Have you ever started a new project without having a plan in place? What was the outcome of doing this? Was is troublesome trying to figure out the project path you were going to take without a clue of how it was going to end? Then let me share a few tips on starting a project right so that you can ensure it ends correctly.
Some of the things that you should dow when starting a project are:

Determine the goals that you want to accomplish by the end of the project.
Determine the timeline; whether the project will have an end date …read more

Have you ever felt like someone looking for Waldo/Wally when it comes to your business plan? Has your business plan been missing or you just couldn’t figure out how to organize your business just like it is when someone is trying to figure out “Where’s Waldo/Wally“?
Just to explain for those who don’t know about “Where’s Waldo/Wally”, it is a book that has pages of different images which contain tiny people doing various things. The whole object is to find Waldo/Wally amoung all of the tiny people in the image. The image to the right is a sample of what a …read more

Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Elizabeth Harrin who is a Project Manager and the author of “Project Management in the Real World“. Applying project management to a business is something that could help a business streamline their processes as well as bring organization to their business.
During the interview, she shared valueable information to help Project Manager or business owners understand the basics of project management and how to apply it in every day situation.
Below is the feedback from Elizabeth while I interview her via Twitter.
Question 1: Please introduce yourself to my followers.

Question 2: What are the key areas of your …read more

Another type of large project team can be termed as a “Foosball” team or a static team. For those who may not know, Foosball is, according to Webster.com, a table game resembling soccer in which the ball is moved by manipulating rods to which small figures of players are attached (also called table soccer). Two to four players can play at a time to win the game.
The thing about that connects a “Foosball” team to a project team is the fact that both can become static. In a sense, not moving or changing it’s strategy. Constantly doing the same thing can …read more

A connected project team allows its members to grow and help each other refine their skills. A disconnected project team could fracture and cause it’s members to lose their focus.
Ensuring that your project team is connected and growing is a very important tasks as a project manager. Being able to identify the key aspects of a connected and growing team can mean the difference between success and failure.
To help you identify the differenct between a connected and disconnected team, the list below was created. It can help you make sure that their project team stays connected and continues to grow.

Connected

Disconnected

Inter-team …read more

In a teaming environment for a large project, occasionally you may need to separate into sub-teams in order to complete a project. This is usually done to ensure that project deadlines and task are completed in a timely manner. While at the same time allowing projects to flow smoothly.
This article is the first in a series about organizing large project teams. Each of the articles will cover a particulr type of team along with the pros and cons of using each type of team.
Case Study 1: Circular Team
Being able to create smooth transitions between the sub-teams and the full project …read more

Project management can be a tough gig, but, with the right organizing tools, you can be quite productive.  OpenProj is one of those tools.
From the website:
OpenProj is a free, open source desktop alternative to Microsoft Project. OpenProj has been downloaded over 175,000 times in the first weeks since it was released and has quickly become one of the most popular open source applications. If you are managing a group project we recommend Project-ON-Demand. If you want a free replacement to commercial desktop software, then OpenProj is perfect. It’s available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows, and it’s free.
Click here to …read more

 Diana Huggins who contributes to Lockgnome’s Windows Fanatics blog always seems to have those tips and how tos that people need.  Whether it’s watermarks in Word or new lines in Excel cells, Diana has posted them.
Sure, you might think they are simple, if you’ve already spent time trying to figure out how to do it through trial and error and Office help, but lots of people haven’t.
Instead of just posting every day her latest tip, just save us both some time and subscribe to the blog and get them via RSS.
 
Technorati tags: Windows tips, Vista tips, MS Office, MS Word, …read more

One of the anticipated features and Microsoft office 2007 is the ability to natively export files as PDF or XPS.  I was looking for this feature today when I needed to send off an invoice but couldn’t find it.  Luckily a quick search in help gave me the answer right away, I needed to download the add-in!
It only took a couple seconds to do this and I didn’t even need to reboot or close Excel, but really bugged me that this wasn’t included by default.
Here’s the link to the page where you can download this pretty essential add-in for office …read more

So you need to create a new document.  It doesn’t matter if you’re using Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint (or even OpenOffice), looking at a blank screen is almost as daunting as getting the document done.
Now, when you make this a complex task, like a form letter or invoice, you can waste a lot of time making one from scratch.  My first stop whenever I need to do something like this is to look for the built-in templates that of come with Microsoft office.
Like today, I needed to make a new invoice, my old PDF invoice wasn’t going to work anymore, so …read more