^{Source: http://projektmanagement-definitionen.de/glossar/kritischer-pfad/}

The critical path is one of the classic instruments in project management and an excellent tool for project time planning. However, project management students and even experienced project managers often have difficulties explaining what the critical path really is. Our 5 questions on the critical path will help you to gain a better understanding:

What is the critical path?

The critical path is the sequence of activities and milestones in a project plan that determines the minimum duration of the project. All activities comprising the critical path are dependencies and do not include buffer time. In order to determine the critical path, it’s essential to know the duration of all project activities, due dates and the logical dependencies of activities. Each activity is defined by the earliest date it can be completed and the latest date it must be completed at. Connecting all activities in a project plan shows where and how much buffer time is calculated into the project plan. This may result into a project having more than one critical path.

What’s critical about the critical path?

All activities that permit no delay in order for the project to be completed in time belong to the critical path. If the duration of any activity on the critical path exceeds the planned time frame, the planned duration of the entire project will be changed. The total buffer time of all activities on the critical path is zero. If the project team needs an additional day in order to complete an activity that is included in the critical path, the entire project completion will automatically take one day longer than planned. 

Why is the critical path useful in project management?

The Critical Path Method (CPM) reveals bottlenecks in your project plan. Applying this method, it’s easy to identify which delays in the project are particularly risky, allowing you to counter-act time-frame problems early on. Activities that lie on the critical path should be continuously monitored. If you manage to save time on the critical activities, you can shorten the duration of the entire project.

How do you prevent the critical path from extending the overall project duration?

It is crucial that activities on the critical path are not delayed. You can prevent a delay by allocating additional resources to these activities. Moreover, it is helpful to do affected tasks in parallel instead of completing them sequentially. A timely completion of the project is especially risky, if one project contains several critical paths that run parallel. 

How do you determine the critical path in InLoox PM?

With InLoox PM, you don’t have to calculate the critical path manually. The only prerequisite for determining the critical path is a complete project plan in InLoox PM that includes all activities, their start and end dates and their duration.

In order to display the critical path, open your project and click on Planning. You’ll see your current project plan. Select the View tab and click on Show Critical Path. The critical path will be highlighted in red in your project plan. Click on Display Slack to see how much buffer time is included for each activity.

For everyone who wants to equip large project teams or entire companies with InLoox PM, there is now a new type of license: The InLoox PM Corporate License. With this, you can provide all project team members in your company with InLoox PM.

The license includes an InLoox PM Enterprise Server license and an unlimited number of InLoox PM Universal User licenses. The new type of license allows InLoox PM network operation with one logical database.

So, all team members can manage their projects directly in Microsoft Outlook or via their web browser - with InLoox PM Web App.

Your contact person is there to help you with any questions regarding the InLoox PM Corporate License. For prices and further information, please click here.

You get more than 2.2 million results by entering “Gantt chart“ in Google. The bar chart that is widely used in project management has been pronounced dead ever so often, but still seems to be highly relevant.

The engineer and consultant Henry L. Gantt (1847 – 1919) lent his name to the diagram which was mainly used to optimize productions flows in the early years. Henry Gantt’s main focus was to utilize machines to their full capacity by using this chart.

The Gantt chart shows project-related activities. The text part on the left side usually contains the activities in table columns as well as the related start dates, end dates and the durations. The visual part on the right side displays horizontal bars that visualize the duration, start and end date of each activity proportionally on a time axis: The longer the bar, the longer the planned duration of the activity. 

The precondition to create a Gantt chart is an elaborated project plan. Before starting to create a Gantt chart, the project team has to be well aware of all necessary activities and has to put them in the right logical and chronological order. This order determines the sequence of activities in the Gantt chart and in the project itself.

The project director also has to assign a working time calendar that forms the basis of the Gantt chart. Working and non-working times determine the duration of the activities and of the project itself. It makes a big difference, of course, if the work week has 35 or 60 hours, if the team works 24/7 and if Saturday is a working day. The number of holidays and vacations in the project plan also influences the duration of the project.

Besides that, there are time constraints that define the position of a bar in the Gantt chart. Some activities have to start or end on a certain day. “No earlier than” or “no later than” are also widely used. For example, if a customer presentation has to take place on a certain day, the preparations are supposed to be completed no later than on that very day.

Too often, project teams only use activities with fixed dates in their Gantt charts and neglect the logical links between them. That makes it difficult to update the plan. It is much easier to use dependencies in the project plan, e.g. the classic end- to-start relationship. Example: As soon as the designer has finalized the print file, it has to be given to the print shop. If the designer is late, the delivery to the print shop is automatically delayed accordingly – but only if a logical dependency between the two elements has been set in the Gantt chart. A fixed date, however, has to be corrected manually.

As soon as the project realization has started, completed activities and the progress can also be entered into the Gantt Chart.

Next week: The Gantt Chart – Part 2

The second part to our mini series on the Gantt chart (click here for part 1) deals with the advantages and the disadvantages of bar charts and clever ways to use them.

Project managers, prefering agile methods, heavily criticized Gantt charts througout the past years. Their ciritque was not always fair and often times, their line of argumentation is similar to the following quote:

“A globe is useless because it doesn't show me which way to take at the oncoming intersection!” (Guido Zokoll on Produktentwicklung effektiv (in German))

The Gantt chart is one of the best tools to keep an overview of the duration and succession of processes and milestones within a project. Moreover, with the Gantt chart you can see existing dependencies between processes at a glance.

Gantt charts are especially beneficial when created with professional project management software:

• Project management software automatically calculates a project plan according to the parameters defined by the project manager. Time restrictions and dependencies are automatically taken into account. 
• The project plan is calculated based on the underlying work time calendar - working hours and non-working hours are automatically factored in the calculation of process duration and the overall project completion.
• At request, slack time and the critical path can be displayed as well. This way project managers can always see how much time they have left until the scheduled project completion, where it might be necessary to increase manpower and where to cut down on workload.
• Software-aided Gantt charts can be easily expanded. Specific tasks can be assigned through work packages, clarifying responsibilities for a variety of processes.
• Some tools allow for a comparison of forward and backwards planning, making it easy to identify critical milestones. 
• The project plan can be effortlessly updated: When moving an activity in the time plan, all connected activities are moved accordingly. 

Difficulties arise when the Gantt chart is not used correctly. A Gantt chart should simplify managing projects by providing a comprehensive project overview. However, if meetings are solely used to update the chart, something is amiss. 

The greates challenge is the level of detail to be reflected in a Gantt charts. If every minute detail is included the chart gets confusing and loses its information value. When working on bigger projects, it makes good sense to create individual Gantt charts for part projects. Agile methods can easily be combined with the Gantt chart tool, e.g. a Gantt chart could be created for each sprint. 

Critic of Gantt charts find fault with the fact that the activity progress in a Gantt chart does not reflect the overall project success. A 50 percent time completion does not indicate an equivalent activity progress.

In order to reflect such information, interim results should be included in the project plan as milestones. This way, it is easy to keep track of deadlines and monitor whether interim results were met. Project software allows you to create Gantt charts that show the progress of individual activities, making the Gantt chart one of the most important tools for project controlling.

Creating Gantt charts with Excel

Many project planers who shy away from investing in project management software use Microsoft Excel to create Gantt charts. You can create a Gantt chart when stacking the individual bars in a bar chart. In preparation for the Gantt chart, you create a table of the various activities including their start- and finish day as well as the time remaining in days.

The horizontal axis of the chart is labeled with the time units in days. The final step is to make sure that the bars are hovering without being attached to the vertical axis. This is done by formatting the first bar row without filling and frame.

Gantt charts created with Excel fulfill its basic functions. When making changes to one activity, you have to manually change all the following activities. Additional functions such as assigning work packages or automatic calculation of project duration based on restrictions and dependencies are not available in Excel. Gantt charts created in Excel are absolutely sufficient for simple projects such as planning a party or setting a time frame for a research paper. When it comes to professional management of more complex projects, creating Gantt charts with Excel might not be your best option. 

InLoox now! – the latest addition to the InLoox product family – has been extended by a variety of new features. The turnkey project plattform in the cloud now offers an improved project overview and makes team communication even easier.

The new timeline view gives a chronologic overview of all changes made in projects. This makes it super easy to get back on track with the latest events in your projects even after longer absences.

Moreover, you can now contact team members via email directly from within your InLoox now! program. In the project planning tab, when editing work packages, time tracking entries or opening activities, the email template is only a click away. Communicating is even more efficient and faster with the email templates. In addition, you can attach project related documents that are saved directly in InLoox now! or on your file server - keeping external team members in the loop was never easier.

More new features in InLoox now!

	Notification on notes and documents With the latest version, you can notify InLoox contacts about new, relevant project notes and documents with only one click.
	Forwarding project reports via email InLoox now! simplifies your project reporting. Forward InLoox project reports immediately after creating them simply as email attachment.

If you want to find out more about InLoox now!, you'll find the essentials on the cloud-based project platform:

InLoox now! is instantly ready to use. All you have to do is sign up for your 30-day free trial account. If you like InLoox now!, you can simply transfer your test account into a personal user account. 

We take care of all installations, maintenance and service of the server infrastructure.

This takes the burden from your IT department and helps you cut down on investment and running costs.

InLoox now! offers a transparent pay-as-you-go model, making it simple to integrate changing project partners.

InLoox now! has minimalsystem requirements. All you need is a compatible webbrowser, internet access and your account information.   

You can use InLoox now! with your tablet PC and smartphone too!

Security, availability and robustness are our priority.

Thanks to the all-inclusive update regulation for InLoox now!, your project infrastructure is always up-to-date. If you should still have problems with InLoox now!, you can always reach us at our free support hotline.

Find out more about InLoox now! here.

One try is worth a million words. Start your free 30-day trial of InLoox now! at www.inloox.com/free-trial/inloox-now/

Architects, corporate consultants or the field sales force are no longer the only ones to work on projects from changing locations. Mobility has become an important factor in all kinds of industries. Team members shuttle between projects and company sites and are part of distributed project teams.

While they are away on business, permanent callbacks at the office or the exchange of information via e-mail are cumbersome and error-prone. So, mobile team members often miss out on the change of a deadline or a contact person or on a new work package.

These are the team members we have developed our InLoox Mobile Apps for, which are now available for download.

With InLoox Mobile Apps, team members receive real-time project data while they’re on the go. The contact details of the responsible contact persons in their projects are also always at their fingertips. With the new application, they can see pending tasks for themselves and their team members directly on their smartphone.

Mobile team members can also give feedback on completed work packages while they’re on the go or document the time they have worked on project-related tasks. So, the office-based team members are always updated and there is no need to complete project data after the mobile team members returned from their trip.

And here is an overview of the most important features:

The InLoox Mobile Apps are free of charge and available for download on the Apple App Store and on Google Play.

InLoox for iPhone requires iOS 6.0 or higher, InLoox for Android requires Android 3.0 or higher. The InLoox Mobile Apps can be used in combination with an InLoox now! Universal User account or with an InLoox PM Enterprise Server and Universal User licenses.

Part 1: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow…

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion“, says Parkinson's law (C. Northcote Parkinson, 1955).

Everyone knows cases in which this doctrine applies to project management. At the beginning of a project, there is plenty of buffer time for all the project stages, so that the project team doesn’t fall behind and is able to deliver results to the customer in time. Towards the end of the project, things tend to get really stressful and meeting the project objectives is jeopardized. There are loads of projects which are finished far behind schedule.

But how can that happen if there is generous buffer time for unexpected developments during the project? In many projects, buffer time amounts to more than half of the entire project time. And why is estimating times and dates in a project such a difficult thing to do?

In most cases, several psychological factors are involved if serious planning errors happen.

More than enough time

At the beginning, more often than not there is a generous time frame for a project. Many estimated values of a project already include buffer time. Additionally, each department adds its own buffer time to the project. That is only human, as the person in charge has to take the responsibility if there is a time lag in their own sub-project. There is a tendency towards pessimistic estimated values rather than optimistic estimations in projects. Time and effort for activities are sometimes willingly overestimated, because they fear that team members from higher hierarchy levels will discard a considerable part of the buffer time anyway.

Student syndrome

This generous time frame in particular leads to a phenomenon in project teams that is known as student syndrome or procrastination. The time that is available for the project is completely used up. Especially at the beginning of the project, team members dawdle – it is still enough time to finish all work packages in schedule. Decisions are delayed, many alternative solutions are discussed, tasks are not entirely completed and external project partners are held in standby position.

People act that way for many reasons. Sometimes it is just laziness – why work as quickly as possible if it possible to do the job sluggishly?

It might also be perfectionism that leads to a blockade. The Pareto Principle says that 80 percent of the results can be achieved in 20 percent of the time. The last 20 percent of goal achievement consume 80 percent of the time and effort. It is really important to reconsider goals and priorities and to ask critically if further improvements are worth the effort. Sometimes, the reason for time problems in projects is just bad planning:

People and organizations tend to make incorrect assumptions when it comes to the time they need to complete a task. Studies show that especially managers overestimate their own efficiency. Only when they are supposed to estimate how much time other people might need to fulfill a certain tasks, the evaluation is more realistic.

In large projects, the project goals are often extended during the project (“mission creep”) which leads to further delays.

And presto: The buffer time which appeared to be so generous at the beginning of the project has vanished into thin air and there’s an exponential increase in project time needed and the project costs.

If project managers then try to save the project by shifting more staff to it they often cause further delays (the so-called Brook’s law according to Frederick P. Brooks).

Next week: The solution to the problem – How to manage to complete projects in time

Part 2: Completing projects in time

^{Adapted from: www.Speed4Projects.Net}

^{Author: Wolfram Müller, Speed4Projects; license agreement: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/legalcode}

Last week’s post was about the phenomenon that even though there are generous buffer times, projects often are not completed in time. Most project teams are familiar with the procedure: After a relaxed initial phase, projects become very stressful for all team members. Actual times hardly ever stay below the estimated values.

But how can you avoid this problem?

In 1997, the physicist and management consultant Eliyahu Goldratt introduced the Critical Chain into project management to solve this problem. The concept aims to protect the Critical Path from delay, because every leeway leads automatically to an extension of project time. Goldratt predicted that with his concept, project times could be reduced by at least 30 percent.

To avoid an extension of project time, managers usually put buffer times between project phases or sub-projects. In many projects, half of the project duration consists of buffer time.

The Critical Chain method separates the buffer times from the activities and puts it at the end of the project where it is managed jointly by the entire project team. So, the team members don’t get the impression that they have forever time to finish their work packages and psychological phenomena regarding the procrastination of work are annulled. Then, the buffer time at the end of the project is reduced by 50 percent. These measures are consistent with the recommendations psychologists give to prevent “chronic” procrastination. Time restrictions help to use work time more efficiently. In his experiments, Eliyahu Goldratt reduced the estimated times so drastically that the teams could never be sure if they could complete a task in time.  

Project controlling is also affected by this method. Both, the progress of the project and buffer time consumption are monitored at the same time. Managers no longer control if milestones are achieved in time, but they “only” monitor the proportion of project progress and buffer consumption. If the project proceeds faster than buffer times are consumed, everything is in the green. If more and more buffer time is consumed without a real project progress, the project is critical – which is marked red in the “temperature curve” image above. The transient area is yellow.   

After the initial euphoria, it has become quiet around the concept of the Critical Chain. In some project environments, the method has not led to the desired outcome. There are several reasons for this:

Criticism of the Critical Chain concept

Milestones in the sense of clearly defined intermediate project goals have never been an essential part of Goldratt’s concept. Milestones, however, play an important role in project schedules, because they give structure to a project and allow a review of intermediate goals – not only in terms of time and date, but also concerning the quality of the intermediate result. Project phases with clearly defined intermediate goals and fixed due dates enable project managers to keep control of their projects. A project plan without milestones means losing an important managing function.

It is also possible that the absence of milestones rather encourages a phenomenon like Parkinson’s Law (see part 1). Project managers have learned from agile software development that regular or even daily team meetings and continuous monitoring of results create great project results.

Another problem with Goldratt’s concept is the extremely tight schedule he suggests. In a worst case scenario, team members don’t feel committed to the project plan from the beginning; because they agree that the plan is unrealistic.

When team members delay project tasks, it is not always because of the student syndrome, but due to the lack of resources, the pressure or work overload of team members in the project and in their departments. Blaming the team members’ laziness or bad planning for missed deadlines often does not adequately reflect the problem and conceals the actual reasons.  

Some researchers assume that it is not this specific concept that leads to a reduction of project time by 30 percent, but that the use every systematical project management and monitoring method reduces project times significantly.

In that regard, Goldratt’s Critical Chain concept offers several good starting points to improve the adherence to due dates in projects. It does, however, not give a good reason to give up well-known concepts such as milestones if they led to good results in the past.

A few weeks ago, we asked for your opinion on the InLoox products in the InLoox Customer Survey 2013 and these are the results:

91 percent of the InLoox users have already recommended the InLoox products to business partners or would recommend them in principle. The integration with Microsoft Outlook, the ease of use and the options to adjust the software to the conditions in one’s company are the aspects that the participants like best about the software.

We are very happy to hear that InLoox is “a living thing” throughout the companies:  73 percent of the respondents use InLoox PM in their projects on a daily basis and 68 percent use the software for over a year. Thus, InLoox PM is not one of those applications which are introduced into a company and then remain unused.

The most popular features are the project list, time planning, document management and the quick access panels in Microsoft Outlook.  

Trend towards increasing mobility in everyday project work

The survey results also reflect the current trend towards increasing mobility in everyday project work: The majority of the project managers in the survey want to stay updated on the way to work or to customer meetings and want to get tasks done promptly – on a tablet computer or on their smartphone. Project management “to go” is, however, more of an additional option, because the majority of the users still want to manage projects on their desktop computer.

The Cloud is on the rise

Whereas most of the respondents want to use mobile devices to manage their projects in the future, they are still hesitant towards Cloud-based applications. 41 percent of the interviewed persons do not consider SaaS solutions yet. A quarter of the respondents already use Cloud software and 15 percent might probably use Cloud-based solutions in the future.

Kudos to the customer support team

One of the most frequently reported reasons for recommending InLoox products is the quality of the InLoox customer support. “Kudos to the support team for the qualified advice and help”, wrote one participant and another respondent confirmed: “A very special thank you goes to the hotline team!”

We are very happy about the positive feedback, but we are also happy to receive criticism and suggestions for improvement, because this makes it a lot easier for us to adapt the InLoox products to your needs.   

To all participants: Thank you for your time and your feedback!

One of the biggest challenges in project management is estimating project effort. Many project managers run into problems, because they have underestimated the time, resources and budget they need to complete the project successfully.

The project management coach and author Susanne Madsen provides the readers of her blog with valuable tips on how to get the estimated times and costs for a project right.

In 10 steps, she explains that analysis and estimation need to be an ongoing process throughout the entire project. An estimation will always carry a certain degree of uncertainty. Unexpected things will come up in every project, so turning a blind eye on project risks and just following a best case scenario when estimating efforts will not benefit the project.

Some project managers tend to neglect side issues of a project, such as analysis, training, testing etc, that also consume time and budget. Susanne Madsen highly recommends backing up estimations with data and documenting accurately how the team arrived at them, in case the client or important stakeholders question the results later.

Susanne Madsen’s blog post is a good read for all project team members who are involved in the estimation process of a project. You'll find the complete article at Susanne Madsen’s blog.

The vacation season is nearly over and the recovery effect vanishes into thin air when project team members have a first look at their e-mail inboxes after returning. It’s not unusual that hundreds of mails pile up there. No question – project communication is essential for project success - but what can you do not to drown in the flood of e-mails?

Here are 10 tips to use e-mails in your project communication as efficiently as possible:  

1. Sort by importance and urgency

When you have to deal with a large amount of e-mails, it’s important to classify each mail by importance and urgency. If an e-mail is definitely not relevant, you might want to ignore it and to unsubscribe, if possible. If an e-mail is important, but is not urgent, you can make a task out of it and/or a calendar entry. Additionally, the sender should receive a status e-mail to let him or her know that you have received the e-mail and that you work on it.

Right click to turn an e-mail into a follow-up task in Microsoft Outlook. Use drag & drop in Microsoft Outlook to move an e-mail into your calendar. As soon as the e-mail has been processed, you should remove it from your inbox.  

2. Use meaningful subject lines

If you use detailed subject lines in your e-mails, you save all the people involved a lot of time and the people you communicate with don’t run the risk of missing important pieces of information. The more specific your subject line – the better.

Bad: Report

Better: Quarterly report Q2

Best: Please review quarterly report Q2 2013

3. Apply the „only once“ principle

Many team members who receive e-mails take a quick look at an e-mail when they receive it, they think about the content, start to work on it and then postpone it. If you make the resolution to open each mail only once and to work on it immediately, it will save you a lot of time. It can also make sense to define fixed time slots each day to work on e-mails. This measure will prevent you from interrupting your current task whenever you receive new e-mail.

4. Use text templates

Some text modules are used in e-mails on a daily basis. Pre-defined text templates can save a lot of time. In InLoox PM, you can create customized e-mail templates in the InLoox options.

5. Write one e-mail per subject and recipient

Many e-mails address several recipients – with the result that none of them feels responsible for it. That’s why you want to address only one recipient at a time and forgo the CC option.

It’s also highly recommended to write a separate e-mail for each subject. This prevents recipients from missing the second topic of your mail and it makes it easier for them to find your e-mail again at a later date.

6. Coordinate responsibilities

It might happen that you won’t take charge of the e-mail yourself, but that you delegate the task. It’s very helpful to answer the mail directly first and then delegate it or forward it to a colleague. This makes sure that the sender knows that you have received the mail and that it is not necessary to follow-up.

7. Keep your inbox small

You can use your inbox quite efficiently as a to-do list – but only if you keep the number of e-mails in there quite small. That’s why it is better to archive all e-mail that you have completed working on and remove them from your inbox. So you’ll see at a glance which tasks are currently pending. It’s easy to lose sight of tasks and important deadlines in an inbox that is chock-full.

8. Archive your e-mail

It is best to treat e-mails like “normal“ written business correspondence and archive them as such. This makes it easier to comprehend decisions and agreements after a certain period of time.

9. Don’t create too many subfolders

Most e-mail programs contain a powerful search function these days. That’s why it is no longer necessary to create a great number of subfolders that you might have to search separately to find a certain e-mail. For many users, the inbox folder for active tasks and an archive for completed tasks are completely sufficient.

10. Allocate e-mails to your projects

If an e-mail belongs to one of your projects you can assign it accordingly in InLoox PM by using the quick access panels. It’s up to you whether you want to add the mail with or without an attachment to a project, if you want to add the attachment only or if you want to add the e-mail and the attachment separately. You can create a time tracking entry out of it and you can add it to the document folder of a certain project.

Ideally, the entire project team adheres to these standards. This makes it as easy as possible for all team members to communicate efficiently via e-mail.

InLoox PM is project management software, at least that is the use it was designed for. But some InLoox customers use it for other purposes than that, thanks to the versatility of InLoox. An example is VIGC in Belgium.

VIGC, the knowledge center for the printing industry in Belgium, is a non-profit organization which is partly funded by the regional government. They were looking for a time registration system to be able to easily generate the reports the government requires. And that still is their primary use of InLoox PM: time registrations and reporting, not project management as such.

And now they have even given a completely new dimension to InLoox: it has become an integral part of their quality management system, e.g. for registration of trainings and of complaints. VIGC recently had an audit of their ISO 9001 system and the auditor found some smaller errors. The auditor criticized that there wasn’t really a system for the registration of trainings and for complaints. In many cases, companies use an Excel sheet for that, but VIGC wasn’t convinced that that would work. A separate register for only those two cases would probably not be used in practice. So they looked at InLoox, which has become an essential part of their business. And the solution was quite easy: You can define custom fields in InLoox PM.

^{Custom fields in the InLoox options}

So, they created two extra check boxes in the project section: _Complaint and _Training. They used the underscore so that the two items would always be at the top of the custom fields, making them immediately visible when a project is opened.

Remember that VIGC is mainly using InLoox for time tracking, so for every activity, they create a separate project. If they for example send out a mailing to their members and somebody complains about it, they now can check the check box in the ‘mailing’ InLoox project.

In the InLoox PM project list, it is very easy to filter by projects in which the _Complaint checkbox has been activated. A custom view was created, literally in a few seconds, and was shared with all people at VIGC. In the custom view the project name, the manager and the ‘first customer’ are immediately visible. And also part of the ‘note’ field is shown. The note field is used to register more information about a complaint e.g. Which actions were taken? How did it end? And that’s what the ISO 9001 auditor wanted: a traceable logging of complaints and of trainings.

Thanks to the flexibility of InLoox it is really easy to adapt it to your own demands and, as VIGC shows, even use it for things it wasn’t designed for.

Please click here to find more information on VIGC.

There are many misunderstandings when it comes to the definition of a project. Especially the time factor is often neglected and in many companies, ongoing tasks are defined as projects.

A project can be commonly defined as a coordinated group activity to achieve a certain goal or result. It can be distinguished from day-to-day business by having a certain beginning and end in time. In addition, scope and resources are always exactly defined. Since the implementation of projects requires a special kind of organization, it often brings people together who don´t usually work in the same department - sometimes across multiple companies and countries. Last but not least the defining quality of a project is its uniqueness. Projects are not part of daily routine operations.

An example: A company wanted to learn more about their customers and therefore analyze the existing customer data. So they set up a project. But here’s the problem: The project didn’t end when they had created the tool to analyze the according data. Instead, the analysis itself was also defined as part of the project. So, the project will probably never come to an end, because there will always be customer data to be evaluated. In fact, the development of the tool would have been the project, but the evaluation is part of the daily work routine and can thus not be a project.

Organization of Projects

In order to deliver the requested results in time, in budget and in quality, an effective organization of projects is crucial for success. The key to it can be found in the planning phase, because creating a plan is the first thing that should be done when undertaking projects. Be sure to follow the details and planning steps carefully, because planning errors can hardly be corrected later. A thumb rule states that about 30% of a project´s entire time budget should be invested in planning. In addition, effective organization in projects means to identify and describe all key roles and responsibilities in particular and to find clear terms for all roles and tasks within a project´s work-flow.

When starting a project, the three constraints time, cost and scope should always be obeyed. Keeping them in a mutual balance will lead to successful results. Choosing appropriate project management methods and selecting powerful software and tools are important steps to reach the project goals. Language barriers and cultural differences might handicap the project´s efficiency and slow down its pace. Especially in cross-cultural projects, managers are well advised to make sure that goals and tasks cannot be misinterpreted by staff or stakeholders. Adequate socials skills are a must to activate maximum motivation within the team and to overcome difficulties. Furthermore, interfaces to partners or sponsors should be clearly defined and kept alive by regular meetings and reviews.

Project Management

Modern project management gathers the knowledge and strategic competency to perform projects in an efficient and cost saving way. Project management aims to finish projects in time, budget and with the required quality. Since projects tend to become more and more complex, a flexible management strategy is needed to provide necessary information and to adjust projects to various general conditions. It is crucial that project management will respond to unforeseen plan variances by taking the appropriate measures.

We are excited to welcome Jim and David to our InLoox consulting team in San Francisco. They both joined us in September 2013 and support our clients in finding the best project solution for them, implementation, technical support and training.

Meet our newest additions to the InLoox Team:

Jim: I choose to work at InLoox for several reasons. They have a wonderful product that integrates with Outlook and is very easy to use.  Company culture was extremely important to me and InLoox has a progressive, collaborative, structured yet flexible culture that allows their employees and product thrive.InLoox Blog: What was your motivation to apply for a position with InLoox?

David: I wanted to work at a company that was breaking new ground and disrupting the market for B2B software, and I wanted to work with a great group of people who enjoy their work as much as their free time.

What do you like best about InLoox project management software?

Jim: I enjoy seeing how our clients all use InLoox a little differently but they all recognize the versatility of the software no matter what industry they are in.

David: I like how versatile it is, yet how simple and intuitive it is.  Anybody who has to manage other people can find something useful about InLoox.

Which project would you like to expedite?

Jim: The project I would like to expedite on a personal level, would be remodeling projects around the house.

David: Being able to run 26.2 miles, or becoming the first person on Mars. Whichever comes first.

What did you want to become as a child?

Jim: I wanted to be a major league baseball player.

David: I wanted to become a paleontologist, I was really into dinosaurs as a kid.

Who would you like to be for a day?

Jim: My Father.

David: Hannibal Buress, because that guy has such a funny outlook on life and I want to know what goes through his mind on a daily basis.

What’s your motto?

Jim: Not sure if this is a motto but “always give your best effort and do what is right”.

David: "Be the change you wish to see in the world."  –Gandhi

What is your favorite spot in San Francisco?

Jim: There are so many wonderful places within San Francisco but I would say – North Beach, Hayes Valley, AT&T Park (Giants) and Candlestick Park (49ers).

David: There are too many to list, but if I had to choose one: looking northeast from the top of Twin Peaks.

Which would be your favorite place on the globe to live at?

Jim: Munich or Hamburg Germany.  The country of Germany is amazing!  The food, beer, people, geography and history are wonderful.  I would love to spend 1 year in Germany to explore the various regions and cities along with other countries of Europe.

David: If I could live anywhere, I’d live in Mitte in Berlin, Germany.  Beautiful city, lots to do; it’s hard to ever be bored there.

What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not busy helping InLoox clients?

Jim: Spending time with my family, exploring Northern California, exercising, jogging, and being with friends.

David: Hiking a mountain, playing my guitar, discovering a new part of San Francisco, practicing my German, going on a run.  Sometimes all at once!

You can reach our team by calling (415) 445-4660 or contact them directly:

Contact Jim at (415) 445-4661 or mohr@inloox.com

Contact David at (415) 445-4662 or oxnard@inloox.com

We are also welcoming Andreas Hummel who joined the InLoox team in Munich, Germany also in September 2013. To find out more about the consulting team in Europe click here.

Since last summer, you can always take real-time project data with you – on your smartphone. The InLoox Mobile Apps for Android and iPhone enable you to manage projects on the go.

Our new tutorial video takes you on a little product tour and shows you the things you can do with InLoox Mobile App. The Android app is available for free on Google Play for anyone with InLoox PM Enterprise Server and InLoox PM Universal User licenses or with a Universal User access to InLoox now! Please click here to get an overview of InLoox Mobile App.

To watch the entire tutorial video, please click here. The tutorial for InLoox Mobile App for iPhone will be available soon – we will keep you updated.

With any project there are bound to be sticking points, and in general, the more complex a project is the more error-prone it is. Even with the most detailed project plan, project managers need to be prepared both for something unexpected to happen and something planned not to happen. An effective risk management alongside the regular project monitoring plan will help you minimize the impact of uncertain project events.

Sounds simple enough, but this is where the theory and practice of project management often times do not line up. Instead of making risk management part of the project, some project managers take the so-called ostrich approach: They simply ignore potential risks. At other times, project threats are being deliberately concealed in order not to discourage future investors. Even though project teams are known to be understaffed, allocating resources to risk management always pays off down the line.

Risk Management in Projects

One of the essentials is to identify and address potential risks from the onset of a project. This is not to say that risk management will eliminate project related risks; no one can foresee the future. But focusing on potential risks already in the planning phase and determining how to deal with them will help deliver projects on time and on budget. And project teams are more productive when they don’t have to jump into firefighter mode to smooth out the damage that could have been prevented. Can all potential project risks be identified before they occur? Probably not. However, identifying the large majority of threats and dealing with them in proactively leaves enough time to handle risks that arise unexpectedly.

Project managers are primarily responsible for a project’s risk management but failed projects show that they were mostly unaware of the blow that was about to hit them. At the same time, in most cases other team members recognized the imminent threat but did not voice their concerns. All the more important is effective risk communication with all team members and stockholders. Team members should be encouraged to voice concerns without getting labeled as naysayers. A good approach is to make project risks a default entry on the agenda of regular team meetings.

Risk Management Life Cycle

Risk management is the process of identifying potential risks, assessing their consequences, as well as developing and implementing plans to minimize any negative effects. The benefits of risk management are substantial in any project and should be a priority especially with high risk projects.

Risk management comprises the following steps:

Risk Identification:

In general, all aspects of the project should be defined that may fall short or exceed the targets due to changes in the project environment. This task is made easier when using the project plan and project phases as a basis for the risk analysis. In a second step, potential consequences can be assessed and the likelihood of occurrence can be evaluated. Experience has shown that project risks mostly arise from the project environment, insufficiently communicated project goals and conflicting targets. Working with a check list has proved to be effective when identifying risk factors.

Risk Assessment:

The next step is to assess all identified project related risk factors. This includes evaluating the probability of occurrence of each risk factor and determining the potential negative impact. This is when experience from previous projects comes in most handy. If the company experience is limited, industry statistics are helpful and should be taken into account. Depending on the complexity of a project, it can be sufficient to visualize potential negative consequences with a “risk map”. When assessing projects that are especially risky or complex, it is important to apply more statistical methods. One method of evaluation is to use an ordinal ranking scale both for the risk’s likelihood of occurrence and its negative potential. Multiplying the values signifies the priority a specific risk factor should hold within the overall project risk scenario.

Risk Response Plan:

Implementing risk responses helps to minimize negative effects or may even prevent a threat from occurring. Strategies include taking team members on board that have a strong project management expertise and incorporating buffer times in the project schedule as well as back-up resources. However, any risk response plan should be designed in a way that it adds value to the project. Therefore, project risk factors should not all be treated the same way. Based on the risk analysis and assessment, most efforts should be directed towards risks that have the greatest impact. Sometimes the best choice may be to accept a risk because avoiding the risk is more expensive than the consequences associated with the risk factor.

Risk Status Monitoring:

Risk management strategies should be monitored all throughout the project lice cycle. Not only does the project environment change but so do risk factors, their likelihood of occurrence and potential consequences. Therefore, it is key for successful project delivery to include risk status monitoring into the continuous project monitoring.

Things are not running smoothly in the team. An offer to a prospective customer has not been sent out, because Colleague A was sure that Colleague B had already done that. Colleague C has dedicated many hours of work to editing a PowerPoint presentation, until Colleague D is telling her that she is working on an old version and in the meantime, important data have changed.

And then there are teams that work together like cogs in a Swiss watch. But what do these teams do differently? Why seems collaboration in these teams to be so much easier? These five rules of successful teamwork will help:

1 In successful teams, responsibilities and competences are clearly defined

2 In successful teams, the workload is evenly distributed

It is clear that in every team, there are stressful times when team members are fully occupied. But if this case is more often the rule than the exception, it might result in increasing dissatisfaction and a lack of motivation among the team members. Then, it’s about time for the team manager to get an overview of the team’s work load and to reallocate work packages, if necessary.

3 Successful teams are always up to date

Work that is based on outdated information and documents is a main factor in teams’ failure. That’s why it is so important to keep colleagues updated. A shared document management helps to store all documents in one place. So, team members can avoid several versions of one document at the same time. It is highly recommended to save documents in a project-related folder and to mark them with a tag showing their status. 

4 Successful teams work on results

Milestones with a fixed due date enable teams to structure their day-to-day work. If they are reached on time, it’s a good indicator for the fact that everything is moving smoothly. If not, they are an important early-warning system that shows that something is going wrong. With this method, the team focuses on results that should be achieved.

5 Successful teams communicate – a lot

Team performance is a lot better when everyone knows what the colleagues are currently busy with. Good team communication, however, does not mean e-mail ping pong or meetings for days on end. Teams can use modern tools to stay updated. Often, it is sufficient to leave a note on a project that has been edited. Project management software makes it possible to inform colleagues automatically when a work package has been completed. The project plan is also automatically updated. That saves time when it comes to routine communication which is then available for more demanding tasks. Short daily status meetings help teams to inform their members about the current project status and are a good indicator for the current team spirit.

By the way: Mobile teams in particular benefit from keeping all team members updated and not letting them miss out on important information. InLoox Mobile App for iPhone helps them to keep everyone informed. The tutorial video on the smartphone app is now available online.

More than 60 percent of the IT projects in companies are not delivered on time and budget. This is the result of a survey conducted by the market research institute Forrester on behalf of EffectiveUI among 474 business decision makers.

Every now and then, surveys identifying surprisingly high rates of project failure receive wide media coverage. The rate of failed IT projects that the Standish Group determines in their regularly updated CHAOS Manifesto is a matter of public debate on a regular basis. According to the 2012 report, 61 percent of all projects either failed completely or exceeded their budget, missed important deadlines or lacked the expected quality.

The outlook that the Forrester survey gives is not that gloomy, but it is quite tough on the ability of IT departments to satisfy business users. Only 46 percent of the participants were content with the way the IT department reacted to technology needs in their company.

The survey names reasons for failure that are quite understandable: 56 percent of the interviewees said that ever-changing requirements are a reason for the ill success of their projects. 50 percent agreed that IT teams tried to do too much at once. And 34 percent blamed a lack of clear executive direction.

One respondent summarized the miscommunication between IT and other departments: “The business folks don’t think in terms of what capabilities are nice to have and what are must-haves, and they often give a list of requirements that’s too high-level. This doesn’t help IT get an accurate sense of how technology can help.”

Only 31 percent of the respondents said that their IT department maintained a clearly defined set of business-centric services that the business can easily understand.

But what can one do to end this disappointing situation? Forrester refers to a so-called Integrated Thinking Solution – meaning that development teams needed to take different perspectives to satisfy business users and to see the big picture. That sounds quite promising, but the thought probably isn’t news to most of the IT project teams.

Often, fundamental deficiencies regarding project management are the reason for project failure in companies. Using the IT department as the only scapegoat falls short of the mark. Ideally, project teams work on IT projects across departments and involve as many people concerned as possible. Project managers have a key role in this scenario, because it is their responsibility to make sure that lists of requirements don’t get out of hand. Sometimes it helps to fall back upon standard software if in-house development projects are leading nowhere.

Despite the great difference in project types, the fundamental project related tasks are very similar: Defining and achieving project goals and requirements, as well as managing cost, time and scope. It is critical that the project manager always stays on top of all key figures such as deadlines, expenditures and project quality. In case anything goes awry, it is the project manager’s responsibility to implement counter actions to get the project and team back on track.

Successful project management, however, goes beyond what you do and strongly depends on how you do things. Being a leader, taking charge and guiding a group takes a special set of skills. The project manager needs to know how a business works and take an analytical and conceptual approach. It is important to take a broader view and put any project in perspective, making sure that it integrates with the overall strategic goals.

Visionary project managers are desirable but their vision isn’t worth much if they are unable to communicate it. For team effort to work, everybody needs to have the same idea of where exactly the project is going. This makes it all the more important to clarify details as well as responsibilities and not let them up to the team members’ interpretation. Being vague just leaves more chances for misunderstandings and, in consequence, unnecessary mistakes. Communication is not a one way road. The team leader should create an atmosphere that encourages an exchange of ideas and allows team members to state criticism. That said, it is just as important to acknowledge good work and give honest feedback.

Communication needs to happen with all project stakeholders and this includes clients. At times, this can get tricky and requires strong negotiation skills. Especially when clients have unrealistic expectations regarding project goals or ask for sudden changes in project schedule. The worst situation that project managers can maneuver themselves into is one in which they are doomed to disappoint the client. Therefore, laying out an achievable project plan that includes buffer times will minimize potential problems down the road.

Project managers have to achieve best results, no matter how diverse, difficult and different team members are. Strong team building skills are essential in order to turn the team into one cohesive unit. It helps to give everyone the feeling they have an equal stake in the project. At the same time, different personalities in the team are of great benefit if capitalized on at the right time.

Enthusiasm is contagious and a team is more likely to put more effort into their work if their project manager radiates optimism and confidence. Having a “can-do-attitude” not only sets a positive example for the overall pace in a team but also helps overcoming throwbacks. Just as in real life, projects do not always run smooth. Delays occur, planned events do not take place, and unexpected changes result in resource bottle necks. Good project managers keep their cool even under such pressure. Instead of getting stressed, issues that arise should be considered an opportunity. This is when creativity and quick sorting skills are indispensable. At the same time, project managers should bear in mind that solving problems at times requires delegating tasks to the team’s specialist.