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Is RationalPlan Supported On Mac OS X Mavericks?

Starting with Mac OS X Mountain Lion the Gatekeeper was introduced that by default does not allow users to run applications downloaded outside of the App Store. In this situation are also the RationalPlan users that are downloading our products directly from our website.

Now since Mavericks is a free upgrade from Mountain Lion the same restriction applies. Hence if you find yourself a fresh Mavericks user and when trying to install RationalPlan you get an error like this one:

you can solve it by going to Apple menu > System Preferences… > Security & Privacy > General tab and under the header “Allow applications downloaded from:” check the Anywhere box. This will allow you to install RationalPlan. However after the install is complete you might want to set it back to Mac App Store and identified developers.

By Tiberiu Ghioca|2022-11-18T10:20:06+00:00October 24th, 2013|RationalPlan|Comments Off

How Important is Domain Knowledge for the Project Manager?

Being able to communicate effectively, manage people, quickly solve problems, or be organized are essential skills for any good project manager. Being a leader is even better. Knowing how to employ project management tools and techniques is key. But having domain knowledge, or a broad understanding of what the project is creating, is not usually considered an essential skill even though it can be crucial for planning a project properly, creating realistic schedules and work breakdown structures, and understanding the complexity of the team’s tasks.

What is Domain Knowledge?

Importantly, domain knowledge should not be mistaken for technical knowledge; one can have domain knowledge but not be an expert. It is true that sometimes it is not a good idea to have a project manager that is also a technical expert because a project manager needs to manage the people who manage technical tasks, and not perform the tasks in their place. But domain knowledge is essential considering the bulk of a project manager’s job is communication.

The Need for a Common Language

Communication is what takes up most of a project’s manager time, and effective communication is likely the common trait of good project managers. There has to be a common “language” between the team and the project manager, and this implies domain or even technical knowledge. First of all, the project manager needs to effectively exchange information and ideas with the team members. This would be impossible or just ineffective without domain knowledge. Second, the project manager needs to keep all key stakeholders updated with the project’s evolution. Knowing the technical terminology helps the project manager gain the stakeholders’ credibility.

Benefits of Domain Knowledge

From another stand point, a project manager that has first-hand knowledge of what the team is doing should -at least theoretically- earn the project team’s respect or trust more easily than a project manager who is an alien to the project domain. A project manager with solid domain knowledge is able to quickly grasp if the team’s schedule estimates are realistic, although this would be more a question of being a good project manager: earning the trust of the team and using historical data, like lessons learned, to back up the team’s estimates. In many cases, estimates are optimistic; other times, some team members might come up with overestimates just because they assume the domain-alien project manager has no idea of the tasks’ complexity and how long they take to complete. (more…)

By Cristina Neagu|2022-11-18T10:20:06+00:00October 10th, 2013|Project Management|1 Comment

Project Management Glossary Of Terms – E

EAC

Earliest Feasible Date

Earliest Finish

Earliest Finish Time

Earliest Start

Earliest Start Time

Early Dates

Early Finish

Early Finish Date

Early Start

Early Start Date

Early Start Time

Early Warning System

Earned Hours

Earned Value (EV)

Earned Value Analysis

Earned Value Cost Control

Earned Value Management

Earned Value Management System (“EVMS”)

(more…)

By Crina Popescu|2022-11-18T10:20:06+00:00October 1st, 2013|Project Management Glossary|Comments Off

RationalPlan 4.6 – Project Reschedule, Invoice Generation and SkyDrive Storage Integration

Stand By Soft is pleased to announce the release of RationalPlan version 4.6. RationalPlan is a project management software that puts the accent on productivity, ease of use and fast learning. Current version comes to support this ideology by offering the possibility to easily reschedule the project. More than that the integration with SkyDrive storage service offers increased collaboration and productivity.

RationalPlan is a project management software that was designed to help different types of users starting with newbie project managers, continuing with users that need an environment to handle multiple projects and up to companies that need a distributed solution with concurrent access.

Important changes for this version:

Added the possibility to generate project invoices
Automatically reschedule uncompleted tasks
SkyDrive storage service integration
Added the possibility to roll up tasks
Documents management module
Added the option to remember usernames and passwords when working with RationalPlan Server product
Better integration with Microsoft Project
Improved administration area within the RationalPlan Cloud solution

At users request it was added the possibility to generate project invoices. Hence it became a must to have the possibility to manage company’s financial details like tax ID and tax rate. And since RationalPlan customers come from different locations on the globe with world-wide clients it was also added the possibility to apply the tax rate only for certain clients.

Sometimes a project can be put on hold for various reasons. But when it resumes the initial plan is not valid anymore except for the already executed tasks. In this situation a reschedule is required starting from a new reference date. This is now possible in RationalPlan. Already completed tasks will remain at the initial location, while partially completed tasks will get splitted and rescheduled along with the uncompleted ones.

After Google Drive and Dropbox storage integration in version 4.4, RationalPlan continued with SkyDrive storage integration. Users can now manage their projects without worrying if their data is safe on their local hard-drives. All they need to do is to keep their files stored on any of the above three storage hosting solutions. (more…)

By Tiberiu Ghioca|2022-11-18T10:20:07+00:00September 27th, 2013|Cloud Project Management, Microsoft Project, News, Project Management Software, RationalPlan|Comments Off

The Voice of Project Managers Around the Globe Through Social Media

It all started some time ago when I heard about a project management related podcast hosted by Cesar Abeid. I am talking about Project Management for the Masses podcast. I did not give too much credits to it until an interesting episode caught my attention: “Stop Hiring Project Managers!” and decided to listen to it.

Now the fun part is that although initially I wanted to listen to the podcast intrigued by the title, in the end I got to hear about an initiative of Shim Marom, a PM in Australia, in which he was trying to get a number of PM bloggers to write a blog post with the same title, to be released on the same day, at the same time: a PM Flash Blog. The interesting part is that it is the first PM Flash Blog.

Participants are from all over the world and the theme selected is “What does project management mean to me – a Project Manager’s sermon“. Publication date has been set to 25 September 2013 at 01:00 GMT and posts will be tagged on social media with #pmFlashBlog.

Happy writing everyone!

By Tiberiu Ghioca|2022-11-18T10:20:07+00:00September 24th, 2013|Contests, Project Management|Comments Off

RationalPlan Is In The Finals At Construction Computing Awards 2013 For The Project Management Category

Stand By Soft is delighted to inform users that RationalPlan suite has made the finals of the Construction Computing Awards 2013 in the Project Management/Project Planning category.

Voting is now underway and finishes on November 7th, with the winners announced on November 21st at the Hotel Russell, London. More information and the online voting form can be found at www.constructioncomputingawards.co.uk.

So give us a helping hand and vote RationalPlan as your preferred project management software. Voting is easy and fast and all it requires is just some basic information from you.
Construction Computing Awards Finals

By Tiberiu Ghioca|2022-11-18T10:20:07+00:00September 19th, 2013|Awards, Contests, RationalPlan|Comments Off

MOOS Project Viewer 3.1 Integrates With Google Drive Storage Service

Stand By Soft is pleased to announce the release of MOOS Project Viewer version 3.1. The major feature in this version is the integration with Google Drive^TM. Users can now also open Microsoft Project files that are stored on a Google Drive account and not just local files from their computers.

The biggest advantage of using cloud storage services is that the files can be accessed at any moment in time and from any location. Plus the files can also be shared within the company, or even more can be shared with external project stakeholders.

When a project plan is created and needs to be distributed to the team members the best solution is to use a fast and easy to access system like Google Drive. The generated project file can be stored within the company account on Drive service and each member that needs to have access to that file can open it directly with MOOS Project Viewer. This is a cost effective solution if the team members only need to see the project details and do not need to make changes to it.

The integration process between MOOS Project Viewer and Google Drive is done is few very simple steps. The users need to activate the service just once and the application will never ask anything again. (more…)

By Tiberiu Ghioca|2022-11-18T10:20:07+00:00September 18th, 2013|Microsoft Project, MOOS Project Viewer|Comments Off

Project Team Performance – Beyond Appraising and Reporting

project team performance One of the project manager’s main responsibilities, team performance management is more than evaluating, monitoring, and reporting how the team is doing. It implies planning and creating the right environment for performance, monitoring performance, providing team members with constant feedback on their performance, finding solutions for below-expectations performance, and rewarding good performance.

Is Team Performance Evaluation a Good Thing?

Appraising team’s performance using the appropriate metrics remains an important, though not essential, part of performance management. The objectivity of performance evaluation is a soft spot. Some claim that no evaluation of an individual’s performance, whether done with the right metrics or not, is objective since performance is not a quantitative measure. Others claim that evaluating individual performance instead of team’s performance is detrimental to the team’s morale and productivity, as well as the quality of the project’s deliverables. Comparing one team member to another can destroy team cohesion and trust, but not comparing team members to each other can allow some to take a free ride.

Is it Necessary for a Project Team?

In most cases, team performance evaluation needs to be done, whether it is to satisfy program management, to identify and reward top performers with a pay increase, or to identify and address any deficiencies in the team’s performance, which, if left unattended, may pose risks to the project’s schedule. But evaluating team performance is not only done for the sole purpose of creating a report for the upper management. A good project manager informs (in private) each team member of the outcome of his or her performance appraisal and works with each team member to find ways of improvement. (more…)

By Cristina Neagu|2022-11-18T10:20:07+00:00August 29th, 2013|Project Management, Resource Management, Team Management|Comments Off

Dynamic Project Planning For Increased Productivity and Flexibility

Every project starts with a well-defined plan and schedule. But the reality offers a lot of uncertainty so the project may very well not evolve according to the initial plan. The result is that measures are required to adjust the state of the project to reflect the new reality.

Planning a project is not an easy job. It requires some knowledge and an amount of experience. The steps are simple… Create the list of activities that need to be performed, structure them accordingly in phases and sub-phases and establish durations (or amount of work depending on the types of tasks). Next create the project flow by adding dependencies between tasks. This way it is established the order in which tasks are executed.

Up to this point there is nothing related to time and this is the biggest hint to keep in mind: avoid hard constraints. As long as tasks are scheduled to start as soon as possible then every task will depend only on its predecessors and on the project estimated start. This is the perfect project template that can be easily shifted in time by just changing the project estimated start.

It is unlikely that a novice project manager will be able to produce such a scalable project plan… There are situations when it is just impossible to keep a project flexible even for a senior project managers. But this is due to the nature, the requirements and the constrains of the project.

How To Adjust The Schedule

So the schedule is done and the project is ready to go. But it may take no more than one week for the project plan to stop corresponding to the reality: some tasks take longer than estimated, others are executed faster or even worse the project is put on hold for various reasons (lack of funds or personnel, a financial crisis period, bad weather conditions and the list can continue). What now? Synchronizing the old plan with the reality takes some effort and attention.

It is obvious that the already completed or started tasks will remain at their location. The only discussion is about moving the uncompleted ones and/or splitting the tasks that are partially completed. This adjusting process is similar to planning the project but done on a smaller scale. If the initial plan was not time flexible then each particular conflict needs to be manually solved.

As mentioned above the best case is the one when the plan was created with as few as possible hard constraints. This allows an increased flexibility when it comes to shifting the activities in time. (more…)

By Lucian Ioan|2022-11-18T10:20:07+00:00August 15th, 2013|Project Management, Project Management Software|Comments Off

PM 1.0 versus PM 2.0. What Is Next – Project Management 3.0?

There are certain individuals nowadays, mostly “project managers”, that decided to add version numbers to the notion of Project Management… And they created PM 1.0 and PM 2.0. More than probably the numbering idea came from the software domain: different tools and different versions for various needs.

A Little History Background

Since ancient times man created spectacular structures. The Great Pyramid of Giza around 2550 BC and The Great Wall of China around 206 BC are just two of them. Both survived to the test of time and even now are still standing. For this to happen it required a well done preparation, knowledge and workforce. These are clear proofs of an extraordinary construction engineering. Can we talk about project management at that moment? Perhaps not under this name but in reality it was exactly that.

The notion of Project Management as we know it today began to take root around year 1950. At that time organizations started to systematically apply management tools and techniques, developed in earlier years, to complex engineering projects. A famous tool that is being heavily used even today is the Gantt chart. One way or another businesses and other organizations began to see the benefit of organizing work around projects. So it was not just management anymore but it was also about projects: Project Management.

The Software Era

Managing projects on paper, as it was done at that time, is a time consuming process, prone to errors and costly. Obviously all these are true for medium to large projects and not for the small ones where the management is a lot easier to be done. But with the technology advances between 1970 and 1980 the first few project management related software solutions were created. This was an incredible increase in the performance of managing projects: faster computation, more reliable data and all the advantages that came from using a computer.

Over the years from users feedback better and better project management tools were created. Some solutions became deprecated and died while others evolved. However there is one particular point in time that can be considered a milestone: the evolution of Internet and the appearance of Web 2.0. All the fuss around the new World Wide Web aka Web 2.0 started around year 2000. The new way of dynamically rendering pages over the Internet offered an increased flexibility in using web application as a team as opposed to desktop ones. The gate to collaboration between team members directly through project management software was opened. And starting from this people created the term of Project Management 2.0

[1][2].

How did that happen? Simple: the traditional way of managing projects (this approach was renamed into PM 1.0 at a later stage) was lacking in one regard they say – collaboration – and the new approach came with that. It is a hard thing to believe that before Web 2.0 there was no collaboration between stakeholders when managing a project… Maybe not through the use of PM tools but there were other means like email, chat, phone etc. So is it right to say that PM 2.0 = PM 1.0 + collaboration? (more…)

By Tiberiu Ghioca|2022-11-18T10:20:07+00:00August 8th, 2013|Project Management Methodology, Project Management Software|Comments Off

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