Numerous ideologies of project management have been the same since the 1970s. Just like everything from that era, there have been some updates over the ages; however, the rudimentary principles are the same. You may know that deadlines and returns on investment have been a growing problem for quite some time.
If you ask your parents or grandparents, they likely experienced the same issues in their day. Why has nobody resolved the issues in the flawed methods of project management? This may come as a surprise to you, although it is not the project management process to blame. Even if you follow the S.M.A.R.T. methodology, and fully implement Kaizen across your organization, you will miss deadlines and your profitability will suffer.
This ought not to be the case. Your company continues to miss deadlines or leave money on the table without reason. A recent poll study shows 70% of all projects suffer delays due to communication issues. Why is the number so high? People fail to check voicemail in addition to respond to emails in a reasonable amount of time.
There is a simple solution to the problem. Virtual Project Collaboration software through http://www.2tasks.com will not only track all communication as well as documents but also features chat, task management, milestones, calendars, and everything else your company needs to keep your projects moving and on budget. You can even try it out on a single project with ten users free for 90 DAYS! No credit card requirements or annoying spam emails. In addition, all of your project data goes through the latest encryption before delivery to the cloud network.
Deadlines, delays, emails, and weekends seem to slow down projects, sometimes to a grinding halt. These same things leave the project manager feeling they can never take a vacation or even just a day or two away from the office. Without taking time away from tasks it has been proven that we are less productive and make more mistakes. Society seems to pride itself on the ability to work endless hours for the company, though it hurts the firm .
I fall trap to the same mindset as most workers in this high-tech world at times. Last week, I decided to change things up and go on a vacation with my wife without my laptop. We strolled the streets of Orlando, playing putt-putt at Citywalk. Then drove up to Savannah, GA for a few days. I was able to relax and unwind without having to worry about work for an entire week.
Notice I did not mention that I did not work during the week. I managed all the projects I started before the trip from my iPad and iPhone. I spent a few minutes here and there updating project statuses for customers and directing my developers through our online collaboration software. This gave me the freedom of enjoying my vacation while still keeping in the loop on all tasks with my global team.
I have found that quality of life does not have to diminish just because you are running a team or an entire organization. In a way, it is almost like having a superpower, you can complete more than anyone else in other organizations with half of the effort. How many entrepreneurs do you know that take a week off after just three months of opening the doors? I was not even able to get that kind of time away from the office after two years with the last company I worked.
Isn’t it time you take a break from the desk and start enjoying life with your family and friends?
A decrease in productivity within an organization is not only troubling for a profitable company, but can destroy your firm’s reputation. There are many factors that can lead to poor productivity from employees, such as a lack of leadership, poor communication, or the office environment.
It is no secret that unhappy employees do not do well and often share their negative opinions with their co-workers. If one suspects the morale within an organization is responsible for the lack of productivity, it is important to discover why the employees are unhappy. Long hours, unrealistic expectations, insufficient training, management issues, low pay, lack of recognition and poor working conditions can lead to serious performance problems. Involving employees in the solution (no placing the full burden on them to resolve the problem) can help reduce the issues and make sure you have developed a workable plan to increase morale and productivity.
Productivity is impossible, when you are completely uncomfortable. Talk to your employees and see if their chairs are comfortable. Are the desks at the correct height? Many offices use office furniture that all looks the same. This is great for looks, but the guy that is six-foot five is not as productive in the same desk and chair as the five foot woman next to him. Perhaps the answer is to look at providing virtual hours for employees as well. If the employee is capable of working remote, they are likely to have a setup that is comfortable for them already without any significant investment on your behalf. It has also been proven that workers who work from home 20% of the time are more productive than those who must spend 100% of the time in the office.
Employees comfort level with equipment and software can also affect productivity. If employees don’t fully understand how to use equipment or software correctly, their productivity is going to suffer. A major problem companies face is forcing employees to use equipment and software that is not enough to complete the tasks you assign. A yearly audit must be done on all equipment and software to make sure it still fits the needs of the employees.
Management is a contributing factor to low productivity. The National Business Research Institute notes productivity suffers when managers don’t keep promises, give credit or blame others for their mistakes. Managers who are too controlling can unwittingly slow down work flow by requiring even the simplest task to have manager approval. A hands-off management style also leads to problems. When managers are not readily available or unavailable, employees have no one to turn to for direction or guidance. Managers also set the tone for the department. Managers who adopt a positive attitude help foster the same attitude in their employees.
Starting a company takes time and patience, at times, I feel I have little of either. I have joined a small group of leaders here in the Dayton area to build the region as a place for small businesses to thrive. We are offering mentoring and assisting one another to grow as leaders and business partners.
It is easy to take advantage of our own fortunate situations in life, forgetting those who are struggeling to put food on the table. We cannot help those who are not willing to help themselves, however, if one is willing to put forth the effort, we are puting in the extra effort to make them successful in whatever they attempt.
I encourage anyone in the area to stop by Eclipse on Wilmington Pike, Wednesday mornings at 7 am. We drink coffee, share stories, and offer a hand up in the world. Finding the right connections to take your idea or business to the next level is a goal of every member in our group. We are not just a tech group, nor do we focus on any industry. Members are artists, motivational speakers, HVAC owners, Tech Start-up owners, managers, and we even have our very own pastor!
I have not always been the positive role model for future generations, however, this group has proven to me that the best way to grow as a person and a business owner is to share my time and knowledge with others. In the last couple weeks, I have found a new market to target for my software, which I had completely overlooked. I don’t want anyone else to miss out on this opportunity. It is free to attend, there is no long term commitment, we are not selling anything. Just sharing knowledge and ideas to help everyone in the group grow as leaders.
Please consider joining us for a morning session. If it is not your cup of tea, at least you will have a few more people cheering you on with your future endeavors (which never hurts). Who knows, it could be the missing link you have overlooked to take your company and life to the next level.
I had no clue that 15 was the golden number. I will need to make some adjustments… Thanks for the help!
You’d have thought I’d know this already, but I didn’t … doh !
I was doing some research into the most popular tags used. I found a WordPress support page that states that your posts will not go into the reader if they have more than 15 keywords (tags + categories). I’d been working on the assumption that more was better … appears not …
Check this out – http://en.support.wordpress.com/topics/
I’ve also realised that it’s largely pointless to put a post in category called “photography” and tag it with “photography”. One or the other. The reason for this is that the reader uses both tags and categories. Having said this you might still want to tag it as “photo”, “photos” and “photograph” for maximum exposure in the reader. As far as I can make out these are all considered to be different in the reader.
Other useful advice that I…
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As days pass, less and less people are working from laptops and desktop computers. Nearly 50% of my traffic is from cell phones and tablets. This was different from what I expected. I was sure there would be mobile users but I did not anticipate half of all of my traffic to be mobile.
I am rethinking some design decisions that were made in the initial development. Hover buttons that are invisible, until hovered over are quite worthless in the mobile world. I have already addressed those glaring over sites in the development. Now I am beginning to focus on speed for mobile users. 2tasks is already faster than the competition in this area, however, there is still room for improvement.
I have also been in touch with an app owner that I am looking to partner with to add IOS to the mobile project management offering from 2tasks. There will be new landing pages with easier “call to action” coming this week. This blog may find a new home soon as well to improve the SEO on my domain instead of the generic WordPress domain.
It is a busy time of year, follow this blog for all of the latest happenings. Keep the suggestions for 2tasks coming. I have added over 200 hours of development from suggestions on this blog alone! I truly have the greatest followers on the net.
Communication can take form in many ways, when it comes to project management. One can share documents and distribute them in global teams. Send Emails in a moments notice, while on the phone with a client. Text messages, tweets and Facebook posts are all becoming a daily chore for workers, not just those in the media any longer. Fast collaboration, which leads to lazy communication.
How does a team keep these forms of communication from taking on a life of their own and wasting more time, than keeping a project moving? The answer is to keep the focus of the group in a single system that offers all the advantages of the aforementioned solutions. Some of the options listed above are poor choices for business communication. Texting is a useful tool for a quick reminder, however, some users try to use it as a communication tool to give instruction to a teammate. This is a bad practice and typically leads to confusion and more wasted time in lengthy exchanges. Tweets and Facebook are great to tell the public of an event, or general advertising but also are not necessarily beneficial to teamwork and lead to wasted time pulling attention from work activities toward the social and family life of the users.
With 2tasks.com a user can share documents with teammates and customers, they are notified by email of a new document on a given project. They can edit the document, or comment on the upload as well. With this communication tied to the specific document within the project, there is no trying to figure out what the communication is relating to. The chat sessions are an easy option for members of a team to quickly communicate while the focus is solely on a given project. They are not distracted by outside forces like a sms message to their phone, where you are competing for the teammates attention with their high score in Angry Birds.
With a free 60 day trial, you can try out this new technology that is changing the way businesses get things done. Just create an account in 30 seconds, and start your new project in two minutes with up to 10 team members. Start your free trial today!
Free Virtual Project Collaboration Software
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