Organizing your daily activities can alleviate some of the stressors managers face, and free up more time for decision making and interfacing with staff and clients. The tools presented here are selected for their ability to help streamline work, organize information for quick retreival, and automate tasks.
Schedule Management
Managing time off can often be confusing. This spreadsheet is a template that can be used to track an employee’s time off over the work-year. To track multiple employees, simple copy the spreadsheet into multiple tabs in the same workbook. The spreadsheet can also be provided to the employee, so self-monitoring, shared online for employees to check if their backup is available before requesting time off, and so on.
GooCal (Google Calendar Sync): This app is available for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and it allows the user to access, synchronize and manage multiple Google accounts and calendars from their Apple products. The app also works in offline mode, has search capability, and drag and drop functionality. The latest version has been updated to work with iPhone 5 models. Available in the Apple itunes store.
For scheduling of complex projects, particularly when tasks are occuring sequentially or in parallel, Gantt Charts can be particularly helpful. This video, from the Mindtools website, helps explain Gantt Charts.
To create Gantt Charts, Mintools presents the following tutorial:
Drawing a Gantt Chart
To draw up a Gantt diagram (Gant diagram), follow these steps:
Step 1. List all activities in the plan
For each task, show the earliest start date, estimated length of time it will take, and whether it is parallel or sequential. If tasks are sequential, show which stages they depend on.
You will end up with a task list like the one in figure 1. This example shows the task list for a custom-written computer project. We will use this same example for both this section and the section on Critical Path Analysis and PERT. This will allow you to compare the results of the two approaches.
Figure 1. Gantt Chart Example: Planning a custom-written computer project
Task Earliest start
Length
Type
Dependent on…
A. High level analysis
Week 0
1 week
Sequential
B. Selection of hardware platform
Week 1
1 day
Sequential
A
C. Installation and commissioning of hardware
Week 1.2
2 weeks
Parallel
B
D. Detailed analysis of core modules
Week 1
2 weeks
Sequential
A
E. Detailed analysis of supporting modules Week 3
2 weeks
Sequential
D
F. Programming of core modules Week 3
2 weeks
Sequential
D
G. Programming of supporting modules Week 5
3 weeks
Sequential
E
H. Quality assurance of core modules Week 5
1 week
Sequential
F
I. Quality assurance of supporting modules Week 8
1 week
Sequential
G
J. Core module training Week 6
1 day
Parallel
C,H
K. Development and QA of accounting reporting Week 5
1 week
Parallel
E
L. Development and QA of management reporting Week 5
1 week
Parallel
E
M. Development of Management Information System Week 6
1 week
Sequential
L
N. Detailed training Week 9
1 week
Sequential
I, J, K, M
Step 2. Set up your Gantt Chart
Head up graph paper with the days or weeks through to task completion.
Step 3. Plot the tasks onto the graph paper
Next draw up a rough draft of the Gantt Chart. Plot each task on the graph paper, showing it starting on the earliest possible date. Draw it as a bar, with the length of the bar being the length of the task. Above the task bars, mark the time taken to complete them.
Schedule them in such a way that sequential actions are carried out in the required sequence. Ensure that dependent activities do not start until the activities they depend on have been completed.
This will produce an untidy diagram like the one below:
Step 4. Presenting the analysis
The last stage in this process is to prepare a final version of the Gantt Chart. This shows how the sets of sequential activities link together, and identifies the critical path activities. At this stage you also need to check the resourcing of the various activities. While scheduling, ensure that you make best use of the resources you have available, and do not over-commit resource.
You can also use color to represent the different resource types that you need to use such as programmers, or analysts.
A redrawn version of the example project is shown below:
By drawing this example Gantt Chart, you can see that:
- If all goes well, the project can be completed in 10 weeks.
- If you want to complete the task as rapidly as possible, you need:
- 1 analyst for the first 5 weeks.
- 1 programmer for 5 weeks starting week 4.
- 1 programmer/QA expert for 3 weeks starting week 6. Note: Activities L and M have been moved back a week. This does not affect the critical path, but it does mean that a single programming/QA resource can carry out all three of activities K, L and M.
- Analysis, development and testing of supporting modules are essential activities that must be completed on time.
- Hardware installation and commissioning is not time-critical as long as it is completed before the Core Module Training starts.
While this section describes how to draw a Gantt Chart manually, in practice project managers use software tools like Microsoft Project to create Gantt Charts. Not only do these ease the drawing of Gantt Charts, they also make modification of plans easier and provide facilities for monitoring progress against plans, as well as generating resource histograms.
Key Points:
Gantt charts are useful tools for planning and scheduling projects. They allow you to assess how long a project should take, determine the resources needed, and lay out the order in which tasks need to be carried out. They are useful in managing the dependencies between tasks.
When a project is under way, Gantt charts are useful for monitoring its progress. You can immediately see what should have been achieved at a point in time, and can therefore take remedial action to bring the project back on course. This can be essential for the successful and profitable implementation of the project.
Sourced from Mindtools, http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_03.htm
Task Management
Remember the Milk is a free app for list making. This is a very basic list making tool, but it is available for the iPad, iPhone (works with Siri), Android and BlackBerry. It is designed to synchronize with Outlook, Gmail, Google Calendar, and even twitter, so it does offer quite a bit of flexibility if a tool is needed that can cross platforms.
Nirvana is list making app that works with a web browser or on mobile devices. It goes beyond the basic list-making, allowing for prioritization, categorization, setting duration of tasks, due dates, and automated shifting or priority at items approach deadlines. Task lists, including items that have been completed, can be exported to Microsoft Excel, which makes this a handy tool if you are trying to track progress toward a goal, business or otherwise, or want to review the frequency with which certain tasks recur. Nirvana also features a contact list capability, which makes it possibly to assign tasks to contacts or designate items as related to or waiting for action from a contact.
Outlook Tasks are an often overlooked, but potentially very useful feature in Microsoft Outlook. Not only can the Tasks feature track a virtual to-do list and synchronize it with the Outlook calendar to generate reminders, but it can be used to delegate tasks to others trhough Outlook, request status updates, and track progress towards completion. This word document is a basic beginner’s tutorial for using the Tasks feature.
Quick Data Retrieval
Another often overlooked Microsoft Outlook feature is the Outlooks Sticky Notes tool.This is a handy feature buit into Outlook that acts like a virtual bulletin board for “sticky notes” where information that needs to be kept on handy, but not necessarily in plain view, can be stored. This is a valuable tool in work environments with a “clean desk policy”, i.e., if you have client or account information that needs to be referenced often, but must be kept securely out of sight. This is also convenienct for information that often needs to be copied and pasted into documents, emails, or web forms. This word documents is a basic beginner’s tutorial on the use ofthesticky notes feature.
Sticky Notes for iPad is an app that works in much the same way as the Outlook Sticky Notes, but for the Apple platform. Notes can be typed or dictated by voice recording, multiple “sticky note” paper options are available, notes can be rezides and moved by drag and drop method. Notes can also be saved as photos, emailed, printed, and tweeted.
Evernote is a popular iPhone and iPad app for organizing notes, photos, lists, reminders (even recorded voice-reminders). Notes and notebooks can be tagges to track ideas and projects, notes can be shared across applications and products or with other users. Works with Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Internex Explorer browsers.
CardMunch is a free iPhone app that turns business cards into contacts in your iphone. If you have a LinkedIn account, it will also check for the business card owner’s account and show you what connections you have in common. This tool helps organize contacts, harness social media networking, and minimize “paper clutter” while keeping information quick and easy to access.
Email Managmement
Most organizations have employees use a signature file in their professional email. But a signature filecan be useful for more than the standard signature block: if you have repetetive emails to send out, they can be a great time saver. If you send out data in the same format on a rgular basis, asignature file set up with the template for this information makes the task much more efficient. You can create as many signature files as you like in Outlook, designate your standarn one for automatic insertion, and use the dropdown insertion method when you would prefer to use one of the alternate templates. This word document is a basic beginner’s tutorial for creating and using signature files in Microsoft Outlook.
Microsoft Outlook can pre-sort your email for you using rules. for instance, all emails from a specified address can presort into a folder, all emails with a specific word or phrase in the subject can presort into another folder, and so on. This can help mitigate the effects of information overload, which still keeping the information available and accessible. This tutorial, authored by Microsoft, explains the process of establishing rules to automatically sort and filter email. (An additional tip for email organization: Folders will automatically sort alphabetically. If you have folders that are high priority and need to be near the top of your list, simply preface the name with numbers, 1- P/L Reports, 2- Tax Reporting, for example. This will cause them to sort above the “A” folders, so they rise to the top.)
- http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/manage-email-messages-by-using-rules-HA010355682.aspx
An article from the Huffington Post with some great times for organizing email files.
Multi-Aspect Tools
AgreeDo is a virtual meeting tool that incorporates the agenda, meeting minutes, tasks for follow-up, and meeting results tracking into the interface. Similar to Microsoft’s Outlook Tasks feature, assigned tasks will ping the designated person with an email as the due date nears, reminding them to update the item in AgreeDo with notes. The format also has search capability, so it is possible to search amongst past meetings to determine when a topic was discussed or a decision was made. Information can be forwarded from the AgreeDo interface, via email, to external participants, making it useful in terms of providing updates to stakeholders who are not involved in the virtual meetings as well.
Management Tools and Resources 