Project Management

Project managers can have it tough sometimes.  They are being asked to plan a project, complete with cost and resource estimates, sometimes in an area they are not too familiar with.  On top of the planning, they have to act like an orchestra conductor (Laureate, 2011) to ensure the project progresses forward and success is achieved.  But don't fret, there are some tools and websites that can help you with project estimation, which to me, can be one of the hardest parts of management.

PMI (http://www.pmi.org/), the site for Project Management Institute is where I go first to check for help, advice, and resources on project management.  PMI is the certifying body for PM, and their site contains the Body of Knowledge (BOK) for project managers, professional development section, and knowledge center.  The knowledge center features many articles on a variety of PM topics.  The only downside to this site is some of the articles and areas are restricted access to PMI members only.  But that doesn't mean you can't find great information and help on topics like budget estimation and resource planning.  One of the most helpful and free items to me is BOK.  The BOK often helps me research the proper term that I need help and assistance with.  Because terminology changes from company to company and discipline to discipline, the BOK triggers me with specific words I should include in my searches for help.  If you are lucky enough to have a membership, there are many articles written by SME on cost control, project estimation, and scheduling.  The articles include informative information, white papers, and case studies which have all been reviewed by a panel to ensure they further and advance project management thinking.

All About Project Management (http://managementhelp.org/plan_dec/project/project.htm) is a great resource to have in your back pocket.  The site contains many helpful links for the entire project life-cycle, including agile project management, and is overseen by Kevin Lonergan.  Agile project management is commonly found in IT projects, but more and more aspects of agile PM are making it into mainstream PM.  There are some great agile management concepts that the links talk about such as iterative or spiral development, scrum techniques, and visual controls.  The site not only contains links to other resourceful sites, but also to blogs where you can learn from other project managers.  This site is definitely one you should bookmark, as I find myself coming back to it time and time again because of the consolidation of information.

There are also free templates out there to help with project planning, cost and resource allocations.  Microsoft offers a few good project templates for Microsoft Excel products and you can find them by searching on project and/or planning for business.  For cost estimating, Social Signal (http://www.socialsignal.com/blog/alexandra-samuel/how-create-budget-estimates-proposals-and-project-management) has a great article and tools and templates available for download.  An Excel worksheet, with a pretty comprehensive checklist is also available at the following location:  http://www.exinfm.com/excel%20files/Estimating_Template.xls  I find the strength of this template is the checklists is offers at each stage of the project. 

Overall, there are a ton of resources available on the internet as well as your library to get you through any sticky point of a project.  It is difficult to recommend specific sites because each one is specialized to an area of a project and oftentimes an industry:  budgeting, resource allocation, agile management, getting teams to work together, etc.  Each site and template offers it's own strength - you just have to look for it.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Communicating with Stakeholders [DVD]. In EDUC 6145. Baltimore, MD.