STEPS FOR PROJECT TIME MANAGEMENT

The knowledge area of time management typically refers to the skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals. To become an effective time manager, you should be able to clearly understand the activities of the project and have the necessary skill set to plan, schedule, and control a project timeline. Along with these skills, you must also be able to utilise time management tools to help you analyse, measure, and assess your time management techniques. Keeping all of this in mind, may I suggest four steps to help with project time management:

1. Define the Activities
2. Sequence the Activities
3. Estimate Activity Resources
4. Develop and Control the Schedule

1.Define the activities

This step requires you to define the tasks, milestones, and other activities needed to complete the project. Start with a basic definition of each task and fill in the details as the project gets fleshed out.

A Gantt chart is a simple and quick way to outline the entire project. Use the Gantt chart to add tasks and their estimated time frames. Don't worry about dates at this point, but rather focus on the time it will take to complete each individual task.

2.Sequence the activities

Once the activities have been defined, you can start putting the activities in order. Without worrying about dates, order the activities in a way that makes the most sense to you. Create sub tasks as needed and organise the project in a logical manner.

Once you have the activities in order, add dependencies to each task. Using dependencies, rather than dates, will help you see the true timeline of the project. For example, if you are building a website, you'll need to design the website before you can start developing it. The design activity is a prerequisite to the development activity. If the design activity is completed later than expected, the development activity will also be pushed out to a later date.

3.Estimate activities resources

This step is one of the more challenging steps because it requires you to assess the supply and demand of each resource/person and how it relates to your specific project. Do you have enough resources to complete the assignment as scheduled or do you need additional resources?

Assign specific people or job roles to each task and then revise the dependencies based on the resource allocation. If a Programmer is required for 15 activities and 10 of them overlap, then you can either hire an additional Programmer or accept that the project timeline will be pushed out further based on the resource dependencies.

4.Develop and control the shedule

If you used a Gantt Chart to create the project timeline, it should be fairly easy to develop a project schedule. Review the Gantt chart with the entire team and make sure you have complete buy-in before you start the project. Everybody should understand their role in the project and should be able to confidently commit to the timeline.

Controlling the schedule is a lot harder than planning the schedule and requires more one-on-one management than you might expect. The project manager should be carefully monitoring the status of the project and verify that the activities are being completed on time and within scope.

WHAT PROJECT MANAGER NEED TO KNOW ABOUT STRATEGIC PLANNING

Strategic planning

A strategy is a detailed plan for achieving success the bundle of decisions and activities that we select to achieve our long term goals our path. Every organization must figure out what it wants to achieve and how to make it happen by using its products, customers, and operations. Strategy is fluid, continuous, and iterative and can be broken down into logical steps or elements:

1.Goal setting

We cannot begin to think about a strategy until we have objectives that are prioritized and are based on our business, our markets, and how value is created in our organization. These objectives are aimed at maximizing the value of the organization to the shareholders, with the critical factor being time. Even though we create a vision of the organization, say, twenty years out, the strategic plan considers only a three year to five year time horizon. A written declaration of an organization's core purpose and focus, commonly referred to as the mission statement, serves as a consistent directional tool for the firm. In contrast, the strategic plan and its related practices fluctuate according to changing circumstances.

2.Strategy development process

Strategy development is focused on three fundamental questions. Where are we now? Where should we go? How do we get there?

3.Customer analysis

Unmet customer needs are at the heart of business ideas and the development of a business strategy. While step 3 could be included in step 2, it is usually kept separate to underscore and facilitate the need to continuously analyze the customer as part of everyday management. Essentially, we need to know why our customers buy from us and why others buy from our competitors. This information is typically gathered at point of sale via customer surveys or focus groups. Good, regular, and valid information is essential to business strategy success.

4.Internal business analysis

The internal audit explores the organization’s operational and financial results, evaluates its talent pool, assesses its functions and processes, and explores the health of its key relationships. A good SWOT analysis not only identifies the component strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT), but also prioritizes them and helps to limit analysis to a smaller set of the most important factors.

5.Strategic choices

Generic strategies of cost leadership, differentiation, and niche player provide a good foundation for the strategic choices each business faces. A comprehensive strategy formulation contains both positioning and execution components. An effective strategy must align between positioning and execution.

Positioning articulates clearly and concisely the organization’s strategic approach to achieving its goals by setting out a direction and a choice of suitable products and services. Execution ensures that the organization has the necessary resources, operational capabilities, and organization to support the direction. To enhance our strategic choices, we ask the question “how?” and develop a strategy through approaches like integration, penetration, development, diversification, and divestiture.

6.Strategic thinking

Strategic thinking involves asking the right solution-oriented questions and conducting appropriate analyses to formulate plans and strategies. Asset optimization questions have long been fertile ground for new ideas for thinking about the best use for each significant asset that we currently own and control.

Another strategy-generating approach is to use core-business thinking. Your core business is defined by the set of products, customer segments, processes, and technologies in which you can build the greatest competitive advantage. Defining your core business can be difficult and may require a small team to answer the question. If we were forced to sell off all of our businesses except for one, which one would we keep? Once your core business has been identified, the key is to work the core to your best advantage for example, taking advantage of operational excellence in the core business area.

7.Strategic implementing process

The principal causes of strategy failures are the attitudes, communication, and commitment of senior management. The best system for implementing strategies is by using the balanced scorecard. It provides a framework for considering strategy from four perspectives—financial, customer, business processes, and learning and growth. It was created by Kaplan and Norton in 1992 as a means of neutralizing the limitations of managing only by financial measures.

Implementing strategy is a team game, and even though senior management has the responsibility to formulate and articulate the business strategy, you, as a program or project management professional, play a lead role in the strategy implementation segment of the process. As a program manager, you are expected to understand the strategic drivers of the program, the specific benefit levers, and the required level of governance to make change happen. As project manager, you are expected to fulfill a similar role at the project level, whether it is part of a formal program or a one-off high-impact strategic project.

Conclusion

Each successful strategy could be a catalyst for a strategic thinking direction and approach. As a program or project manager, take the time to identify the strategies in play in the next business case or feasibility study you review. If they are not clear in the financial analysis document, do not be afraid to ask for clarification from your sponsor.

BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT-PROACTIVE MEASURE

Most of what happens in a classroom must be closely controlled by a caring, trustworthy adult. Order, limit setting, and structure are essential in a classroom setting. Teachers should take every possible proactive measures using the following steps:

1. Arrange furniture to meet social/emotional needs as well as instructional and organizational needs.

2. Adjust schedules to provide a balance between highly structured periods and more stimulating activities.

3. Establish a group behavior management plan that incorporates individual needs.

4. Provide direct instruction, programmed learning, and precision teaching lessons. These will build students' self-confidence while establishing a knowledge base from which to expand problem-solving and higher-level thinking skills, as students demonstrate readiness for learning experiences that require less external structure.

5. Keep student-to-student interactions to a minimum initially. This is especially important during times when adult monitoring would be difficult. Trust and safety cannot be established if individuals within the group continually undermine each other or the adults, with problems created in secret.

6. Provide group-building opportunities that move students from an "I" to a "We" orientation without overstimulating or threatening them. These activities and opportunities are most effective when integrated into the affective, academic, and recreational arenas.

7. Select a group peer leader. The group will select a leader whether the teacher assists with this process or not. Qualities of leadership include being perceived as similar to other group members and being reinforced for modeled behavior.

8. Be aware of how individual needs affect group dynamics. Group members typically assume roles early in the establishment of the group dynamics.
9. Show empathy and unconditional regard at all times, but especially when students are in the midst of a crisis.

10. Attend with extreme care to students' physiological as well as psychological needs. Have extra clothing, food, and drink available. Make washable pillows to use when students sit on the floor. Keep bandages, hand lotion, and soap available. Much of the acting out behavior reflects a need for power or attention. Attempt to give as little emotional response as possible to inappropriate behavior. Make responses to appropriate behavior obviously animated and positive.

STEPS FOR BUILDING SALES MATRIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

There are four steps to identifying the metrics for your sales metric management system.

1. Measurable. If the area of the business you want to affect cannot be measured statistically, then how will you know whether or not it is working? This seems like circular logic, but I often hear about "trusting your gut" as a measurable statistic. Needless to say, gut instinct does not belong in a sales metric management system. There needs to be a way to track the data easily and efficiently.

For example, if you wanted to track the number of outbound calls made by your sales team, but that data was not tracked anywhere, you would not be able to measure it. Thus, outbound calls would not be part of your sales metric management system as it is not measurable. Identify other data points that reflect performance that is measurable. If you find that many of the areas you want to measure are not measurable, you may need to address your CRM. It may need to be reconfigured or replaced altogether.

2. Meaningful. Just because you can measure a data point, it doesn't mean that it belongs in your sales metric management system. Like sports, there is no end to the data that can be measured in a sales organization. Sportscasters commonly use a series of statistics to present how well or terribly a player is performing. Easily, a set of counterpoint data could be presented showing the opposite point of view.

I recall my time as a sales management executive where on any given day I could put together a series of data that would support promoting or firing any member of the sales team...including myself. The key is to select the most critical activities that drive the sales person's success and include those in your sales metric management system. For each metric, ask yourself what that data tells you relative to the sales person achieving their revenue goal. The meaningful ones go in your system while the others are cast aside.

3. Goal-oriented. Statistics without goals tell you very little about performance. Each statistical component of your sales metric management system needs to have a corresponding goal. When performance discussions take place with the sales person, their performance versus goal achievement serves as the focus of the agenda. This is a significant change from the typical discussions that are focused on whether or not sales quota was attained.

When setting the goal-levels for your sales metric management system, there is an important consideration. Remembering back to report cards from school, students achieved a letter grade based on their performance. A few kids received an "A" which meant they had delivered stellar performance. However, average performance reflected a "C" on the report card. If your sales person achieved the goal for a particular metric, what does that mean? Was their performance exceptional? Or did they perform at the mere minimum acceptable level to keep their job?

If you set your goal levels so that they mean A-level performance, you should expect few of your sales people to hit them. If you set them at the C-level, you are establishing the baseline for minimum acceptable performance. There isn't a right or wrong approach between the "A" and "C" philosophies. The key is to select one, understand its meaning relative to performance, and handle achievement accordingly.

4. Trainable. The final component is to identify the mentoring that can be provided to a sales person who is not achieving a defined metric in the system. Since the metrics that you are managing are critical to a sales person's success (meaningful), deficiencies cannot be left unaddressed. When you identify each metric for the system, if a sales person is not achieving it, what potential weaknesses does it expose in their arsenal? As a sales manager, you can then begin digging to determine the root cause and help the sales person improve.

Just like many think that revenue is a metric, many think that if a sales person is failing to achieve their revenue quota that they cannot close. It's possible that closing is the issue. However, if you have your sales metric management system in place, you may find that closing isn't the issue at all. Perhaps, the sales person doesn't have enough activity in their pipeline. Or, that they struggle to move prospects through the buying process. Or, any of countless other possible deficiencies. Managers who have their sales metric management system in place can quickly identify the problem area and address it.

Designing your sales metric management system well-positions you to create an effective sales compensation plan. Thus, the compensation plan reinforces your sales metric management system. If you would like my sales metric management system worksheet.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Because of project management tools and their availability to the project managers in industry, the speed and accuracy of a project’s life cycle has been enhanced. This type of digital assistant is there to help in all phases of a project and running a business. This expansion of their uses is being done as their effectiveness is becoming more noticeable.

When the first project management tools were introduced to the industrial sectors, not too many people were aware of their full potential. As with all tools, they must be used to be discovered. The first ones to breach out of the confines of the project mode were the budgetary templates and plans.

The budget and expenditures of a project are similar to that of a business. For this reason, this part of the project management tool’s inventory is very beneficial. The accounting department can run more efficiently when only one type of program is used throughout a company, when it comes to keeping track of where the money is going and for what purpose.

Other project management tolls that are being used by business outside the realm of a project are the Requests for Information. Just like with a project, information on supplies are needed, in general, for a company to run. This is the best and most economical way of locating the best process on items from a third party vendor. To follow this up with the Request for Proposals is a natural path to take to finalize the deals.

TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS FOR INTERNET MARKETERS

They are discussed as follows.
Internet marketers have a hell lot of work to do, right from doing the researches, networking and other online tasks. Managing time becomes crucial for them, no doubt. This is especially true for those that are working part time at home. The ancillary and unnecessary tasks eat up most of their business times. One might just wonder how anyone gets marketing done online with so much distraction on the platter!
If you are an Internet marketer, they are the few basic time management tips to keep in mind when you sit down to your computer every day.
1. Make To-do Lists and Keep Your Focus on
There’s nothing more effective than a to-do list in front of you. It keeps you reminding of your tasks and that there are things you have to accomplish today. That helps to realize your goals and make your business grow more. Make a ‘MUST DO’ list of the things ahead of other assignments. Create signs, cues, pictures, sing songs, whatever it takes to keep you focused. Move your way down the list until you finish.
2. Take a Break
At times, you feel tired and a lot distracted. When things are not encouraging or there’s something you are working on that you just get distracted, think of taking a pause. Move on to the next task for a little while. If not, have a little rest and then come back later when you feel refreshed and more in tune.
3. Break Tasks in Bread Crumb like Chunks
Always break your tasks in smaller ones, while you are working on a seemingly overwhelming task. You might feel that you are getting nowhere. Think about it, have you started procrastinating, or keep transferring the same task from today’s list to that of next day’s? Breaking tasks in small plans can easily be marked off your list so that even at a glance it seems like you’ve accomplished something, at the day’s end.
4. Record How much Time You Spent for Each work
Keep track of the time spent on a certain task that helps you to plan for future.Online businesses are not built in an overnight’s time; you need to keep that in mind. While you are designing action plans or keeping focus with your tasks do not become too overwhelmed or feel overworked. There’s a good many ways you can set your pace, only if you know when to stop. Take your time and cut yourself some slack if you don’t get things accomplished as fast as you have predicted them when you’ve started.

EFFECTIVE WAYS OF CONTROLLING TIME MANAGEMENT

They are as follows.
When we can have control of our lives and selves, we can take control of the things that surround us and influence our lives. Indeed, it is impossible to have control over anything, but we are allowed certain degrees of control over most things that involve us. When you think of implementing an effective time management strategy, you have to zero in on various aspects of life, because all things in life affect us in some way or the other.
When you are alone in the road of time management and pursue all the goals relating to it, you’ll find the road rocky enough. There are people who think time management as something as easy as a pie, when things are far from that. Time management is no quick process. You will notice this, once you start your calculations.
Time management has its own course and route, it has its own stop, go, and yield signs. In order to initiate a time management plan you need to calculate and analyze your plan carefully so that you get rid of the time-wasters, and evaluate where your time is spent most.
You can focus on several areas in life that consume most of your time – factors like family and work. Moreover you have to calculate problem areas like troubles with your computer that may arrive. You have to take stock of the little contingencies, calculate large and small disasters into the equation of time management. There are more miles to go in shaping a good time management path.
There are unending ways to manage time, for we need to include personal factors. While we calculate time management, we have to include details such as, entertainment, relaxation and everything that makes us who we are. If you are spending too much time in one area, you can alter the equation – shift your attention to more important areas instead.
If it takes you a long time in the morning to get motivated you must think about what’s putting you off from getting out of the bed? In most cases, this is caused by procrastinating habit. Start thinking! What takes you so long to get dressed in the morning? Before you are off to sleep, make selection of the suit you’re going to put on the next day, so that when you get up in the morning you only need to dress.
It’s a sheer wastage of time to spend more than 45 minutes while dressing. Move forward, subtract at least 30 minutes from dressing and get on with other areas in your life where your time is either spent well, or wasted.
You can even ask yourself: How well-shaped are your working habits? Do you chat online with someone, or stand around drinking coffee more than often? If your workday means big-time squandering your work-time, you not only waste your company’s resources, you are wasting your time. As long as you lose focus in everything you do, you can never conceive an effective way to time management.