ProjExc - Project Management Consultants

Project Management Tools and Software

We have now started compiling the latest update for our PM Tools and Software Listing for our Project Management Portal. 

If you use something and would like to tell us a little about it, we'd love to hear from you.  Ideally please provide a rating (1-5, 1 poor, 5 amazing).  Similarly, if you provide a tool/service/template for project management, do let us know.  If we think it's worth listing we'll take a look and may provide a rating and link.

We're open to your suggestions on any project management tools - software, SaaS, cloud applications, collaboration tools, templates, and more.

Feel free to comment on this blog, or drop us an email: Email ProjExc

Professional Project Management- Introduction for Business Leaders

The Challenge. ProjExc PM Consulting work with business leaders who are frustrated because their projects fail to meet their objectives^*2, are anxious about the risks that they are taking in their projects, concerned about cash-flow, or just desperate to get a competitive edge. Most SME business owners/leaders recognise that project management is the pre-eminent business capability of the 21^st Century. They may even offer project management as part of their service, but are put-off from bringing proven techniques into their business either by concerns about cost or a fear of additional administrative overhead/burden.

The Good News. ProjExc have techniques, which not only work for big businesses like BP, Tesco & Nokia (to name but a few) but are also proven to be totally scalable to the SME market, regardless of whether they are looking at business change, new product development or client delivery projects. What's more, ProjExc have found a way of packaging this capability for SME owners for just £1,000. That buys true competence development for a director in the form of skill acquisition and experiential learning, meaning that the benefits are more quickly and sustainably recognised quickly.

A Unique Opportunity. This innovative development package includes:

• Project Management capability audit & report
• 1:1 Project Management introduction workshop
• Computer based training, and examination for, the APM^*3 Introductory Certificate
• 10 hours of access to a ProjExc project management coach, to help put the knowledge into practice efficiently.

For your peace of mind, ProjExc are so confident of their methods that they provide a 1,000% return on investment guarantee, and amazingly, you may even be eligible to gain funding through business link under their director training programme.

Benefits to your Business.

• Gain a clear understanding of where the project management gaps are in your business,
• Quickly plug those gaps, and improve the outcomes from your projects – delivering what your customers want, on time, and within budget,
• Rapidly and significantly improve profitability and customer satisfaction,
• Position your business to take advantage of growth as we come out of recession.

 

Find Out More. To take advantage of this unique opportunity for you and your business contact John Williams directly by calling 0845 527 9971 or email info@projexc.com.

For more information about ProjExc visit our website: www.projexc.com.

Notes

1. ProjExc are a small specialist project and programme management company based at the Innovation Centre at Longbridge Technology Park in Birmingham. Their consultancy work takes a 3 step approach to ensuring project success which starts with finding the right methods for project management within a business, then sources the right tools to fit with those methods, and then ensures that the competence is in place to use those methods and tools.
2. UK national and international project success rates are staggeringly low. Latest research (Standish Group 2009) suggests that only 32% of business projects meet their objectives, 44% are challenged (late, over-budget or out of scope) and a staggering 24% fail (cancelled before completion or completed and never used).
3. APM is the UK Association for Project Management.

ProjExc Websites Updated

Fresher Look

Our websites have just been updated by our friends at NetSecrets, and are not just looking fresher, but now provide even more information about how we can help business leaders who will not accept project failure any longer.

Video

We have added some short videos of our founder John Williams, to help explain how we can help, quickly and easily.  Sincere thanks to the ever professional Chris Weaver at FreeSpirit Video Production - Birmingham for making the whole filming-to-live-online process much simpler than we hoped.  See the results for yourself at www.projexc.com

PM Portal

Our Project Management Portal has also been fully updated.  We have added some more free project management information and templates, with even more to come soon.  Visit www.projexc.info for more information, and do bookmark the site so that you can easily get back to it again when you need to!

There is also more information on both sites about our exciting new Resource Planning and Scheduling tool - ProjExc Utilise.  If you want to get more out of what you already have take a look.  It's amazing how much easier this pay as you go tool makes scheduling & re-scheduling of resources, and at the same time saves huge amounts of money.  For a quick online demo or to arrange a meeting to understand how much you could add to your bottom line whilst better satisfying your clients, contact the utilise team at our office now 0845 527 9971.

Do let us know what you think, as we're great believers in continuous improvement and value all feedback.

To PRINCE2 or not to PRINCE2?

As regular readers of this blog will know, we have mixed views on PRINCE2 usage.  We note that The Centre for Project Management Practice 2009’s debate is focussing on one of the most hotly disputed topics in current project management research and practice today. 2009 sees the introduction by the OGC of the 4th version of PRINCE2 (which hopefully will be much more pragmatic in it's approach) yet some academics decry the capabilities of formal ‘bodies of knowledge’ and practitioners can see them as strangling their projects in bureaucracy. Visit www.aston.ac.uk/cpmp for more information of what looks to be an interesting session. 

Free Online Gantt Chart Tool

For clients who occasionally need to create GANTT Charts or project timelines, investment in a project planning tool such as MS Project or Merlin just isn’t appropriate.

We’ve recently been testing a free Software as a Service (SaaS) tool which appears to do the trick, and quite nicely too.  What’s more it’s possible to save, and even import/export with Microsoft Project.  Obviously it’s a stripped down functionality compared to the commercially available tools, but still a very useful tool to those not managing projects themselves.

Give it a try, and do let us know how you get on.  www.gantter.com

Project Management Matters

The current turmoil in the world economy is taking recognition of Project Management as a core business competence to a new level. The fundamental principles are fairly stable, but the knowledge of how to apply them remains in high demand.

Over recent years, Project management has grown into a vital tool for success as we have often observed. Driven through necessity in the current climate, trends such as fewer management layers, greater flexibility, and more project-based work have made structured project management much more critical. 

Project Management has abandoned its historic homes in 'big' industries (e.g. construction, engineering and aerospace) to transform the service, financial, computer, and general management sectors.  Did you know that in the UK alone, more than £250 billion is spent on projects every year, yet as the OGC (Office of Government Commerce) tells us something like 70% fail to meet their objectives.

At ProjExc we take a 3 step approach to helping businesses in these sectors improve their project management capabilities. 1. Methods > 2. Tools > 3. Competence.  We use our experience of the big businesses and help scale it to suit those who need it to thrive it these challenging times. 

For more information take a look at our website at www.projexc.com, or even better call us now on 0845 527 9971.

ProjExc - UKITA Approved Quality Supplier

 

ProjExc are proud to have been awarded the UKITA quality award for the second year running.  This provides evidence of the quality of work that we do in the technology sector.

ProjExc Videos

As part of our efforts to make it easier to do business with ProjExc (more on this in later posts) we have started preparing some videos to help explain how we help businesses make more with what the've already got.

Many thanks to the guys at FreeSpirit Film & TV for making it possible and easy!

Here's a taster.

Resource Planning

A common issue in project management for big and small companies is Resource Management.  For example this article paints an interesting picture.  While for bigger companies there are great strategies, methods and complex tools available to help, many SME sized businesses struggle with the competence and complexity and end up leaving things to chance.  Result: stressed key individuals, disappointed customers/users and lost profit.

At ProjExc we've built up a pack to quickly and easily help SME's get a grip of resource management, and we've launched our own resource planning & scheduling system - ProjExc Utilise.  Want to know more, then email or call, and see how we can help you pile on the pounds!

City Slickers

I read an interesting article in the Sunday Times yesterday by Lord Andrew Adonis.

An interesting perspective on the view of Lord Dainton, "the era's great champion of engineering, regretting that the "enhanced engineering" courses he had pioneered to give engineering graduates project management skills had come largely to be taken up by engineers en route to management consultancy, not industrial management as intended". As an engineering graduate in management consultancy I guess it had to be interesting!

The article left me quite optimistic at the prospect of a rise in highly competent people to our profession being one of the likely benefits from the credit crunch.

As this is the 1^st blog of the year, I wish you a successful 2009, and remember – recession is the right time to prepare for growth.