New Series – Project Management 101 Written on March 8, 2012, by admin.

We’re starting a new series of blog posts called “Project Management 101”. These posts will address some of the most frequently asked questions encountered by our support and account managers.

People who will benefit the most from these articles are the so-called “Accidental Project Managers”. If you’re new to the whole project management world, want to quickly learn the basics and the best practices, you are at the right place.

Start by downloading our free e-book “Project Management Can Be Easy”, stay tuned and visit our blog to see the new articles that will be posted here regularly. If you have a question about Easy Projects, project management best practices or anything else – write us a comment.

Update: Posts in this Series
Why would we use Parent/Child Activities?

Our Datacenter gets ISO 27001 security certification Written on March 5, 2012, by admin.

We’re delighted to announce that our data center has successfully completed its ISO/IEC 27001:2005 security certification.

ISO 27001 is an ISMS (Information Security Management System) standard by ISO and IEC from 2005 for managing information security.

ISO/IEC 27001:2005 specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, operating, monitoring, reviewing, maintaining and improving a documented Information Security Management System (ISMS). It specifies requirements for the management of the implementation of security controls.

It’s an international security standard not limited to just North America.

How does it compare to SAS 70?

SAS 70 is a statement on auditing standards by AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) from 1993, where an independent auditor is to evaluate service providers controls and generate a report based on the evaluation.

Judith Sherinsky, a technical manager on the audit and test standards team at the AICPA writes about SAS 70:

“It isn’t a measure of security, it’s a measure of financial controls.”

A SAS 70 audit does not rate a company’s security controls against a particular set of defined best practices, and because SAS 70 was meant to look at financial controls, a SAS 70 audit report may contain many items that are not at all related to information security.

The fact that a company has conducted a SAS 70 audit does not necessarily mean any of its systems are secure.

Key difference: ISO/IEC 27001:2005 guarantees that a provider has been audited on established security guidelines and requirements unlike the SAS 70 that leaves it up to the provider to choose suitable things to audit on.

Outlook 2007/2010 add-in for Easy Projects Written on March 1, 2012, by admin.

We’re very happy to announce the release of MS Outlook 2007/2010 add-in for Easy Projects.
This allows you to interact with Easy Projects without leaving Outlook. It’s perfect for tracking projects, checking tasks, quick updates and attaching files.

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Project Management – Monitoring and Control Written on February 21, 2012, by Perry Wilson.

When the project is finally planned, the project manager needs to find the right balance between too much and too little management. Up to now, The PM has been closely involved in the project, facilitating meetings, following up for estimates, meeting with the sponsor. But when the project moves into execution, the PM needs to step back and let the team get to work.
Finding that balance between micro management and no management is tricky because you are also the connection to the project for the Sponsor and stakeholders who all have different styles of management.
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Project Management – How to balance your time Written on February 13, 2012, by Perry Wilson.

For many project managers, whether they are working with an external client or inside an organization, setting the right balance between getting the project ready and doing the project work can be a challenge. Often it’s the first challenge from the sponsor. “We need to get started, how quickly can you do the organizing?”

The pressure to minimize the overhead on a project can make it tempting to shortcut the critical planning. The flip side of the challenge is that in a complex project or one with a lot of uncertainty, it can be difficult to feel confident in the planning and take the step into execution.
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Project Management – Managing Change Requests Written on February 6, 2012, by Perry Wilson.

The challenge for new project managers is to balance the benefits of changing scope with the impacts on the schedule and budget. Many new PMs think that changes to scope = scope creep. This is not quite correct, the definition of scope creep is unmanaged change.

What do you see happening?

As the project proceeds through to execution, you will start to receive requests to make changes. This happens often because people can’t think through the complexities until some progress has been made. The changes can be simple modifications to existing scope or can be adding significant changes that will increase the timeline and budget.
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Project Management – Gaining Buy-in for the Methodology During Execution Written on January 30, 2012, by Perry Wilson.

This is a common challenge and has all kinds of manifestations. When things are going well, your team might not see the value in updating the progress reports or project task completion. After all, it’s going well why bother with more work? When things are not going so well, they don’t have time to fill out reports, update logs and raise issues the right way.

What do you see happening?

Because each team will show this in different ways at different times, I’ll focus on the two things I’ve found to be at the heart of the resistance, value and effort.
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Project Management – Helping your team to value the methodology Written on January 23, 2012, by Perry Wilson.

Sometimes your team can feel like the work involved in the project methodology is just more work. This is a challenge of selling value to people. Often project managers are fluent in value to the project, but struggle to translate that into value to the team.

What do you see happening?
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Project Management for Small Projects – Simplify the Methodology Written on January 16, 2012, by Perry Wilson.

It can seem that project management methodologies are all about the process and not about getting things done.  Sometimes it’s tempting to make it simpler, make it lighter, or skip a step or two. Project management methodologies are intended as a tool to make you successful, not as a means to an end. It’s okay to simplify for a small project and deepen for a large complex project, or even a program.

What do you see happening?
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Project Management – Managing Your Team Workload Written on January 9, 2012, by Perry Wilson.

Over the last 30 years of people and project management, Perry Wilson, PMP has a track record of delivering successful projects. Along with four merger projects, she have implemented project management methodology in two Project Management Offices, working with certified project managers and people new to project management. In gaining that experience, Perry learned some key steps to successful implementation of tools.

Whether your team is dedicated to your project or spread over multiple projects, you’ll find times when their workload becomes unmanageable. This happens in the execution phase no matter how diligent you were in the planning phase to get reasonable estimates of work.

When it comes to doing the actual work, things happen and those things affect your project. When your team is overloaded, they may not come to you for help.
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