Though there is no panacea to these inevitable outcomes, it’s important to take a look back on the cornerstones that define effective and success-prone project management.

Ultimately project management like most disciplines, requires just that-discipline. This discipline of mindset far outweighs any single tool, or management fad with a catchy name. The PMBOK or The Project Management Body of Knowledge is a good reference guide to begin, refocus, or sharpen your project management mindset.

Here are some key attributes of the Project Manager mentality:

1. A solid understanding and vigilant re-education in the discipline, the science, and the are of project management and it’s key knowledge and practice areas.
2. The experience and wherewithal to not attack a project with everything and the kitchen sink and instead being able to pick out the appropriate tools for improving implementation and the planning of the project.
3. Understand the dynamics of a team, and serve as the glue that holds the members together.
4. The ability to incorporate the new methodologies with the old on the fly.
5. People, People, People! A knack for understanding how to communicate effectively with your team members as it relates to project changes, overall progress, and transcribing the overall vision for the project throughout it’s duration.

Overall the skills required to achieve the project manager mentality are: being flexible, possessing strong oral/written communications, the ability to think strategically and solve problems on your feet, team building and interpersonal skills, a sense of accountability for yourself and your team members, and finally the technical credibility to lead the project in question.

Are you thinking about becoming an entrepreneur nurse instead of getting a job at a local hospital? Most people who go to nursing school think that the end goal has to be working in a hospital in some fashion, and they do not realize that they actually have other options. When jobs are hard to come by, these people become discouraged. They may start doing odd jobs just to make ends meet. They may give up on their dreams altogether because finding that career just does not seem realistic to them any longer. You do not have to suffer this same fate.You may have heard people say that it is much better to create a job than to find a job. In many ways, this is very true. Trying to find a job just means that you have to compete with everyone else in your field. It means that you are at the mercy of your employer. You can be fired whenever they decide that you are no longer needed.

You have to sell yourself to people in interviews; if you do not have great interviewing skills, you could be passed over for jobs for which you are incredibly qualified. These same types of issues do not face you if you start your own career.One option that you should consider is offering in-home care to those who need it. Many people who have birth defects need to have constant care. Parents cannot provide this at all times because they need to go to work to make money if the bills are going to be paid. You can be hired to come to the house every day and care for the person. You will be using your nursing skills as a caregiver. This is slightly different than how you may use them in a hospital since the end goal will not be to help the person get better. Instead, you will just be helping them to live the life that they have in comfort. However, you may find more satisfaction in this than in working on a hospital floor.Similarly, you could start a business with other people in your position where you provide care to the elderly. Many elderly people do not want to move to nursing homes or retirement centers because they do not need constant care. They do not want to leave behind the homes that they have known for many years. They still feel fairly independent, and they do not want to give this up.

At the same time, they need help with tasks like taking showers, cooking, cleaning, and going shopping. They may just need someone to drive them around. You can provide this assistance to many different clients for a few hours each day. Again, this is just a different way to utilize everything that you know about being a nurse.As you can see, it is not hard to find other ways to use your skills. Are you sick of trying to find a traditional job? You need to look into the idea of making a job for yourself. This can be very rewarding. It also gives you the chance to be your own boss, so you will have more job security. Working for yourself could be just the career that you need.Copyright ?? 2012 Nurse Entrepreneur Network

Caring for sensitive skin has to adhere to certain rules. However, before we discuss each of these rules for sensitive skin management, it would be very beneficial to know what you mean by sensitive skin.

Sensitive skin is a skin condition that cannot tolerate any kind of unfavorable conditions and may be quickly becomes damaged or troublesome and irritated when in contact with any foreign matter or chemicals. Nevertheless, the degree of level of sensitivity varies from one individual to another and therefore based on that reason alone, the skin care products that we use vary as well, depending on the level of our skin’s sensitivity.

Whether you have sensitive or normal skin, the ingredients and chemicals used in any skin care product can bring adverse effect to your skin. Usually, the effect is initiated after a certain threshold or tolerance level is achieved. As for sensitive skin, this tolerance level is extremely low which triggers the easy and immediate effect on the skin. The effect usually is undesirable. Sensitive skin care products manufacturers make sure that these undesirable effects will not happen so they stay away from using any harsh chemicals or irritants and maintain low or negligible amounts of them.

Below are some simple guidelines regarding sensitive skin care management;

•Always look for the label that says “Sensitive” skin care and check certain limitations, if there’s any, regarding the use of certain product.

•It is always good to choose a particular product that contains the least colorings, ingredients and preservatives.

•If you want to use a toner as part of your skin care regimen, be sure to choose something that does not contain alcohol as it is the primary ingredient that is not advisable for sensitive skin.

•If you are washing clothes or will do any cleaning, be sure to wear gloves to protect your skin from any chemical based products. If rubber also gives you irritation, you can wear cotton gloves underneath.

•Exposure to direct sunlight can also cause skin damage. Apply sunscreen lotion before going outdoors in the sun.

•Dust and other allergens in the air may also cause irritation so be sure that you cover yourself properly when going out for jogging or walking.

•If a particular sensitive skin care product is not available, always go for hypoallergenic products. Some would even prefer skin care products made for babies.
•Always choose soap-free cleanser for cleaning your face. Clean your face every time you return home from outside.

•Make sure to use soft cloth for scrubbing your face. If using your hands, make sure that they are soft.

•Remove make-up before going to sleep. Make sure you are using mild make-up remover.

Sensitive skin care is particularly different than caring for normal skin as it demands you to be more careful in choosing the products to use for your skin all the time.

Visit Sanssoucisusa.com for best anti aging skin care products and treatment. We carry gentle facial cleansers for sensitive skin, cleansing cream, toners and exfoliators.

Nonproject managers

Gone are those days when we entirely rely upon our bosses or project heads to decide where to head next in a running project process. Today project management consultancies and various management tools are there to take care of this headache.

In the field of project management, the manager addressed a number of people and problems that are juggling between. And this becomes more difficult in the absence of technology. Although they are increasingly becoming aware of the usage of technology but still facing challenges. The reason is that they still stick to those desktop based applications which are meant for individual use on the other hand, is carried out with the whole team effort and every person involved in a needs to be updated about what is going on. Hence with these desktop based applications, simultaneous update is not possible.

So here other project management software tool that allows team members to create, edit and update project details across device and browser platforms in real time are required. Yet these automated tools cut off a lot of paperwork but still, certain documents are not negligible while it is progressing.

Well here are those documents that are crucial for a project to succeed. Let’s have a look:

The business case: It is the document to summarize the problem that the is going to solve and explains why the execution of the project is needed. It should be well descriptive to justify the investment required for a project.

The statement of work: It covers all the deliverables of a project and can go down to a low level of description.

The Project charter: It’s the document that turns a project idea into a programmable piece and this document finally gives you an authority to work as a project manager. This defines the allocated owners and funding for the project. In short without this document, your project doesn’t exist.

The project management plan: This is a huge document that includes everything you need to know and manage during the project journey. It includes: – The scope baseline. – The schedule baseline – The cost baseline. Again, it should be descriptive enough to justify your project investment.

The Action Log: This is required to keep a track of every team member’s action plan. Although with the modern project management tools, each person involved in an is aware of what other person is doing but still maintaining this document is a part of traditional project management services.

Status Reports: These are important since you use them to get information from your stakeholders on a regular basis. These are the formally written documents to record a progress.

Budget: And lastly the document with less text more numbers. It has all the calculations to set out the information about the contract and what financial flow you are going to follow. Trust me; it is a real tough challenge to get your invoices paid off, so once you find out how to note it down to save your time next month.

So these are some basic documentation you require for a successful task completion. Your doubts and opinions are most welcomed via the comment box below.

Rita Rajpurohit is the writer of this article she is content writer at Gem Engserv , writes on various civil engineering topics and exploring the new dimension in construction industries

Introduction:

In addition to fulfilling numbers of roles, managers also need a number of specific skills if they are to succeed. The most fundamental manager’s skills are technical, interpersonal, conceptual, diagnostic, communication, decision making and time management skills.

They are discussing below:

1. Technical Skills:

Technical skills are the skills necessary to understand the specific kind of work being done in an organization. Technical skills are of greatest importance at the supervisory level or first line managers.

2. Interpersonal Skills:

Interpersonal skills are the ability to communicate with, understand and motivate both individuals and groups.

3. Conceptual Skills:

Conceptual skills are the manager’s ability to think in the abstract. Managers need the mental capacity to understand the overall workings of the organization and its environment.

4. Diagnostic Skills:

Successful managers also possess diagnostic skills that enable manager to visualize the most appropriate response to solution. Example – A manager can diagnose and analyze a problem in the organization by studying its symptoms and developing a solution.

5. Communication Skills:

Communicating Skills refers to the manager’s abilities both to convey ideas and information effectively to others and to receive ideas and information effectively from others.

6. Decision Making Skills:

Decision making skills refer to the managers ability to recognize and define problems and opportunities correctly and then to select an appropriate course of action to solve and capitalize on opportunities.

7. Time Management Skills:

A time management skill refers to the manager’s ability to prioritize work to work efficiently and to delegate appropriately. Effective managers usually have time management skills.

Again a successful manager should have the sense of social responsibility. The concept of social responsibility is not new. Although the idea was already considered in the early part of 20th century, it receive a major impetus with the 1953 book social responsibilities of the business man by Howard R Bowen, who suggested that business should consider the social implications of their decisions.

Specialist Opinion:

1) According to R.W. Griffin, “Social responsibility is the set of obligations an organization has protect and enhanced the social context in which it functions.”

2) According to Bartol and Martin, “Social responsibility refers to the obligations of an organization to seek actions that protect and improve the welfare of society along with it won interests.”

On conclusions, social responsibilities mean the ability of a corporation to relate its operations and policies to the social environment in ways that are manually beneficial to the company and to society.

Above these are managerial skills and the social responsibilities of manager.

A technique implemented by some managers in their workplace is to lead their workers through intimidation and fear. Sadly, it is a leadership tactic that works: a leader who is feared by their staff could discover that they get more out of them, just as a leader who’s is too laid-back with their workers might find that they are not putting 100% effort into what they do.

However, leading by fear can have some major repercussions in the long run. The effects that it can have on a leader’s employees are featured below:

1) It may create stress – Leading by fear may look like it increases productivity in the short run, but if it results in staff becoming more stressed, making more mistakes and rushing their work, becoming burnt out and ultimately having more sick leave then long-term productivity might be hit hard.

2) It can be a creativity killer – Employees who are managed by a boss with an iron rod will not be more creative, even if the leader requires them to be. Taking creative stances and opportunities such as trying new things, innovating and taking risks will be greatly limited, as staff will be concerned that conducting in any of those things will aggravate the guy or girl in charge. Therefore in creative sectors, leading by fear could potentially have enormous repercussions to the development and growth of employees and the company as a whole.

3) Staff won’t want to work with you (by choice) – Workers who are managed by a friendly, approachable leader who looks after them will want to work with them more frequently – it’s as simple as that. Instead of just doing what’s expected, you may discover that they’ll make more of an effort and produce work surpassing all expectations. This may carry across to other departments and teams, who might be more agreeing to carry out favours or get things done quickly for you, even though they shouldn’t. The alternative is that employees won’t do anything beyond what you’ve asked them to do.

4) Your employees will be ‘yes men’ – Just like humas in general, not all managers are perfect and we can all make mistakes. The problem with leading by fear is that if you suggest a strategy or project that people do not agree with, they could be too scared to speak up, disagree or have their say in general. Instead, you might find that employees will agree with anything that you propose, regardless of their opinion on it. This could have a massive damaging effect on long-term strategy – a member of staff should not be punished for recommending against an opinion or recommending another route; in fact they should be applauded for it.

5) Survival will not be about being good, but just looking good – At present, employees might be worried not only about career progression but just generally about surviving, a result of the present economic crisis. Some staff may be able to make themselves look more worthwhile than they actually are, with another person who’s talented but shy looking less important in the process. A great leader will be able to tell their greatest stars from those who simply care about continuing their employment, but for one who leads by fear it might be more difficult or even promote that kind of behaviour between colleagues.

6) It’ll cause talented people to seek other employment – Eventually, the talent will look to go elsewhere. Leadership by fear leads to unmotivated, demoralised and unhappy workers, who will not want to work for you. Even in difficult economic times, with an increasing number of unemployed people and less jobs available, opportunities still appear and people will move on. There may even be instances of struggling to get new hires, if they come across rumours of what it can be like working in the place or if they are able to obtain a glimpse of your management style in an interview.

This doesn’t mean to say that a manager must pander to the wants and needs of their staff – a leader who is soft on their workers is just as bad as a leader who is much too intimidating for their own good. However, a leader should learn to be calm, patient, a great listener and compassionate, while still being strict and not afraid to discipline employees if there are any actual issues. Getting the balance correct can result in a team who are passionate, productive, efficient and happy, something that can be obtained without needing to lead by fear.

Effective leadership and management training does not have to be about leading by fear. There’s lots of ways a leader and his/her workers can grow, through the implementation of other leadership tactics and practices.

When managers use research, they are applying the methods of science to the art of management and all business undertakings operate in the world of uncertainty. There is no unique method which can entirely eliminate uncertainty; however, research methodology, more than any other procedure, can minimize the degree of uncertainty. Thus it reduces the probability of making a wrong choice amongst alternative courses of action. This is particularly significant in the light of increasing the competition and growing size which make the task of choosing the best course of action difficult for any business enterprise.

It is imperative that any type of organization in the present environment needs the systematic supply of information coupled with tools of analysis for making the sound decisions which involve the minimum risk. Under this context, the research methodology plays a very important role.

Research is not an existing bag of techniques and it is not a fishing expedition or an encyclopedic gathering of assorted facts. It is purposeful investigation. It provides a structure for the decision making. There are three parts involved in any investigation namely; 1) the implicit question method; 2) the explicit answer proposed; 3) collection, analysis and interpretation of the information leading from the question to the answer.

In fact, the third part is the defense that justifies the recommendation and is viewed as research. For example, the following statement can be considered: “We recommend that model X television can be priced at $15000”. This is the recommendation forwarded to the marketing head by the marketing manager in charge of research wing. The implicit question posed in this quote is what should be the selling price of the model? The explicit answer is $15000. The third part deals with collection, analysis and interpretation of the information leading from the question to the answer of $15000.

The word: “research” identifies a process by which the organization attempts to supply the information required for making sound management decisions. In fact the research is not synonymous with common sense. The difference revolves around words such as “systematic”, objective and reproducible. Both research and common sense depend on information; the distinction between them lies in the procedures and methods adopted by which the information is obtained and used in arriving at conclusions. The research cannot address itself to the complete information on a particular subject. As such, the two secondary characteristics of research specify “relevance” and “control”.

When it comes to good research, the systematic approach is very much essential and each step should be so planned that it leads to the next step. It is usually very difficult to go back and correct the mistakes of the previous step; sometimes it is impossible. Even when it is possible, it always involves loss in time and money. Research can be divided into a number of steps and both the number of steps and the names are somewhat arbitrary; however, the recognition of a sequence is crucial. Planning and organization are part of this systematic approach with a lot of emphasis given to the interdependence of various steps.

Customers are the foundational stone of any enterprise. Further, the process of identifying them and retaining them as an integral part of their business functions. Now, the very purpose of a CRM software is manage the organization’s relationship with the customers. This relationship goes to five stages before turning into a mature and long term bonding. Developing a successful customer relationship management (CRM) strategy is the crux of the entire game with the sole objective of getting insights into customers’ buying behavior, and keeping them loyal.

Let’s discuss these customer life cycle stages:

1. Reach-

Major objective of this phase is to attract the customers.

This is done by letting them know about your brand and its characteristics. Here, the targeted market segments are identified and the key information are propagated through various media channels- such as, paper-based, electronic or internet-based etc.

This aims to make the customers curious to know more about it and facilitate them to ask you about it. For this, you must have a clearly defined brand strategy using marketing techniques- social media marketing, banner advertising, and content marketing etc.

2. Acquisition-

This phase provides for lead management.

Here, you acquire key information of the potential customers, such as- contact details, their preferences. Various modes of communicating with them are applied, such as- Email, sales calls etc.

3. Conversion-

In this phase, you actually convert a potential customer into a buyer or paid customer.

The sales persons attempts to convince them about the benefits of availing your products and services. In addition, the pricing is also negotiated. Once the leads are converted into opportunities, and they create sales orders, they become a new customer for you.

4. Retention-

Only a well satisfied customer can be loyal to you. For this, you will need to keep communicating with them. Many ways to do this are- care for them by asking the problems if any they are facing, encouraging them to provide their feedback. This way, you make them an integral part of your business process. Thus, as your business decision making becomes a more participative, there are greater chances of becoming it as a stronger and growth oriented enterprise.

5. Endorsement-

Once your customers are deeply satisfied, they are likely to become the carrier of word of mouth. They evidently spread the awareness of your brand into their own social networks. This way you get more potential customers from your existing and loyal customers.

Dynamics CRM, which is the state-of-the-art CRM solution provided by Microsoft, can extend you a helping hand in each of these crucial stages. As available with Dynamics 365 Marketing, numerous in-built features, such as leads, marketing lists, campaigns, quick campaigns help you in running an effective marketing campaigns. In these campaigns, you can automatically send the key messages to customers in any list through emails. This provides you ways to collect information about your products and sales literature, which you can share with the customers immediately at your wish. It also facilitates you to effectively manage the customer information, using Accounts and Contacts.

One of the most important Dynamics CRM feature is that you can effectively manage your workspace, through dashboards and activities. The dashboard provides you an integrated and comprehensive view of analytical CRM data. This, in turn, helps you in effective decision making. Furthermore, Activities tab presents you with an organized view about tasks, emails, phone calls, appointments, etc.

There are many more capabilities available with Microsoft Dynamics CRM that can make your customer relationship management as an exciting experience.