Project management and other news from your pals at Journyx
{ Monthly Archives }
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With hot topics like globalization and cross-cultural opportunities in the Asia Pacific rim, one might think it would be easy to research the implications of cross cultural issues. Rather, what the writer found was a significant discussion all around the periphery but little in-depth analysis. Discussion prevailed on the socio-economic and technological ramifications. Others resources focused on the language issues but little work was intuitively available on the subtleties of cross cultural issues one may encounter.
Think globally at:
http://journyx.com/rss/redir/globalccpm.html
Journyx CEO Curt Finch recently published an article in The Project Times entitled “How to Increase Profitability with Project Accounting.” This piece addresses how changes in the type of work most people do affect understanding of project costs. Here’s an excerpt:
The era of manufacturing and farming is giving way to one of knowledge work. This is old news to many of us but, in our lifetime, the changes that the developed world is undergoing will be visited on the vast majority of humanity. Nearly everyone will be some sort of knowledge worker.
By knowledge worker, I mean anyone who primarily works with information as opposed to people who actually alter things in the physical world. A person who assembles cars is not a knowledge worker. A person who sits on a chair and programs a robot to assemble cars is a knowledge worker. Most people in the developed world these days sit in front of a computer all day. They are knowledge workers.
You can read the entire article at the Journyx website.
View our very own visionary’s vision for yourself at:
http://journyx.com/rss/pdf/press/PTimes-FinchPA.pdf
The key to a successful project is in the planning. Creating a project plan is the first thing you should do when undertaking any kind of project.
Often project planning is ignored in favour of getting on with the work. However, many people fail to realise the value of a project plan in saving time, money and many problems.
This article looks at a simple practical approach to project planning. On completion of this guide you should have a sound project planning approach that you can use for future projects.
Get in step at:
http://journyx.com/rss/redir/projsmart-stepguide.html
It’s back to school time, plus or minus a few days depending on where you are, and that means back to school sales everywhere you look. We won’t lie, we’re jealous of all those places that get to mark down their clothes and pencils and protractors and stuff. We’re even more jealous of the kids who get to load up with shiny new supplies and head back to class. See, we were the geeks who liked it when the time came to hit the books. So in honor of the glorious return of school days, we’re having a sale, too.
From now until the end of September, Journyx is offering a 15% discount on user seat purchases. All you have to do is get in touch with your sales rep and let them know you’re here for the discount by telling them the name of your high school mascot. They’ll be sure to apply that discount on your order.
Contact the Journyx Sales Team today at: http://journyx.com/rss/redir/contactsales.html
The Obligatory Fine Print: Discount applies to new business initiated after receipt of this offer. Previous sales agreements, quotes and verbal agreements are not eligible for this offer. Tax, title and license not included. Do not use discount while showering, sleeping or operating heavy machinery.
My company sells employee time tracking software. We have helped companies implement these systems many times where the employees previously were unaccustomed to accounting for their time. At times this generated some intense emotions. Some people really don’t want to track their time.
Why is this?
Reason One: Reporting time can threaten status.
For salaried people, especially if they been employed earlier in their life in an hourly “time clock” environment, reporting time can make them feel demoted. Conventional wisdom (that I disagree with) is that “professional” people are more trustworthy and less in need of supervision than “blue collar” people.
Discover the rest of the reasons at: SmartBiz
Whether you are starting a new job, taking on a new assignment or transferring to a different project, building trust is vital.
This became clear to me recently when I became the project manager on a supply and demand application implementation. Being the “newbie” came with the stresses of unfamiliar team members, new procedures and compliance requirements, preconceived notions and unknown pitfalls. I had joined the team based only on a couple of phone interviews and a vague description of the project. My first and most crucial challenge was to convince both upper management and my direct reports that I was trustworthy.
On this occasion, there already existed a certain level of trust, but that isn’t always the case. Imagine if the first conversation with your new manager began with, “If it had been up to me, we never would have brought you in for this project.” Or if your team lead said, “I was finally going to get to manage a project, but then they brought you in.” It happens.
But even in an adversarial environment, I’ve found that you can help build trust faster by following these 10 practical steps…
Read more at: Computerworld
Over the past 16 years of being paid to make computers and people work together in perfect harmony, I have collected a number of incidents that make me wince and blush in embarrassment when I think of them. The mistakes I’ve made fall roughly into three categories: technical, political, and career management. Here, in no particular order, are my most outstanding screw-ups and the lessons I have, I hope, learned.
#1: Accidentally deleting the VP’s files without having a backup. I don’t even remember how I did this. Not only did I delete the files, but it wasn’t until the format was in process that I realized my mistake. I spent a nervous 30 minutes deciding how to deal with the situation. Should I lie and try to shift the blame? I couldn’t blame any other person, as I was the whole IT department. Should I just return his computer and act dumb? “Well, the files were there when I gave the computer to you.” Nothing I could think up felt right. In the end, I simply walked into his office, handed him his computer,and confessed, “I have screwed up. I deleted all your files and have no means of getting them back. It was completely my fault.” Silence. Then: “Okay. Please be more careful in future.” That was it. That was all he said. I could’ve kissed his feet, my feeling of relief matched only by the feeling of abject stupidity and incompetence.
Lesson learned? BACK UP BACK UP BACK-UP. Never delete, move, modify, upgrade, update, patch, flash, or format without making at least one backup. I have never knowingly lost a file since.
Download the entire article at: TechRepublic
Nowadays, having a solution is viewed as the key to solving a problem. But what happens if we are applying solutions to the wrong problems? How do we always know what the real problem is, especially if it involves murky areas like staff morale, employee conflict or poor communication? For people who pride themselves on fixing things and having the answers, sometimes the best way to identify and solve these problems is to give their solution-providing reflexes a little vacation. This requires patience and the will to resist the pull of our 24/7, deadline-driven world. It is worth the effort though, because the wrong solution can be more costly than taking extra time to find the right one.
I once knew a CIO who was concerned about the communication behavior of his direct reports. They were hard workers, but were reluctant to contribute their thoughts and opinions at meetings and resisted collaborating and sharing ideas with one another when working on teams. They seemed to prefer taking on projects and working with their own staff in isolation. Incidents marked by miscommunication and misunderstandings among his staff were increasing, and he found himself spending more of his time managing the resulting conflicts. This was becoming a problem and beginning to affect his department’s productivity and customer service, not to mention employee morale.
This CIO had made his way professionally by finding answers. He was a fixer, a solution provider who had learned that ignoring a problem was the worst way to solve it. He decided he was going to fix this communication problem. He was going to get his staff some communication training.
No doubt communication training is a solution, but is it the right solution for this CIO’s problem? More significantly, has he even identified the real problem?
In my experience, one of the most effective methods for solving problems requires that we allow ourselves to have no answers—that we defy the urgent pressure to provide a solution and instead make time for questions. The power of questions lies in the ability of the right question to lead you to a new perspective. The process of inquiry calls for leaders to invest more time up front seeking to understand the problem in order to find a solution that delivers better outcomes. It also requires that they abide by the number-one rule of effective problem solving: Never exempt oneself from the problem or the solution.
Here are five steps to finding the right problem and its solution:
Read more at: CIO.com
Nothing is more important to a project’s success than buy-in from key stakeholders, so it’s particularly exasperating when an IT project aimed at saving the company money meets with resistance from IT and business constituents alike.
Savvy IT leaders know how to work through these political bottlenecks. Here’s how two managed to break through organizational inertia to make their projects succeed. Their stories — one from a decade ago and one from today — show that challenges may change, but good leadership is a constant.
Driving Asset Management
To help provide greater visibility into its IT spending, the finance and controller’s office of VW Credit Inc. asked Harry Rabenhorst in January 2005 to determine the total cost of ownership for the company’s hardware and software. VW Credit’s IT department in Libertyville, Ill., is responsible for more than 500 software applications, and Rabenhorst is its financial manager. So to nail down the TCO and make the process repeatable, he and other IT executives decided to create an enterprise software asset management program.
At the time, there wasn’t an organizationwide approach to tracking software assets, and there wasn’t reliable data about software depreciation, says Rabenhorst.
Read more at: Computerworld