Managing a project with confidence is a necessity for a Project Manager.  The team he leads will look to him for encouragement when the project is going well and for reassurance when the inevitable problems and doubts arise. Fortunately, developing that confidence can be simple when the project plan is followed faithfully and key principles of project management are put into practice. 1. Justifications.  A worthwhile return on investment is an essential guideline for any project.  Before the project sponsor and upper management commit to any significant action or expense, the benefits of the project need to be clear and thoroughly understood by the stakeholders.  It is up to the Project Manager to ensure the benefits are clear and the expenditure is worthwhile.  Circumstances affecting the project can change quickly during its life cycle, and the Project Manager must closely monitor the situation and developments.  If at any time the project loses its feasibility and a positive return on the investment is no longer likely, the Project Manager must recognize these changes and cancel the project before any further time or money is wasted. 2. Definitions.  Each member of the project team must be given a clearly defined role that helps them understand their places and purposes on the team.  The Project Manager determines the responsibilities for each team member and institutes the hierarchy of accountability.  Without this information, team members will not be certain what they are to do or to whom they report.  This lack can create a chaotic environment and jeopardize the progress of the project. 3. Exceptions.  The Project Manager is responsible for the daily running of the project.  This allows the project sponsor to focus on the larger picture instead of getting distracted by the minutia of project details.  Too much involvement by the sponsor is a hindrance to the project team and their progress on the project.  It is the duty of the project sponsor to determine the boundaries of time and cost, and the duty of the Project Manager to provide scheduled deliverables within the allotted budget and time. 4. Stages.  Use the timeline of tasks as a guide to break the project into stages.  After completion of a stage, the project sponsor will have the opportunity to review the current progress and make the critical decisions regarding the continued value of the project.  If the project remains worth the investments made, and the risks are still acceptable, the project sponsor can confidently approve continuation.  By dividing a project into stages and committing to only one stage at time, the sponsor and Project Manager have a low-risk approach toward project completion. 5. Deliverables.  Clients, or customers, must have a clear idea of the product or deliverable required before the project begins.  Being clear about the requirements helps ensure satisfaction from the client, or customer, and enables the project team to develop a realistic and achievable plan with less risk involved. 6. Experience.  Learn from previous projects to help minimize the risks of duplicating mistakes on later projects.  Review the project and determine what went well and what caused problems.  Incorporate both sets of data into the documentation and approach of the next project.  Recreate the successful circumstances and ensure that the next project team understands the risks of errors. 7. Customize.  The project management methodology must be tailored to the working environment and suitable for the needs and expectations of the project.  The Project Manager must avoid blind adherence to methodologies and be able to adapt existing procedures to the current project.  The planning of a two week project is going to be different from the plan for a two year project, but the resourceful Project Manager will be able to customize a methodology to create whatever framework is necessary for the successful completion of the project. In conclusion, these key principles can be applied to any project.  Many years of practice, trial and error, and review have proven these principles to be valid and utilizable by any good Project Manager.  Instead of the struggle of a plan without coherent strategy, being mindful of these principles increase the project’s chance of success. Source: projectmanager.com

A virtual team — also known as a geographically dispersed team (GDT) — is a group of individuals who work across time, space, and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technology. Members of virtual teams communicate electronically, as they may never meet face to face.  Many Global teams have team members spread out over the globe. GDT present collaborative challenges which can be overcome with a combination of best practices and Collaboration software.  Here are some special techniques that can be used to manage these virtual teams. #1: Establish team objectives The team members need to know and understand what it is that they are doing together. If they understand only their own role and their own work, they will always just be individual contributors. #2: Remind everyone they are a team If the team members think they are all working independently, they will act independent. If they know they are part of a team working on common objectives and deliverables, they will tend to feel better about their work and be more active in their collaboration with other team members. #3: Establish ground rules Even though the team members may be remote, they still need to exhibit a common and acceptable set of behaviors. In fact, this is probably more important for virtual teams. Ground rules include things like setting the hours during which the team members are expected to be working, establishing lunch times, determining which meetings are mandatory (in-person, Web-based, or via telephone), and defining expectations for communication turnaround times #4: Obtain the right technology I suppose there have always been virtual teams. However, this trend has accelerated in the past few years. The technology is there to support virtual teams — there is really no reason to be without it. This includes fast access to the Internet, audio conferencing, videocams, collaborative software, and shared directories. #5: Look for opportunities to socialize Team members located together have opportunities to socialize throughout the day. Virtual teams don’t usually have this same opportunity to interact with each other, so it is more important for the project manager to look for ways they can bond. This might include getting everyone together one time in a face-to-face setting — perhaps for a project kickoff meeting. #6: Be sensitive to cultural differences It’s possible that your virtual team all thinks and acts the same way. However, more and more virtual teams consist of people from multiple countries and cultures. If you are the project manager on this type of team, make sure you have some appreciation for the differences in how people work and how they behave. #7: Proactive Communication You need to be extra proactive in your communications to make sure everyone understands what is expected. People can start to feel isolated if they do not receive regular communications. It is hard enough to keep everyone informed on a “regular” project. The communication lines on a virtual team must be opened up especially wide. As project manager, you can provide this steady stream of communication. #8: Adjust and compromise on time differences Remember that what’s convenient for you may not always be convenient to the team members. I was on a project team at a large global company where the manager insisted that team meetings start at 9:00 am. That was convenient for him but resulted in hard feeling from people in other locations who needed to stay very late for these meetings. #9: Be extra diligent in workload management Be precise and explicit in assigning work to the virtual team members. You also need to ensure that work is completed on time. #10: Give people shorter assignments This is not the time to give people long assignments and hope that they are completed by the deadline. Instead of assigning a six-week activity, for instance, assign the work in three two-week activities. In the former case, you won’t know for sure if the work was done for six weeks. In the latter case, you can tell every two weeks if the work is on track. Source: TechRepublic

Taroby is an email client on the web. But it does a lot more than what your normal email client does. It makes your Inbox more powerful by integrating In-box with a work flow manager and ticketing system. All these is done through a new concept of Inbox Sharing. Concept of sharing is not new to us, We use Facebook/Orkut to share messages among our friends, Flickr is used to share photos with friends and family, in google document we share documents with a team of individuals. In Taroby we configure an email account and share it with a Team of individuals with whom we want to share the email account with. f.e consider you have an sales team of 3 members and all your sales enquiry come to the email ID sales@yourdomain.com. If you use any of the traditional email client, one of the team member will download the mails and then forward it to the respective team mate. If there is a clarification needed on the email that email again gets forwarded around with CC, BCC etc and individual copies of emails are piled up all around the TEAM. Taroby handles this chaos for you. Taroby allows the user to assign the email instead of forwarding it. When the user looks in his Team Inbox in Taroby he knows who is assigned/working on which email. All the internal communication is handled via comments and is attached to the email. Even if one of the team member leaves the team entire information associated with him remains intact. This helps a new comer to quickly learn the facts.

Change Management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. Change management (or change control) is the process during which the changes of a system are implemented in a controlled manner by following a pre-defined framework/model with, to some extent, reasonable modifications. In project management, change management refers to a project management process where changes to a project are formally introduced and approved. The field of change management grew from the recognition that organizations are composed of people. And the behaviors of people make up the outputs of an organization. Change Management Principles

• At all times involve and agree support from people within system (system = environment, processes, culture, relationships, behaviours, etc., whether personal or organisational).
• Understand where you/the organisation is at the moment.
• Understand where you want to be, when, why, and what the measures will be for having got there.
• Plan development towards above No.3 in appropriate achievable measurable stages.
• Communicate, involve, enable and facilitate involvement from people, as early and openly and as fully as is possible.

It is very essential to create transparency and trust within the team for effectively managing a change introduced towards achieving better Productivity. Source: businessballs.com Photo:www.everystockphoto.com