Posted by godzhesas on 28 February, 2008 09:06

Have you ever come home with a feeling that you didn’t accomplish anything you wanted today? Everyone have days like this, sometimes we can't help it, but if this is happening regularly, you should take a look at your time management. Time is one of those few things that a man can’t buy and in today’s fast, crazy technology time - time management is crucial for success. It’ crucial for everyone – students, doctors, businessmen, not just CEOs, team leaders, project managers.

I hope that the following approaches to time management will help you make your own time management strategy, because we are all different and the best solution for everyone simply doesn’t exist. Let's take a look at some popular time managment tips:

• Efficiency vs. Effectiveness. This is one the most crucial factors in time management. Efficiency – when you do task using less effort. Effectiveness – when first of all you think if the task needs to be done at all. As you see effectiveness should come first in most of the time.
• Goals. Always try to set long term and short term goals, make them as clear as possible. For example let’s say that long term goal is to pass an exam, then you should set a couple short term goals, like – read ten pages every day of study material, solve tests every two days etc. Setting clearly stated goals helps to change the attitude and the approach to the problem.

• Lists. Make sure that every morning you write down the tasks that you want to accomplish that day (so called “To Do” list). If you didn’t accomplish something, then the next morning put the tasks left from the other day on the top of your list. You will not only be more organized, the real value is that you will be planning your activities daily. Always take a moment to review your list, to see if what you will be working helps you reach the goals in the best and fastest way.
• Priorities. You can set your priorities by urgency or by importance. I think that it’s a common mistake when priorities are set based on urgency (you spend so much time on urgent issues that you start to worry about the project when the deadline is tomorrow). Set priorities first by importance, then by urgency. On my next post I’ll explain the Dwight D. Eisenhower matrix (Importance vs. Urgency).
• 70/30 rule. Don’t plan your whole day, leave 30% of your time for emergencies, unplanned assignments etc. if you plan every minute of your time you’ll get angry and nervous when your daily plan fails.
• NO. You must learn to say no. Often people are overloaded and the managers don’t even know about it. Of course I don’t think that many of us can tell our bosses “NO”, though it’s critical to explain how new tasks will take you away from a more important work.

There is much more to be said on this topic, there are a lot practices not included here, i will try to cover them in my other posts about time management, meanwhile you can think and share how to manage time. I hope that our project management, collaboration and knowledge sharing tool will be a useful companion in your way to success, and remember that first of all you need to change your attitude and determine what success means to you. Time management is most effective when you can do it without any efforts, without even noticing that you are actually doing something :)

  Posted by akvepas on 25 February, 2008 18:54

Handling a bunch of requests from customers, we've recently opened secure API for direct access to data.
Here I describe technical issues.

Web service is avaiable at http://my.comindwork.com/storageservice.asmx (see complete WSDL). You can replace 'my.comindwork' with your personal company name, 'yourcompany.comindwork' anytime.
What it does? Basic version, available to Workgroup plan and up, includes only data access, no modification. It is 'LoadDataTable' function:
Now our friends from FlexMonster.com wrote a simple 1-minute Flex application to connect to this service, and fill data grid with project list:

Live Flash Application

And here's the result. Live working application (requires Flash-9) shows the list of project visible to FlashAdmin (You may browse the system as FlashAdmin - go to demo login at http://demo.comindwork.com)
Happy collaborating,
and be open!

  Posted by godzhesas on 20 February, 2008 13:23

As I wrote in my previous post every project is temporary and every project creates a unique product or service. This is achieved using various project management processes. A process or a methodology is created so that consistent standards and rules could be used; it serves as a reference point for everyone involved in project. As described in the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide), there are nine main key processes (knowledge areas), I will just shortly describe each of them:

• Project Integration Management ensures that all the project's components are coordinated. It includes the project plan development processes, project plan execution processes, and integrated change control processes.
• Project Scope Management ensures that the project includes ONLY the work that is required to complete the project successfully. Define the scope wisely, it's a good practice to include not only what is within the scope, but what's excluded from the scope as well.
• Project Time Management includes the processes that ensure the timely completion of the project - definition, sequencing, resource estimation, duration estimating, schedule development, schedule control. It is clear that successful time management is crucial for project success.
• Project Cost Management processes control the financial situation around the project (planning, estimating, budgeting and controlling) so that it can be completed within the project budget.
• Project Quality Management aim is to ensure that quality conforms to the project requirements. Quality management includes quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement techniques and tools.
• Project Human Resource Management is all about making the most effective use of people. Human resource planning and the formation, development and management of the project team are all part of the Human Resources Management.
• Project Communications Management provides a link between information, people and ideas throughout the project lifecycle. The processes: communication planning, information distribution, performance reporting, manage stakeholders. The bigger the project, the more crucial influence communications management has on the output of the project.
• Project Risk Management includes risk management planning, identification, analysis, responses, monitoring and control. Often this term tends to be misleading; Risk Management must be seen as preparation for possible events in advance, rather then simply reacting to them as they appear.
• Project Procurement Management covers everything needed from outside the project team for a successful work: planning purchases or acquisitions, planning contracting, requesting seller responses, contract administrations. Negotiation skill is very useful here.

People need processes and methodologies for effectiveness, but methodologies and processes change during time, when the basic business premise never changes: do the right thing right the first time, on time and within budget. And I hope that our project management software helps you reaching this. Come back for more :)

  Posted by pas on 14 February, 2008 13:31

Treat any communication act as a value.
Why not communicate to client in a new better level? Making your client communication consistent brings lot of marketing benefits. With Comindwork as an Extranet tool, your company

• Shows up as open and friendly company
• Positions itself with higher level of management
• Make your response time less, and response more consistent

What you need is replace emails with automatic notifications. Duplicate ICQ and Skype talks with 'meeting results'. Keep notes about all events.

Use your communication as promotion. Constantly increase quality both in your product, and in your external/internal communications. 'The medium is the message' (c) Marshall McLuhan, don't you think so? :)

Keep talking, and thanks for staying with us!

  Posted by godzhesas on 14 February, 2008 09:06

I am sure that all projects have two essential attributes:

1. Absolutely every project has a beginning and an end. The start date of course can be undetermined, due constant changes to the project requirements and the project idea itself. Though the end of the project always should clearly defined and expected, so that all the people that are involved clearly understands and agrees what it means to be complete.
2. Doesn't matter what kind of project it is, but it will for 100% produces unique product. The results on the other hand can be tangible (e.g. a house you have built, software or a website) or intangible assets (e.g. knowledge and collaboration activities, worker development plan document, new specification etc.). In real life it doesn't matter if your company provides some services or if it produces tangible goods - same project management tools and methods can be used (you can view my earlier post about project management methodologies).

There is a vast amount of projects in every industry; here are just a couple examples from a couple different industries:

• Engineer optimizes car engine
• Software developers document their processes to gain ISO certification
• Bank managers reorganize entry-level managers responsibilities
• Marketing company develops a plan to promote a new car

We could go on and on, you can find it in every company in every industry, as you see each of the projects mentioned above produces unique result, it is temporary and it will be finishes when it reaches its goals. Don't forget that project results can tangible or intangible.



It doesn't matter what kind of project you have, though I am sure that Comindwork can help you reach your goals. Come back for more! :)

  Posted by quillerni on 05 February, 2008 15:52

If you do repetitive start of new projects then you might obviously have a plan to run all the routine preparations before the actual work commences. This involves many things like planning resources, budgeting, involving team, as well as managing and communicating requirements. Certainly, it's a common thing you forget something, and then start making some corrections in the middle of the project, thus shifting the milestones, worrying your clients and distracting team. Conversely, you wouldn't miss anything if you have a checklist of mandatory items that simply need to be done.

Let us look closer over a plain actions that are usually taken first.

• Project name -> communicated, available
• Goal -> outlined, shared, discussed
• Team -> assigned, communicated
• Milestones -> planned, submitted
• Requirements -> recorded, organized and shared
• Cases -> assigned to team

Each line of the checklist consists of artifact and a set of actions to be accomplished. For example, the project goal needs to be defined, disseminated in team, discussed and possibly changed afterward. Although the order of the actions in checklist is not strict, it's easy to navigate and just tick the items done. If you're working with Comindwork, the guiding tips would also help you to move forward after each step. For example, once you've created a project, you'd be asked to create another project or draft the goal.

You can always invent own checklist or just adopt the one from some methodology like XP, RUP or Agile. Comindwork is flexible enough to practice any of them, as long as your aim is to start a successful project.

  Posted by andrew on 04 February, 2008 10:00

I'm proud to announce the newest updates very much requested by existing users. They are released on Feb1 and are now available in all paid and free accounts:

1. Time tracking features are improved. You can now associate time logs with your project cases; people can fill-in time-tracking reports in one page for all projects at once; time tracking reports per day or per person are refined.
2. Guiding tips and status messages are implemented to make Comindwork software more polite and comprehensive.
3. Special "paste from Word" feature is enabled in the Rich Editor for easier content copying from MS Word documents.
4. Open projects and blogs features are now more usable to involve public (e.g. people outside your team) into discussions about your projects and monitoring their progress.
5. Calendar widget is developed to have a quick access to all milestones in the past in the future just on one Milestones page.
6. Navigation breadcrumb is improved, time zones support is enhanced for easier collaboration of distributed teams across different continents.

If you have any ideas or suggestions on how to improve Comindwork - please post them here or send a feedback with your thoughts.

Time Tracking

Guiding Tips and Status

Paste from Word

  Posted by godzhesas on 01 February, 2008 08:37

I am currently collecting useful project management links, whether it’s a good project management tool, blog or methodology. I’ll be updating it on the go, so if you have any great links related to project management, you can contact me and I’ll include it to our resource page.