5 pitfalls that derail EVM success – an article in FCW details these areas, along with ideas for solving the issue. The pitfalls are executive ambivalence, poor data & data overload, poorly chosen software, and inexperienced contractors.

Law firms look to process management – for both in-house counsel, and independent firms, use of a model other than the billable hour method gets a look by law.com, as a way to streamline and increase effectiveness.

Who Knows What in the Wall Street Journal discusses how organizations need to make it easier to find experts, and how blogs and wikis can help, along with social networks and “tagging”.

The Project Management Tip You Can’t Ignore – a blog post on Articulate.com that highlights the importance of getting email communication right.

The video is about 8 1/2 minutes long.

The video is about 4 1/2 minutes long, and it is a pitch to use a company that trains project managers and other employees, using PMI (Project Management Institute) (R) registered courses.

A project can be pretty much any activity which involves following through with a task that is non-repetitive in nature. So in a sense, everyone is a project manager, and everyone practices project management to a degree. However, there is a very large difference between carrying out a project which is very simple and involves a few people, and carrying out a project that deals with a complex number of people, tasks and organizations. Projects on a large scale once tended to use very simple techniques for resource and control, including brute force in an attempt to motivate the workers.

The art of planning ahead for the future is a trait that can be found in many people. It only really takes a few specific elements to capture a project on paper, such as a start and end date, what tasks must be carried out and a rough outline of when they should be finished, along with a basic idea of what resources will be needed, including people and material resources like machines and tools. Unfortunately, many paper plans can quickly become unreadable when the plan begins to involve more intricate details, including different events occurring at different times, different resources required at different points throughout the plan’s completion, different work rates and so on. Once the paper plan begins to cover an area which is much more vast, it will be difficult to keep track of.

Many project management tasks can be handled by computers that are designed to analyze, but project management software is only meant to be a tool for a project manager to use, not to serve in the role of the project manager itself. Project management involves control, teamwork, resource management and leadership skills which cannot necessarily be handled by a computer or a software program.

Every leader or project sponsor would prefer for their projects to be finished on time, with all objectives met with quality, and without costing more than the originally prepared budget. These three facets of project management form the core of all project manager duties, as well as what is known as the classic “time, quality, cost” pyramid. Project management can be an easy, or a difficult task depending on these three facets, so while you may start a project with an unlimited budget, unlimited time, or a fairly average expected quality for objectives, it will not always play out that way. Generally you should expect projects where time and money have become critical, and where the highest quality of work is expected, but with the right tools and experience, there is reason that you cannot tackle any project as a project manager.

If you are looking for a way to brush up on your current project management skills, or develop some new ones, check out a project management video and you can work on developing your skills on your own time, with less effort. Instructional project management videos will usually give insight into the most important skills that a project manager can have, while avoiding the tedious reading that stops some people from getting started with training. When you are just looking to improve your skills and not to obtain a certification or a diploma, then project management video instruction should suffice.

For those who are lacking a little in motivating themselves to attend training, watching TV (or a computer screen) takes less motivation. Good project management videos will tell you what the experts have to say about managing projects, and you will be able to learn something from the techniques and ideas presented.

A primary reason is the tendency of people to not realize that different tasks require use of different tools and skills. Other reasons include understanding what skills you may need to improve, and also for larger projects to allow some of these roles to be performed by other people. (to bundle up similar roles).