Latest Project Management Articles

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Software review: TeamworkPM

General information Name: TeamworkPM Vendor: Digital Crew Application Developers Hosting options: Web hosted version only Cost and plans: 30 day free trial. From $12pm for a personal plan to $149pm for enterprise plan. Languages: 24 languages including Norwegian and Indonesian. Currency: Has a long list of standard currencies. Basic features: building projects Creating a new…

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Research shows women don’t want management jobs

Intellect’s Women in IT Forum and womenintechnology.co.uk recently released the results of their survey about women working in the technology profession. The survey shows that although 8% of women have reached director-level roles, up 3% on 2007, many women are not interested in pursuing pure management roles and want to remain doing hands on, technical jobs….

Is project management training really effective?

There’s a whole industry around certification training for project managers. Job adverts declare that you have to be PMP® certified or a PRINCE2® Practitioner. But does training actually make a difference to how you do your job? Training can make you about 26% more effective, according to research by PM Solutions (link broken as at…

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How to Manage in a Matrix Structure Part 2: Dealing with the Challenges

In my last post about project management in a matrix structure I shared 4 challenges of that environment. This week I want to talk about how we can overcome these. This was a topic that Shilpa Arora, PMP, spoke about at a Women in Technology event I attended. The 4 challenges she discussed were: Let’s…

Using social media tools for communication: a case study

One of the questions I’m asked frequently is: “How do I use social media tools for communication?” I addressed this during my presentation at the PMI Leadership Institute Meeting in Dublin (in 2011), and one of the organisations I drew on to illustrate how other people are doing it was the Chartered Management Institute. The…

Taking resources from the matrix

How to Manage in a Matrix Structure Part 1: Understanding the Matrix

Most projects operate in some kind of matrixed environment. Project managers rarely have direct line management responsibility for all, if any, of the people on the project team. So how can we best get things done when we don’t control the team? In this article, I’ll explain what matrix management is and why it creates…

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COO of Webplanner at 23: An interview with Jovia Nierenberg

Jovia Nierenberg is Chief Operating Officer at Experience in Software. That’s the company behind the new project management tool Webplanner. She’s only 23. I asked her about her life as a COO, what’s next for Webplanner and her advice for young women wanting to work in project management. Jovia, how did you end up being…