Leadership is an important quality in a good project manager – it is the driving force behind a successful team. This article from projecttimes.com, written by Peter de Jager, looks at what it means to “think outside the box” and how many of our “boxes” are actually self-imposed limitations.
Resources
Free Project Management E-books
Plus, plenty of other free Strategy and Management books
Project Management South Africa (PMSA) shared the good news in their newsletter (Issue 11: Friday 9th September) that as of 6 September 2016, the Gautrain Management Agency (GMA) has lent its support to education by making business and textbook e-books available to Gautrain passengers.
Five Time Management Tips for Project Managers
Successful project management hinges on good time management. Effective project managers avoid time-wasting exercises at all times and ensure that both their own time and the time of their resources is used productively.
Here are five useful tips to help you best utilise your time.
5 Project Management Lessons from Great Business Leaders
The technology industry is particularly fast-paced and constantly evolving, and project managers can learn many valuable lessons from the successes and mistakes that have been made by the leaders in the field.
Smallbiztrends.com looks at some of the giants in the technology business and the insights they provide into what it takes to thrive as a project manager.
SED Project Accountability: How to integrate accountability and transparency into the SED project cycle
In developing countries like South Africa, socioeconomic development projects have the potential to significantly improve the quality of people’s lives. In practice, however, the impact is often limited due to inefficiency, inequity, and insufficient accountability. Barend Cronjé, CEO of CoLAB, a leading project implementation consultancy, looks at improving the outcomes through integrating accountability into SED projects.
Whitepaper: Using the PMBOK® Guide to build a practical project management process
Utilising a stable project management standard such as the PMBOK® Guide can simplify the task of defining a practical and effective project management process. However, many new project managers find the application of these principals in the real world difficult.
The Difference Between a Risk and an Issue
Risks and Issues in project management are often confused and the two terms are frequently used interchangeably. However, risks and issues are not the same thing and should be clearly identified and differentiated so they can be addressed correctly when they arise.
Getting the Most Out of Your Project Resources
A fundamental part of a project is the efficient and effective management of resources. Often managers see adding more resources as a quick solution to an issue, but managing existing resources more efficiently frequently yields a better outcome.
5 Tips and Tricks for New Project Managers
Getting into the project management field can be both exciting and daunting for a new project manager. There is a lot to take in and a lot to learn and all of your technical and people skills will be put to the test.
To help you get started on your journey towards being top of your field, we have put together a list of handy tips and tricks that will set you apart from your peers.
When to exit a project
By Chanel van der Westhuizen
All projects reach a stage where the Project Manager will be required to exit the project. A project can exit during Closure Stage, when the Project Manager can ensure that the project has achieved its planned deliverables and objectives & ownership has been handed over to the business.
10 Must-Have Skills for Project Managers
Maybe you are a new project manager just starting out in the field, or a seasoned professional with many years’ experience under your belt. No matter where you are in the project management field, there are a number of must-have skills that every project manager needs.
Helen Sabell from Projecttimes.com looks at the top 10 and why these skills are essential for your project management career.
5 Tips for Managing Expectations in a Project
One of a project manager’s biggest tasks is keeping a project on track in the face of constant requests for changes and additions. It is for this reason that managing the expectations of project stakeholders from the outset of the project and having a strategy in place to deal with scope creep are both crucially important.
The Project Planning Checklist
Project planning is a crucial and often complicated first step in the project management processes. Having a checklist of discussion points to consider during planning can be useful to ensure that everything is considered. It is a great tool to use during brainstorming especially.
4 Essential Soft Skills Every Project Manager Should Have
More and more the project management community is becoming aware of the value of soft skills. A good project manager is not only experienced and skilled but also has the capabilities to manage the people on the project and bring their team together toward a common goal.
Six Technologies that Greatly Impact Project Management
How we do Project management has changed a lot in the past decade with new technologies emerging all the time. These tools and technologies are designed to simplify things and make project management more efficient, but it can be difficult to know what to use.
Top 5 Tips for Project Management Success
There are many factors that influence the success of a project, among them the right combination of planning, monitoring and controlling. Getting the balance of the elements right to complete a project on time and within budget can be tricky, so we are looking at some best practice tips that will help you get there.
Integrating ECPM Artifacts to Improve PRINCE2 Performance
Robert Wysocki has written an interesting series of articles on Projecttimes.com looking at both the ECPM and PRINCE2 Frameworks.
In this series of articles, he looks at integrating the two in order to improve PRINCE2 project management performance.
Top 5 predictions for project management in 2016
A new year always brings new opportunities to look ahead, both in planning and predicting what the year will bring. In an article on cio.com, Brad Egeland outlines his top 5 predictions for project management in 2016.
“As a discipline, I see project management as being fairly static. Still, there are changes and movements happening.”
Your Process Isn’t the Problem – It’s Your Communication
Projects sometimes run into problems. It is up to the project manager to identify where the issues are before it becomes a project in crisis, but often companies are turn to changing project tools and processes to failing projects without identifying that the problem is actually in poor communication.
The Product Manager vs. Project Manager
There is often blurring of the lines between product management and project management. The responsibilities frequently overlap and in some cases the role actually falls to the same person. But what is the real difference between a project manager and a product manager?
An article by Richard Banfield on freshtilledsoil.com looks to clear up the confusion around the different roles.