As a project manager, my basic responsibilities are:
- Estimating timelines and costlines;
- Planning the tactical protocols for each objective; and
- Planning the standard operating protocols for managing the strategical situations.
During my initial stage of being a project manager, needed a tool that enables me to organize and track tasks and resources in order to keep projects on time and within budget. Was force-feeded to use Microsoft Project 2000.
After 1 hr of reading the manual, was able to use Microsoft Project 2000 to perform the following:
- Planned a project- and build in cost savings and efficiencies;
- Made optimum use of time, people and resources;
- Created effective Gantt, PERT and Resources charts;
- Tracked and analyzed my team’s progress;
- Gauged the impact of variables and “what-if” scenarios;
- Built reports for follow-up;
- Managed resources by linking and joining projects;
- Saved time by creating macros and importing files; and
- Took advantage of MS Project’s Internet capabilities.
Thought it was pretty good program. Only used it when clients requested it.
Recently, bumped into Microsoft Project 2007. Started to play with it.
With MS Office Project 2007, I can do the same thing as before, but with more features.
… Now able to understand the schedule with features such as Task Drivers for tracing the source of issues. Also able to test what-if scenarios with Multiple Level Undo and Visual Cell Highlighting for automatically shading the tasks affected by a change.
MS Project 2007 has a Project Guide that assist the user in mastering the process quickly. It also provide a step-by-step guide to help the user to set up the project, track its progress and report project information.
Love Microsoft Project 2007. Recommends it. You can test-drive Microsoft Project 2007 by going to this Microsoft point.
In future articles, will continue the discussion on Microsoft Project and other Microsoft Project tools.
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One of my favorite sports is baskeball. As a fan, always found it to be quite challenging in finding out how much information does a team need to compete against another team.
This past Sunday, I found a Randall Stross article that focused on a company who developed a specialized video database that contains each and every offensive move of each NBA players.
Synergy Sports Technology is that company who can ” … bring together to N.B.A. coaches fine-grained statistics matched with associated video clips. … ”
If you are a NBA coach, want to stop Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks. You want Synergy Sports Technology’s system. Their system has recorded every offensive step Mr. Nowitzki has made since he joined the league in 1998.
” … Synergy has captured, for example, how successful he is driving right, or left, differentiating between home and away games, and further slicing and dicing into sub-sub-sub-categories. Click on any statistic and you can get video clips from the last three seasons of 20, or 50, or even 2,000 plays that show Nowitzki making that particular move. …”
Another words, if the head coach needs to research what player types are killing their defense. Synergy’s solution can assist him in discovering the problem.
Their system is considered to be the “Google for Basketball”.
This current season, Synergy’s client list expanded to 14 N.B.A. teams from 4. ” … As always happens with new technology, the first customers have a momentary edge over competitors, but the lead disappears when the others decide that paying up is an unavoidable cost of being in the business. …”
If you spot an unknown technology that can increases your productivity, always give it a try.
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To properly compete in the global marketplace, find a niche that no one has occupied. Be first. Be fast. Be fierce. Dominate that niche quickly.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/business/yourmoney/29digi.html
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TOOLS for the Global Office
As a techie, I love tools that reduce manual labor. As a project manager, I love tools that saves time and increase productivity.
My favorite tool of the week is UltraCompare. As a user of UltraEdit, I have used the “Lite version of UltraCompare”. Recently I have gotten a copy of this IDM gem and played with it.
This tool enabled me to effortlessly compare files and directories and merge differences.
Beside text , rtf and zip files, it does a great job door in comparing word docs. Ran a set of tests on its “three way compare and merge” function. It passed with flying colors. Love their relational Lines mode where it displayed differences occurs between files with graphics.
The main difference between UltraCompare Lite and UltraCompare Professional is that the Professional version enables the user to perform Fast Binary Compare, File Merge, and full Folder Compare/Merge operations.
I believe UltraCompare is a great timesaver and valuable tool for programmers, system administrators and project managers! There are more functionality to this tool.
Will summarize its functionality in a later article.
Combined UltraEdit and UltraCompare on a few mini-apps and I was in awe at the power and flexibility that this combined tools will give to anyone using it
Recommend the purchase of these two programs. It is quite inexpensive.
Beside buying UltraCompare, also recommend the purchase of their other software- UltraEdit and UltraSentry.
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