Tag: project management tips

Benchmarking

Maintain Quality in Your Manufacturing Project

There are many potential challenges hiding within manufacturing projects. Without the right kind of planning and preparation, issues can crop up with little warning and cause Project Teams to compensate by cutting corners, either in the level of work being performed, the materials used, or even in the overall scope of the project.

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Communication

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
Communication

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
Common Problems

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
Common Problems

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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Real-Time Project Status
Managing Teams

Why Power Plant Projects Need Real-Time Status Updates

Information is one of the core pillars underpinning every successful project. With the evolution of technology and more compute power available than ever before, there’s little reason centers of excellence should continue to rely on data that may be days or even weeks old when it comes to identifying potential issues, forecasting activity schedules, making strategic decisions, and pouncing on opportunities in the marketplace.

A robust project management methodology enables the team to access the kind of real-time status updates that are critical to success. If your Project Team hasn’t yet prioritized the use of real-time data, consider how it could improve the landscape for team members, executives, and the other stakeholders involved in the effort.

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Communication

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
Common Problems

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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Common Problems

Partnering with an External Consultancy: Facts & Fears

Executive groups and internal project team members are often unsure what it means to partner with an outside project management firm. There may be concerns about job stability for Project Team staff or the potential for damage to the team’s reputation. Some people worry about the logistics of working with an external expert and how it might contribute to a difficult environment, where workloads, time pressures, and stress levels are already high.

These are reasonable concerns but they’re typically based on the unknown. They don’t reflect the reality of partnering with an experienced outside consultancy. We’ve compiled some of the most common fears we hear from potential clients and balanced them against the facts of how a relationship with an external expert functions in the real world.

If your organization is considering an external consultancy but fear is holding you back, see how a partnership with an outside project management expert really works.

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