Wednesday, February 27, 2013

The Right Place To Have A Construction Project Management Certification


Managing projects, whether they are in the construction, real estate or information technology industry (and anywhere else) require a lot of training, experience, and certification. According to dice.com, the job search portal for technology professionals, eight out of thirteen advertisements either require, or prefer, project management certification. Most of the job advertisements here also said that project management certification is "an advantage", highly desirable", or "preferred". These ads are probably referring to the PMP or Project Management Professional credentials. Here are a number of great suggestions on where to find construction project management certification.

Who Regulates the Construction Industry in the US and UK?

In the United States, the construction industry's certification and advocacy body are the CMAA, or the Construction Management Association of America. The CMAA states that the most common responsibilities of a construction manager fall in 7 categories namely-- Project management planning, Cost management, Time management, Quality management, Contract Administration, Safety management, and CM professional practice. In the UK, the industry is regulated through the CDM, or Construction Design Management, which advocates for ethical and efficient construction management practices, to prevent injuries, accidents and other untoward incidents in construction and civil engineering projects.
For project management certification, there are different levels that fit each person's knowledge and experience levels. Among these include the CAPM, or Certified Associate in Project Management, which is a great entry-level certification, especially for those who new to the field of project management.
Another program is the PMP, or the Project management Professional, which is probably the most important, and globally-recognized credential for project managers. This would be perfect for those who have demonstrated competence and experience in leading project teams (construction, IT, etc.). The PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) is designed for those who use agile approaches in project management while the PMI-RMP or PMI Risk Management Professional certification demonstrates full competence in assessing and mitigating project risks and threats, and capitalizes on opportunities.

Where to Get Construction Project Management Certification

There are lots of online, and offline resources and centers where aspiring (and veteran) construction project managers can get professional certification. Let's take a close look at a few of them.

4Pm offers two courses for construction professionals who wish to advance in their project management careers, and arm themselves with the project management certification that provides the tools, and credibility, to effectively manage projects. The first course helps the student skills to complete small and medium construction projects on time and deliver the planned results. The second course enables the individual to master the skills for larger construction projects, and deal with diverse staff and multiple bosses or owners.
ExpertRating Project management Certification. ExpertRating's project management certification provides an in-depth project management course which includes all the concepts, techniques and tools related to project management, and also created to keep abreast with the requirements of the Project Management Institute's PMP Certification. The course chapters include project initiation, planning, resource planning, time planning, project quality, team building and management, risk planning, procurement, execution, monitoring, controlling change and closing the project.

Project managers, who have a construction project management certification, often earn more than their usual counterparts. The construction management certification programs also enable managers to quickly get established in the construction industry, and move up easily on the promotion ladder.


Tuesday, February 19, 2013

What Project Managers Should Learn On Online Time Management And Its Benefits


One of the leading considerations of project managers is how labor time is allocated in their projects. During the course of project implementation, unforeseen circumstances can lead to time management issues.

Time management is directly tied to efficiency and cost control in the realm of project implementation. Improper time management costs money.

Online time management means constantly tracking the completion of tasks, evaluating whether they are completed on time and with the designated resources. It also means revisiting tasks to ensure that the timeline allows for the right amount of implementation time. Adjustments are constantly being made to tasks when time management becomes an issue. Project managers realize that in addition to money, labor is a finite resource. Therefore, when time is added to one task it will need to be taken away from something else. Making these adjustments manually is simply not a good option.

www.ProjectManager.com enables project management team oversight capabilities and online time management tools that can definitely reduce the number of problems experienced when things don't go quite as planned. Ideally, time management would rest upon the implementation people, but sometimes this just is not possible to manage from a micro level. Taking a step back and seeing time constraints as part of the big picture enables planners and managers to make adjustments when necessary.

Something that really plays a crucial role in terms of time management is task list planning. Among a team, there may not be complete agreement as to the time necessary to complete specific tasks.

When tasks are well thought out and time is estimated correctly, time is better managed. The other aspect of the task list that really makes a difference in time management is prioritization of tasks.


Monday, February 11, 2013

Fast Tracked and Easy Communications Made Possible by Web Collaboration Tools

It is not new to the business community to use web collaboration tools. What is new is the number of tools now available for most organizations in the business world. The use of web collaboration tools is their main source of communication in and outside of their company.


A few years ago, most in the business world thought that the web collaboration tools were just a nice thing to have around. Collaboration was purely made by most organizations with the use of emails. Yet as the years passed, there are many web collaboration tools that were developed. This then offers an increasing set of options to help the business community communicate over vast distances.

Since then, this industry has grown and has been used by nearly every business sector in the world. In the 1970's it was the online gaming business ventures who first used the web collaboration tools. They used this new form of mass communications to create a profit stream. Most of the business leaders grew up before the age of the computer and were still stuck on using old technology like telephones.

Interestingly, the younger generation embraced the new web collaboration tools for their personal use. They also became the new experts in many forms for setting up the connections so video conferencing could take place. This has also changed with the installation of new fiber optic lines that now form the backbone of the high speed internet in the developed part of the world.

Today any organization can use the many web collaboration tools to help them communicate with their team members in any part of the world in the same manner as if they were sitting right next to them. This makes it possible for two or more people to send typed words, back in forth, in real time from any point in the world that has an internet connection. Because anyone can log in and use these public systems, the security on them is less than what a business would desire to use for their proprietary data.

A system set up for professional use had to be established in the business world to use the web collaboration tools. Today an organization can use an instant messaging system that limited the contacts to who is authorized by the company deploying it. It also made it acceptable to explore the new options in collaboration tools because it was more secure.
Of all the web collaboration tools in use today, the best one for brainstorming is the Data Conferencing. This is the use of an electronic blackboard. With the use of an online pen, anyone can make a visual contribution to it, just like in a real meeting.

The Electronic Meeting is another of the new advancements in the field of web collaboration tools. In the past, in-person meetings that were official had one person taking the minutes of the meeting so a permanent record could be made. Today the Electronic Meeting has made this possible, but thru electronic means.
The latest web collaboration tools are available to the business world to help improve their lines of communication. The exact form you decide on is a personal one, but they are all safe and secure for the transfer of classified and proprietary information.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Task Management System: Why Organizations Choose it?

There are many directions that an organization can turn to when in comes to managing the tasks. And today, an online task management system is the direction many organizations are now turning to. This makes it easy for more tasks to be completed by a greater number of project team members without the possibility of losing any control over their execution.

To install an online task management system, the right programs need to be made available to the project manager and their project team. This can be accomplished by two approaches which are: 1) By loading the project management software programs on the company server or; 2) using one that already exists in a cloud management server. Both of them will have an administrator from your organization to help regulate the flow of data and limit its access to the software so only authorized personnel can gain entry.

The cloud management approach decreases the costs and maintenance responsibilities your organization will have to pay and do. This is then the leading reason many organizations are using this kind of approach. With this approach, backups and updates are automatically done and your organization can concentrate on completing the tasks that are involved in the project.

Many of the larger firms prefer to have this type of programming on their own server. This way no other company will be using the same server as they are which leads to a higher level of security for the proprietary data that will be located there.

In the task management system, the need for the establishment of links needed for this type of programming to work to its fullest potential need to be made. The task list is the centralized foundation on which all other links and the transfer of data is put thru. In the planning phase, the first set of links is established between the tasks and the resources needed for their completion.

The linking of a certain document in the scheduler to the task list is the next stage of link building in the task management system. This information will allow the project manager to know if a task is falling behind and action is needed or the task is being completed on time. In this, timesheets will be updated about what tasks are being worked on and their completion percentage. There is also a section for the resources that are being used in the completion of the tasks.

There is also a section of the task management system where the monitoring of the issues and risks that have impacted the business venture can be done. This is made possible since the risk and issue lists are also linked to the task list. The reporting of an impact can be filed by the project manager or any of the project team members on their timesheets.

To help coordinate all of the information being provided by the task management system, the project manager can use the dashboard system. This is a one screen display that can be set up to handle any of the data streams this system has made available to the project manager. The manner in which the data is reported is the choice of the project manager in charge of the business venture.

The online task management system is designed to give the project manager the information they need to know about the health of their business venture in real time. This makes it easier to make an informed decision that will result in a positive action being taken by the project team. The speed at which a decision can be made will reduce the length and number of delays that can occur in the execution phase of your project's life cycle and make a significant contribution in the success rate of your business ventures.