Project management dates back to the early 1950s in its contemporary form, although its roots date back to the latter years of the 19th century. A defined method of project management emerged as companies realized the advantages of organizing job around projects-recognizing the critical need to communicate and coordinate work across departments and professions.

Project management relies mainly on planning, handling and arranging the funds accessible. Some of the components of project management are to direct the project team effectively through all stages and effectively implement the project. Other operations include the identification and efficient management of the life cycle of the project and its implementation in the user-centric development method.

Definition of Project Management

Project Management Institute (PMI) defined Project Management as "the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to a broad range of activities in order to meet the requirements of a particular project."

An easy project management definition involves a few main premises: 

1. project management is no small challenge.
2. The management of the project has a definite start and end. It's not an ongoing method.
3. Project management utilizes different instruments to evaluate performance and monitor project tasks. These include structures for work breakdown, charts for Gantt and charts for PERT.
4. Projects often need resources that are ad-hoc rather than committed, prevalent full-time positions in organizations.
5. Project management lowers risk and improves opportunities for achievement.

Often, a triangle is used to summarize project management, frequently referred to as the "triple constraint." Time, price and range are the three most significant variables. These shape the vertices as the main feature of value.

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Generally, there are four key elements in the “triple constraint”: 

1. projects must be cost-effective.
2. Projects need to be delivered on time.
3. There must be scope for projects.
4. Projects must satisfy the demands of client quality.

Phases of Project Management

A project runs through six stages during its lifecycle: 

1. Project Definition: Defining the objectives, priorities and critical success factors for the project
2. Project Initiation: Everything needed to build up the project before the job can begin 
3. Project Planning: Detailed instructions on how the project will be carried out, including moment, price and resource estimates 
4. Project Execution: Working to deliver the product, service or desired outcome 
5. Project Monitoring & Control: Ensuring that a project remains on track and taking corrective action to ensure completion of the project: 
6. Project Closure: Formal acceptance of the deliverables and disbandment of all the elements required to run the project

Role of a Project Manager

Accountability of the entire project is the role of the project manager. The task of the project manager is to guide, monitor and regulate the project from start to finish. Project managers should not perform the tasks within the project - it is sufficient to manage the project. Here are some of the operations undertaken by a project manager:

1. The project manager has to identify the project, decrease it to a collection of manageable activities, get adequate funds and create a squad to do the job.
2. The project manager has to set the project's ultimate objective and motivate the project squad to finish the project on time.
3. The project manager must regularly report advancement to all stakeholders.
4. The project manager must evaluate and monitor and mitigate the hazards to the project.
5. No project will ever go as scheduled. Project managers need to know how to adapt and handle the transition.

Project Manager's Skill Set

A project manager must have a range of competencies:

1. Leadership
2. People management 
3. Effective communication 
4. Influencing
5. Negotiation
6. Conflict management
7. Planning
8. Contract management
9. Estimating
10. Problem-solving
11. Creative thinking
12. Time management

Projects and project management procedures differ with each project due to their size and complexity. Project managers should gather a thorough knowledge of project demands and implement all stages of project management to perform the project efficiently.

Project management is all about establishing an atmosphere and circumstances for achieving a specific goal or objective with a group of individuals in a monitored way.

If you are acquainted with what project management entails, from the phase to mitigating everything that might (and often does) go right, you will influence the end outcome-whether you are first involved in a project methodology or a trained professional.

Are you a project manager and want to join Exceeders' ever growing team? 

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There is no doubt regarding the tremendous impact technology has on companies around the world. The use of technology have opened up a whole new world of insight and possibilities for these companies helping them gain deeper insight into their customers, improve their products and services, optimize their operations and more. However, the introduction of new technology isn’t easy, and usually is met with a lot of resistance from employees who are used to and comfortable doing their work in a specific way that they don’t fancy changing. 

What is Technology Adoption

As per Wikipedia Technology Adoption is defined as a sociological model that describes the adoption or acceptance of a new product or innovation, according to the demographic and psychological characteristics of defined adopter groups.

What that means in english is that whenever a company introduces a new technology into the work culture it should take into account that not all of its employees are the same. And in order to gain the maximum benefit of this technology it should customize its launch approach to suit the different types of employees in the company. 

Most often these companies implement new technologies and build a standard one size fits all launch program that treats all employees alike resulting in resistance, low usage and very low return on investment. 

The Different Types of Employees Groups in Technology Adoption

To build a proper technology adoption program that minimizes resistance, promotes change and increases the return on investment from technology the first thing companies need to do is understand the different adopter groups that their employees fall under which are:

1. Innovators (2.5% of employees) - These employees are innovators, the first individuals to adopt on new technologies in the workplace, they are not afraid to take risks and usually test out different technologies in their personal lives as well. 
2. Early Adopters (13.5% of employees) - These employees are not as risk averse as the innovators, however they care about progressing their career, building a reputation in the company and making an impact. Usually on higher end in the company hierarchy and want to invest in whatever it takes to help the company succeed.
3. Early Majority (34% of employees) - Typically middle and line managers these employees tend to be slower in the adoption process, they will usually wait and see how a new technology is faring and if the higher ups are adopting it before committing to using it themselves.
4. Late Majority (34% of employees) - These individuals are usually very skeptical about innovations and new technologies, and will only adopt it after they see a large percentage of the company  using it. They are usually older in age and have been at the company for a long period of time.
5. Laggards (16% of Employees) - These individuals tend to be advanced in age, typically focused on traditions vs. innovations. These Individuals tend to use new technology in one of two scenarios:
1. There is no other alternative for them to get the job done without using technology
2. They are being forced to use the technology and would be penalized for not using it. 

A customized approach to technology adoption

With the above being said, it should be clear that one size doesn’t fit everyone, and for a company to successfully launch new technologies it must personalize and customize it’s approach of introducing technology and innovation in the workplace. Below is a list of some (but not all) options that companies can adopt per user group to successfully launch new technology and innovations: 

1. Email Marketing with tracking
2. Enterprise Social Network
3. Public Social Media Outlets through Private Groups
4. Creating Awareness Videos
5. Creating Video Tutorials
6. In Class or online training (Including on-demand training)
7. High management sponsored Launch Events
8. Identifying and compensating champions who will lobby for the use of new technology and support employees doing it. 
9. Integrating the technologies being used in their operational handbooks, company policies and procedures. 

For companies to get the most value of the technology they invest in, they need to make sure they launch it in the best way possible that entices employees to adopt it as fast as possible. In subsequent articles we will be going over building and launching technology adoption plans, moreover we will cover some scenarios, examples and best practices based on our experience. 

If you are interested in someone helping you with launching new products in your environment and building a technology adoption culture, please visit Ta7awul.

Whether you are running a big organization with hundreds of employees, or a small company with just tens, employee performance is a critical component for the survival of your business. Although the methodology, approach, and complexity may differ from a company to another based on the internal culture, industry, size or other factors, the core of a successfully implemented performance management remains the same; technology.

Based on the recent changes introduced to the workplace such as transparency, data availability, access to resources and competitive demand on them, new concepts became part of modern organizations, which can form the distinction between their survival or failure. Whereas previously, employees were just a component within an organization, now, successful employment is at the core, and employee experience is a goal that most organizations strive to achieve, as it helps increase productivity, retention and company stability.

Learn how SimpleStrata can help you measure your employee performance in an easy and engaging way. Try it now

To achieve an employee experience which attracts and retains the targeted highly skilled workforce, an organization must have a robust performance management system, which provides an accurate and fair evaluation of employees, while at the same time, is considered easy to understand and adopt, by both the HR personnel and other employees.

Thus, the traditional manual performance management is not an option, even for small companies, as it results in a huge waste of time, inaccuracy of data, lack of visibility, subjectivity, and conflicts. Consequently, it ends up as an annoying process for all the involved.

On the other hand, executing your performance management process through a system yields a bunch of advantages, below are the main ones, to mention just a few.

• Instant access and visibility to real-time results
  Reporting the actual of a KPI, or the progress of the task as soon as it is completed, provides a real-time update to performance. In addition, having performance scores instantly generated, provides visibility to the HR and performance staff, as well as for the employees themselves, which makes performance reviews a smoother and less awkward task for all parties.
• Self-motivation and triggering
  As humans, we love to see ourselves winning and be perceived by others as such. By knowing their scores and visualizing their progress, employees will be self-motivated to perform better and be more productive, so that they could keep their state as winners, or improve it to be so.
• Accurate planning and reporting
  Planning is key to success. However, unclear targets or invisibility on current performance prevent accurate planning, since the employee doesn’t know where he currently stands, or where he wants to reach next. A well-designed performance management tool displays instant updates to current performance status, while it also allows employees to plan their activities to achieve their results and take corrective actions in time.
• Reference availability
  With a proper performance management tool in place, all performance-related data is saved in one place and available for reference at any point in time. This is important for employees as well as performance personnel as it reduces debates and conflicts, and facilitates other processes such as training and development, performance reviews, appraisals, and so on.
• Better employee experience
  Employees already have enough tasks on their plates that they don’t have the time to waste on collecting and reporting performance data manually in the traditional ways. Providing a performance system to your organization members facilitates the process of monitoring and reporting results, and makes it a fun activity to do so, thus enhancing the overall employee experience.
• Alignment
  Having all the performance data saved in one place helps in visualizing the relations and dependencies between the different employees’ KPIs, jobs, and tasks. Automating task assignments and reporting facilitate collaboration and communication between employees and help them understand how their jobs interrelate with each other, and how they can cooperate for optimized performance. This reflects into better alignment between the organization members and towards achieving the company’s goals.

Implementing the right performance management tool will allow you to witness those advantages, which you won’t be able to achieve if you are using traditional ways for monitoring and tracking performance, such as emails, excel sheets and annual reviews.

At SimpleStrata, we’ve accompanied several organizations through this journey, and our numbers speak for themselves. As of now, more than 5,000 employees are effectively reporting and tracking their KPIs through SimpleStrata, with increased engagement and productivity levels.

Are you struggling to manage your employees’ performance and increase their work productivity?

SimpleStrata can help! Watch the video now