Here we can take an example, If someone is building a house for their family, everyone talks about milestones, because nobody is familiar with the specific tasks: “The floors will be finished on Monday”, “The roof will be completed on Dec 20th “. We intuitively talk about milestones, not tasks, because we do not know how to build a house, and our friends ask us about the construction in terms of milestones: “When are you going to finish the roof?”, “When are you going to move in?”, etc

The house is the main deliverable, you are the project manager and your friends are the stakeholders. Sound familiar?

Here ProofHub gives you this feature of milestone which you can use in project management and can easily manage your projects. In ProofHub you can use milestones up to large extent. You can place several milestones in your schedule at planning time, estimate their completion date and compare it with the actual completion date. With the help of milestones you can check the status of project that if it is going according to schedule or running behind the schedule, and manage expectations of those that are involved in the project.

Using ProofHub is a joy for most managers. The programmers have oriented their effort in designing the software in such a way that small details turn into big leaps. For instance, the interface of ProofHub is so user friendly; one could respond back to posts through his/her email. An email notification of each & every post is sent instantaneously and users can just view the comments and reply via email. This was done because we know that for any matter, a person will always check his/her emails periodically throughout the day. Project management is no longer an algebraic equation!

So to educate new users about our interface, we’ve created a demo project for easy understanding. We believe that conventional emails are easy to view for personal communication. But to streamline project management, we’ve created a utility linked interface and a sample project for easy comprehension. No, we don’t say we have an obsolete support channel for users, but a demo projects helps users in an orderly fashion how our project management tool works in real life. For your assistance, screenshots on the ProofHub homepage are also shown along with an interactive video.

As I start penning down this post, I’m amazed to go back in history where I screwed many projects out of sheer stupidity. Be it hung over from the previous night’s concert show to being late to coordinate with my fellow team mates, I had a hell of a time to be a better professional. Based on my experience, I’ve come to a conclusion that not just in professional lives, but also worldly issues, it is the communication that plays the biggest role for any success. Communication is a mode by which two individuals communicate themselves for personal/professional/leisure reasons. So, we assume that emails or even video conferencing are the best ways to communicate, well you’re off to a big surprise. Emails work well, no doubt but what if you are enjoying your vacations in Hawaii and your boss needs you to send a spreadsheet which he/she or someone has misplaced. I’m pretty sure you’ll be surfing the waves and not using the laptop accessing project files. So the boss expects you to send him/her the documents and you’re busy with Aloha! Enjoying Hawaiian cuisine! So as a possible repercussion you could let down your team in the crisis hour.

Let’s take another situation, suppose you’re off for the weekend and submitted the final project to the client and the client now disapproves your work. What do you do now!? Take the kids to their rollercoaster ride or sit back to improvise the catalogue which the client rejected. What would you consider more important, the kids excitement for the theme park or your ‘out of the blue’ office task!

This guide gives a general picture of what the responsibilities of a project manager are. Some encompass the character which he is to possess, while some take into account skills developed along the course of his profession. Ideally, a project manager’s responsibilities falls under four categories as mentioned below.

Personal Characteristics

There are some key personality traits that a project manager has to exhibit, which defines part of his responsibilities.

• Adaptable and flexible
• Leads and initiates
• Confident and persuasive
• Fluency and clarity with communication between the team and with stakeholders(effective communicator)
• Integrator
• Disciplined and well organized
• Possesses skills in planning and control
• Identifies problems with ease / skill
• Problem solver
• Effective in time management

Behavioral skills

A project manager is responsible for his team and team performance. Hence he has a behavioral commitment in light of his responsibilities. This can be summed up by the acronym LEAR.

• Listen: He has to give ample amount of attention to his team, by being an attentive listener.
• Explore: Information that is gathered from the team should be further researched and assessed. This is where his responsibility towards the team and project come into plat; when he acts on information obtained.
• Acknowledge: Give credit to whom credit is due. This can be done only by the project manager towards his team.
• Respond: When there are issues raised within the team, the project manager should initiate a response or action, in view of his position as head of the team and the leadership qualities he possesses. He should also be able to prepare and conduct meetings with ease.

Business Management skills

A project manager is part of an organization, and in essence a manager too. Therefore he has a certain obligation to the organization in view of his position.

• Possess a strong understanding of the business and business operations
• Possess adequate knowledge of project management
• Ability to translate business requirements into projects
• Ability to convert projects into business products or services
• Have the ability to teach, train and develop project team during the course of a project in the interest of the organization.

Technical skills

Apart from having a strong personality, being a good team builder and a manager, it is necessary that a project manager has strong technical skills that wrap up his responsibilities.

• He should be qualified to make technical judgment and decisions
• He should have a clear understanding of the scope of the project and what it involves
• He should be able to distinguish the needs of the different parameters one from another (cost, time, resources, manpower) and be able to prioritize tasks based on these.
• He should be able to conduct effective risk management, change control, project execution and close-out
• He should have a proper knowledge about project management tools and their functionality

There are plenty of bosses who fear the idea of indispensable employees and would instead encourage you to focus on teamwork. ‘Teamwork’ is the word bosses and coaches and teachers use when they actually mean, ‘Do what I say.’”

As project leaders, I believe it’s important to foster and environment where team members can develop or improve their leadership skills. It goes without saying that doing this requires us to abandon the “looking out for number one” mentality. My colleague, who feels it’s his obligation as a leader to create opportunities for his team to advance their careers has the right attitude, in my opinion. It kind of reminds me of the old saw about how everyone in the boat rises with the tide.

What do you do to help your teammates grow their skills? Do you give them opportunities to work outside of their comfort zones to participate in project decision-making or other leadership activities? Are you sharing your knowledge and giving gifts to your team—making yourself indispensable?

Regardless of the particular project management tools you use or the work management methodologies you employ, anything that can better align people to the right work at the right time will help your teams enjoy their job, gain satisfaction from whatever they are doing, and allow them to feel like they are really contributing to something bigger than themselves.

I don’t think anyone likes to waste their time, even if they are being paid to do it. We spend so much energy trying to conserve our natural resource, it’s puzzling to me why so many organizations insist on wasting their most precious resource—their people. Here are six tips to help you avoid wasting team members:

1. Make sure everyone has a clear understanding of what they should be doing: I know this sounds simple, but sometimes it’s easier said than done. When people have to spend time figuring out what they should be doing, people are wasted.
2. When people have to hunt for the document or other project asset they should be working on, people are wasted.
3. When team leaders and managers have to spend time trying to figure out what their people are doing, people are wasted.
4. If all you do is talk about work and never get around to doing the work, people are wasted.
5. When people spend time working on initiatives that don’t provide the most value to the organization, people are wasted.
6. When people spend time in repetitive process that could be streamlined or automated, people are wasted.

Project management practices and tools that don’t help avoid these wasteful behaviors won’t help organizations maximize the value of their employees. As project leaders, we should all be looking at the processes and methods we employ to manage work to see if we are contributing to frustration and waste or encouraging efficiency and empowering team members.

“Then, who will be the project leader?” you might ask. A project leader is a person who works primarily with people rather than the organization and structure of a project. He or she sets visions rather than objectives, motivates rather than directs, and assists in providing focus to the entire project team. And while it is said that a project manager focuses on doing things right, the project leader will focus on doing the right things.

Becoming a good project manager starts from being a good leader. Having the ability to inspire and motivate others is crucial in project management. As we know smart people always try smart things, here from the smart thing meant for use of any management tool that makes any project manager successful and turns him or her to project leader. But without leadership skills delivering a successful project might prove to be quite a challenging task.

Think about this; are you a project manager or a project leader? Why not be both!

Its very tough question because every project has its unique characteristics, even you managed a lot of projects before but this type question rises most of time during project management.

In fact, it is critical to successfully scheduling work, managing people and achieving goals.

So what’s the best way to answer this question?

First, understand that a due date is a best guess of how things will turn out.  It should be based on the most accurate information available like:

• Past estimates of the amount of work tasks took
• Past estimates of the calendar day’s tasks took
• Comparisons between those estimates and the actual data from past projects
• Familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of the project team and
• The current resources available for the project.

But when you show the schedule to your client, frame it as basis for the communication.

Second, carefully understand the constraints of project; every project has almost similar constraints as given below.

• Time
• Money
• Scope
• Quality

Explain to your client that each of those constraints directly impacts the others.

Last and most important point is use of project management software, with the use of project management software you can communicate with client easily, you can discuss about project there, you can set milestones and to do lists. It also helps to track time so you and your client can know each and everything of project.