What do PMs almost never do? In my experience, I have rarely seen any significant time spent on contingency planning; for example, preparing for expected anomalies, preparing for unexpected anomalies, control of slack time and dependencies, and quantification and contingency budget as a part of the project planning activity. In many cases, a new product will launch with major materials shortages and problem-ridden or late software.

By Curt Finch, CEO of Journyx, Inc.

From 1945 to 1965, the financial market in the U.S. moved upward.  It then moved sideways until 1982, and up again until 2000. Right now, we are engaged in another great sideways movement. It could continue for another decade or so, and as businesses fail and members of congress pound their fists, it is natural to fear for the future.
These types of fears can be especially dangerous for businesses, as management often makes unwise decisions out of panic.  For example, they might cut employees or reduce spending on various programs that are good for the company.  Consequently, many companies that slash costs in response to an economic recession find themselves unable to achieve top-line growth when the recession ends. 

by Allen Cox

When I was a Marketing Manager in a former career, our company executives sent every manager to a mandatory two-day class on business writing. I and many of my associates assumed it would be a waste of time and money; we could already write perfectly well, or so we thought. I quickly realized how much I didn't know about good writing.

Oracle Magazine

Oracle Magazine contains technology strategy articles, sample code, tips, Oracle and partner news, how to articles for developers and DBAs, and more. Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company.

In this issue, Oracle will be looking at business continuity – how to ensure that your information systems are secure and stable enough to protect all your information assets. Have you tried living through a system crash when you're rushing to complete a customer project? The consequences for any company can be – and often are – really disruptive. It's good to know that business continuity isn't just about protecting you against downtime and data losses – it will benefit your productivity and operational efficiency too. Download now to find out how Oracle can help you ensure business continuity.

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Every newspaper, every business magazine or journal and many of the emails we receive every day have news about the recession we are about to have and the global economic crisis we are supposedly experiencing.

It would be very easy to be overcome with fear, doom and gloom, anxiety, depression and despair.

By Randy Miller, Director of Services, Journyx

In the second article in this series, I discussed the importance of hiring and managing high quality staff in technical support.  In this final installment, I am going to illustrate how you can win over both other departments within the company and external customers when you rollout your new team.

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In today's dispersed work environments managing a project successfully take not only the right project management software it take the right team of workers managing the right resources.

Lets face the facts: managing the the team is the most difficult function. To get and stay on the same page the team needs proper motivation. Managing and motivating is a complex skill on its own and it even more difficult when everyone works in dispersed locations.

Project management concepts and processes are being implemented in the strategic planning of service and operational processes. The technique involves re-engineering processes with new and innovative ideas and therefore more effective, productive, and efficient ways of doing business.

To realize the comprehensive business goals of the project, management must adapt to the market dynamics, maintain operations, and functionality of the organization, implement continuous process improvement, and seek customer satisfaction.

The purpose of this article is to offer insight to Project Managers as to how to develop a Communications Plan. In order to achieve this learning, this Communication Plan is established to monitor the launching of a fictional, locally owned and operated Weight Loss Center headquartered in the Denver Technological Center (DTC) area of Centennial, Colorado.

With the concept of remote offices, telecommuting, and working from home and Virtual Assistants gaining momentum, it is imperative that we come up with a governance model that best suits our needs to manage projects within the team, and with the clients.

If you are a part of a large organization (lets assume it's an MNC) which approves telecommuting and the remote office framework, then there is nothing to worry. The office will take care of custom management tools and will inform you about it. This post is not for you

Templates for Project Managers to help you Initiate, Plan, Execute and Close projects while managing staff, customers, suppliers, change, risk, issues and quality.

Project Management Methodology, templates and case studies

The Project Management Kit includes more than 50 Word and Excel documents with over 300 pages of helpful hints, real-life examples, charts and tables. This Kit is suitable for Project and Business Managers, Consultants, Trainers, Students and anyone else interested in managing projects successfully.

And download a FREE copy of their Project Management Guidebook from our downloads section.

Project Management Tools and Templates

And there's more!

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