Handle difficult team member as a Project Manager

If you are Project manager then you can meet different types of persons as a team member in your project team. For project succession it is very important to handle team member very smartly. Different persons cannot be unique in their nature, attitude, smartness or any other criteria. So as a project manager you need to be smart enough to deal with them very carefully and keep them all align with their different types of characters in one project team. This is all about managing soft skill of people and to guide them to achieve target.

Some team member is very complainer in nature. He/she always find problem in task, deadline, announcement, other team member, schedule or any other aspects in the organisation or for particular project. Due to this type of attitude he/she always drill down the unity of the team and try to make others all like him/her. Other team member also get inspire from them and influence their behavior. It can be very problematic for project and very much painful for Project manager. In this type of situation, Project manager has to talk with that team member and find out what exactly the reason for complaining is. This type of nature cannot be changed with any shouting or restrictive attitude by Project manager. Project manager has to be calm and cool to discuss with them and try to understand the main problem and then project manager can take decision to make it smooth and shine.

Some team member is always late comer in office. They always miss some important meeting, announcement or any other activities. Due to this late coming, always project manager need to explain him some points again and also it will badly affect the project timeline. Here, Project manager can try to find out his/her reason to come late in office and try to resolve it. Project manager can explain him/her about timing importance and timeline of the project.

Some team member has skill set issue so they cannot finish their task on time. Sometime it can be skill set issue or sometime it can be some other issue so he/she don’t complete their task on time. Project manager need to ask them about their problem and try to make them understand about their weak points and solutions to resolve it.

Some team member is so smart but cannot want to give their best. He may be has bossy nature to understand self as a best and talented or over confident always then others. It can be spoil whole team and it will badly disturb the success of the project. Project manager need to explain them as a senior person and try to explain them better ways about career and life.

Sometime it’s not necessary to behave as a Project manager with team but as a mentor you can solve so many difficult situations. As a mentor or guide you can guide them and try to solve the problems and team member’s nature. It can be lead them towards positive environment and also build self confidence in them. Project manager is right way to lead the project but to make it success you need to be in different types of roles throughout the project. If everything you tried but still ball is not in your hand then you can think in a different and some strict approach because as a Project manager, to make project success with definite timeline, schedule and with specified budget is first approach for you with these all other aspects.

To sum up, as a Project manager you will meet different types of members in your career as a team but you have to be keep them align and handle them politely with smart and professional actions. Always choose professional and best interpersonal communication method to handle this type of situation.

Best wishes to all Project Managers.

Effectively manage the team

Generally speaking, to manage team in effective manner is one of the most important factor for successful completion of the project. Team can be a small or large in N number of size but to handle it throughout the project is requiring very handy skill to manage the project as a Project Manager.

When any project starts, some team member can be new for manager and some team member can be already worked with him. As a Project manager, it can be difficult sometime to work with new team members but with good management, project manager has to quickly build trust between all team members to make project on the track. It is necessary to keep transparency so team can feel comfortable and also they can share their views with project manager.

Project Manager needs to listen the each team member and give them chance to share their view and ideas. Always be stand with them in their adverse situations to keep their faith and confidence positive. Project manager needs to do meeting with team at regular intervals to keep whole team align and be on same page.

Project manager has to deal with deadline and follow the strict time line, so it can be always possibility that he has to force their team members to achieve tasks on time and work in tight schedule. Project manager should go with as much as flexible approach to maintain project as well as positivity of team members to achieve their tasks in time. Project manager has to build up trust in each team members so they can believe in themselves to make project successful.

Communication is very important aspect to build bridge between project manager and team. Project manager has to explain his goal and expectations from team in very precise way so whole team can understand and follow it. Project manager can explain each team member about their limitations and strength to improve in future. Project manager can review performance of the each team member at regular interval to give them chance to know about their weak and strong points.

Project manager has to keep their eye on goal and make their team members on unite level to achieve that target. At the end, Project success is belongs to the whole team that makes whole team happy and give positive confidence for future.

To sum up, Team management is very primary concern in Project management to make any project successful. Project manager and team has to keep themselves align with each other and understand each other’s point of views to shoot the target on time.

Earned Value Management

Controlling the project in the sense of scope, time and cost is the key factor for any Project manager. So, cost and time are the main parameters to maintain project performance. Earned Value Management (EVM) is the methodology to measure project performance and progress to keep align scope, cost and schedule baseline. It can be applied to all projects in any industry.

EVM has main three key parameters to focus:

• Planned Value (PV)

As per the PMBOK guide, Planned Value is the authorized budget assigned to scheduled work.

It is the approved value of the work to be completed in given time. Planned Value should be calculated before start work so it can be work as a cost baseline.

Total planned value of the project is known as Budget at Completion (BAC).

Planned Value can be calculated as:

Let say, we have a project of duration 6 months. Its BAC is $10,000. After 3 months spent 50% project should be completed.

Planned Value = 50% * 10000 = (50/100) * 10000 = $5000

So, Planned Value means this much amount of work should be completed as per schedule.

• Actual Cost (AC)

As per the PMBOK guide, Actual Cost is the realized cost incurred for the work performed on an activity during specific time period.

AC is the cost that actually spent on the project till the time.

There is no any specific formula to find out it, but let say in above example you have spent $5500 in 3 months but work is completed just 35% then Actual Cost is $5500.

• Earned Value (EV)

As per the PMBOK guide, Earned Value is a measure of work performed expressed in terms of the budget authorised for that work.

EV is the earned value you earned from amount you spent till time. EV shows that how much amount of value you earn till spent money.

Let say in above example project is of 6 months and after 3 months actually 35% work is completed with the amount spent $ 5500.

Earned Value = 35% * 10000 = $3500 value is earned.

From above values, variances and Indexes are calculated.

• Schedule Variance (SV)

Schedule Variance is the difference between Earned Value and Planned Value. SV= EV – PV.

• Cost Variance (CV)

Cost Variance is the difference between Earned Value and Actual Cost. CV = EV – AC.

• Schedule Performance Index (SPI)

Schedule Performance Index is the ratio of Earned Value to Planned Value. SPI = EV/PV.

• Cost Performance Index (CPI)

Cost Performance Index is the ratio of Earned Value to Actual Cost. CPI = EV/AC.

Let say in above example project is of 6 months and after 3 months actually 35% work is completed with the amount spent $ 5500.

Here, Actual Cost is $5500 and Earned Value is $3500. So CPI will be less than 1. If CPI is less than 1 then we can say cost for the project is over run. So, CPI should be always greater than 1 to maintain project cost.

To summarize, Planned value, Actual Cost and Earned Value will give you the project health report and easily we can know project status.

Project Meeting

Generally speaking, Project meeting is very important factor in Project. Sometimes, team members feels it time wasting and bore, but as a Project Manager it’s necessary to held meeting at regular interval to keep project momentum continue in whole team. Meeting can be Scheduled meeting, Ad hoc meeting or meeting with top management for project status.

Before any meeting, it’s very important to make agenda for it to manage time and interest of all attendees. If possible, try to distribute meeting agenda between all attendees, so all members can keep their points ready to present. Meeting should always start on time and end on time. Long meeting can loss the concentration of attendees and make it bore. Try to note down all the points during meeting, if possible any scribe can be appointed for it. Focus on main points of meeting, means manage to loss the main way so within limited time meeting can cover maximum points. Make Minutes of meeting after completion of meeting and distribute to all to keep them updated.

Scheduled meeting can be held at regular interval by Project Manager with team members to get the knowledge about any issue they have or discussion on flow of project. This regular meeting can keep in touch all team members with each other and project manager can have an idea about any hidden problem with the members.

Ad hoc meeting can be called by project manager if any issue arise suddenly and it’s require to focus concentration at high priority. In this meeting, Project manager can invite those team members who are working on that issue or related with that issue. Explain main points of issue during meeting and give your opinions about it. Try to get their opinions also to make it resolve if possible.

Project status meeting with top management is necessary to keep upper management updated about project status. Try to explain your point of view for the current project status and how you are trying to achieve the next milestone of the project. They can also have some query regarding the project so it can be cleared by project manager during this meeting.

To sum up, Project meeting is very important as per perspective of the project and keep updated to all team members about the project. Also all the members can have a chance to interact with each other. Junior team members can also get chance to present their view so they can feel that their voice have also some value and it is heard by management. So, in the short project meeting can keep all the team members updated about project status, make their communication skill better, hidden issue can be resolved and finally, these all points together act main role to make project success.

Main Knowledge areas of Project

As per PMI, main knowledge areas of Project are:

1. Project Integration Management
2. Project Scope Management
3. Project Time Management
4. Project Cost Management
5. Project Quality Management
6. Project Human Resources Management
7. Project Communications Management
8. Project Risk Management
9. Project Procurement Management
10. Project Stakeholder Management 

• Main activities in all areas are listed as per process group below:

         Project Integration Management:

         Initiating : Develop Project Charter

Planning : Develop Project Management Plan

Executing : Direct and Manage Project Work

Monitoring and Controlling :

Monitor and Control Project Work

Perform Integrated change control

Closing : Close project

Project Scope Management:

Planning :

Plan Scope Management

Collect Requirements

Define Scope

Create WBS

Monitoring and Controlling :

Validate scope

Control scope 

Project Time Management:

Planning :

Plan Schedule Management

Define Activities

Sequence activities

Estimate activity resources

Estimate activity duration

Develop Schedule

Monitoring and Controlling :

Control Schedule

Project Cost Management:

Planning:

Plan Cost Management

Estimate Cost

Determine Budget

Monitoring and Controlling :

Control Cost

Project Quality Management:

Planning:

Plan Quality Management

Executing :

Perform Quality Assurance

Monitoring and Controlling :

Perform Quality Control

Project Human Resources Management:

Planning :

Develop Human Resource Plan

Executing :

Acquire Project Team

Develop Project Team

Manage project team

Project Communications Management:

Planning :

Plan Communications Management

Executing :

Manage Communications

Monitoring and Controlling :

Control Communications

Project Risk Management:

Planning :

Plan Risk Management

Identify Risks

Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis

Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis

Plan Risk Responses 

Monitoring and Controlling :

Monitor and Control Risks

Project Procurement Management:

Planning :

Plan Procurement Management

Executing :

Conduct Procurements

Monitoring and Controlling :

Control Procurements

Closing :

Close Procurements

Project Stakeholder Management:

Initiating :

Identify Stakeholders

Planning :

Plan Stakeholder Management

Executing :

Manage Stakeholder Engagement

Monitoring and Controlling :

Control Stakeholder Engagement

Estimation or Guesstimation

Generally speaking, estimation is very important aspect in project life cycle. It’s not important while project planning only, but as a project manager estimation is the process which is performed throughout the project life cycle. New changes or scope creep can revise estimation which was performed earlier, so it’s continuous operation required.

Estimation can be done by Project resources who allocated for it or at the initial level when resources are not decided then any subject matter Expert (SME) can perform the estimation. SME can discuss with Quality Assurance team for it or if necessary brainstorming of other experts to get proper estimation.

Sometimes estimation cannot be done instead of that guesstimation is done due to lack of time, management or process. Estimation require proper time to be in detail but sometimes time is not available to estimate so with the help of any past experience or some detail estimation can be done, that’s called guesstimation. If your luck is fine or God is with you then guesstimation can be accurate otherwise it will lead towards wrong estimated time and project cannot be delivered on time.

In mature organisation, project manager will get standard or template for estimation which organisation follows, same time organisation can provide estimation techniques which they follow or prefer, on the contrary some organisation just follow guesstimation for project and where project run with the risk.

To sum up, proper estimation can give you the accurate vision about time, cost and scope with risk management too, while guesstimation can create extra risks for the project and it will lead project towards the failure.

  

Quality Assurance vs Quality Control

Project has one very important aspect to manage that its quality. Quality should be maintained for developed product otherwise it’s not worth to waste budget for it. Each product require quality and to produce product with quality it’s require Quality assurance and Quality Control. Some understand that its same thing but it’s different, so it’s important to understand the difference between two. Quality assurance is Process oriented, Preventing bugs and Quality control is Product oriented, Identifying bugs.

Quality Assurance:

Quality Assurance is the part of quality management. Quality Assurance process performs before the product development and quality control to ensure quality for the product to be developed. As stated above its related to bugs preventing during development. Quality Assurance team ensures to follow Project management policies, templates or any defined parameters by project manager during project execution. This process not include any coding or development rather than its find out weakness from the process to improve the performance. It make plan to do project process in better way.

Quality Control:

Quality Control process is to identify the bugs in product as its Product oriented. After product development Quality Control process is to find out bugs in the product by reviewing and testing it with any tools to ensure its quality. Quality Control department checks the product against criteria defined by Quality Assurance team with the use of different test cases. Validation checking, software testing are the Quality Control processes. If any defects find during testing they arise them as an issue so again development team can check it.

Both, Quality Assurance and Quality Control departments try to improve quality of the product. Quality assurance persons try to prevent defect before product developed and Quality control persons identify defects after product developed to fix. It require continuous quality control process to find out in depth bugs so it help to improve quality and performance of the product.

Leads and Lags in Project Management

As a Project Manager, you have to understand Leads and Lags concepts to make Project Schedule diagram and also necessary to keep track of activity duration.

Lets understand that:

Leads:

Generally, Second activity starts when first activity finish, but some time the scenario is different like two activities can be processed parallely. For example, second acitivity can be started after few days of first activity finished. If you want to start editing photographs of Photo session of 4 days schedule then its not necessary to wait till 4 days to finish full session and then start editing, on the other hand photo editing can be started after 1 day of photo session and both activities can be proceed in parallely way.

Lets say activity A duration is 5 days and activity B duration is 3 days. Activity B can be started after 3 days of Activity A is started then 2 days are called Lead here. Its called Finish to Start with 2 days lead, means Activity b can be started after 3 days of activity A finished. Lead can be used only in Finish to start activity relationship.

Lags:

Lag is when successor activity is delayed that much amount of time due to predecessor activity. Lets say Activity B can be started after 3 days of Activity A finished then 3 days are called Lag in this scenario.

Lets say, after photo shoot session, printing of photo will have to start but before that photo will be sent to customer for proof. So after 10 days of lag we can start the photo printing when we get customer approval.

Analogous and Parametric Estimating Techniques

In Project planning, after finished with define scope, create WBS, Sequence activities, Estimate activity resources and Estimate Activity duration it’s time to Cost Estimation for it.

Estimate is an approximate number for resource, activity, cost etc., while Budget is an approved estimate with addition of reserve.

Cost Estimation Techniques:

Analogous Estimating:

Analogy means similar. Analogous Estimating technique use the historical data of past projects or activity which are similar type of it to estimate current project. In past, if organisation has performed similar type of project then parameters from that project like duration, cost and risk can be consider here to estimate.

This technique is easy and less costly. When less detail of project is available to estimate then project manager can be used this estimating technique. This technique is less accurate and less time consuming. Here, the estimation is as much accurate as much the past project activity is closed to the project.

If in past, organisation has done “Online hotel booking system” project in 3 months then they estimate same project of 3 months as per the past experience.

Parametric Estimating:

Parametric Estimating technique use the historical data or parameters from past project to estimate the project. It depends upon the statistics find out from the parameters and with the use of other variables. It calculates the result from the available parameters and then estimate the current project.

For example, if in past we produce 10 'X' products in a day then how much time it take to produce 1000 same products? So from this equation calculated time is calculated and estimate the project. Here, the estimation is as much accurate as much the calculated result and assumptions are correct. Parametric estimating is more accurate then Analogous Estimating.

Project Management Principles

As per PMI,

Project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.

Project Management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.

In our daily routine we perform project activities normally but we don’t aware about it. Each big task we can think as a project. E.g. one of our family member has a coming marriage in near future. Marriage is a project to accomplish within defined plan, scope, time and cost. We can think each big task as a project and finish it by its principles to make it successful.

Project Management has mainly these Principles:

Integration Management - In Project, different types of things need to be integrated to make one single solution.  

Scope Management – Scope should be maintained throughout the Project execution.

Time Management – Each module delivered on time to maintain the project on time.

Cost Management – Maintain the budget that not go out of planned budget.

Quality Management – Work should be delivered with quality and it should be maintained in whole project flow.

Human Resource Management – Team should be managed in efficient and effective way.

Communication Management – At the right time, right words should be communicated or delivered to recipients.

Risk Management – Identify and manage risk by proper plan to prevent the project from uncertainty.

Procurement Management – Handle the vendors with effective manner.

Stakeholder Management – Try to fulfil customer’s expectations.

The principles we apply to activity in our daily life may be same as above but difference is project has defined start and end date while activity is ongoing process.

DMAIC in Six Sigma

DMAIC is an approach used in SixSigma methodology to improve existing product or process. Other is DMADV is methodology used to apply to new process to achieve six sigma quality standards.

DMAIC is pronounced as a “de-MAY-ik”. It is acronym for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control.

Define:                                                                                                                                In this step, team first define the problem and identify the goals. Project charter is the main output of this process. Charter define the scope and objectives of the project. Other aspects are gathering data and finding out from the customers about current process and quality of it.

Measure:

Here, main aspects are gathering data about process to measure the causes of the problem. Team can find out points to affect the process with the help of this data. Process Map is the key output of this step.

Analyze:

Analyze the root causes of the problem and find out the performance gap between actual and target process. Try to find out the relationship between the causes so minimize the causes. Different types of analysis are used to analyse the causes and the key output is the statistical analysis of this step.

Improve:

In this step, find out the best possible solution to improve. Gathered data during ‘Measure’ phase and prepared charter is used to solve the causes and narrow down it. Try to make process as same as decided goal by implementing the solution.

Control:

Try to sustain this improvement to be taken to maintain in this step. Generate a solution plan with improvements taken for solve and now process will be handover to the customer by Project Manager.

To sum up, DMAIC approach used in the manufacturing industry earlier, but now it is using in Project Management also.  Mainly it is used to make customer delight and align the product or process with quality.

Risk vs Uncertainty

As a Project Manager there is always some risk and uncertainty in the Project. During project planning, Project manager has to take it into account so better contingency plan can be made. While estimating the project, risk is the big factor to take into consideration.

Risk and uncertainty both are future events, both have unknown outcome but the probability distribution is known for risk while unknown for uncertainty.

If we think about dice then before throw we don’t know about its outcome but at least we have a choice that it should be between 1 to 6 only.

One very known quote for this:

“There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.

                                               

                                         --- United States Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld

Project Manager has always difficult situation to estimate the risk, cost for plan and control the risk. There is always uncertainty with any risk, if the risk has no uncertainty then it’s not a risk. If the risk is known at initial level then it can be planned before. I think as much as more uncertainty with risk then less we know about its impact.

Deal with unhappy clients

Project Manager has responsibility to start and end the project in success. Project manager has to deal with different types of peoples during the project. Project Manager has to manage successful channel between client and team to drive project towards success. Project Manager has to take so many decisions during project execution for successful project completion.

In Project, it’s very important sometime to have some appreciation for the work or some milestone achievement. It will encourage you very deeply to get ready for other challenge strongly. But, some client is very unappreciative. They never say any good thing about you or the team despite of so many hard work done by your team for the project and achieve required output. You as a Project manager always try to make them happy but they never come into point or thinking with appreciation way. Some clients use abusive words also and after all the understandings by you still they continue to demand out of scope things and never think about scope anyway.

As a project Manager, don’t take it personal way. Think it’s all your job and you are doing it as a responsibility of project. When you have to deal this type of client, you have to think about client like how this client is doing payment to your company or how much work they are assigning to you? Since how long they are working with you?  Sometimes to maintain unhappy client these all questions needs to be answered to yourself and then you can deal as per situation with them.

First of all I think listen them carefully and try to understand their approach that why they are unhappy or what is issue made them unhappy? Clear your points towards that issue and try to list down their points. As a Project manager, you can apologize for any high issue if it’s not taken care by you. Be polite and calm at that situation and tell them your approach to solve that issue. Try to find out best solution on which you and client both can agree. Try to be always in touch with them regarding issue resolve matter or any other approach require. Be honest and quick in this type of situation to make it resolve and try to avoid it next time.

To sum up, think as a representative of company to manage projects and handle clients, don’t take it personally. You can use all your possible and best ways to manage this type of clients to avoid unnecessary bad situations. You can take other’s opinions also if necessary to handle them or answer them in correct manner.

  

Stress and Project Manager

Being a Project Manager stress will be always your companion in your life. Schedule management, scope management, resource management and with all that your personal life management is also important. Some problem in your family, any serious sickness to family member, conflict in team or other so many reasons are there to handle with project as a project manager. Project deadlines, client feedback, overdue tasks or anything else can lead to stress. Mind cannot take decision at that point of time and think how to manage self in that type of situation? To be a successful manager it is always necessary that you are happy family person also.

Some people have nature that they can handle it in a different way and leave it in office but other people take stress of office to home also. So, personal life disturb and if it continues long time then it can be seriously affect to the person in a various types:

1) Headache

2) Short temper

3) Muscle pain

4) Cardiovascular diseases

5) Suicide

So many other areas are there that can affected by stress. So to manage the stress at right time is very important to stay away some serious injury to health.

As a project manager, if any conflict arise between the team then try to handle it like a leader. If any team member performance going down seriously then you can inform him to discuss with HR regarding that if it’s out of your box. Don’t think always like that it’s all your fault if any issue arise in Project.

Project manager can do some exercise to keep peaceful mind. Better sleep is always necessary in all the case to avoid stress. Take some break in your work to refresh mind at regular interval. Use good project management software to manage your tasks and other required things related to project.

Don’t say always ‘Yes’ to the client, if you think that assigned task cannot be completed within given time-frame then discuss with client and reschedule the timeline. Don’t try always to keep your client happy if it’s not possible anyway.

Try to listen employee more then to react. Keep patience and trust on your employee. Try to encourage them when require. If employee returns from the long leave then performance can be down sometime due to lack of concentration. Accept that type of situation with patience or be ready for some other in project.

Try to keep friendly and peaceful environment in your office and also in your personal life. Be a positive and keep positive people around you to keep negativity away.

Time management is always main aspect for project manager, because it’s not always just 8 hours job but except that its require life balance also. Don’t try to work with tired mind and keep pressure on yourself.

To sum up, Stress can be occur any time in life due to any reason. Illness, death or any serious injury in life can be suddenly occur. Take leave and solve the family issues also to keep your mind happy and peaceful. Work is always necessary but with that personal life balance is always important to avoid stress in life and to live a life happily and peaceful!

First Sharepoint project as a Project Manager

Generally speaking, if you are working as a Project Manager, then achieve the target of the Project and make it successful is always your highest priority goal. As a Project Manager you can get different type of Projects with sometime different types of technologies too. If one Project manager works most of time for one type of technology Projects and get different type of technology Project then he/she has to get some types of basic level knowledge about that technology to help him/her to understand vision about Project better and clear.

As a Project Manager, If you get first Project in Sharepoint and before that you never handled any Sharepoint Project then these tips can be help you.

You are Project Manager and you handled many Projects with typical software lifecycle methodology and you get first Sharepoint Project to manage then you can take your some time to make yourself familiar about it.

First of all you can read some blogs about Sharepoint to get basic idea about it like Paul Culmsee or any other good articles that you can prefer. You can also read some articles about “How Sharepoint Project success” or “Why Sharepoint Projects fail”.

Sharepoint Project require infrastructure setup for its architecture as per the requirement. As a Project Manager you always have a functional documentation to going into the flow of the Project. If you think Project estimation without thinking as a Sharepoint Project and after thinking as a Sharepoint Project is vast difference. Initially you thought some server for your Project and after discussion with expert you got some idea about configuration of server so it may make huge difference to your budget of Project. Your company can show you few Sharepoint Projects which they executed early and brief out you some main lesson learnt from it, so you can keep focus on that. Some Sharepoint technical expert can be with you to help in technical way and led to you towards flow of development.

Compare to other technology Project, Sharepoint Project require expertise in deploy and maintain it on server. It require some support to manage it always on server. You can follow to check for Active directory setup, maintain security, infrastructure setup, networking and backup plan for Sharepoint Project management.

As a Project Manager, I think Agile will be the best methodology that can follow for Sharepoint Project rather than typical waterfall method, because you will not get full requirement vision at the start but in each iteration you will get clear yourself and take Project towards success.

Project Management in Non-profit Organisation

Project management in non-profit organisation is very challenging task. As a Project manager in profit organisation, you will get all the facilities as per required to the project like fund, resources, Project management tools etc. If we talk about project in non-profit organisation, they have to rely on donations for fund, volunteers as a resources then any expert level resources for that project specific so project management is very crucial here.

Non-profit organisation can be think project like activity as they want to keep it continue forever. Suppose they start project to educate poor children then they want to keep it continue in certain period of intervals.

But, compare to project in profit organisation, in non-profit organisation they also want best plan to execute the project. Here also they need specific goal to achieve it. They have to manage scope and cost with limited talent. They have to also identify risk during the project execution and may be plan can be changed to adjust changes arise while project is under progress.

But in contrary to profit organisation, non-profit organisation can face difficulties in recruiting talents for the Project. They have to keep their feet high in scale as profit organisation. Infrastructure also can be an issue due to limited funding. Also Project manager get limited numbers of technologies and technical staffs. Stakeholder management is very critical part here, because non-profit organisations has to deal with government sectors, private agencies and other communities too. Donors, volunteers, communities can be all from different diversities or criteria so to handle them in a project is very significant part.

To summarize, Project management in non-profit organisation is somewhat difficult and challenging task then in profit organisation.

Happy Republic Day

Hamari bahadur army ko sat-sat Pranam!!
Salute to our great soldiers!!

Profit and Non-Profit organisation

Significant  difference between for-profit and non-profit (not for profit) organisation has as its name suggests that “for-profit” organisation make money for their owners, employees and “non-profit” organisation re-invest profit again into the organisation to fulfill human need for water, shelter, food etc. Profit organisation has invest money in share or any other way to generate more profit, on the other hand non-profit organisation has to invest in such a way that they can increase their profit.

As similar to profit organisation, Non-profit organisation has to also pay their staff salary, electricity bill, rent etc. so they have to also generate profit. They rely on their donors for their donation, while profit organisation rely on their suppliers for their funding.

Non-profit and profit both organisations face competition in their own way. Profit organisation has to always compete with that same type of other business organisations to keep alive themselves in market, while non-profit organisations has to compete also for their donation, product sales, donors, members etc.

Non-profit organisation can give tax benefit to their donors and also they itself can register for tax exemption under Income Tax act. Profit organisations has to pay their tax as per their organisation, partnership and proprietorship.

Profit organisation pay salary to their staff, on the contrary non-profit organisation more rely on volunteers then paid staff. Non-profit organisation also pay good salary to their staff but may be appraisal and rewards are not same as profit organisation.

To sum up, profit and non-profit organisation both earn profit but the covering that profit is different in each. Profit organisation distribute profit in their shareholders, owners etc, while non-profit organisation not distribute their profit but re-invest again to make more profit for environmental or human need.

Performance Review of Employee

As a Project Manager, Head or any Executive, there is a time always when they have to do performance evaluation of employees, whether it is for appraisal or just for performance review. Some seniors think it as a very painful and difficult task to do, because the positive and valuable feedback can use to achieve objectives of organisation and lead to improve employee performance, on the other hand negative feedback can downgrade the goal of employee and minimize the passion so it can affect finally to the organisation.

Some Project Managers depends upon their memory power to write review of employee. Once when time comes to write review, they remember history of work for that employee and give feedback. It’s not proper way to record review and handle appraisal or performance evaluation of employees. Rather than organisation can use files or any programs to handle review process by maintaining their log files and use it during review.

Regular evaluation process can be very meaningful and better way to manage it systematically. At regular interval, organisation can do review of employees and use this at the end to manage appraisal that can be a one of the good technique.

Project Manager can describe employee’s performance problem and express their way to minimize it or suggest any alternative way to employee, so it can be positive impact on them. Don’t use any negative phrases to write review, better to explain them in corrective or positive way with clear language terminology.

Main points to judge, that can help to review of employee:

1)      Attitude and behavior

2)      Quick learner or new technology adapt skill

3)      Task finishing technique

4)       Communication way

5)       Self-Responsible

6)       Time punctuality

Organisation can ask questions to employee also at the time of the review. Here, these answers can be very useful to judge their mind and know hidden talent inside them.

Organisation can ask these types of questions to employee. Few of them can be:

1)      What is your goal of career?

2)      What do you want to do as per your skill?

3)      How you need to grow yourself?

4)      What organisation can do for you to achieve your goal?

5)      What is your strength?

6)      Are you happy with the way as your career is going on?

7)      What you make happy to work?

8)       Have you any like/dislike about projects given to you?

Project Manager can explain employee about how they did in whole year? What should be avoided and what he should continue or improve to achieve the target of their career.

To summarize, to review of employee for their performance evaluation or for appraisal process is very manageable and responsive task to do. Organisation should handle it very systematically and in proper manner to keep positive attitude in employee and also it can be useful to maintain organisation’s employee spirit and passion towards the work.