The IPM Blog

I found an article this morning about how social media is evolving in organisations to become more than just a marketing tool. Social media is now becoming a part of many departments in big organisations from HR right through to project management. And even smaller companies are jumping on board. So that got me thinking, what are some of the ways you could use social media to manage your projects?

The important thing to remember about social media is it is not confined to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Blogs, wikis, online pinboards and team websites all fall under the social media umbrella. Organisations are even creating their own in house social media platforms, or adopting software with integrated social media tools to help incorporate this growing trend into their everyday operations.

So how can social media help you manage your projects? Here are four ways:

1. Communication
As Gen Y and Gen Z’s enter the workforce, we are beginning to not only see a trend of multi-generational project teams, but also less reliance on email. As the article I mentioned above shows, many of the younger people entering the workforce don’t like email and prefer a more team oriented communication. As such, some companies such as IBM are adopting Facebook and Twitter style communication platforms, where team members can share project information quickly and collaboratively. In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, you can find and follow other users in the What’s New section, which gives you a chat-like feature to share comments and insights with team members about projects. This reduces a huge amount of internal email communication in favour of succinct responses.

2. Collaboration
Similarly to helping with communication, products like SharePoint that can be integrated with your project management software allow for the creation of team wikis and websites, where all team members can contribute and store appropriate project information for other team members to access and edit. This really fosters a collaborative approach to managing your project, no matter how far spread your project team members are around the world. The project also ultimately benefits, with ideas and solutions continually evolving as team members contribute their expertise.

3. Keeping up to date with contacts
Another tool that can be integrated with some project management software products such as IPM is the Outlook Social Connector. The Outlook Social Connector enables you to look at your Outlook contacts’ activity in social networks such as Linkedin, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, Viadeo and Xing. This way, you can stay up to date with contacts as the project progresses, build up your network for the future and keep up to date with new projects that may be coming up.

4. Keeping track of lessons learned
This way of using social media has been mentioned on the PMI Voices on Project Management blog as a way of keeping track of lessons learned and project review. Using some of the tools above, internal social media pages can be set up to capture comments for lessons learned. As Bernadine Douglas says, this allows you to reach stakeholders in their habitat, which could result in more candid and useful comments for future projects.

Whilst it has traditionally been viewed as a consumer product or a marketing tool, social media can also have very effective applications in other areas, in particular project management. Can you think of any other way social media can help manage your projects? Feel free to post a comment below.

On a project, documents can be approved, changed, updated and reapproved all the time, often being sent back and forth between multiple people working on a Job. It’s no wonder then that it’s easy to lose track of where a document is at, and who is holding up its progress.

That’s why we’ve added a cool and exciting new feature to all the project documents in IPM. It’s called routing, or otherwise referred to as ‘ball in court’. Now every document in our project management software has a grid where you can add details of each of the people responsible for the document, and at what stage of the process they are responsible for it.

Then, through the power of Microsoft Dynamics workflows, you can set up a whole range of processes that automatically update the routing as the document moves from one stage to the other. This way you can see who’s court the ball is in at any given time – and more importantly, who is holding the process up.

But we’ve not only included the routing feature on the individual document forms – there is also an overall routing view where you can see all the outstanding balls in court for your project. And with the customisability of Microsoft CRM, you can change the view to see whatever you like, including outstanding balls in court, balls in court for one particular user or balls in court for a single spec. section or trade. What’s more, CRM’s conditional formatting also lets you highlight the list in whichever way works for you – we’ve found it works really well to highlight all the overdue balls in court in bold red, so you can see at a glance what needs actioning quickly. You can also choose to view the routing information as part of a dashboard that appears when you first log in.

As you can see from the options above, the combinations of how you can use this new functionality are endless; it’s all down to how you want to customise the workflows, the view, the conditional formatting and your dashboard. You can tweak it so that it best suits the way you manage your projects, and it means you will always know who’s court the ball is in on all your projects.

For more information on this new feature, or to see a demo of it in action, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

I recently came across an article on projectmanager.com.au entitled ‘Technology: Friend or Foe?’ and it got me thinking about technology, and also our relationship with technology in our everyday lives. We often marvel at how technology makes things easier for us, particularly when things go like clockwork, but as soon as something doesn’t work for us we berate it and vow and declare never to buy that particular brand or product again.

Being a software company, we are very strong advocates for technology and firmly believe that without it, projects may take twice as long and cost twice as much. So I was pleased to see that one interesting point the article made was that we shouldn’t be looking at technology from a perspective of friend or foe, but rather from an appropriate use perspective.

Technology is designed for a particular purpose, and it is usually only well suited for that purpose. It’s when we try to use technology for something it wasn’t designed to do that we run into problems. We have seen this attitude so often in project management when companies try to use software that was essentially designed for accounting to help manage projects. It doesn’t work, it’s not efficient and they end up hating technology.

If you already know that IPM is a project management system based on Microsoft’s customer relationship management tool, then you may think we are making the same mistake. But the concept of Microsoft Dynamics CRM is an example of where some technologies really come to the fore. The thing about Microsoft Dynamics CRM is that is designed specifically in that way, to be used with other applications and to be twisted, tweaked and expanded. This makes it even more appropriate because it can be expanded to fit so many aspects of the one organisation. Microsoft CRM is not like other platforms where one technology is trying to do multiple jobs without the tools or functionality to do so. It has really taken the concept of appropriate use and run with it, making sure we can interact with and utilise technology in a way that matches our exact purpose, rather than hindering us and becoming a foe.

So the next time you may be getting frustrated with your project management technology, try asking yourself – is the software being used the way it was intended to?

We are very pleased to announce that IPM Global’s project management suite has been named in Constructech Magazine’s Top Products for 2012. The winners were announced on March 1st and the full list can be found on theConstructech Magazine website.

So what does it mean to be named a Top Product? Well according to Constructech, the competition highlights some of the best products tailored for the construction and homebuilding markets. The top products are judged by the Constructech Magazine’s editorial team, who are looking for strong, stable and efficient technologies that are useful and unique to the construction industry. They also take into account the customer growth rate of each product over the past five years when making a decision.

IPM Global was named in the New Products category, for software that has been on the market for two years or less. One of the key features of IPM the judges liked was the way it uses the Microsoft interface to create a familiar and comfortable experience for the user. Mike Carrozzo, the chief editor of Constructech Magazine sums it up well when he says, “Our Top Products winners provide solid solutions in areas from mobility to BIM, and so much more. We truly believe these to be some of the best offerings found in the construction marketplace.”

A big thank you must go to Constructech Magazine for taking the time to review our product. Feel free to review IPM yourself by checking out some of the functionality and user benefits. You can also contact us to arrange a free demo if you'd like to see the software in action.

I’ve talked often on this blog about the benefits a Microsoft platform can bring to a project management application. As a product certified for Microsoft Dynamics, IPM has been able to use the Microsoft Dynamics platform to build on and create a useful, well designed project management solution that is suitable for a number of industries.

However, the Microsoft platform doesn’t just give you a stable base to build on. It also allows you the option of extending your project management capabilities (and also the capabilities of other functions in your organisation) in a number of ways. Firstly, you can apply any number of independent add-ons built specifically for Microsoft Dynamics CRM that can enable expansion in a number of areas, such as marketing, customer and sales management, manufacturing and distribution. 

Not only that, take a look at this list of five Microsoft tools every business should know about. The ability to integrate with Microsoft tools such as Sharepoint and Lync is a serious advantage for any project management application, and being part of the Microsoft Dynamics family, one that IPM can boast. In particular, a tool like Sharepoint gives project managers the ability to collaborate on projects and share information quickly and efficiently.

Not all project management applications have such a flexible, fluid software platform to work with, and one that gives them access to and integration with some of the best applications in the world. With the changing nature of how we operate and communicate in this technology dominated world, having fluid and adaptable software that can extend across various applications and departments is not only a huge advantage now, I believe it will also be commonplace in a few short years.

At the end of last year, I came across a study conducted by Forrester Consulting on The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, which was released in May. Looking closely at the findings, they are impressive. So I thought what better way to kick off the New Year than to highlight just how much benefit using a CRM system for your project management needs can give you. If you’re already using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 with IPM, then rest assured, you’ve made a solid investment. And if you’re not, then perhaps you may have just come across a belated New Year’s resolution?
 
The study found that a 2000-employee composite organisation with an initial CRM deployment of 50 users would see a “three-year, risk-adjusted ROI of 243 percent”. That sure is a solid ROI. But what I found even more interesting in the study’s findings was the increased productivity of 5% due to CRM’s ease of use and interoperability with Microsoft Outlook. There is also a productivity saving of 16 man-hours per month associated with using Microsoft Dynamics CRM due its better reporting tools, data consolidation, reporting automation and dashboard capabilities.
 
I have mentioned many times before on our blog the benefits project managers can gain from using project management software such as IPM, combined with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. But now there is independent, quantifiable proof that using Microsoft Dynamics CRM increases productivity. And even though these benefits are based on the CRM system, IPM users have access to all the same functionality when managing their projects with IPM. What’s more, IPM is built around this functionality, so the CRM features that increase productivity are key to the way IPM works, meaning they also increase productivity for IPM users. Interoperability with Microsoft Outlook in particular is one of the main reasons project managers find using IPM so easy, as they are already familiar with the Outlook environment.
 
You can check out the Forrester study on the economic impact of CRM here, and if you would like any further information about how to increase your productivity and ROI with IPM, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
 

I’ve been doing a lot of travelling lately and a few things have caught my attention as I’ve been getting on and off planes, buses and trains. The first one happened when we were due to take off and the air hostess came over the loud speaker asking everyone to make sure all electronic equipment, “such as iPods, iPhones and iPads” was switched off. I remember when I used to fly as a child and the safety card in the seat pocket depicted electronic equipment as a Furby, the Ewok-like children’s toy with eyes that blinked. My, haven’t we come a long way?

The second was in a train where every single passenger around me, including myself, was using either an iPhone, iPod or iPad, and sometimes all three. The girl beside me settled herself in for the two hour ride with a virtual game of Monopoly on her iPad, frequently receiving calls and texts on her iPhone.

Both these instances not only go to show the influence Steve Jobs and his Apple products have had on the world, but also how we have become a society of mobile technology. We don’t go anywhere now without our mobile devices, and even though they originally started out as companion communication devices and entertainment consoles, mobile devices are fast becoming the norm in the way we conduct business.

Apple has definitely been one of the pioneers, but other technology giants are quickly following suit, with Microsoft addressing the CRM user group summit last month highlighting plans for its CRM technology for the next year and beyond. Sparked by Apple’s iPads and iPhones, the evolution of tablet computers and a mobile technology society is revolutionising Microsoft’s development of the next versions of CRM.  New developments mean future Microsoft CRM technology will be context aware as to whether we are on the go, on a desktop, or projecting onto a big screen. What’s more, the limitations of tablets such as document creation and powerpoints, mean Microsoft is also putting time and effort into enhancing the PC experience. Sure to bring a smile to many Mac users faces, Microsoft is developing a plug in for Mac in order to make CRM accessible for all PC users.

For project managers using IPM on the CRM framework, this means managing projects either from a desktop or on a mobile device will become increasingly easier and more efficient. And as the very nature of project management requires you to be more flexible, mobile and accessible, developments in mobile technology propose exciting possibilities for project managers.

So whilst at times we may feel we’re living in an Apple dominated world, the technology and innovation that has enabled the existence of these products means other technology giants are also working hard to push the envelope in order to stay in the race. And this can only mean great things for us as consumers as we continue to benefit from development and advances in technology to make managing and organising both our personal and professional lives easier.

One of the qualities you will undoubtedly find in every good project manager is an ability to stay organised. With a constant stream of communication about RFIs, contracts and budget and schedule changes, it takes a very organised project manager to stay on top of everything.

But dealing with the huge number of incoming and outgoing emails that are generated by a project every day can test even the most organised project manager. Previously, the answer to this has been to manually sort and file information and communications into separate email folders. But due to the proliferation of email communication these days, the sheer amount of communication means manually filing is just not feasible.

Many project management software products have tried to come up with a solution to this by introducing automatic email filing. But what many products claim to be ‘automatic’ filing is far from it, and often has huge limitations.

That’s why Microsoft Dynamics CRM has developed an automatic email tracking function that is truly automatic, whereby a tracking code is assigned to the subject line of each email. This way all incoming and outgoing emails with the same tracking code are grouped together and stored in the database. And with IPM’s ability to utilise all the features of Dynamics CRM, the email tracking feature is also incredibly useful for project managers, and is unlike anything else currently available to project managers. Here’s why:

1. Email filing is not automatic in other project management software applications. Some other applications do have email filing, but this often means you have to forward the email to a central job email address, so the process is not automatic.

2. Other applications can only file all emails under the Job. Just think of how many emails you may send and receive on one Job, and how difficult it would be to sort through them all to find the one you are looking for.

3. With IPM email tracking, each transaction has a unique code. This means you can click on an RFI for example, and see all the communication related only to that RFI.

So by utilising the tools and features available in CRM, IPM can make the process of email tracking for companies in the construction industry easy and automatic.

To find out more about IPM’s automatic email tracking, please contact us.

One thing that software providers have often been guilty of is making the claim that their particular software can solve any problem encountered on a project. Yes, technology has come a long way and has revolutionised the way our world works, but how far can technology really go to solve our project management problems?

Although it would be nice to think technology is the end to all our problems, we know that’s just not true. There are some things that simply work better in the human mind, so every software solution has to have a human aspect to it. And with software, like many things in life, you only get out what you put in. There are some fantastic features in project management software applications these days, but they depend on one very important thing. The user. At the end of the day, technology is only as good as what the end user can do with it.

So where does that leave people like us, developers and designers of project management software? Our role is simple. We have to design the best software possible. That doesn’t mean something that is a sophisticated solution to every single problem ever encountered on a project. It simply means we have to create something that can work with the project team, adapt to the way they work, align itself with existing processes and, above all, not create more problems than it solves.

We have taken all this into account with our development of IPM, and we really feel we’ve struck a balance between technology that can assist a project team and help do things better, without becoming the main focus or requiring hours of training. Because at the end of the day, good technology is not about what has all the bells and whistles, but more about what can fit into the real human context of a project team.

Software has long since been an important tool in project management, but for many years has not really been very project management friendly. For decades, project management software has been limited to highly specialised solutions with very little room for manoeuvre, or solutions developed on accounting frameworks that look, feel and ‘think’ like accounting systems.

This has created a noticeable gap between how project managers work, and how project management software works.  The one way to fill this gap has been with spreadsheets. But in our virtual, interconnected world spreadsheets are rapidly becoming unviable tools and resulting in project data scattered across numerous computers and different versions of data as team members update and save numerous copies.

Spreadsheets do have their place in a project manager’s toolbox, but they should by no means be the principal tool used. But if previous project management software solutions are so bad, what is the solution?

The key is finding a software solution that works like a project manager works, so much so it sometimes doesn’t even seem like they are using a dedicated project management software tool. Project managers love Outlook and Excel, so what if you could create, edit and send all of your project documents without ever leaving your email? Or import and export spreadsheet data in minutes, that then becomes accessible to every relevant team member? IPM can do all of this and much more. The accounting side is also taken care of with seamless ERP integration, meaning project managers never have to set foot inside an accounting application again.

For too long dedicated project management software has focussed on the software side, and not the project management side. Now, technology is moving in such a way that there should be no excuse for accounting based project management software, projects run solely on spreadsheets, or project managers not wanting to use software that companies make considerable investments in.

For a free demo of how the above features of IPM work, please contact us.