Posted by godzhesas on 23 August, 2008 10:25

Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson in their book "The One Minute Manager" in an easy way demonstrates three management techniques. I will not go into details, but here is a short summary of these three "One Minute Manager" secrets. 
 
 
First Secret - One Minute Goal Setting
 
1. Agree on your goals.
2. See what good behavior looks like.
3. Write out each of your goals on a single sheet of paper using less than 250 words.
4. Read and re-read each goal, which requires only a minute or so each time you do it.
5. Take a minute every once in a while out of your day to look at your performance, and
6. See whether or not your behavior matches your goal.
 
I don't think that I need to add anything, it is very true, very needed, very simple and very hard at the same time.
 
 
Second Secret - One Minute Praisings
 
1. Tell people up front that you are going to let them know how they are doing.
2. Praise people immediately.
3. Tell people what they did right-be specific.
4. Tell people how good you feel about what they did right, and how it helps the organization and the other people who work there.
5. Stop for a moment of silence to let them "feel" how good you feel.
6. Encourage them to do more of the same.
7. Shake hands or touch people in a way that makes it clear that you support their success in the organization.
 
This is a wonderful technique that helps you to unveil the potential of the people you manage, you will get more this way. The key in developing a good employee will always be on catching them doing something right instead of something wrong. The worst scenario is when people are basically left alone in their work and manager notice them only when they make some big mistake. How ling will a person work in the environment like this? I bet that not too long.
 
 
Third Secret - One Minute Reprimands
 
1. Tell people beforehand that you are going to let them know how they are doing and in no uncertain terms.
 
the first half of the reprimand:
2. Reprimand people immediately.
3. Tell people what they did wrong-be specific.
4. Tell people how you feel about what they did wrong-and in no uncertain terms.
5. Stop for a few seconds of uncomfortable silence to let them feel how you feel.
 
the second half of the reprimand:
 
6. Shake hands, or touch them in a way that lets them know you are honestly on their side.
7. Remind them how much you value them.
8. Reaffirm that you think well of them but not of their performance in this situation.
9. Realize that when the reprimand is over, it's over.
 
I would use this third management technique very carefully, because if you are going to reprimand an active learner, that might beat him out of his track, but if he has done similar tasks successfully in the past then it's definitely worth it.
 
It was fun reading this book, because it is written ...differently then other management books, I found a lot new things for myself and I hope that you will too, it  was time well spent. Share these secrets, use them as you think needed and keep CoMindWorking .
 

  Posted by godzhesas on 11 July, 2008 12:09

A strong project team can assure the success of a project. While there isn't one right way to do it, there are some common things that we can look at. The purpose of the techniques described below is to serve as an exploration point in your own journey to build the best team ever.

 

• Build a broad-based team. If there is a possibility do a thorough check on team-to be members, choose only people that are known to get things done and are good team players. Know their strengths and weaknesses, get feedbacks from previous projects.
• Comprehensive team reviews. In ideal - all team members should be available to freely express and asses their thought about other team members work. It should be non-threatening and then we should find out where things are going well and where we need improvement. In reality this is very hard to achieve, because people tend not to express their thoughts about other team members, team needs to be socialised to achieve this.
• Team decision making. Team members need to know how their thoughts and suggestions can influence the outcome of the project, for that they need to know which team decision technique is being used (consensus, majority rule, minority rule, averaging, expert, authority rule without discussion, authority rule with discussion).
• Team spirit and support. Team members should share personal motivation and ambition. Usually people want more then they are willing to put in, so sharing it within the team will help to address these issues. Project manager should keep the "bad" stuff to himself as long till it doesn't affect team member's ability to perform the job successfully. Project manager should provide full support to his team in the eyes of upper management - if there will be no trust between the manager and other team members, I doubt there can be a successful project.
• Team objectives. Last but not least, all the things should be clearly stated to the team for a successful onward collaboration: team objectives, phases and timelines, stakeholders, project outputs, deliverables, risks, SWOT.

 
These are just some of the many available techniques, but I believe the first thing needed - get the right people, after that you'll need some collaboration space for your team, so just sign up for a free Comindwork account and start doing successful projects.

  Posted by godzhesas on 10 July, 2008 12:30

Just a quick note: if you haven't already done that, be sure to check out how Comindwork compares to other online project management and collaboration tools. Any ideas and suggestions are always welcome :)

  Posted by godzhesas on 07 July, 2008 12:55

Among the issues that need to be addressed in the project initiation document, some are required and some are optional. Here are some common things that should be taken into consideration when putting up such documents:

• Problem/opportunity statement (required): What is the problem or opportunity of the project? This section should provide background on the factors that led to the project and, where appropriate, some history of what has been attempted in the past.
• Scope definition (required): What are the quantifiable characteristics or end results to be achieved? The scope definition should respond to the problem or to the opportunity. The end product might be a specified product, process, or service.
• Completion criteria (required): What needs to be done? How will it be measured in the most objective terms? How will we know when we're finished? The completion criteria should indicate whether it is the design, the prototype, or a complete working product, system, or process that is the goal of the project. Consequently, this completion criterion or standard of performance needs to be quantifiable. The objective is to sate the goal clearly so that there wouldn't be any questions upon project completion
• Assumptions (optional): What has been assumed? Is everyone aware of these assumptions? Remember that what you, the project manager, assume will form the basis upon which to build the project plans. If the other stakeholders, particularly the client, have not made the same assumptions, there will be a major difference in expectations.
• Risk (required): What are the risks of doing or not doing this project? It can be a detailed mathematical presentation with which to project the financial and other benefits. Or you can provide a business analysis of the major risks and rewards that provide the basis for deciding whether it is worth to proceed with the project.
• Resource requirements (optional): What resources will be required? This section should alert particular areas of the organization that their staff members will be required to support this project. You may also want to announce whether you will need any special or unusual resources for the project. Do not make definitive specifications at this point since you do not have enough information to plan. Rather, include a generic statement of skill mixes that will be eventually requested.
• Constraints (optional): Are there any special constraints imposed upon the project? These could be environmental factors such as terrain, weather conditions, or Environmental Protection Agency requirements. There may be constraints imposed by equipment, technology, or chronological limitations to be considered. Get them out on the table at the beginning of the project so that you will have the opportunity to re-evaluate and pursue alternative solutions.

 
Remember that Comindwork integratred wiki system is ideal for creating and managing all kinds of project documents as wiki pages weather it is PID (Project Initiations Documents), project charter, risk analysis or any other.
 

  Posted by godzhesas on 03 July, 2008 07:45

In my previous post I gave you the idea what the getting things done software is all about and how you could use Comindwork as a GTD software. There are two more things that I'd like to point out and share some tips how to use Comindwork for your advantage.

• Workflow process. Collect - use Comindwork wiki to store all the information, even if you'll forget where you have written something - the powerful Comindwork search feature will help you find it; Process - on personal or project dashboards you can easily sort tasks/cases by priority, you can easily assign (to yourself and to the team) and resolve tasks, set due dates and reminders; Organize, Review and Do techniques just needs simple and effective way to move between a lot of tasks and info, dashboards and tagging does a great job when you are just getting things done.
• Natural planning method. This planning things connects five methods: defining the purpose and principles (wiki documents, like requirements, vision etc.), envisioning the outcome (project goals), brainstorming, organizing (tagging), defining next actions.

The GTD is all about to save, organize, control and get all the related information related to things that needs to get done. Sign up for a free Comindwork account and start getting things done!

  Posted by godzhesas on 24 June, 2008 10:58

I doubt that there are a lot of people interested in project management who haven't read David Allen's "Getting Things Done" or as it is often abbreviated as GTD. Well in case if you haven't read it, I'll explain the basic principles that were provided in the book. The main idea of the whole things comes to that you need to get the stuff out from your head, write things you need to do somewhere. According to Allen, when you have freed yourself from the job of remembering a lot of important stuff (remember you need to write it down), you can actually concentrate and get things done you've written down on your list.

So now we know what the GTD is all about, lets take a look at the core getting things done methodology and how you can use Comindwork for your needs as an online getting things done software. Allen believes in two main things when it comes down to time management - control and perspective. He recommends three main methods on gaining control and perspective:

1. Workflow process
2. Framework with 6 levels of focus
3. Natural planning method

I would like to note that I think that one of the best tools for GTD is wiki. This is one of my favourite Comindwork features, you can easily use Comindwork wiki and other features for controlling your 6 levels of focus:

• Current actions - Comindwork dashboard helps you quickly find who is doing what, what task you've been assigned
• Current projects - project activity feature comes in very handy here, it helps to see what is going on across all of your projects without a need to go into details (only in few seconds you can see the wiki, tasks, blogs, file activity)
• Areas of responsibility - the easiest way is to create a wiki document like responsibility matrix, set visibility options and update it any time when needed
• Yearly goals - you can set project goals with just one click from the project dashboard, fast and easy
• 5 year vision - you need to use wiki for this one, in five years a lot of things will change, you might want to update your vision, but that is what's great about wiki - you can compare with the older versions and see the changes.
• Life goals - one word: wiki :)

 

I will share some tips on workflow process and natural planning method on my next post, meanwhile you can sign up for a free account and tell what you think and keep tuned.

  Posted by godzhesas on 18 June, 2008 12:27

Ok first of all let's find out what is Scrum? Scrum is iterative and incremental software development process; others sometime call it agile software development framework. Today Scrum is very popular with project managers, because complements agile project management practices and makes the project delivery process more efficient. Here are some general Scrum practices and how Comindwork+Scrum can help you in increasing project productivity even more:

• Customers become a part of the development team. In Comindwork you can invite your Customers to participate in the projects, get feedback, and discuss goals. Clients will be aware about all project work and changes.
• Frequent risk and mitigation plans developed by the development team itself. Using Comindwork wiki you can easily track and make any changes needed to any plans on the fly, with RSS and email notifications you can be sure that the whole project team will be informed about these project changes right away.
• Transparent work process. In Comindwork you can use cases to assign tasks, and project and personal dashboards come in very handy here, because within one click you can see who is doing what and where. Within a click you can get a project report about the tasks and the time spent to implement them.
• Monitor progress with global project timeline, where you can see all the ongoing activities of a project.
• Flexible time and location. With Comindwork, because it is an online project management solution, you can work anytime, form anywhere, whenever it is convenient for you and your team, of course as long as you have internet connection :)

Comindwork is great for Scrum, because event if your team is separated by great distances you can still make Scrum like process work for your project: dashboards, reports, notifications, timeline, tasks, blogs - all these features will help you to increase productivity. Don't forget that one user can participate in a lot of projects, so project dashboards are of a great value to quickly find out where the project is heading to.


When combining Scrum management methodology and Comindwork you will make the work more productive, more effective and most importantly you will get to the final release of your product faster. So don't waste another minute and sign up for a free account now.

  Posted by godzhesas on 13 June, 2008 11:00

What is the difference between Comindwork and Basecamp? It'd be great if I could say "hey, Comindwork is the best online project management tool out there", but I believe that today yet we still don't have the best tool, I hope and believe that after a year or two the answer to that answer will be Comindwork. I have nothing against Basecamp, it is great, effective and easy to use tool, but I've read a lot of complains about their customer support and that experienced project managers find their feature set "not sufficient". What Comindwork is trying to do - get all the features that project managers and team members need for productive project work in one place, and try to keep it usable and simple. Here are some of the main features offered by Comindwork that you won't find in Basecamp:

• Comindwork is free for small teams (unlimited users,  1active project) - no feature restrictions. And you can go with self-hosted plan and put it on your own server in your office.
• Customizable. You can order Comindwork customization or improvements according to your internal workflows.
• Advanced search - powered by Lucene algorithms
• Knowledge management - enterprise wiki, categories and tagging
• Collaboration - internal project blog, comment on any wiki page, project and team dashboards, RSS and email notifications
• Reports and charts - rich visualization of the project status and team work stream.
• Customers actually influence the product - features are developed upon request and suggestions
• 23 different languages
• Video replies
• Last, but not least - great customer support

Comindwork is a great solution for any company that wants to manage it's projects more effectively, especially if you are working with distributed teams.

  Posted by godzhesas on 11 June, 2008 09:43

What is the project supposed to produce? New business service? A new site design? Will it fix a software bug? Tell your team what it's supposed to produce, one of the first things you need to do - set clear and realistic goals. This helps to define the boundaries of the project and focuses the team's efforts on producing an outcome. Deliverable is a frequently used term in project management because it focuses on output. Please note that there can be both intermediate and end deliverables. The distinction lies in whether the deliverable is the final product that fulfills the purpose of the project, or whether it is used to manage the project or development process, like a blueprint. Here are couple examples for easier
understanding:

• A document specifying the requirements of a new piece of software is an intermediate deliverable, while the finished software product is an end deliverable.
• A description of a target market is an intermediate deliverable, while an advertising campaign using magazine ads and television commercials is an end deliverable.
• A study of a new university admissions policy is an intermediate deliverable. The actual new university admissions process is an end deliverable.

How do you manage your project deliverables? Does Comindwork make this easier for you? If no, what improvements you'd like to see?

  Posted by godzhesas on 28 May, 2008 13:41

Looking for an alternative to Basecamp? This website can help you. And of course Comindwork is mentioned as one of the alternatives. Keep Comindworking!