Your Guide to Project Management Best Practices

Author: Mary Levinson

PM Tips & Ideas

What is Procurement & How to Plan Project Purchases?

Traditionally, the objective of a well-planned procurement process in business is to acquire goods and services in response to internal needs. By accomplishing this objective companies streamline business activities, reduce cost of raw material, and practice better supply management. In terms of project management, the procuring activity involves exploring the most cost-effective way of providing project teams with needed products and services, within available funds and time frames. To recognize how this process can be planned out, first we must understand what procurement is about and what basic steps are involved in defining purchasing requirements for projects and identify potential sellers.

Project Time Tracking Tips

PM Tips & Ideas

Five Common Tips on Tracking Time in Projects

Time tracking is one of the biggest parts of a project manager’s job. Because time is critical to success, it needs to be tracked against the schedule throughout the entire project lifecycle until all scheduled activities are accomplished, the customer accepts the product, and all documentation is closed and archived. The project manager takes primary responsibility for monitoring schedule performance, making necessary adjustments, and taking corrective action. In this article I want to highlight 5 common tips on how to make time tracking in projects more effective.

Mind Mapping for project planning and management

PM Framework

Mind Mapping for Project Planning and Management

Creativity, patience and organizational ability are all important talents for project managers, but detailed documentation is a critical success factor which should addressed first of all, and mind mapping is a great way to manage project documentation. Because mind maps create visual and easy-to-understand-and-follow documents, many professionals regard this tool as ideal for project planning and management. Priorities, tasks, dependencies, milestones, resources, durations, lead times and more can be visualized and presented to the team with help of mind mapping software. And you don’t have to be well experienced in idea visualization and presentation – everything you need is to use your creativity and have right understanding of subject matter to stimulate your mind and create a project map, either Gantt chart, WBS hierarchy, Team organizational chart, or whatever else document.

Business puzzle assembled with consistent methodology

Business & Finance

Benefits of using a consistent methodology in business

Having a consistent methodology in place lets decision makers establish, support and implement best practices of management in their business environment. A business methodology increases chances of success, prevents waste of time and effort, eliminates unnecessary actions, and ensures consistent reporting and analysis. If you currently use a strategic methodological approach in your company or consider implementing one, consider the four benefits of having such a roadmap in place.