Whether your project team is new to working remotely or you’ve been leveraging offsite team members and other professionals for a while, now and then you may need support in making a dispersed workforce more efficient and effective. Adding remote work arrangements to project management can pay big dividends in productivity and employee retention, but…
Project Team Development
3 Reasons Projects Get Bogged Down
Everyone in your project team is busy but your initiative isn’t moving ahead. You may be stalled trying to get through a particular sequence of tasks or it might seem like every new activity experiences delays. Sound familiar? You aren’t alone. Even seasoned project teams occasionally run into situations where progress comes to a standstill….
Uncertainty and its Effects on Project Teams
When project teams encounter uncertainty, the ability to tap into solid experience and the right expertise is crucial. It may be a situation where you simply need to ask different questions, connect with different specialists, or evaluate different data points to determine how to move ahead. Other times, you could be running up against a…
What Does it Take to Build a Great Project Team?
Assembling a high-performing project team requires more than a recruiter and a handful of job descriptions. To achieve consistent project success, your group must have the necessary skills and experience to execute the kinds of initiatives your company normally undertakes. They must also be committed to maintaining forward momentum in the face of obstacles and…
Don’t Ignore an Unworkable Project Plan
When time is tight and there’s pressure to get a project underway as quickly as possible, it might be tempting to ignore concerns that might keep you from revising a project plan that is out of whack. You probably know the feeling—you’ve seen the plan but you don’t think it can possibly be executed as…
What Can An Integrated Project Plan Do For You?
When multiple sub-teams and cross-functional groups are working on the same project, there is a risk of disparate project plans popping up. These are typically fractured and incomplete, and they create all sorts of trouble for PMs and the organization’s leadership. One key to project success is avoiding this proliferation of different plans and schedules, particularly when executing large, complex, or high-visibility initiatives that are strategically important to the company.
Emergencies Call for Specialized Project Management Skills
It isn’t uncommon to encounter challenges during a project. Teams may lose a key member, putting additional work on everyone else, or a critical material might suddenly become unavailable. These problems are relatively routine and most PMs have the experience and resources to deal with the issues without derailing their project’s progress.
Don’t Overlook these Facility Closure Issues
There’s more to shutting down a building than moving the people out and locking the door behind them. Unfortunately, with everything a project manager has on their plate as part of the facility closure process, there are some areas that are commonly missed (or ignored until the last minute).
Stop Your Project Team From Over-committing
With numerous stakeholders to support and ambitious corporate goals to achieve, project teams sometimes fall into the trap of over-committing themselves as they try to make everyone happy. Some agree to aggressive schedules in hopes they can shave time off along the way. Others begin projects with a too-lean budget expecting they will somehow keep expenditures below normal levels. In each case, the team usually ends up looking bad in the end, as the project’s target completion date encounters delays and requests for additional funds pile up.
Material Procurement Risks Your Project Team Might Miss
Is your organization launching a new facility? Whether it represents an expansion of existing operations, a relocation from a previous site, or an entirely new function for the company, there are a number of risks around material procurement that must be identified and properly addressed before your facility startup project can deliver the expected results.