Project Management Planning Tips You Need to Know Off the Bat

In order for a project to go smoothly and provide the outcome required to be considered successful, there’s a lot of planning that needs to happen, both before the project goes live and also during the course of the project. If you fail to plan correctly, you could find yourself with a total failure rather than a smashing success. Here are some planning tips you need to know before anything else.
You’re Only One Cog
As the project manager, it’s hard not to feel as though you’re the start and end of the chain of authority when it comes to the project. It’s your responsibility, after all. However, that’s wrong. You’re really only one cog in a complex machine – there are those above and below you in the loop. Understand this from the outset and find out what other cogs you touch on (who your actions or inactions affect, who makes decisions that you must implement, etc.). If necessary, build an actual diagram showing the relationships extending from you to others both above and below you. This will help ensure that everyone involved in the project stays involved in throughout the entire process.
Have a Plan before a Team
It’s tempting to start planning and forming your team as soon as you know that a project is coming down the pipe. You might want to snag Bob from accounting and Janet from marketing because they have skills you know you’ll need. However, before you start mentally planning who’ll be on your team, you need a project plan. This must involve you sitting down with the stakeholders in the project (at least those stakeholders you’ll be reporting to directly). During your planning session, make sure that your project has clearly set deliverables, achievable milestones and a clear-cut process that will take you from beginning to end.
Plan to Review
Throughout your project, you’ll need to make periodic checks on progress. This should include the progress of the project as a whole, but also the progress toward individual milestones and even granular tasks set for each team member. Plan for this now. Rough out a schedule of when you’ll do your reviews (daily, weekly, monthly, etc), and determine how you will report your review information to the stakeholders it impacts (there are plenty of software options out there that offer one-click reporting to everyone on a specific list of contacts or individual stakeholders).
Plan for Training
While it would be nice to assume that all of your team members are going to be experts in what they need to know, that’s often not how things work out. A project can be derailed by a team member who isn’t doing their job correctly due to a lack of knowledge. Plan now for training. While it might never happen, if you plan for it, it won’t come as a huge surprise (and adversely affect your project).
With these simple tips, you should be able to plan your project more effectively.

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Tips for Troubleshooting Issues within a Project

Any number of problems can arise during a project. You might encounter an issue with time tracking, or perhaps you’re unable to keep your stakeholders engaged. Perhaps you have a problematic team member, or you might be fighting with a component supplier intent on charging more than what was quoted during the planning and implementation states. Whatever problems you’re experiencing (or fear that you might face), these strategies and tips can help you overcome them.
Pool Your Brainpower
As a project manager, you’re also a team leader, and that team is an enormously powerful tool. If there’s an issue with the project, get everyone together and brainstorm some answers. While your team is made up of individuals with different skillsets and varying levels of experience, they can all hold potential answers to the issue at hand. Use that tool to its fullest extent. For this to work, though, you need to be able to admit that you don’t always have all the answers, and you must be willing to accept feedback from your team.
Get Out of the Office
If you’ve ever dealt with a mental block (whether that was a creative block or some other type), you know that there’s a lot of benefit to be gained by getting up and getting out. Take a break. Focus on something else. Go to lunch, or take an early day if possible. The point is that while your conscious mind focuses on something different (the new surroundings, for instance), your subconscious will be worrying away at the problem and you might actually find solutions to the issue presenting themselves without actually having to think about them at all.
Have Processes in Place
No project can be successful without processes in place to handle daily operations, tasks and reaching milestones. Most of the process should actually be automatic. If it’s not, you’re wasting valuable time (and brainpower) on something that could be handled with a solid process. In fact, having processes in place for your project can often help you avoid issues and problems completely.
Is the Problem Related to Something Else?
Often, you’ll encounter problems that seem to be tied to one aspect of the project, but were actually created by something completely different. For instance, your impending budget overrun might seem to have been created by a lack of appropriate planning for team work hours, but it was actually created by an unapproved and unauthorized scope change by the client that was never brought to the attention of the appropriate manager. Without approval and a corresponding budget change, of course you’re going to hit the wall. Identify the true cause of the problem and then take steps to rectify the situation.
With the right steps, strategies and a proactive stance, you can overcome almost any problem that you encounter within your project. However, turning a blind eye or being unable to locate the true underlying cause of the issue can spell the end of your project.

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Who Moved the IT Project Manager’s Cheese?

On a rainy Thursday night in October, 1978, Mum is out playing bingo. My eight-year-old self, my sisters, and my pops are watching BBC1. Only three T.V. channels in those days. You had to get up off the sofa and push a button to change the channels — that’s after an argument to decide who would do it.
Thursday nights were usually Tomorrow’s World followed by Top of the Pops. Tomorrow’s World led to a lot of wow moments, while Top of the Pops normally resulted in Dad calling the music acts we loved a bunch of weirdos. We did both agree on one thing: Pan’s People were very artistic.
It was on that night in October that my father said something while watching a Tomorrow’s World episode about industrial robots. Those words have stayed with me. It was the first time I realized that one’s economic well-being depended on being wary of the impact of technology.
Dad said, in so many words, “Don’t do a job a machine could do. Get a job in computers.”
Flash forward to 1988. By now, I’ve learned several computer languages. For work experience during a college course, they send me to the Citizens Advice Bureau. I turn up on that first day and walk through the office with the manager. He points at the P.C. It is mainly used for word processing. He wants to know whether DataEase can be used to store information on complaint forms, rather than using microfiche.
Within one day, I’ve knocked out a prototype. I’ve also developed a few queries to calculate stats that have to be sent to the local council. What used to take a whole working day now takes 10 minutes. The member of staff whose job it was to do these things manually was not impressed.
That was the first time I sensed anxiety and discomfort toward technology from a human being. In my naivety, I kind of expected everyone in the office to go “Wow, that’s amazing!” But they didn’t.
I was too young to understand these “Who moved my cheese?” moments. Why should I care? After all, it was the modern age. I could make a good living from causing “Who moved my cheese?” moments by making business processes more efficient.
Flashback to 40 years prior. Lean Manufacturing pioneer Taiichi Ohno is experiencing “Who moved my cheese?” moments on the shop floor. Something else is happening at the same time as the emergence of information technology.
No one at the time could have predicted that the convergence of these underlying paradigm shifts — lean manufacturing the rise of information technology — and would give birth to robotic process automation (RPA).
Now, lots of things I used to do as a project manager at the onset of the 21st century are starting to disappear, thanks virtualization, automation, liberating organizational design, and the demise of matrix management.

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PDFBear: Your Free Online PDF Tool

Due to the pandemic, PDF has been hugely significant for many sectors. Schools have been closed and even offices. That’s why they are adopting to make things online to continue their work or business. It would be best if you had online tools for this job or to study to do the job, and these are not the same as what you have been doing in your workplace.

You must know the things about PDF first before using it. This file is compatible with many devices that can open a browser. You can do many things such as compress, convert, optimize, edit, or organize your files with the help of PDFBear. Many PDF users said PDFBear is way better than you will find on the internet if you search for an online tool to process pdf. It’s easy to use, and that makes it so convenient.

How To Compress PDF
If you have files inside your hard drive, the best way to save space is to compress PDF online with PDFBear. Even if you got a lot of files, this online tool would handle it for you. You will not worry about it even if you have processed your file. The quality of it from the original will stay. That’s how amazon PDFBear is. To compress PDF:

Upload your files by clicking the “select files” button. You can also simply drag your files under the button.
Choose one option you want to do with your file.
Wait until your file is analyzed and compressed.
Then the process is done, and you can now share or download the files you compressed.
This tool can process files up to 1gb, and around 70 percent of it can be reduced. With these easy steps, anyone can do it by just following the steps provided.

Why is PDFBear the Best Tool For You?
You can access this tool for as long as you have a stable internet connection. Thus, it’s free to use. You don’t need to buy it or download an app or install the software. You just need any browser that you want. It is compatible with operating systems such as Windows, Linux, or mac. You can use this user-friendly tool anywhere you want.

They have the technology that is sophisticated for compressing your files. Even how big it is for around 1gb, it can do the job rather than other tools that you will find online. PDFBear is far way better than those. The quality of your file will never be affected after you have done compressing it. The way you see it before will be the same as after, so you don’t have to worry about your files at all.

Therefore, you can send an email or share your files on the internet—the reason behind why you can access PDFBear wherever you go because it is in the cloud system. And you can access this whatever the time is. Devices such as pc, laptop, tablet, or even mobile phone can do the trick to compress your PDF. With the help of PDFBear and following the guide above, it’s easy even if it’s your first time.

Takeaway
There are a lot of tools that you can search online, but you should set PDFBear as your primary tool. This tool is not just about compressing files, but it has many options to process your PDF file. This will make your job easier, and you will save a lot of time since you are just seconds away from processing files. You will save a lot of space on your hard drive, and you can save money on it for buying new ones.

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