Category: Communication

Solid Planning is the Answer to the Brexit Uncertainty

Companies worried about the future should instead turn their focus toward planning. Contingency planning has long been a core skill behind successful project management, and it’s a competency that organizations can turn to as the Brexit process moves forward. After reviewing the firm’s goals and where the changing environment might intersect (or interfere), project managers will be able to lay out several contingent paths that can guide the business through the uncertain years ahead, leaning toward one or another of these potential paths as information about the future becomes more clear.

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Why Your Manufacturing Project Needs a Work Breakdown Structure

Teams tasked with executing manufacturing projects have a lot on their plates. To get things underway as soon as possible, it can be tempting to skip over the development of a work breakdown structure and go right to carrying out tasks. But any perceived time savings gained by avoiding this step will quickly come back to haunt PMs, often in the form of delays, critical activity conflicts, and tasks left uncompleted.

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Maintaining Project Schedules

How to Become a Staff Realignment Master

Project schedules are rarely static. Instead, they begin evolving as soon as the team gets to work. Status reports coming in from the field, issues such as material and equipment delivery timing, and labor availability will all impact the schedule throughout the project’s lifecycle.

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resource management

Resource Management Enables Visibility

Project managers essentially have two areas of focus when it comes to manpower support:

Knowing that they have enough of the right resources to execute the amount of work planned, ensuring they aren’t caught short-handed at a critical time.
Understanding when those resources are needed—and when they’re best used—so they don’t have expensive labor resources onsite without anything to do.

If the team isn’t adequately staffed with the right level of labor resources to complete the amount of work being scheduled, the activity durations will ultimately take longer. This often leads to some of the project’s scope being sacrificed toward the end of the project as the team runs out of time leading up to the target completion date.

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project critical paths

Managing Projects with Multiple Critical Paths

Complex projects often have more than one critical path, and in order for the project to reach a successful completion, each of these paths must be carefully managed. Even if the primary path is achieved, a lack of progress on any of the follow-on paths could doom the project to failure in the long run.

Teams that execute these challenging projects need to be mindful of what it takes to manage multiple layers of requirements and actions. A strong awareness of all the paths that make up a project is critical if the Project Team wants to ensure that nothing falls behind schedule or drops off the radar.

If your center of excellence is facing a can’t-fail project with multiple paths, it’s important to understand the risks that exists and where opportunities for success can be found.

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Technology Solutions for Power Plant Project Managers

Technology has invaded nearly every corner of the business world, with tools such as robust data analytics driving more strategic decisions than ever before. For power plant project managers, technology has created a few challenges along the way. Fortunately, with the right approach, project teams can overcome these gotchas and take advantage of everything technology offers.

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Power Plant Project

Power Plant Projects Bring Unique Communication Challenges

Strong communication skills are a must for any project manager. But when it comes to planning and executing projects in the highly demanding power plant environment, the ability to craft, plan for, and oversee communication efforts moves to the top of the priority ladder. Tackling these unique challenges requires experience and expertise.

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project control process

Is Your Project Management Control Process Working?

Sometimes it can be difficult to determine how well your Project Team’s project management control process is actually working. Is your team constantly occupied with too many tasks to manage and not enough people to get everything done? Do your projects come in late more often than they’re on time? Are you spending so much energy responding to last-minute problems that you aren’t able to focus on your current tasks? Has the team’s mood started to slip?

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Project stress and panic

How to Handle Project Stress and Panic

Several strategies can be deployed to help Project Teams avoid lapsing into panic when the pressure mounts, whether it’s because of an emergent problem or because there simply seems to be too much to do. Knowing where to draw the line is key when balancing stress levels.

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