project management

Work from Home Hacks: 7 Telecommuting Productivity Boosters

Posted by Caroline Givnish on Thursday, August 25, 2016 - 12:10 Best Practices productivity, hacks, Best Practices, project management

It’s no surprise that telecommuting continues to steadily rise with the promise of flexibility and cost-efficiency resonating among employees and employers alike. For employees, the benefits of working remotely are pretty obvious: eliminating a long commute; wardrobe savings; and availability for family, to name a few. But, what’s in it for employers? Besides the tangible allure of savings in real estate-related costs, businesses that offer the ability to work from home benefit from an increased level of...

A Dabble in Agile

Posted by Allan Mai on Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - 15:23 Development agile, waterfall, Development, project management, scrum

One of our more recent projects took us agile. It was a great learning experience and the take-aways were generally positive. The agile methodology places a satisfied customer and continuous delivery at the forefront. By adhering to a number of the Agile Manifesto tenets the team is able to deliver value faster and the feedback loop between the developer and customer is narrowed down considerably. This focused feedback loop allows for a rapid realigning of expectations and goals from persistent contact and collaboration with the team involved.

Utilizing agile...

Connecting the Puzzle Pieces: Ensuring Better Management, Organization, and Tracking for Every Team

Posted by Rishi Das on Tuesday, December 1, 2015 - 10:17 Best Practices project management, productivity, Best Practices

No matter how small or large a team, enabling a methodology to understand "Who does what" can greatly improve process, organization, project management, and teaming structures. One of the most versatile tools for a team - outside of its staff and their expertise - is a roles and responsibilities chart. This kind of charting yields performance improvement and often can be an easy to create and easy to follow tool.

Although there are a multitude of different models for organizations and teams to visually map out a roles and responsibilities chart, this post focuses...

Why Project Onboarding is Important

Posted by Sarika Singh on Thursday, June 18, 2015 - 11:14 Best Practices project management, initiation

One of the most crucial times in a project lifecycle is during the Initiation stage - this is the time in between a project when the company has just won the project and when they are ready to start.

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Risky Business

Posted by Puja Katari on Tuesday, May 26, 2015 - 13:41 Best Practices project management, risk management, Best Practices

What’s a risk? How does one manage risks? What is the best method to track risks for a project? Is there a standard categorization to use? What is the difference between a risk and an issue? The list goes on and on.

Risk management can be tricky, but having some sort of process on how to manage risks for any project in your organization is extremely important. Identifying, prioritizing and addressing risks for a project, is a fundamental principle that shouldn't be overlooked. If not properly addressed, it can result in slipped schedules...

Why Do You Need a Project Management Office?

Posted by Sarika Singh on Monday, February 9, 2015 - 14:55 Best Practices project management, project management office, pmo

In 2014, Function1 set on the path to create a Project Management Office (PMO) for our growing company. This is a huge step in any firm that requires a lot of effort, but can have a significantly positive impact on the firm’s overall performance. So what leads a company to decide it’s time to have a PMO?

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Project Management Myths or Facts? You be the judge.

Posted by Puja Katari on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - 12:21 Best Practices project management, project manager, value, team

What does it take to manage a project? You’d think by now the answer should be well established, but it’s still a gray area for many. Even though it is integrated into most professional work environments, project management is still surrounded by a lot of misconceptions and myths. There are so many opinions out there as to what project management is about (or not about) and some are more common than others. On a previous project I was working on, the customer saw no value in having a project manager. He felt that project managers just got in the way of his team’s ability to complete...

Communications Management in a Virtual Workplace

Posted by Sarika Singh on Thursday, August 21, 2014 - 17:10 Best Practices project management, communication tools

For the last seven years, my role as a project manager / program manager has taught me one major thing…good communication is...

Planning for Success

Posted by Avani Cheriathundam on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 12:53 Best Practices Best Practices, planning, project management

Oftentimes during the course of a project, you may encounter schedule changes, new requirements or requirement changes, and risks. When these things happen, it is still possible to complete the project however, without a project plan, it’s almost impossible to do so successfully. A well-structured, clear, and concise project plan can always help to ensure that everything goes smoothly, no matter how many bumps you may encounter along the way.

According to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, a project plan is defined as a “formal, approved document used to guide both project...