With the spread of COVID-19 as a declared pandemic across the world, the transitioning to working remotely, or what is classically called ‘work from home’ (WFH) has equally spread fast. Many organisations have realised that their staff can continue working from home without interruption, therefore minimising the impact of the virus lockdowns.
However, working remotely has it’s own challenges that need to be overcome in order to stay productive.
Herewith an Infographic guide, with compliments from Wrike, that covers everything you need from room temperature to ergonomic chairs, from what you play on your headphones to what you put in your belly. We trust that this will help you to stay super productive!
Many people like to dream. Some people manage to make dreams come true by launching a change that brings about success.
Today you will find inspiration from well-known founders and CEO’s who have all dreamed big, people who didn’t let fear hold them back to pursue the big ideas and turn them into reality.
Infographic brought to you by Wrike project management web based software.
We all know how each year can pick-up speed and we become busier than ever. For this productivity to be sustainable, we need a whole lot of motivation.
Especially in the life of a project manager, there are always many important things to do to keep projects on track. Here we think of:
being a leader who needs to motivate others
being a team builder so that your project will have a high performing team
being an excellent communicator, keeping all stakeholders informed and aligned
being a good organiser and planner
being a problem solver of all the inevitable problems that come up
being a negotiator and influencer
knowing how to keep the customers satisfied
keeping your business and industry knowledge current
To all of you who are in the trenches everyday, keeping your eyes on the goals and leading your projects to successful outcomes, I want to share this Infographic, with compliments from Wrike, to bless you with great motivation tips to get more done every day!
A project leader has much influence over a team’s productivity. Therefore, it is always good to ask yourself: “How can I help my team to be more productive?”
You want to empower people to solve their own problems, and to be self-sufficient. You want to encourage collaboration, sharing and trust.
Consider taking a coaching approach where you listen more, ask good questions and be slower to rush to action and advice. Also understand the dynamics of behaviour change. The fact that habits are the building blocks of good behaviour, means that you want to encourage good habits and set the example.
Below you will find 10 specific ways to help your team be more productive and motivated to perform optimally, with compliments from Wrike.com.
Whether you’re a project manager of a small or a big, complicated project, one outcome you’re always striving for, is for the project to be successful.
Looking at statistics from historic projects, there can be many causes of project failure, as can be seen in the Infographic below. Failed projects lead to wasted time and resources, unsatisfied customers and of course, it will cause damage to the project manager’s reputation.
Main causes of project failure
One of the most common causes include lack of executive support in the form of absent or inexperienced sponsors, or sponsors who don’t make timeous decisions. Another common cause of project failure is lack of skills or personnel for effective strategy implementation.
Remedies for failure
There are remedies for failure, depending on what the cause of the failure was in the first place.
If the cause is poor communication, there are numerous ways that a project manager can communicate with project teams in real-time using software solutions as well as good communication practices through-out.
Efficient project tracking is another remedy that can prevent unplanned changes or issues to impact projects negatively.
Having mitigation plans for identified risks, as well as contingency plans for when things go wrong, you have a much better chance of protecting projects from becoming derailed.
To address the Sponsorship issue causing lack of executive support, you need to ensure that the organization has a culture that supports active sponsors on project. Expect them to be advocates for the project, to engage actively with key stakeholders and to use their influence when necessary in support of the project. Watch this video from Worldfinance.com to find out how to get the best out of executive sponsors.
Study the infographic from Wrike.com for a prescription for project success, think of it as the medicine to cure the main causes of project failure.
When it comes to project planning, I have three beliefs that I adhere to on all my projects. They are:
Always be planning – that means you should be continuously planning
Always be communicating – use consistent communication practices
Always build relationships – team alignment is very important
However, there are more elements to great project planning. That’s why Wrike, a project management software company, is bringing us the right ingredients to cook the perfect project plan. Enjoy!
Project management software refer to all applications that were designed to facilitate project delivery and make it more efficient.
Here are some interesting facts about the type of teams using PM software, how companies choose PM software, the most used features and what improvements will lead to satisfaction with PM software.
Enjoy the Infographic brought to you by Wrike project management web based software
Recently, I had to start a new project with an estimated timeline of 12 months. With many of the project team members being contractors who are new to the company, the most important thing to do, after having an approved budget, is to plan for a proper kickoff workshop.
It serves an important purpose for many reasons. Some are:
to help with on-boarding of new team members
to establish the vision and objectives
to show the expected timelines with milestones
to explain the roles and responsibilities of team members and steercom members
to establish the governance framework and recommended way of working
to give guidance on tools and techniques to be used
Below you will find an Infographic with 10 steps for a successful kickoff. If you take the time to plan and prepare well for the project kickoff, you will have a great start with excited and motivated team members.
Infographic brought to you by Wrike virtual project manager
Whether you work in a corporate organisation’s marketing department or in an Agency providing services to clients, you will know that successful content marketing projects are complex and involve the whole business.
It requires a good content marketing strategy and then a plan to create, publish and share your content in an authentic way.
This Infographic, with compliments from Wrike, will give you the 10 areas that need to be addressed as essential elements of your content engine.
Infographic brought to you by Wrike project task management software
Many project managers land in the project management profession due to being technical specialists with great success in their field of expertise. However, they are not always fully prepared for the important skills, knowledge and competencies that are critical for success.
Often there is a high expectation to succeed, especially if they come from a background of subject matter expertise or a general management. This begs the question: Is project management for everyone?
Career Path
Their career path does not typically begin with the goal of becoming a project manager, but rather evolves over time as experience builds. There is little to no clarity on the typical career options that project managers have in many organisations. When employees progress into project management positions, they are left to their own devices with perhaps only their line managers providing guidance and support.
According to a report published by Sage (2015), ’Is project management still an accidental profession? A Study of Career Trajectory‘, the study found there is no single project management career path. Rather, the project management role seems to emerge from employee experiences in different roles within the company over a period of years. The more knowledge and experience gained, the more likely it appears the employee will be assigned an integrative role such as project management that touches all functional groups.
Work Management Practices
Below is an Infographic from Wrike based on a Work Management Practice Survey. It was found that many people are expected to do project management at work, even though less than half had “Project Manager” in their title or description. To make it worse, it found that only a third of companies use standard project management approaches. Too much time is spend in meetings and much stress is caused by the use of various tools and platforms to track progress and to do reports, coupled with unrealistic project goals and not being able to find important information.
Without an organisational culture supporting programme management, a strong training program, strategic staffing and team autonomy, it will continue to be very difficult for project managers to succeed in their roles. This will lead to a profession in dire need for mature, professional project managers, to lose potentially good candidates who could have helped to deliver successful projects and programmes.
We have seen how Project Management as a profession has matured over the past few decades. There were numerous shifts concerning tools, approaches and training, to emphasis on new skills and pursuing certifications.
Enjoy the summary in the Then & Now Infographic brought to you by Wrike project task management software
You all know how challenging it is to stay productive at work all day long. There is so much time wasted on inefficient work like:
Scouring through email looking for documents
Accidentally using outdated information, causing necessary rework
Waiting for someone to send you the information you need
Answering “Can I ask you a quick question?” desk interruptions
There are productivity techniques to help combat some time wasters like multi-tasking. For example, a time-management method called the Pomodoro Technique (first developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s) that works on the principle that you focus on a task for 25 minutes and then take a break for five minutes. This technique forces you to focus on a single task, eradicating the negative effects of attempted multitasking. This focus has an immediate positive impact on your productivity and will enhance your work speed.
However, it’s estimated that 25% of the average worker’s day is wasted on inefficient work. That’s huge. If you work an 8-hour day, that’s 2 hours wasted every day. …10 hours per week. …520 hours per year. Do the math and you’re paying the average worker for 65 days (over three months of work!) of “info gathering” every year. For every employee in your company!
Another way to increase your team’s productivity, is to use work management tools which help teams cut out these inefficiencies, so we can stop spending so much time on “info gathering” and start putting our time into actually getting work done.
Read more on the challenges teams and managers are facing in today’s workforce in the Infographic below, sponsored by Wrike. Try Wrike’s work management tool free for the next two weeks, and challenge your team to get more done every day.
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