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Author: Brad Egeland

Brad Egeland is a Business Solution Designer and IT/PM consultant and author with over 25 years of software development, management, and project management experience leading initiatives in Manufacturing, Government Contracting, Creative Design, Gaming and Hospitality, Retail Operations, Aviation and Airline, Pharmaceutical, Start-ups, Healthcare, Higher Education, Non-profit, High-Tech, Engineering and general IT. He has been named the “#1 Provider of Project Management Content in the World” with over 7,000 published articles, eBooks, white papers and videos. Brad is married, a father of 11, and living in sunny Las Vegas, NV. Visit Brad's site at http://www.bradegeland.com/.

5 reasons why you should choose Twproject

In my next installment of this ongoing “5 Reasons Why…” series I’d like to discuss 5 reasons why you should be checking out Twproject for all of your project management needs whether your projects are traditional waterfall projects or you prescribe to an agile methodology for managing your project. Twproject works with both… which is the first point on my list of 5…

Project Management:  Waterfall or Agile

Different businesses need different planning. And indeed, different projects need different planning. Therefore, Twproject lets you choose the method fitting the best, not forcing you in one way or another. Twproject supports the classic Waterfall method or the Agile one.

There is no single universal answer and each project manager can choose the best method for a given situation. This project management software allows you to create sophisticated Gantt charts or manage tasks through prioritized lists.

In short, Twproject enables you to easily and quickly plan your work, choosing the most fitting project management methodologies, or even mixing them at your own pace. On-going projects will be monitored by complete statistics, allowing you to have a clear idea of your project health. In late phases, bottlenecks, every problem will be identified in time.

Resource and Workload management

The goal of every company is to make more efficient use of resources and reduce waste.

Twproject lets you create all your company structure anche customers to have all of them in one place only. Once your teams are created you can assign them to projects and measure their allocation easily.

Should a resource be under-or over-allocated, this issue will be easily identifiable and with a few clicks, you will be able to correct your planning, generating alerts at the same time as the change.

By ensuring a correct workload distribution, a positive, seamless, and stress-free workflow can be created, contributing to the sustainable future of the organization and keeping employee morale high.

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Always up to date with dedicated dashboards and notification

Twproject includes by design a complete security model mapping your company structure. You will always be sure that persons will see only what they are allowed to see. Projects, costs, documents, anything can be secured.

In this software, you can build dedicated dashboards in which you supervise projects’ status and in which resources will be constantly updated on the work to be done, with their relative priorities and deadlines.

With Twproject, the project manager will be able to stay up-to-date at all times.

Moreover, the software includes an internal messaging service through which it is possible to communicate promptly and clearly with the team in general or, if necessary, with an individual member.

A software for PM but also for the team (to-do list and kanban)

The most interesting aspect of this software is that it has been designed to respond to different needs. Needs for PM such those mentioned before like projects structure, statistics, costs, but also for the team that needs to manage the everyday work. Twproject includes a very friendly to-do list attached to project phases that can be prioritized, ordered, managed in a powerful kanban board to help every resource of the team accomplish his own work.

Cost management, document management, and much more (h3)

During a project, it is vital to always keep an eye on budget and cost trends, as during its life cycle, the possibilities of scope creep increase and the likelihood of a project going off the rails becomes quite high.

Twproject provides great aid in this because it allows you to monitor project costs and compare them with planned costs at all times. Twproject not only manages project costs but also resources costs. You can assign a budget to a specific resource and that resource will be able to record his or her personal expenses directly within the system quickly and easily. Twproject lets you also attach documents to your projects, manage chats with the team, meetings, and much more.

Needless to say, when you’re not using project management software, you’re likely wasting a lot of time on small things and accomplishing more work than necessary.

It’s hard to keep track of who’s working on what, cross-team collaboration is inefficient, and it gets lost in emails and other communication tools. Hence, deadlines are missed and customers grow dissatisfied.

Therefore, using the right software is practically a must. Doing so will result in a significant improvement in productivity which, in turn, leads to more profit for your company. High quality in the least amount of time, is what businesses want to achieve.

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Once you decide to make use of a project management software, it will be wise to use the one that brings you the most benefits among those available on the market, and Twproject is definitely among the best. Twproject streamlines project planning increases workflow efficiency and optimizes collaboration visibility. It also comes with a 15-day free trial for you to personally test its potential. Try it now, you won’t regret it.

5 Reasons to Consider pmxboard Portfolio Management Board Set for your professional and private life

1. The most comprehensive and complete Portfolio Board Kit that captures up to 20 projects & programs on it!

Special design Portfolio Board provides a complete overview of a large portfolio up to 20 projects and programs. You can easily sense overall status of each project on the board from 10 feet and in 3 seconds. 20 separate projects on each line also provide separate status for sub KPIs with color codes. You can even capture main risks, se the priorities, identify project managers, sponsors and portfolio manager.

2. Complete Overview with several sub KPIs on it. You will not miss any important KPI on your board. The board includes below Sections and subsections on it;

Project & Product Introduction

> Priority setting column

> Overall Project Status Indicator (with color magnets)

> Project & Product Name

> Project Lead Name

> Sponsor Name

Milestones & Stages

> Progress bar up to 6 milestones (with color magnets). Milestone names can be customized

Timelines

> Overall Timeline Status

> Project Start, Project End (Target), Project End (Actual)

> Breakdown for each predefined 6 Milestones; individual status of each milestone (with color magnets), Target and Actual completion dates

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Budget

> Budget Status (with color magnets)

> Projected Budget

> Actual Budget Spending

Notes & Risks

> Additional Space for notes and risks

3. Ultra Light Full Magnetic Board with two options to locate it

The board is just over 6 lb! A special high density EVA material used to make this board! It is light, nice looking and full magnetic. eco-friendly UV printing keeps the visual aspects and the color quality high. You can keep writing and cleaning this board for long years without realizing and degradation in quality.

The board can be put on a wall or any surface by using two wall mount holes, or alternatively, it can be snapped on another magnetic board easily.

4. You can maximize the visuality of your board with 666 Color Coded Status Indicators that come with the set

Not only the overall project & program status can be color coded in relation to their actual status, you can also color code many sub KPIs to distinguish what is on track and what is not! Moreover, it has 6 staged progress-bar where anybody can see the progress on each project easily without needing to even review any detail at the first glance! You just snap them on the board at the designated spaces! When you need to learn more detail about any reported status on the board, you can do that directly on the board. All milestones’ timelines as well as budget KPIs compare targets to actuals, so you can see easily why any given KPI is red, yellow or green right just on the board!

5. Provides the best tool for the most effective communication across the board.

Regardless you are using this in a small team, as part of a big organization, or at home, it will communicate the right message with everybody from every level. The project team members, management and executives will enjoy the holistic overview in one board and it will improve the communication and transparency dramatically.

Click HERE to learn more about this set

Click HERE to purchase this product on Amazon US

Clich HERE to purchase this product on pmxbaord. They deliver worldwide!

5 Reasons Why Paymo is One of the Most Versatile Project Management Software Tools

In my laser-focused series of 5 reasons to know and try useful project management software, this piece will be featuring Paymo.

Paymo is one of the most versatile project management tools out there, a once standalone time-tracking and invoicing app that has developed into a full-grown work management platform, celebrating its 14-year anniversary now in 2021.

Why should you give Paymo a go?

1. Paymo offers a unique combination of task management, time tracking, and invoicing among others.

It’s a clean and easy-to-adopt work management software for your daily workflow. Paymo has been constantly adding new features that people actually use. It enables you to take your project from the early planning stages down to its closure, and most importantly – to payment. It’s a versatile platform, converging clients, projects, employee timesheets, and invoices into one platform. It offers various tools like Portfolio Gantt Chart, an insightful Dashboard, Team’s Tasks, and many others. If you work in a team, there’s a team scheduling module that tackles the frustration of under and overbookings.

All in all, it’s convenient, it’s seamless and cost-effective. You want a work management solution that integrates smoothly without having to pay for third-party apps and tools.

2.Paymo is at your fingertips on all platforms

Speaking of versatile project management software, Paymo users have all the options they want when working on their projects, remote or not. Whether you are a manager, team member, or freelancer, Paymo is available on the web, desktop (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux), and smartphone/tablet (iOS, Android). Paymo Plus, the automatic time tracking solution, is available   All you need is an Internet connection.

What’s more, Paymo integrates with dozens of third-party applications, such as Google Apps, Zapier, Adobe CC, Slack, and plenty others. This way, Paymo users can automate their workflow even more to facilitate their work.

 

3. Paymo takes time tracking to the next level

Paymo covers multiple native time tracking methods – a web timer, a desktop widget, a mobile time tracker, and an automatic time tracker for your desktop. With a few simple clicks, users can take all their time entries and turn them into time reports, timesheets, and invoices in order to get paid fairly. If someone’s a big fan of automation, Paymo Plus’ automatic tracker allows them to pair any time entry with related tasks in Paymo. Users simply have to leave Paymo Plus running in the background and clock out at the end of the day. They can create rules to pair and delete entries for yet another boost in automation.

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4. Paymo’s mobile app is a powerhouse in itself

Paymo outdid itself by taking its former basic time tracking app and turning it into a full-fledged mobile app that has a clear competitive edge. It boasts advanced functionality, such as task management (task details, project updates, global search), timesheets, time tracking, and active timers. Its latest upgrade is mobile invoicing. So, besides creating, previewing, and sending out invoices, users can organize their project expenses neatly in Paymo.

With a few taps and quick actions, users manage their projects and clients on the go, communicate in real-time, track their time, and turn timesheets into invoices. Paymo enables them to choose between 85+ currencies when billing their clients, and 15 language templates that are highly customizable.

5. Paymo is available in 22 languages

Speaking of languages, miscommunication is a hassle in your mother tongue, let alone a second or third language. This is why Paymo is available in 22 languages and constantly growing, trusted by more than 150,000 agencies, firms, universities, consultants, and freelancers from more than 100 countries worldwide. Using Paymo, users won’t have language barriers stopping them from working on multiple projects with collaborators (and clients!) from all over the world.

Five reasons to take a closer look at LiquidPlanner for Project Management

During my “Five Reasons Why…” series of project management software and services articles, a firm has emerged that deserves special mention. LiquidPlanner, founded in 2007, established a methodology I have written about before. Just this month, they have released the next generation of their product.

With orientation to ranged estimates, resource availability and task prioritization that powers a proprietary scheduling engine, LiquidPlanner has enabled insights and planning accuracy that saves teams time and delivers insights that increase confidence around project outcomes. As this series focuses on what makes a particular product standout for project management, especially for virtual teams, the improvements reflected in this new product release merits a closer look.

I think we can all agree, project management is hard. Project management without the right tool is harder. The best project managers embrace and oversee full adoption and utilization of technology that enables team collaboration, effective communication, and resource allocation to deliver projects on time and on budget.

Think for a minute about your favorite pizza.  Like pizza, most project management tools are good, but some are far better than others.  One project management tool that has been impressing for more than a decade is LiquidPlanner. It has earned accolades for its capacity to handle complex projects, portfolios of projects and allocation of resources better than any other tool in the market. Here are five reasons why it stands out…

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5 Reasons Why ONEPOINT Projects Should be on Your Must Have PM Tools List

In my next installment of this focused series on reasons why our PM community should know or try certain very useful and powerful project management tools they may or may not have ever heard of, I am going to cover ONEPOINT Projects.

ONEPOINT Projects is the leading provider of project and portfolio management (PPM) software solutions for modern project organizations. Unlike traditional PPM software, ONEPOINT Projects integrates simple, traditional, agile, and Jira projects into a single project portfolio and resource utilization database, thus covering the whole project life cycle. The hybrid and easy-to-use web application is available on cloud and on-premise and trusted by hundreds of customers across industries for more than 15 years.

1. Hybrid Project and Portfolio Management

ONEPOINT Projects goes into the heart of complex project and portfolio management with its innovative and hybrid approach. Project management offices can plan, execute, and control simple, traditional, and agile projects in a single project portfolio and resource utilization database. ONEPOINT’s software solution supports all major features of common international PM standards such as IPMA, PMI, and PRINCE2.

By combining traditional and standards-based project and portfolio management with the best of Scaled Agile, hybrid project planning becomes possible. ONEPOINT Project’s hybrid approach allows taking advantage of fully integrated agile methodologies such as Kanban boards while complementing them with proven traditional tools like WBS and Gantt charts.

Figure 1: ONEPOINT Projects Overview

 

2. Unique Bidirectional Integration with Jira

With ONEPOINT’s bidirectional (two-way) integration of Atlassian’s Jira, project managers and team members can plan and execute projects in both tools and leverage from their advantages. Top management can plan and control all agile, traditional, and Jira projects in ONEPOINT Projects while getting a simple overview over all portfolios. At the same time, team members can execute the tasks in Jira as usual so that everyone can operate in their preferred tool. All data is automatically transferred to both tools in real-time, and information only needs to be entered once. By incorporating the synced data into ONEPOINT’s integrated project database, visual resource planning, resource utilization analysis, status reporting, and much more becomes possible for Jira projects.

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To learn more about ONEPOINT’s Jira integration, check out ONEPOINT’s solution “Hybrid PPM for Jira” or download the whitepaper. ONEPOINT Projects can further integrate in leading enterprise applications such as Confluence, Slack, and SAP. Learn more about ONEPOINT’s connectors and integrations.

Figure 2: ONEPOINT’s bidirectional Jira integration

3. Resource Management and Utilization-based Planning

ONEPOINT Projects provides a seamless integration of resource management for practical utilization-based planning of projects. When planning, project managers can enter different resources and assign them hourly rates or absences to account for unavailability, i.e., vacations. An overall resource utilization view allows visual resource leveling and keeping track of their allocation across all active projects. If a resource is unavailable, i.e., utilized in another project, the software automatically displays conflicts and overloads. The drag & drop feature helps with managing these resources.

What’s more, is that resource management is even possible for agile project planning via sprint boards. Story points are automatically converted to show the corresponding utilization. Project managers can also drag & drop stories for faster planning.

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ONEPOINT provides a graphical visualization of resource utilization across all projects, optimizing planning and avoiding conflicts, overloads, and absences. A resource histogram further displays resource utilization based on project probabilities and indicates resource (un-)availability over time. Finally, a what-if scenario planner helps in demanding scenarios quickly via drag & drop of resources.

 

Learn more about ONEPOINT’s features like Resource Management or Agile Project Planning.

Figure 3: Visual Resource Histogram

4. Support for The Whole Project Life Cycle

ONEPOINT Projects goes well beyond planning by covering the entire project life cycle and accompanying project managers from the beginning to the end of a project. In contrast to other software providers, ONEPOINT Projects integrates project charter, kick-off, and project close-down according to the guidelines of PM standards such as IPMA, PMI, or PRINCE2. During implementation, integrated meeting management functionality is used to take useful meeting minutes, allocate to-dos, and even run sprint retrospectives in agile projects.

Above all, ONEPOINT Projects extends the project life cycle by many features for project controlling, i.e., risk management and stakeholder analysis. Status Reporting and Traffic Lights help keep track of plans and actuals of objectives, and the software features ready-to-use controlling tools such as trend analysis or work-break-down structure. ONEPOINT Projects has a unique scope of features and tools along the entire project life cycle.

More information about ONEPOINT’s features and options is available on their website.

Figure 4: Project Life Cycle in ONEPOINT Projects

 

5. Straight Forward Navigation and Clear Overviews

ONEPOINT Projects is known for its easy-to-use software solution with a highly visual interface on all devices. It has a clear overview over all projects and portfolios, thus provides project transparency in real-time. The straightforward navigation allows a quick orientation in the software. Project members benefit from ease of use and self-explanatory features, which is especially important for employees who are not professionally involved in project management. ONEPOINT Projects uses its latest technologies to ensure outstanding usability and an easy-to-use tool for every project manager.

Figure 5: ONEPOINT Project’s Sprint Board

As you can see, ONEPOINT is a diverse and powerful enterprise project portfolio management tool with the ability to integrate simple, traditional, agile, and Jira projects into a single project portfolio and resource utilization database, thus covering the whole project life cycle. Making it an excellent choice without the organization needing to really scale or alter their approach when using ONEPOINT.

See for yourself… Watch some intro tutorial videos or request a free trial today.