eschulze's Latest Articles

We all love the surprise of a gift card or bag of goodies, but can it actually help bring a project in on time? If you are not treating your staff or vendors to small perks, you might want to weigh the pros and cons of adapting this policy.

The plans haven’t been approved, the layout is with the client until the Marketing Division head is in town, the part is backordered, whatever the reason, your project may be a victim of the dreaded down time. What do you do when it hits you?

If you are a Project Manager, you probably got to that position because you have a propensity for lists. Whether it be task lists, or tracking your time on paper, the ability to not only write a list but make it work for you is a powerful tool.

You need to meet with the Architect, your assistant called in sick, and the plans have been accepted. Juggling all these eggs can be a messy job if one of them drops, so you need to take advantage of time saving tools at your disposal.

You see it over and over again; one of the biggest time suckers in project management can be the inability to negotiate the new course a project has taken. Fluidity is essential to the success of a project.

Everyone complains about unnecessary meetings and sometimes you may feel that you spend half of your life in meetings to discuss mundane items. Time wasters can take the fun right out of a project.

With so much software already loaded on today’s business computers, how can a Project Manager develop a time tracking plan for his employees? Look at the resources available already and begin by building on that.

A Project Manager must analyze how time on their project is being spent and be prepared to make adjustments. Wasted time can send you overbudget or, even worse, kill a project. It may seem like unnecessary effort, but accounting for time spent is an important task.

We have all worked for someone that loves to micromanage a project. One unaccounted for minute and they are on your tail like a bee on honey. In the big scheme of things you may think they are hurting their own success, but what you don’t know about your project manager’s records could be what is keeping the job together.

If you are working in a small office with just a few employees, you can get away with more than your colleagues on the other end of the spectrum, but one thing you both need to do is keep track of your time. Your time might be listed on a scratch piece of paper, and theirs into a software application that tracks it for them, maybe it’s time for the two ends to come together into a cohesive time management plan for project managers.