Your Guide to Project Management Best Practices

Project Dashboard and MS Excel – Developing Project Dashboard in Excel Sheets

PM Tips & Ideas

Project Dashboard and MS Excel – Developing Project Dashboard in Excel Sheets

The term “Project Dashboard” refers to a project tracking tool that provides a project manager with a graph view of the project progress, so that the project manager can see at a glance whether project characteristics are on track. Basically, sample project dashboard is a set of project charts and diagrams that help you review the current status of your project in real time. On the software market there are special project dashboard software products that allow you to build project charts and diagrams as well as project dashboard templates either automatically or manually. An example of project dashboard software that lets manually build project charts and diagrams is MS Excel. Today many people involved in project monitoring and control use project dashboard and MS Excel to have the best chance of success.

In this article, we tried to depict several steps to create a project dashboard view in Microsoft Excel software. You can follow the steps listed below to build project dashboard charts and diagrams in Excel sheets.

Project Cost Management – Definition, Process and Software

PM Tips & Ideas

How to Estimate Project Costs and Prevent Overspending

What is project cost management? It is a suit of activities for estimating, allocating, and controlling costs within the project. Project cost management allows determining and approving budget for the project and controlling spending. For example, in construction project cost management it is vital to estimate cost of building materials, equipment, salary of workers. In IT project cost management it is critical to estimate cost of software development, salary of IT staff and developers. Effective project cost management allows each project to be specific and unique because that project entails costs and requires specific funding. However, no matter whether you lead a software development project (IT project cost management) or construction project (construction project cost management), you should consider project cost management as a process that consists of the three key steps.

team building tips

Teamwork & Leadership

Several Tips on Building Effective Teams

To put the goals in line with the team competencies and find the balance, you should plan your activities for group building in advance and assemble team members which have required skills and abilities to meet your project goals. The success of your team building leadership will depend on the success of your team to perform project tasks and deliver the project. Group management, team building and personal motivation should be considered as the basis for developing and supporting an effective team and establishing teamwork.

project initiation glag

How-to Guides

How to Initiate Projects Successfully (Part II)

When the project is defined and the project chart is developed, it is time to acquire and assign the team. At this step of the project initiating phase, the project board is to be established and the project manager is to take responsibility for acquiring the project team and assigning it to project tasks and activities. The project manager needs to recruit the team leader(s) who will assist the project manager in initiating project by selecting and recruiting required project staff (members of the project team). The team leaders take responsibility for making team assignments and the project manager approves these assignments.

During the project initiating phase, the core activity for making right team assignments refers to developing job descriptions. A project job description is a formal project initiating document that states and explains what project roles are required to complete the project work and produce the deliverables, what targets each role is assigned to, and how to measure the targets and to access the performance of each role. Every team member should be assigned to a detailed project job description which defines personal role and responsibilities within the project. When initiating project and developing project roles, the team leaders need to consider the project initiating documents (Project Charter, Feasibility Study).

project initiation phase

How-to Guides

How to Initiate Projects Successfully (Part I)

A recent study conducted by the competent US agencies specializing in project initiation researches has shown that a large percentage of projects [of any kinds] are dismissed before they even reach the planning phase. The study investigates that the most common reason of project initiation phase failure refers to improper definition of project scope which results in the lack of sponsorship and investments required to ensure success of those projects. Therefore, it’s critical to understand the importance of the project initiation phase and know which steps can be taken to successfully go through this phase and initiate your projects as quickly and efficiently as possible.