update) I thought it could be good for the folks who were predicting catastrophe with Dave to hear what actually happened. Sometimes situations aren’t ideal but that doesn’t mean doom either. I respected Tina’s wishes and did not go to HR. Given some of the vehement responses, I did extra legwork with Maria and HR contacts at previous companies in the same industry before making my final decision. Quoting one HR professional when I asked about noting it in Dave’s record in case there is a pattern: “That is not a thing. We aren’t school admins keeping a permanent record in that way. We handle illegal behavior, or actionable behaviors against internal policies. […] That’s it!” Given that Maria and every professional I talked to agreed HR would not do anything with this information and Tina did not want it shared, I did not reach out to HR. I know some folks will probably still disagree, but I’m comfortable I did my due diligence. Dave is still here and has been a model employee. I had no authority to fire Dave and agree he should have been! Jen is improving all the time. I think today’s Jen would have fired Dave. Small consolation but I try to see the silver linings. I’m still cautious, but hopeful we can continue to work well together in the coming years. My team has grown and is doing well. There have been no issues with Dave or anyone else but I also make sure to ask if they are having any issues with staff in our one-on-ones. I’m also getting an award for an idea Tina gave me before this all went down. I offered to have her receive the award instead, but she understandably wanted nothing to do with this department. Tina is doing amazing! This year she got a max raise, max bonus, 5/5, and got a special bonus as well. Her manager is getting a prestigious global leadership award for the problem Tina solved as well. Sadly for the company but happily for Tina, she left and moved across the country to live closer to family. She was able to leverage her new salary and recent accomplishments to land a similar high level role at her new company. She seems excited about transitioning to that industry and I’ve let her know I’m happy to be a reference whenever she needs me. In the end, all the nasty stuff that Dave, Jen, and Sally pulled launched Tina into a higher paying career track. I’m grateful to have worked with her and hope for nothing but the best for her. She deserves to work at a good place with better people than our company offered her. 2. Returning to an office where an estranged friend works (#3 at the link) I wrote in last fall regarding my return to an office where a former friend, Ashley, with whom I had had a falling out, still worked. You suggested doing nothing and remaining pleasant and professional. I did follow that advice, although I’m not sure any course of action I took or didn’t take would have changed much. Unfortunately, it started off on the wrong foot from the very first day. I came into the office and started walking down the hallway. Ashley was walking down the hallway from the other end, towards me. She saw me, stopped, turned around, and walked back the way she came. Later that same day, we passed each other in the hall and she didn’t acknowledge me in any way. She just passed me by like she didn’t know me. I can’t really say that our interactions have been bad because there haven’t been any. We are in the office once per week and she ignores me. We have a Teams group chat and she never reacts to anything I say. I had hoped that things might change in the new year. But I was recently asked to give a presentation during an in-person meeting about my experience overseas. The meeting agenda was distributed in advance. She came to the meeting. When it was my turn to present, she left. So I’ve given up any chance of reviving the friendship. We are moving to two days per week in office in March and three days per week in September. Not sure what impact that will have. As for Stephanie, everything is good there. We talk every day and it’s like I never left. Thank you for giving me a chance to put some of my thoughts and feelings on paper and be heard. Even though this situation is my fault, it’s still incredibly frustrating. 3. Invited to be a guest speaker and then blown off (#4 at the link) I did somewhat take your advice (in combination with some advice from a friend of mine)! I ended up emailing that professor the next day to very politely share my feelings. I know you said I didn’t owe him anything, but I’m the kind of person that needs to speak up when I’ve been impacted by someone else. I basically told him that I was disappointed when the tech issue arose and no time was taken to try to resolve it as I had spent time preparing the dialogue and stepped away from work to be present (this event was in the middle of the workday). I informed him that alum do not have access to authorized school Zoom accounts and that it would be helpful to test out meeting connections to avoid this happening to guest speakers in the future. The prof was very apologetic in his response and explained that he hadn’t anticipated alum having trouble accessing the meeting. I got the impression he thought the tech issue was on my end and didn’t think my absence was a big deal until I had said something. He offered to have me speak at his next scheduled class, but I kindly declined. I knew that he had initially only scheduled one class for speakers and that he was accommodating me with a second class to make up for the inconvenience. I didn’t feel right taking away from the students’ regular scheduled content and thought it would be weird for me to show up as the only speaker for that second day. At that point, I had also lost the excitement I initially had about being a speaker. The email chain ended on a positive note and I said we could keep in touch, but I do think it has impacted my opinion of this professor a little bit. 4. HR hasn’t kept up with local employment regulations (#4 at the link) Thanks so much for answering my question! I read the comments with a great deal of interest — there were widely varying perspectives, and I was surprised to find some folks more concerned about making HR look bad (not my intention — they manage to do that all by themselves) than making sure my coworkers know about the new benefit to which they’re now legally entitled. An update: Once the employment policies intranet page had been updated by HR in early February, I did share the information with all of my New York colleagues and all of the early-career staff in my department (which is spread across the U.S.) via two Teams messages/posts. My intent in sharing it beyond the New York office is to see whether we can collectively encourage the company to match the benefit in all the locations where it operates. I kept an excited “how cool is this new benefit” tone throughout those Teams messages/posts. As some commenters rightly surmised, it’s very difficult to know that there are updates to our online employment policies page, since they’re neither announced nor tracked. I’m glad to know my instincts were closely aligned with your advice. View the full article

D-Wave is about to make waves. The quantum computing firm announced on Wednesday that, for the first time, it was able to “successfully simulate the properties of magnetic materials” using its Advantage2 annealing quantum computer, which “allows us to invent and evaluate new materials without needing to build them in the lab,” D-Wave CEO Dr. Alan Baratz tells Fast Company. In effect, this means that D-Wave has achieved “quantum supremacy” on a useful problem, something it says nobody else has yet been able to accomplish, and which is detailed in a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Science. “This is a really important moment in time for the entire quantum computing industry,” says Dr. Baratz. “For the first time ever, we’ve demonstrated a quantum computer being able to solve a difficult, real-world problem that classical computers can’t solve. It’s what everybody aspired to achieve, and we’re quite excited about it.” ’25 years of hardware development’ Quantum computing has largely remained theoretical until recently, but D-Wave’s achievement is a notable breakthrough as it’s demonstrated that its quantum computer can, in fact, outperform classical computers in materials simulations. To simulate the property of magnetic materials on a classical computer—as the D-Wave team recently did using its quantum computer—would require nearly one million years, and more energy than the entire world utilizes over the course of a year. D-Wave’s team did it in 20 minutes. But there was a lot of work that went into it. “These are results that could not be done in a couple of months or years,” says Mohammad Amin, chief scientist at D-Wave. He added, the results “are really the results of 25 years of hardware development,” and this specific achievement “also took two years of collaboration among 11 institutions worldwide.” What this means going forward Dr. Seth Lloyd, professor of quantum mechanical engineering at MIT, said in a statement with D-Wave’s announcement that large-scale, “fully error corrected” quantum computers are still years away. But quantum annealers, a type of quantum computer designed to efficiently solve optimization problems, are useful in the here and now. “The D-Wave result shows the promise of quantum annealers for exploring exotic quantum effects in a wide variety of systems,” Lloyd said. According to D-Wave, scientists could use quantum computing to test out and simulate new materials—specifically, those used in all sorts of technologies from pacemakers to cellphones. Many of these materials need to be synthesized in a lab, which takes considerable amounts of time and money. But the ability to simulate the materials before they’re actually created? That can allow for significant resource savings, and potentially speed up technology development and make numerous products more efficient. “There’s no shortage of potential applications,” says Amin. View the full article

Backups are always a smart move. If your data is only stored in one location, it's not safe, as it only takes one device failure to lose all that information for good. While there are plenty of ways to back up your data, companies like Google make it easy with built-in cloud backups. Once you set it up, all of the photos and videos you take are synced to the cloud, so you never need to worry about losing everything if your phone goes belly-up. While cloud backups are convenient, they're far from the only option you have, as you could routinely save copies of your photos and videos to an external drive. If you move platforms—say, from Android to iPhone—and you'd prefer to use Apple's services over Google's, it doesn't make much sense to keep all that data on Google's servers, either. Speaking of which: Perhaps you simply don't want to trust Google with all of the media you've taken over the years, and would like to take back the data you've already shared. The trouble is, it's been difficult to decouple photos and videos from a Google Photos backup without also deleting those items from the device you're using as well—defeating the purpose entirely. The "best" workaround has been to use a separate device or browser than the one you're using, which is more of a pain than it should be. That's what Google's "Undo device backup" feature is all about. The company first announced it back in December, as a way for users to remove any photos and videos from the cloud, if those photos and videos are already on the device in question. The feature has been available on iOS first (perhaps as a solution for iPhone users who inadvertently uploaded their media to Google Photos), but Google is now rolling out the feature to Android users too. Now, no matter which platform you use Google Photos on, you can undo your backup while keeping all your photos and videos safe. How to undo your Google Photos backupIf you want to delete your photos and videos from a Google Photos backup without deleting those photos and videos locally from your device, here's how: First, open Google Photos on your iPhone or Android. Next, tap your profile picture or initial, then head to Photos settings > Backup. Scroll down, then choose Undo backup for this device. Here, tap the box next to “I understand my photos and videos from this device will be deleted from Google Photos,” then tap Delete Google Photos backup. Google says that once you make this decision, Backup will automatically turn off for the device you're using. As such, make sure you have a plan for how to back up those items going forward. Let's say you have a Pixel phone, and you choose to undo your backup: Now, those photos and videos only exist on this Pixel. If you break your phone, or it simply spontaneously dies (which does happen), you'll lose those memories forever. View the full article

The ACT SmartWi-Fi service was rolled out to 250,000 homes in January. The post ACT Fibernet reports 3x Wi-Fi device speed improvement following Aprecomm AI platform deployment appeared first on Wi-Fi NOW Global. View the full article

Some of the fixes are simple. By CPA Trendlines Research Go PRO for members-only access to more CPA Trendlines Research. View the full article

Some of the fixes are simple. By CPA Trendlines Research Go PRO for members-only access to more CPA Trendlines Research. View the full article

Your clients will be happier ... and so will your staff. By Jody Padar Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA Go PRO for members-only access to more Jody Padar. View the full article

Your clients will be happier ... and so will your staff. By Jody Padar Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA Go PRO for members-only access to more Jody Padar. View the full article

Don’t take them for granted. By Ed Mendlowitz Tax Season Opportunity Guide We have many resources and need to recognize that. And we need to treat each with its own importance. Even if you did everything yourself, you’d still need … Continued Go PRO for members-only access to more Edward Mendlowitz. View the full article

Don’t take them for granted. By Ed Mendlowitz Tax Season Opportunity Guide We have many resources and need to recognize that. And we need to treat each with its own importance. Even if you did everything yourself, you’d still need … Continued Go PRO for members-only access to more Edward Mendlowitz. View the full article

Featuring Danielle Guizio, Owner and Designer, Guizio; Kat Hantas, Cofounder, 21Seeds Infused Tequila and Stacey Tank, CEO, Bespoke Beauty Brands (owner of KimChi Chic Beauty and Jason Wu Beauty). Moderated by Yasmin Gagne, Staff Editor, Fast Company What separates companies that scale from those that stall? These founders and CEOs may have the answer. In this panel, you’ll gain insight into the strategies, decisions, and challenges behind building high-growth businesses, from knowing when an acquisition or retail expansion is the right move to capitalizing on buzzy products. View the full article

Google’s AI-powered match type Search Max is rolling out to more accounts, bringing automated ad optimization to Search campaigns. How it works: Expanded search term matching. Google extends beyond existing keywords and match types, using landing pages, headlines, and descriptions to surface new, relevant searches. Text & URL optimization. Google dynamically selects the most relevant landing pages and pairs them with optimized headlines and descriptions. Automatically created assets. Search Max now incorporates AI-generated ad components, further streamlining ad creation. Why we care. Search Max aims to increase conversions by dynamically tailoring ads based on user searches, ad assets, and landing pages – going beyond traditional keyword targeting. By expanding search term matching beyond traditional keywords, dynamically optimizing ad components, and leveraging AI-generated assets, it could help reach new audiences with minimal manual effort. However, with greater automation comes less control, meaning advertisers will need to closely monitor performance and adapt strategies as Google continues refining the feature. First seen. We discovered this update via PPC News Feed, citing search marketing consultant Jerome Fleck: View the full article

This is a sweeping generalisation, but it’s a useful one. You probably deserve a promotion, but on its own, that’s rarely enough to actually get you promoted. There are forces working against you: the cold, hard unit economics of your…Read more ›View the full article

Study reveals top AI models for text, image, and video generation, highlighting adoption trends and emerging industry leaders. The post AI Model Showdown: Top Choices For Text, Image, & Video Generation appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

When Apple's AirTags first launched, I thought that the devices would prove to be useless once the novelty wore off, but after using them for about a year, my assumption has proved to be wrong. AirTags have quite a few useful hidden features that make the product worth checking out even if you're someone who doesn't lose things often. Here are the best hidden features of your Apple AirTags. Rename your AirTagsIt sounds obvious, but you really should rename your AirTags to make it easy to identify each item they're attached to. Instead of having them named "Pranay's AirTags #1," you can change it to something like "Pranay's Blue Backpack." To do this, go to the Find My app on your iPhone and navigate to Items > AirTag > Rename Item. Once you've chosen names that are specific and easy to pronounce, you can try the next tip. Use Siri to locate your AirTagsWhen you're looking for a lost item with an Airtag on it, the fastest way to find it is via Siri. You can ask Siri to locate the item by using a voice command like, "Hey Siri, find Pranay's Luggage." Just use whatever name you've given the AirTag and Siri will quickly locate the item and you'll hear a sound that will allow you to find it quickly. This is much faster than going to the Find My app on your iPhone and tapping through to Items > AirTags > Play Sound. Share your AirTag's location with a loved oneIf you trust your loved ones to keep an eye out for you, then consider sharing your AirTag's location with them. This can be useful for those who work night shifts or have long drives to work, as it allows loved ones to know where they are in case there's an emergency. As long as the AirTag is in your car or attached to an item you always carry (house keys, your phone, etc.), this feature will work just fine. Enable it by opening the Find My app on your iPhone and going to Items > AirTags > Share AirTag > Add Person. Put your AirTags in Lost ModeYour AirTags have two useful features that let others locate your lost items. One allows you to share contact information with anyone who finds your lost AirTag, and the other lets you share your AirTag's location with trusted people such as airline employees who are trying to locate your luggage. You can set both of these up by going to the Find My app on your iPhone and navigating to Items > AirTag > Lost AirTag. Tap Show Contact Info or Share Item Location and follow the on-screen instructions to set up these features. You can find the owner of lost AirTagsIn case you come across someone else's AirTags, you can use your iPhone to try to identify their owner and contact them. If someone has added their contact information to their AirTags, as described in the previous tip, you can locate it quickly via the Find My app on your iPhone. Go to the Items tab and select Identify Found Item. Follow the on-screen prompts to identify the lost AirTag and hopefully reunite it with its owner. Turn off left behind notifications for your homeIf your home is marked incorrectly in your AirTags, you'll get annoying "This item is left behind" alerts every time you step out. I ordered my AirTags right before a month-long stay at a friend's place, and their house was automatically marked as my "home." When I returned to my own house, three of my four AirTags would keep scaring me by telling me that I left behind my suitcase or other items. You can fix this by going to Find My > Items > AirTags > Notify When Left Behind. Tap New Location and mark your home as an exception. This should take care of unwanted alerts. Check your AirTag's battery levelYour AirTag's battery should last for a year, but there's no way to determine the current battery level. If the battery is really low, your iPhone will send you a notification. You can also see the AirTag in the Find My app, which will show a battery low indicator if your AirTag needs a new battery. Find your AirTag easilyThis is the most popular use for AirTags. Go to the Find My app and open the Items tab. Tap the name of your AirTag and select Find. The iPhone will take a few moments and direct you towards your AirTag. Look up an AirTag's serial numberYou can also view the serial number and the firmware version of your AirTag in your iPhone's Find My app. To do that, go to the Items tab in the app, select your AirTag, and tap the name of the AirTag. You'll now see its serial number and firmware version. This information can be useful if your AirTags are in warranty and to see if the latest software features are available for them. Creative uses for AirTagsWhile you'd think AirTags would be best for tracking luggage, keys, or other items that you might lose more often than most, there's much more that you can use AirTags for. My personal favorite is tracking pets. If you have a cat that often goes outdoors, putting an AirTag on their harness could save you a lot of trouble if the pet ever goes missing. Similarly, people on Reddit have highlighted many creative uses of the product. This includes training your dog to return to you when you play a sound on an AirTag attached to their collar, using it to track people who have dementia (and often get lost as a result), and even tracking a child's backpack. You should never use AirTags to stalk people, but the product can help you keep an eye on loved ones who can't protect themselves. View the full article

Resources are limited, but your ability to manage them to fulfill the needs of your project isn’t. One of the many challenges that face project managers is how to guide their project to a successful end without enough resources. The good news: there are ways you can take the resources you have and make them work in your project. The better news: we’ll tell you how to overcome a perceived lack of resources. Project Management Challenges: Lack of Project Resources The first thing to do when you notice your resources aren’t covering what you planned for in your project is to identify the context. Resources can be anything from materials to personnel, and the situation that brought you to stretch your resources to the breaking point can have many causes. New Technology: You might be working on a software program that is more advanced than your ability to support or your team hasn’t yet developed the skill set to use it properly. Higher Priority Projects: There might be another project that ends up combined with yours and some of your resources are pulled from your work to another. Unforeseen Events: You can prepare for risks and plan for uncertainty, but people get sick, take unplanned time off, and non-human resources can suddenly have supply issues. Poor Planning: Sometimes it’s as simple as a lack of planning, which is why planning thoroughly before executing a project is so important. When the issue is minor, you can apply a quick fix by looking at your project plan and task lists and seeing if there is any moving around that will open more time. But here we’re talking about more major shortages of resources. Related: Best Resource Management Software Assessing Your Resource Shortage What do you do to overcome a lack of project resources? We suggest a two-step process to help your resource management. 1. Identify the Situation and its Impact Some of the possible causes for the lack of resources. Once you’ve determined why then the next part is to figure out what the impact on the project is. Without that knowledge, it’s impossible to resolve the issue. 2. Leverage Your Change Control Board While it might seem like this is a problem you alone should address, it’s not. You want to employ the help of the change control board. First, relay the situation and the impact to your cost, time, scope and quality. Then provide several options you have to resolve it, and listen to their recommendations. After a course of action has been decided upon, help facilitate that decision, and over the course of resolving it adjust as needed. Even with the help of the change control board, you might not be able to adjust to meet the need for more resources. At that point, it’s their decision to allocate more resources and allow you to re-baseline the project. Resource Management Techniques to Combat a Lack of Resources One way to keep an eye on project resources when they are scarce is through effective resource management. There are several techniques to optimize resource allocation, utilization and tracking. Capacity Planning to Meet Changing Demands This is the process of determining the production capacity that an organization needs to meet changing demands for its products or services. It analyzes current and future workloads, assessing available resources and identifying any imbalances. It takes a proactive approach to resource management to ensure an organization can meet its obligations. Capacity planning is ideal to use when there’s a significant fluctuation in demand or when a company is introducing new products or services. It’s also commonly used during seasonal variations or when planning for long-term strategic goals. Resource Smoothing for Efficient Resource Usage Resource smoothing aims to optimize resource utilization within a project without changing the project’s critical path or overall completion date. It strives to create a more consistent and efficient workflow by evenly distributing resource demand over the project’s duration. It does this by adjusting the start and finish dates of non-critical tasks to level out resource demand. Use this resource management technique when resources are limited or there are significant fluctuations in resource demand. This is also an ideal way to reduce stress on the project team. Workload Reallocation to Keep Resources Balanced This is a way to manage project resources by redistributing tasks and responsibilities to team members to optimize resource utilization and balance workloads. Tasks are shifted from overworked individuals to those with the available capacity or relevant skills. This is the ideal technique to use when team members are experiencing uneven workloads or when facing resource constraints or skill imbalances. The result is increased productivity and a reduced risk of project delays. Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS) to Identify Resource Relationships The resource breakdown structure is a resource management technique that provides a hierarchical overview of the resources that will be needed in a project. The resources are organized by category to make it easy to spot inefficiencies. This can help prevent a lack of resources in the first place. Use this technique in situations where detailed resource planning, allocation and tracking are critical to project success. Large, complex projects often benefit from using an RBS in addition to projects where resources are limited. Resource Leveling to Address Overallocation The purpose of resource leveling is to prevent situations where resources are overbooked or unavailable. It’s a project resource technique that helps resolve overallocation or underallocation to create a smoother and more balanced distribution of resource demand over the project’s duration. This is ideal to use when resources are limited or if there are significant fluctuations in resource demand. It’s also used when cost control is a primary concern. Monitoring Project Resources When There Are Constraints In order to avoid a resource shortage, it’s essential that you monitor your project resources throughout the project. There are several ways to do this in your project management or resource tracking software. You can: Track resource availability Manage workload allocation to track hour-by-hour availability View project schedules to monitor task progress Monitor resource productivity on your project dashboards. You’ll be better off if your project management software has all these resource monitoring capabilities. That way, you’re not burdened by data transfers between two systems, and you can track availability and performance in real time. ProjectManager, for instance, has real-time dashboards that show you exactly how your resources are performing at a high level. Plus, you can track other key metrics at the same time. Want to dig deeper? Create one-click workload reports or check our workload chart. No project management software does more for resource management than ProjectManager. Try it free today. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Dashboard_Construction_Wide_Zoom-150-CTA.jpgTrack your resources, tasks, costs and more in real time with ProjectManager. Learn more Make a Good Resource Plan The best way to reduce the risk of not having enough resources to finish the project is by making sure your resource planning is as thorough as possible. To start, you want to thoroughly list the resources you’ll need, estimate how many of each you’ll need and schedule them to meet your deadline. That means all the people, equipment and materials that are necessary to complete the project. Related:Resource Planning Template Following that list is a schedule. This is the timeframe in which the resources are needed to get the project done. You’ll want to figure out the duration you’ll need each of your resources to understand their impact on the schedule. Your need for a particular resource can change dramatically from day to day; therefore, you want to address the quantity issue. For example, how many times a day or week or month do you need that resource? This will help you squeeze every bit of use out of those limited resources. Finally, you need to identify the assumptions and constraints related to your resources. An assumption if what you believe to be true, and constraints are the schedule, cost and cost of the project. A strong resource management plan won’t change the amount of your resources, but it will extend their use to fulfill the requirements of the project. How ProjectManager Helps with Resource Management Having a resource management plan is important, but so is having a project management software that has all the features you’ll need to implement it. You schedule is only as good as your ability to track it. ProjectManager is cloud-based project management software that gives you the real-time data to accurately track the progress of your project and resource use. For the resource of your team, you can track their hourly and daily availability. Holidays and vacation days are also noted, whether they’re local or international, which is a great feature for projects with distributed teams. You can use our resource management tool to monitor and manage your team’s workload as well. This way if one of your team is overtasked and others are not working, you can quickly adjust the workload. This not only is fair and prevents burnout, but it is a more efficient and effective way to manage your resources. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Workload_Wide_Zoom-175.jpgProjectManager’s resource management tool makes resource tracking simple Learn more Learn More About Overcoming a Lack of Project Resources You can never know enough about managing your resources. Good project managers don’t allow themselves to fall into complacency. Watch Jennifer Bridges, PMP, who taps her expertise in project management to guide you through a short training video that helps you extend your resources and meet project expectations. Here’s a shot of the whiteboard for your reference! Transcription: Welcome to the PM Challenges Series. Today, we’re specifically talking about overcoming a lack of project resources. But first of all, some people ask, or they wonder how did I even get here? What situation am I in that I am even have a lack of resources? Well, I think it’s really important to identify the situation you’re in, because there are different reasons of how you got there, and approaches of how you overcome it based on the situation. So first of all, let’s consider that with new, specifically, emerging technologies, sometimes it’s hard to find resources who know how to program, or support that technology. So sometimes it’s hard to find them, and even if you do, they come at a premium cost. Another situation could be that in your organization, a higher priority project comes on board, and then all of a sudden, some of your key resources are pulled off the project. Also, unforeseen events. So sometimes, we think of maybe natural disasters. Sometimes people have projects where maybe they have union labor, so if there’s a strike that may impact the resources. Also, I know one instance that I had once, there was a guy on my team who was an organ donor for his sister. So they had been waiting years for this to happen, and then all of a sudden in the middle and critical moment of a project, he was called up for the donor process. So he was pulled out for significant amount of time, so we had to fill his position. And then also, there’s just the flat out poor for lack of planning. So when these situations happen, of course, there’s an impact to the project. So you know, projects are, the components of the project are the cost, the time, the scope, and the quality. So you have to assess how this situation impacts your project. So let’s look at a few ways that you can overcome these situations. So first of all, if it’s a minor lack of resources, you can look at your project plan, and your task and see is there someone maybe who has some slight time that maybe could fill in for another? Or maybe, you know, there’s something that you can rearrange that’s minor. But these, I believe, are more specific lack of resources that we’re talking about here on this whiteboard session. So first of all, identify the situation you’re in, and the impact. And then, leverage your change control board. Sometimes, some project managers try to fix this problem on their own, and it’s really the decision of the change control board of how to handle. So how do we do this? You present your case. So once you find this situation and the impact, you wanna specifically identify the situation and how it impacts your cost, the time, the scope, and the quality of your project. And then identify our position several options for the change control board to consider. And then make your own recommendation, doesn’t mean that they have to take it, but it does let them know that you’ve done your homework, and your research of the situation so that you can give them an idea of which path that you recommend. And then facilitate the decision with the change control board. And when they get guidance, they may have you, for instance if it’s an emerging technology, they may have you go procure or find additional resources for the team that may add more cost so they can approve it. If not , they may decide, “Well, you know, we’re having a hard time finding those resources,” so they will be the ones to maybe approve an extension or delay in your timeline. Or maybe they may decide, well, they may take out some of the scope of the project. So they are the ones who can ultimately make those decisions and give you the approvals so that you can re-baseline your project. And then, so you go back, and once the decision has been made, you adjust accordingly. So for sure, if you need a tool that can help you overcome your lack of resources, then sign up for our software now at ProjectManager. The post Overcoming a Lack of Project Resources: Techniques and Tips appeared first on ProjectManager. View the full article