I’m running late. Not very – in fact, I’ll probably arrive just about on time. But the person I’m meeting has already sent me a text to say she’s there. I dash through the revolving doors and up the stairs. As she said, she’s sitting at the first table. “Hello, are you Vanessa?” “Yes.” We…
This month I’ve been writing various project management software reviews and Easy Projects .NET (now Birdview PSA) has been on my list to investigate for quite some time. Amanda set me up with a demo account and I had a test drive. The first time you log in the tutorial page appears with seven easy…
Last Thursday I had dinner in Café Royle – Google’s staff canteen. Google were hosting a birthday event for Girl Geek Dinners (strapline: definitely does compute) to celebrate their third anniversary. Girl Geek Dinners is a bit of a phenomenon. Sarah Blow set up the non-profit community in London over three years ago and now…
In June, Forrester released a report (*updated 3 Aug 2015: no longer available online) that concluded that IT projects are people projects: people management skills are essential for the successful design and implementation of the project. Experienced project managers will know that this is common sense. It’s rarely the technology that lets projects down: in…
I was really excited to find out that I had won the Project Management category of the Computer Weekly IT Blog Awards the day before yesterday. I wanted to wait until I had the official confirmation and this little image, which I got today, before putting posting about winning… just in case it wasn’t true!…
PMI has commissioned some research into the value of project management. The findings were shared at their research conference in Warsaw last month. The study apparently took three years of field-work and cross-disciplinary analysis that culminated in June this year. Now I’m a bit sceptical of a study commissioned by an organisation that promotes project…
Well, the consultation for the Single Equality Bill looks like it’s over. Minister for Equality and Women, Harriet Harman, recently unveiled the draft Bill which is expected to be implemented in this autumn’s Queen’s speech. Unfortunately, positive action is on the table. Yes, I’m a big fan of women’s rights to equality, but allowing employers…
Set your out of office email response if you’re out for a day or longer. Change your voicemail as well, especially if you’re at a crisis point in the project and you know people will be wanting to get hold of you. Know where your project team are, so that when people ask you have…
If you’ve come here as a result of the Computer Weekly IT Blog Awards, after searching for A Girl’s Guide to Managing Products, then you’re in the right place. It’s not the name of the blog, and you won’t find anything about product management. There’s a typo on their website, and in this week’s edition…
A Girl’s Guide to Managing Projects has been shortlisted for the Computer Weekly IT Blog Awards 2008. I’d be very grateful if you’d consider voting for me, if you consider this blog worthy of the accolade! Deadline for voting is 31 July.
I was at the Best Practice Showcase last Tuesday and I actually had a really good time, which is strange given that it was mainly an event for project management training companies to sell at the punters. There are some people I only get to see at conferences and I met some new people too…
SmartDraw is, according to the manufacturer, the world’s most popular business graphics software. It makes it easy to design “presentation-quality” graphics in “minutes, not hours.” I decided to put this to the test myself. When I put the SmartDraw 2008 CD in my PC, the installation window told me it would take 51 minutes to…