Project Hero Blog - Weekly Best Practices and Tips

As someone that has used MS Project for over 20 years, I've learned a thing or two about how to make MS Project work better. Here are five tips I hope will ensure more project success.

Establish a baseline. A baseline is a copy of your initial schedule, and you don't want to lose track of it. Once project execution begins, set your baseline. MS Project has a lot of fancy capabilities built into t...

It's no secret that projects can be expensive. Even working with a small team, labor and materials costs can add up quickly. It's essential to budget, track expenses, and know how much money flows in and out of your project—and when. The best way to do this is by monitoring your project costs and documenting everything, so nothing gets lost or forgotten. Let's look at why it is essential to record...

Various types of meetings can be essential tools for managing projects and solving problems. They allow you to bring together the right people at the right time to share ideas, build consensus, and make decisions. But if you're not careful about how your meetings are designed, they can waste everyone's time.

You can’t just wing it when running effective project meetings. It’s vital that you under...

Nearly every workplace has its share of challenging and difficult to manage stakeholders. The trick is to know how to approach and manage these people without letting them get the best of you. When you can do that, the entire team will also be better off!

A challenging stakeholder is anyone who is difficult to work with and who regularly or occasionally makes your life difficult. They can be hard...

Project management is one of the most critical roles in any organization. It takes a special kind of person to lead successful projects and teams. At the end of the day, you can do anything but not everything. Project management might seem a bit overwhelming initially, but don't let anything intimidate you. Keep growing daily, learn from your mistakes, and never stop learning. If you're just start...

Managing multiple projects can be challenging and even overwhelming at times. However, with the right tools and strategies, you can organize your workflow to make it easier to handle multiple tasks. Focusing on what you can control and prioritizing the essential tasks is critical. Communicate effectively with your team about what's going on with each project and get them involved. With this in min...

When evaluating project success, there's nothing like data. But before analyzing project data and determining actionable insights, first define what success means for the project. To define success and analyze the project, follow these six steps:

Define your goals. Defining project goals and objectives is a crucial step to success. If you don't know where you are going, it will be nearly impossib...

A good project monitoring strategy is the key to project success. It ensures that the team stays on track and that you follow through with planned activities. To develop this strategy, here are four tips to consider:

Look at the big picture. When looking at a project, it's easy to think that the only thing that matters is whether or not the team has completed assigned tasks. But if you want a suc...

There's nothing more daunting than a long list of urgent tasks.  When everything is urgent, it's hard to know where to start.  So here are four tips for taming your to-do list when everything is or at least seems to be urgent.

Eliminate or postpone those you can.  It's easy to feel overwhelmed by competing demands.  This is especially true if you are in a role where you have many responsibilities...

Despite many internet articles to the contrary, PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique) and FPA (Function Point Analysis) estimates can be valuable for many projects outside of software-related industries and not just for scheduling.

PERT estimates are a part of a more extensive system and was designed to focus on schedules.  Its benefit is that it mathematically provides everything an estimat...