We tend to talk about project management systems as an end unto themselves but what help is there for automating or improving project manager’s soft skills? There’s lots. From training to aids and enablement systems, project managers should be aware of what can help them be a good leader, a good negotiator, a good collaborator and a good communicator.
An amazing 40 million people use Excel for project management. That makes Excel the 2nd most popular tool for project management (after the pencil). When we think of enterprise project management tools should we be forgetting about this one? Read more in this article.
I was asked lately how to find the great reports and dashboards that Microsoft shows in its sales demonstrations. Happily, Microsoft makes those example files available online for anyone who has Project Server 2007. The reports are based on Microsoft SQL Reporting Services which has a wide range of reporting functionality. You could, for example, create reports which are scheduled to leave the report file in a particular area and then automatically send an email…
There are two big methods to deploying enterprise software. The most popular and espoused by the big-box consulting firms we can term the “Big Bang” approach. We make a complete design, take 2 years to deploy but when it finally comes out it’s hopefully everything you ever hoped for. The other way to go is the “Phased” approach. Here we get an approach that may take longer to get to the complete solution and may even never get there but it carries the advantage of paying dividends along the way and being adjustable to change direction if the company changes over time. Which one’s better? Take a read of this article to find out.
Should you look for an all-in-one business management tool that does accounting, human resource management and project management or should you be looking for best-in-breed tools that can integrate with each other? This article looks at how software vendors are trying to extend their markets; Downward from the ERP vendors who look to move from the central Finance department out to other departments and; Upward from the desktop project tools towards the centralized management sections of the company.