Ultimate Resources Guide to Project Management

Three technology characteristics that should guide martech development

As a martech vendor looking to standout in a competitive, your instinct may be to develop more and more features, and fast. However, true partnership happens when vendors buck short-term temptations and take the time to create solutions that are simple, fun and insightful.

1. Technology should be simple and intuitive

Customers demand great software experiences and will not settle for technologies that are difficult to use. Vendors must think beyond strict features and improve the entire user experience. Is your solution a pleasure to use? Does it arm customers with the insights required to be effective employees?

Assemble a team of UX designers tasked with answering these questions, and then critique, iterate and improve your technology experiences based on this feedback. Take the time to engineer valuable technology experiences – and invite real users into the process – to demonstrate a true desire to create strong customer relationships that other vendors will struggle to match.

1. Technology should welcome questions and inspire answers

The last thing martech users want when exploring a new technology is to wait for answers or to feel like their questions are a burden. But this is exactly what happens when you fail to elevate customer service as a core tenant of your technology offering. Support must be an integral part of the design process, not an afterthought.

In CallRail’s early days, we sought to improve user experience by setting up a hierarchy of how to solve support issues. First, we tried to answer common customer questions in the app by iteratively improving UI, for example, or adding interactive tips. If that wasn’t practical, but the issue was common, we’d create a support article about the issue. And if the customer’s question wasn’t answered in a support article, it would be passed to front-line support. Finally, if the question was extra-complex, it would be passed to engineering support.

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A project manager (male or female) cannot expect to make his project a skyrocketing success without investing in the best project management tools. There are innumerable advantages associated with using a project management software for project delivery — one of them is the provision of a streamlined way to collaborate on project goals and objectives.

Each project management software comes with its own features that may not be perfect. You need to scale your business requirements with whatever stuff a particular program is offering. Based on rigorous use and overall high demand factor, the industry has laid out some preset features for every project management tool to have. Take them as the “bare minimum” perks associated with a reputable software available today.

Let’s go through the most basic components of the best project management tools should have:

XP? CCPM? PRiSM? If you're new to Project Management (PM), the number of different approaches (and acronyms) can make your head spin. As a continuation of our Project Management Basics series, we'll take you through the most common PM methodologies and explain the fundamentals.

Now that you've mastered the lingo and have a firm grasp on our first 8 common PM methodologies, you're starting to settle into your new PM role. You're gearing up for your first project kickoff, and the boss is back in your office: "So, let's talk methodologies.

Kanban, Lean, Six Sigma, Scrum... there are a mountain of Agile methodologies to choose from. And if you're new to project management, it can be a lot to take in. You may know that Scrum is one of the most common approaches to Agile project management, but what is it exactly?

Your boss just walked into your office and said: "We've overstretched our resources. I need you to check the Gantt chart and tell me if there is any free float for this task so we don't delay our critical path." Wait, what was that? Gantt chart? Critical path?

In our Quickstart Glossary for Newbies, Part 1, we revealed the secrets behind Gantt charts, the Critical Path Method, and more. And now your boss has walked in with more confusing jargon to muddle your brain: "Can you double-check our resources to make sure this project isn't in danger of scope creep?"

Gantt charts are a staple tool in project management. They've achieved this status because of their ability to visualize the timeline of a project and the resources needed for it. But with the plethora of different visual tools you can now use to track projects, why even use a tool that was invented in 1910 and originally intended for machine shop production?

Today, Gantt charts are a staple tool in project management. They show up in project binders, on boardroom walls, in project management software - all because they are able to visually convey what would take paragraphs of boring text. But who invented them? What makes them beneficial for project planning?

We are living in a world of entrepreneurs. Chances are you know one (at least), or you have your own ideas waiting to come to fruition. But ideas are expensive in reality. The question is, how can you get the most bang for your buck?

Good product development is crucial to your company's success, whether it's a small business startup or a huge corporation. Product delays or failures can mean falling behind competitors, or (worst case scenario) a failed launch. When developing your next product, look to the Wright brothers for lean lessons to help your project soar.

The typical CEO has to maintain a fairly high level of focus on the organization as a whole. However, spending all the time with a big picture may easily move you away from the current customers' needs and important problems your team is facing.

In the previous post, I touched upon useful skills a CEO may want to adopt from a project manager. So here are 3 more to bring you a fresh look at the CEO's routine: #5 - Flexibility is necessary Quite often, there's a need for the CEO to quickly adjust strategic priorities, reacting to competitors moves or changing market conditions, not to mention the daily adjustments of the personal meeting schedule.

BOOM! An asteroid has just collided with Earth. Luckily it was a small asteroid, so we're all okay. Not so luckily, that lump of space rock landed smack in the middle of your project site. Your new construction, your server warehouse, your team headquarters - your whole project has been flattened to a pancake under a mountain of rubble.

This is the second in a two-part series for our Ultimate Guide to Project Risk. Read Part 1 first: Assessing Risk then return here to continue. Once you've completed your risk assessment, you're ready to create your risk management response plan. Note that risk management isn't something you check off your project to-do list; it's an ongoing process.

Disengaged employees are a very real and very possible threat to your business. A Gallup survey says that four out of five workers worldwide are not working to the best of their abilities because they're disengaged. And that the U.S. economy loses up to $350 billion annually due to the lackluster productivity levels of disengaged employees.

Everything you need to know about project management you can learn from hockey. While hockey is simply the greatest game of all time (IMHO), it is also a wonderful teaching tool. If you can look past the pulse-pounding action and glass-shattering collisions, there is actually a lot more to it.

Project management has a wide spectrum of effective approaches. Everything from hands-off supervision to management by walking around... And then there are the ideas that should go the way of the dinosaur -- disappear in a ball of flames. This is just a list of the top 5 PM ideas that should be extinct.

A project kickoff meeting is a lot like tuning a music band before an important gig: set the wrong pitch and even Chopsticks might turn into cacophony. The fact is, how you get started matters. In the case of a kickoff meeting, a couple of carelessly dropped phrases can discourage and mislead your team.

Want more motivation, better performance and better delivery? Then perhaps it's time to tune into one of the hottest trends in project management: self-organizing teams. Self-organizing teams are a key part of agile project management, and though that approach was initially intended for software development, companies are finding that it helps all sorts of teams become more productive.

Late night. The office building has long gone dark and quiet, yet the lights are on in one of the windows. Two figures are arguing over something in front of a computer screen. No, it's not a secret lab. These guys just need to finish that very important and urgent "thing" for tomorrow.

When you are feeling overloaded, instead of pushing harder, a wise thing to do might be to take a short break. As we discussed in one of our previous posts, short breaks can revive your productivity and decrease tension.

There's a glut of articles and advice about Agile floating around online. Adoption patterns, education plans, and implementation methodologies abound. But there's a big difference between doing Agile and being Agile. If your team simply adopts Agile rules without the mindset, you're going to have problems. We've done the research and studied the pitfalls for you so you can help your team start sprinting successfully.

With busy schedules, tight deadlines and many other day-to-day project management challenges, have you ever wished you had a super power to help you cope with them all in a magical way? Inspired by interesting comments to our CEO's recent post "7 Business Lessons an Entrepreneur Can Learn from Superheroes ", we thought of a few lessons a project manager can learn from superheroes.

What does it mean to be a great leader? How do you take charge and inspire your team with integrity, authority, and enthusiasm? Thousands of books are filled with reflections and advice on leadership. But finding one that's interesting, insightful, practical - and an entertaining read to boot - can be tricky.