Business Directory and Resources » Management

Project Management: Performance Metrics Matter

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 04:40:39 +0000

A study has shown that many project managers do not sufficiently keep track of the performance metrics of their teams. This results in consistent cost overruns, going over schedule, failing to meet expectations in quality, and seeking new employment elsewhere. Think about it, what are you managing really if you don’t even know the metrics? Is management merely a process of simply checking off to do lists for you? It shouldn’t be. Here’s why.

In order for management to make decisions, data is critical. Data shows helps you define your benchmarks, and also define forecasts for improving upon baselines for continued company expansion and growth. Things such as Total Quality Management, Improvement Teams, Standards and Measurement departments, Process Management, Quality Circles, Six Sigma, etc are not just buzz words people. Pick a system for measuring and quantifying your data and quickly measure the lifeline of your project vis a vis your overall goals. Find out where your bottlenecks are, find out where the cost overruns are taking place, and quickly identify why your Widget sales are declining before it becomes an irreversible money draining problem. This allows you then to take action whether hiring an operations consultant to integrate processes, or in the decision to release staff in certain non-critical areas.

Metrics need to be constantly monitored and measured. Charts, graphs, and summary data need to be reviewed on a regular time table whether it’s weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. From then you can then navigate your business or department towards a profitable plateau. Failure to comply with these very basic performance metrics analysis could result in flushing valuable time, money, employee morale, and reputation down the proverbial toilet if these things are ignored in your project or managerial role.

A rule of thumb is that ANY system in place for measuring performance metrics is better than having none at all. If you are in a dynamic environment and already have 2 or 3 projects in the air, then feel free to gradually introduce these factors based on your industry line.

Commercial Office Space – Don’t Waste Your Money

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:40:13 +0000

Commercial office space is unnecessary when you first start out in computer consulting. Unless you have a very compelling reason for renting commercial office space, save your money. You’re much better plowing that money back into marketing and promotional expenses.

Even a tiny commercial office space is going to be $400 – $600 a month. A low traffic retail store is even more; at least a $1000-$2000 per month. Rather than waste that money on commercial office space, invest it in marketing and business development. You’re going to need to do these things whether you have commercial office space or not. There is no reason to add to your overhead expenses.

When you start out, a home office is the best choice. Until you bring on a lot of staff, it’s really not going to benefit you to have a commercial office space. Most of the time you will be servicing clients at their office, going on sales calls, or attending networking events.

In computer consulting your clients will not be coming to you. You go to them. The time you spend in your own office is minimal. The money you spend on your office space should be minimal as well.

You might think that you need commercial office space if you want to run seminars. These are an excellent marketing tool but you can rent executive office space very reasonably. This type of commercial office space is rented on an as need basis by the hour or day.

The Bottom Line on Commercial Office Space

Commercial office space is expensive. There is no reason to put yourself on the hook for $500 or $1,000 a month or more, every single month just to be able to do say you have an office. The time you or your clients spend in your office does not warrant renting commercial office space. Use your home office for as long as you can and rent out space by the hour or day as you need it.

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Quick Guide: Using Team Roles

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:24:06 +0000

It’s obvious that, for a team to work effectively, it needs to include all the skills required for the job in hand. What may not be so obvious, but also key to excellent performance, is that the team uses a variety of team-focused strengths. Meredith Belbin, amongst others, identified a set of team roles which are important. So here are the top ten tips for ensuring that your team functions well:

1. Be creative. The team needs to be innovative in solving problems, identifying improvements, challenging the status quo.

2. Find resources. Rarely, if ever, will the team have everything they need among themselves. They will need to look elsewhere for resources, information, support and guidance.

3. Co-ordinate. Team working requires the integration of a variety of skills, tasks and information, so decide about goals, roles and methods to use.

4. Drive for success. There will be times when the team will need to just get their heads down and push hard towards their goals.

5. Evaluate. Analyse new ideas objectively, ensuring that decisions are appropriate.

6. Tend. Team members should provide a support network for one another, helping each other resolve disputes and promoting harmony.

7. Plan. It’s one thing having ideas, quite another turning them into a coherent way forward.

8. Check. The job isn’t finished until all the i’s are dotted and all the t’s crossed. Attention to detail is vital to delivering quality.

9. Recognize our strengths. To some extent, we all bring to the team many of the above eight strengths. It is important to know which team members are the strongest in which, so enabling the team to plug any gaps eg by encouraging somebody to apply a lesser strength to a greater extent, or scheduling use of a missing strength as a regular agenda item for team meetings.

10. Ensure the strengths are valued and used. It’s no good having the strengths if, when someone tries to use them, the rest of the team shout them down. The team need to agree how they will ensure that each strength is valued, and commit to listen to one another when they propose applications of those strengths.

How to Set SMART Goals for Your Meeting

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:21:34 +0000

The first step in planning an agenda is to identify the goals for the meeting. Properly done, goals have five S M A R T characteristics. They are:

> Specific.

The goal must tell exactly what will be accomplished. For example: During the next hour we will develop a strategy to increase market share by 10%. This states exactly what the group will work on. Vague goals can cause you to lose control of the meeting.

> Measurable.

This helps you determine if the goal has been completed. It can be stated as a number (5 ideas, 10% gain, one decision) or as an achievement (Did we write a strategy or not?).

> Achievable.

Goals must be realistic for the resources and time available. For example, most groups could identify twenty ways to reduce the budget in a fifteen minute meeting. On the other hand, it is unlikely that a group could develop a comprehensive marketing plan in 30 minutes.

> Relevant.

To be meaningful, a goal has to relate to the overall mission of your business. Otherwise, you may be wasting time. Challenge each goal with the question, “What happens without it?” If your answer is “nothing,” cancel the meeting.

> Time.

Specifying a deadline (e.g., by noon) or a rate (e.g., 3 per hour) moves activity toward completing the task and provides a criteria to measure progress. Of course, you want to select realistic times.

As a final check, make sure your goals are so clear that someone else could use them to run your meeting.

Quotes About Bad Meetings

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:20:58 +0000

Long pointless meetings are useful in that they keep incompetent people from interfering with those who are working. Bad meetings are a cultural malady that senior executives pass on to new employees. An employee who needs permission to buy a box of paperclips can spend tens of thousands of dollars worth of employee time on bad meetings. Many people attempt to save time by Not planning. This false short cut guarantees that everyone will spend more time later.

Unstructured spontaneity leads to serendipity, which (in business) leads to bankruptcy. Meetings are a magnetic opiate that keep people from the tasks they were hired to perform. The main activity in many meetings consists of simple chit chat. If it’s an important meeting, then this becomes sincere chit chat. A meeting without an agenda is like a journey without a map. A teleconference without an agenda is like a journey without a map, in the dark.

Most meetings are social street lamps that attract the unproductive moths in an organization. People fail to prepare an agenda for two reasons. They think they’re saving time and they don’t know what to put in it. Expecting a meeting to produce results without an agenda is like expecting the Easter Bunny to leave eggs on your doorstep. Bad meetings waste a fortune. My surveys show that companies waste almost 20% of their payroll on bad meetings.

Accurate and Fast Inventory Control

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 03:26:02 +0000

Are you looking for the best employee to do your inventory? In the early days, business owners would usually hire the best person to do the job. However, inventory done manually is prone to error. Even with just the tiniest mistake, any company would face product count problems because each item or a product has an absolute monetary value that needs to be secured and monitored.

STORIS has found a way to reduce errors and get the most accurate results through their inventory control feature in their software. To make things easier and more accurate, the software will record data immediately, from the moment you order the supplies, to the time the item or product has been sold to the market. Every detail that you need to control has been accurately done. You can ensure that everything is in control and accounted for. Thus, when you have your financial report, you can see that everything matches perfectly and accurately.

Trust only the best, STORIS.

Online Casino Guide

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:42:07 +0000

Casinos games are now top online games on the internet. When I say top online games on the internet, it means that casino game is one of the most popular games on the internet. Although some people don’t know anything about casino online games, you should know that the number of online casinos on the internet keeps growing from time to time. The reason shy the number of online casinos on the internet keeps growing from time to time is because the number of people who are interested and enthusiast to play online casinos games on the internet is very high too. So, it’s like a chain effect where in the end it will make huge number of people know the game of the online casino on the internet and interested to play casino online game.

If you are truly interested to play online casino games on the internet, you should know about online casino guide website. It is very vital for you to find high quality and reputable online casino guide website to help you find top online casinos and also knowing the rules of online casino games. Perhaps the first common problems you will face is about finding USA Casinos for you who reside in the United States or perhaps the difficulty of finding no deposit casinos on the internet.

Promotional Merchandise

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 05:44:21 +0000

Promotion is the essential reason to make the company more and more famous. There are many ways to promote the company name, finding the marketing strategies should make the company more and more productive. One of the most common ways of promotion is using promotional merchandise. This media promotion is more effective than others promotion and you can save your money to promote your company. It means that you can make your company name more and more famous without big expense using promotional merchandise. Before ordering promotional merchandise, make sure to choose the merchandise products that are useful for everyone. It can make people more and more know your company by the merchandise products.

If you are in line with ordering promotional merchandise, you can visit Freshpromotions dot com dot au to choose your merchandise products, such as promotional pens or promotional umbrellas. There are many different promotional merchandise products that you can find in Freshpromotions. It is guaranteed that you get the latest and most creative items in the market. Don’t wait too long and think about your progress, just visit the website and decide which one is your choice. I hope you can get success with your business

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Reputation Management and Your Business – reputationmanagementconsultants.com

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:44:16 +0000

Reputation management isn’t rather as is as making your business name, although it does engage acquiring fact about your business. It specifically involves the getting over of your business activities and ideas from authors away from your business sector affecting your activities. The internet is utilized as an entails for extracting notions and it can be an exceptionally useful device, but bring heed – it’s a ambiguous sword in the feel that bad news about your business sector can extended around the globe such as unwanted plant on fire earlier than you even learn it’s occurring.

Electronic mail, web log, forums and sociable media locales like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, to name some afford person the chance to talk what they consider about your business sector things without the choice for you to screen what’s being talked. The truth is the internet has created reputation management a large transaction. Just take a look for reputation management and you will arise with to a higher degree. The good news is that you do not have to employ a reputation management firm to counteract popular opinion that’s prejudicial to your business sector if you want. You are able to manage this yourself by applying a steady program of releasing your achievers and accomplishments on the World Wide Web or if you think you need an expert help then visit reputationmanagementconsultants.com, they can aid you to create your business sector achiever.

Tips to Choose the Best Home Business Opportunity

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:22:28 +0000

With the rise of the Internet, there’s never been a better time to launch a home business. Millions of people are choosing to work from home and make money on line, using only their computer and mouse. Millions more are involved in more traditional network marketing, scheduling parties and selling products to their friends, neighbors, and family. If you want to make money on line, how do you know what the best home business opportunity is for you? Read on for five tips to help you choose.

1. Know your options. There are tens of thousands of Internet-based home businesses, if not more. They range from multi level marketing opportunities to ecommerce to intellectual property sales. Your first step should be to find a website that has an overview of the best home business opportunities. This will save you countless hours scouring the Internet in order to find all of the choices available.

2. Know your strengths. Perhaps you’re a great writer, and would enjoy – and profit – from taking public domain books and articles and crafting them into books and articles that you could sell on the Internet. Perhaps you’re an experience network marketer and would do well selling products or online opportunities to others who want to break into the field of network marketing. When reviewing home business opportunities, narrow your field to those that play to your strengths.

3. Know your weaknesses. If you don’t know the first thing about building websites, it doesn’t make sense to choose a home business where you’ll have to build a bunch of websites. Likewise, if you couldn’t sell water to someone in the desert, don’t go into direct sales. Even though you might find an incredible home business opportunity, if it doesn’t dovetail with your talents, it’s not for you. It’s like any other job: there are jobs you’re automatically qualified for, those that you can learn as you go, and others that are beyond your reach. Again, success lies in playing to your strengths.

4. Diversify your revenue streams. Despite what many opportunities claim, your best chances for success come when you bring in revenue from several sources. You may begin with one home business, but over the course of a few months, you should add several others. By doing this, if one revenue stream goes south in any given month, you’ll always have backup sources of revenue.

5. Set goals and meet them. In order to be successful, you need to set goals. The goals you set should include revenue goals, marketing goals, and goals specific to the home businesses you’re engaged in. Once you’ve set your goals, you need to make a plan to reach them. Then, you need to commit to doing whatever it takes to follow your plan.

Having a home business is incredibly rewarding. If you’re a parent, you’ll have more time to spend with your children. If you’re retired, you’ll have additional income. If you’re a student, you can pay for your education. If you simply like the idea of giving up the hassles of a nine-to-five job, a home business will give you the freedom you desire. Just do your research, play to your strengths, diversify your revenue streams, and set and meet your goals, and you’ll experience the satisfaction that being a successful home business owner can bring.