Tag: project manager

How to Take Charge of Your Projects

Hi, I’m Allison
And I’m Bob
What we are about to show you will radically change your thinking about how you invest your time, and what’s really important when it comes to making money and running your projects.



We’ve all been there. Not enough time, no solid schedule, poorly defined goals and objectives, no formal plan, out of control scope creep, miscommunication between people that are involved in the project, etc.
As a result, projects are delayed, time is wasted, clients are angry, your company’s reputation is damaged and you lose customers, people are frustrated and stressed out, team members have to work extra hours to catch up, morale goes down, and employees lose confidence in the company.
If you’ve invested time and money in trick after trick — such as using different project tools, begging and threatening, shouting, motivating team members, holding group discussions, adding more people to the team, and working more hours — but nothing has worked, I would ask you to consider this program.
You’ve been investing in tools and services because you want a better income. A better life for your family. Freedom and independence. But tools alone are useless without solid foundations. You need strategies for using tools.
You’ve been focusing on tools and solving problems instead of focusing on creating strength and power that can be leveraged.
Think about it like this: let’s say you have the fastest car in the world in your garage. But you don’t know how to drive. The car will be useless to you because you don’t know how to move it.
But if you are an excellent driver, even a slow car will be able to get you from one place to another.
We are going to show you how to take charge of your projects and run them in a simple way that will enable you to complete them on time, starting today.
This can boost income now and bring you the high-caliber clients that you want to attract. It can make your company more efficient and competitive.
And, the good thing about it is that you don’t need any special background, education, or skills to use this.
If you don’t take aggressive action once you’ve seen the path, we can’t help you.
Success is for people who take action. Mediocre people follow the herd and wait passively for things to maybe change in the future. You are not like that.
We are going to show you how to drive your projects and you’ll be able to use this knowledge with any tool that you currently have.
We at Elementool have been helping companies with their projects for over 12 years, and we’ve gained a tremendous amount of insight into what it takes to manage projects efficiently and effectively. In this program, we’re going to pass on a set of extraordinary yet simple-to-use skills that can give you the edge that you need to succeed. And what you’ll discover is that once you’ve mastered these skills, you’re going to have way less stress on your mind and way more free time to spend the way you want.
But first, let me tell you how everything started.
Elementool was founded 12 years ago by Yaron Sinai.
Before starting Elementool, he worked for a software company as a project manager, met people who were also project managers, and realized there was no good and easy solution for running projects.
Yaron learned programming at home and worked in the evenings and on weekends for 6 months straight to build the website. At the beginning it was a very simple issue tracking and help desk solution.
The website was offered for free to people who wanted to use it to run projects. It was the first web-based software of its kind in the world.
A few months later, Yaron realized that Elementool required his complete attention, so he quit his job to run the website full-time. But it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be. He had to move back with his parents because he couldn’t pay the rent. No job, no car, and living with his parents was tough. He couldn’t get any dates with women. That made things even worse.
He tried to raise funds from investors. And, wanting to look professional he rented a laptop from a nearby computer store every time he went to a meeting with investors, because he didn’t have enough money to buy a laptop computer. Each time he stepped out of a meeting, all he cared about was the fact that he had just wasted $40 on the laptop, instead of getting something to eat. After a few meetings like that, Yaron realized that he was wasting his time and money, so he decided he would grow it on his own.
And grow it did. Soon Yaron hired a group of programmers who developed additional products and added more features to make the system more sophisticated. People were happy with the new web-based solution and the company continued to grow.
Over the 12 years since Elementool was founded, we have worked with thousands of companies, some of them the largest companies in the world, and helped them run their projects.
During that time, we’ve realized that a lot of good managers are struggling themselves and not understanding the right way to run projects. And I bet you can relate to what I’m talking about.
But… it’s not your fault.
There are many books about project management, but, let’s face it, who has time to read 400 pages books when there is barely any time to finish the things you need to do today? And even when the project manager is knowledgeable about how to manage projects, usually the team of developers, testers, managers, and clients have no knowledge in project management methodologies and that creates miscommunication between the different project stakeholders, leading to frustration and project failure.
Let me give you and example: Tracking the time that team members spend on tasks is very important. It enables the project managers and the team to see how the project is progressing, if there are any delays that need to be addressed, or any changes that need to be made in order to keep the project on track.
The project manager knows that, but the team, who might be a group of excellent programmers who have no knowledge in project management and are not aware of the importance of time tracking, might feel like big brother is watching them when team members are asked to report the time they work on assignments. As a result of not knowing the true reason behind this request, they object and refuse to report their time. This type of miscommunication between the project manager and the team leads to arguments, frustration, and project delays.
This is why it is so important for everyone on the team, including developers, testers, managers, and even clients, to be familiar with all the stages that are involved in the project development cycle.
So we’ve done the work for you.
In the past 18 months we’ve conducted extensive research. Read dozens of books, run surveys, and received a lot of feedback from our clients about their problems in the way they run their projects. That helped us to gain an understanding of the challenges that companies face and enabled us to come up with a solution that will help companies have control over their project management process. We want to share our knowledge and expertise in the project management field with you to help you improve your life.
We’ll be covering a lot of ground during the program, guiding you through some very important concepts. But one of the best things about Elementool’s Project Management Formula program is that you will start noticing results right away. As you begin adopting the practices we show you, you’ll immediately see improvements in your work and life.
So, what are you getting from us?
We are offering a 6-week program. Each week you will get a set of short video clips about a specific topic. All it requires is 30 minutes a week of your time to watch these videos. The six major sections that we will be covering in this program are Requirements, Estimating, Scheduling and Planning, Time Management, The Learning Process, and The Project Management Formula.
The first section, Requirements Management, breaks down the requirements phase for you. This is a crucial part of project management that gets ignored far too often, so we are going to start you off on the right foot by explaining the whys and hows of good requirements management.
That will be followed by The Learning Process, which we think you will find truly eye-opening. In that module, we reveal some little-known truths about how our minds take in information and process change. Some people think that, to do their job well, they only have to know the technical aspects of how to perform their tasks. But we believe that to get to the next level professionally – to find greater success – you need to be able to think beyond the obvious. It’s important to understand how the mind works so that you can create positive changes with your team members and within yourself.
The third section, Estimating, is where you learn how to create and provide the best possible estimates for your clients and for your team. We will show you different methods for doing this that you will want to put into action right away. Best of all, they are easy to understand and easy to implement.
Our fourth section, which focuses on Time Management, offers a wealth of information and tips on how you can ensure that your valuable time is used to its best advantage. In that section, we have a terrific game that’s really going to open your eyes about some unexpected realities of managing time.
After you play that game, I promise you’ll never look at multi-tasking the same way again.
In the fifth section, Scheduling and Planning, you’re going to find out practical, easily applicable ways to schedule your projects and keep them on track as you go along. You will also discover in this section that good project management involves managing expectations.
Finally, in the last section, we’re going to show you the Project Management Formula. This is an easy 5 step system for running projects that we’re really excited about, and that you will be able to start using straight away.
Step 1 – Define project objectives and collect requirements
Step 2 – Define the priority of the requirements and features
Step 3 – Planning iterations
Step 4 – Running iterations
Step 5 – Present the product to the client
It’s an awesome program, isn’t it? If you can get your current process to be 5% more effective, how much would it be worth to you? How about 10%, 20%, or 35% more effective?
Take a piece of paper and write down a number.
If you are guaranteed to be able to become 30% more efficient and be able complete projects on time, what would that be worth to you?
Write down a number.
Now think about it this way:
On average, a person in the industry receives an annual salary of $100,000. Now let’s say that you can become 30% more efficient as a result of using this program. This is an annual cost saving of $30,000 each year!
Don’t worry, we are not going to charge you $30,000 per person for this program. We won’t charge you $3,000 and not even $300.
The cost of this program is only $197 per person. Yes, that’s right. Only $197.
We give you this discount because we believe that the program will make a big positive change for you and we would like you to buy it without being worried about budget issues.
Let’s say you’ll use only one little tip you learned in our Project Management Formula program that will make you 1% more efficient. This is a cost savings of $1000 on the first year alone. This little change already covers the cost of the program 5 times.
And it gets even better. At the end of the program we’ll collect video testimonials from clients who bought it. If you send us a video testimonial of how you used the Project Management Formula program and how it helped you to improve the way you run projects, and we decide to use your testimonial in our marketing, we will give you your money back.
Yes, that’s right, you will get Elementool’s Project Management Program for free!
At this time we are offering the Project Management Formula program only to Elementool’s clients. This means that you need to have an active paying Elementool account to be able to buy the program. We want to show our appreciation to our loyal clients by giving them access to the Formula before everyone else does, to give them a competitive advantage.
This is a time sensitive offer only to our clients and will end soon. Then the price will go up significantly and the Formula will be offered to the public. So I suggest that you hurry to sign up today by clicking on the Sign Up button below.
Not only that, we are offering you a Full-satisfaction guarantee. If you are not fully satisfied with this program within the first 4 weeks, you can contact us and get your money back. No questions asked.
So, click on the Sign Up button below now.
There is nothing for you to lose! Buy the program. If it doesn’t work for you, just cancel it and we will give you your money back.
There is one thing we need to clarify: Nothing in these videos should be taken as a promise for potential income. We can guarantee that you’ll be happy with the product and if you are not, you can cancel it and get your money back within 28 days of purchase.
We cannot guarantee that you’ll have any kind of results like other people had. Your results are unique to you. This program is designed for educational purposes only.
Mark Twain said: “Twenty years from now you’ll be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do, than by the one you did do. Throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Explore. Discover.”
Here you can explore and discover with safety. You have my guarantee.
So just click on the Sign Up button below now and start the first step to a better life.

How to Eliminate Stress



Hi, it’s Alison again. People often ask me if I know a good way to eliminate stress in life. Think about how much more fun you would have if you could relieve the stress that you have in your everyday life. You’d be less worried and you’d be much happier and healthier. Well, I do know of a way to eliminate stress, and I’m going to share it with you. It’s actually very simple. Before I share this awesome stress elimination technique with you, I’d like to talk about a related subject. If you want to succeed in something that you do, you need to have two things. The knowledge of how to achieve your goal and the tools that enable you to achieve it.

You need to have both and you can’t achieve your goals with only one of these factors. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you want to drive somewhere. You need to have two things, the knowledge of how to drive or driver’s license and a tool for driving, which is a car. You can’t drive somewhere if you only have one of them. You can’t drive somewhere if you only know how to drive a car, but you don’t have a car, and you can’t drive somewhere if you have a car, but you don’t know how to drive. You’ll be able to move the car but you’ll probably hit something quickly and have an accident.

It’s so obvious that we hardly ever stop to think about it. Same goes with Project Management. You need to have the knowledge of how to run projects, and you need the set of tools that will enable you to actually run the projects. That will take me to the stress elimination technique in a minute. If you have the tools to run projects, but you don’t have the knowledge of how to do it, you’ll start having accidents pretty quickly in the form of project delays, scope, creep, et cetera. This is why we, at Elementool offer you both the knowledge and the tools.
The knowledge comes in the form of our Project Management Formula Program, which is a five-step system for running projects successfully from beginning to end. The tools are the Elementool Project Management Software. Together, they give you a complete solution that will allow you to achieve your goals. Now, back to the stress elimination technique.

First, I’m going to give you the knowledge of how stress is created and how you can prevent it. After that, I’m going to give you the tools that will enable you to eliminate and prevent it. I’m going to start with a short clip from our Project Management Formula Program that explains how stress is created and how you can eliminate it. Here it is.
Most people these days will tell you that they have too much to do, and not enough time to get it done. We’ve enhanced our quality of life in so many ways, yet ironically, we nearly kill ourselves with stress by taking on more work than we have the resources to deal with.

That’s why time management is so important because it’s really kind of stress management. Have you ever wondered why you can’t seem to shut down your brain at night when you’re trying to fall asleep? Why are there so many thoughts running through your mind all the time? That’s stress. Now, let me explain how stress is created. It’s not just the big problems that create stress, all of the little unresolved tasks that we have to deal with sit at the back of our heads, subconsciously creating tension. As soon as you attach a should, or a need to, to a task, it becomes incomplete. Decisions that you still need to make about whether or not you’re going to do something are already incomplete.

If you put your mind’s attention on something that needs to be done, and then don’t complete it because it’s low on the priority list, your mind will have already created an open process that keeps running in the back of your mind. It’s going to keep bothering you till you complete that task. Worst of all, it takes up your energy and prevents you from having a clear focus on the more important tasks.

It’s kind of like your Windows Task Manager. When you open Task Manager, you see that there are a lot of processes running in the background. Processes that you didn’t even know existed. Many of them don’t do anything for days but there they are, consuming your computer memory and causing it to run slowly. If you shut down the processes that you don’t use, then it frees up the memory of your computer, and it will run faster.

All these open-end processes create stress. How do we handle all these processes and how do we minimize stress? The key is to clear the open process from our mind by having something else managing them.

Usually, the reason something is on your mind is because you want the situation to be different than what it currently is. The problem is, you haven’t yet worked out exactly what the intended outcome is. You haven’t decided what the next physical step is, and you haven’t put reminders of the outcome and the action required into a system you trust.

Until you do all that, your brain will refuse to put the matter to rest. You can try to fool the people around you by acting like everything’s okay but you can’t fool your own mind. Only it knows whether or not you’ve come to the conclusions you need. Until you clarify your thoughts, make the decisions, and store the data in a system you can trust, your brain will keep nagging you about the next step and adding to your stress.

To manage the actionable items, you’re going to need a storage place to put the tasks, a calendar, a list of reminders of next actions, and a list of reminders of things that you’re waiting for. You will also need a list of projects. Projects or things that need to be completed by following a set of tasks. Hiring a new employee, decorating a room, and building a new version of software or all types of projects.

In order to manage this inventory of open processes, you have to capture it in containers that will hold them until you have time to decide what they are and what you’re going to do about them. Then you need to empty these containers regularly to ensure that they remain good tools for collecting.

The fact that you haven’t put an item in your basket doesn’t mean you don’t have it. You need to be sure that everything you need is collected somewhere other than your head.

Now, there are many kinds of collection tools and they can be physical or digital. For example, a basket, writing paper, a Word document, an email, or Issue Tracking software, are all different types of collection tools. It’s important that the tools have a good reminder system that you can trust. Once you set up a reminder, you move the responsibility of this task to the reminder system. This enables you to close the process in your mind and reduce the stress.

Okay. Now that we have the knowledge about stress causes and how to prevent it, let me introduce the tools that will help you to eliminate it. Let’s say you have a task that you need to complete and you want to take it off your mind and put it in a system so you won’t stress about it. First, you log into your Elementool Issue Tracking account. Then, you create a new issue and type in the description of the task and how it should be solved. When you’re done with this step, create a reminder that will remind you to complete the task. Elementool will manage the remembering part for you. When the due date comes, if the task is not completed by then, Elementool will send you a reminder regarding this task.

This way, your mind will remain stress-free. Cool and simple, isn’t it? This is a small example of what we offer you and how much it can improve your life. The Project Management Formula offers a six-week program. Each week, you’ll get a set of short video clips about a specific topic. All it requires is 30 minutes a week of your time to watch these videos. The six major sections that we cover in this program are Requirements, which explains how to collect and write requirements and define project objectives. The Learning Process, this section describes how we learn and create habits. It will show you a simple system that will improve your learning speed and help you to create positive habits.

Estimating, this is where you learn how to create and provide the best possible estimates for your clients and for your team. Time Management, here you’ll find a wealth of information and tips on how you can ensure that your valuable time is used to its best advantage so you can achieve more in less time. Scheduling and Planning, you’re going to find out practical, easy ways to schedule your projects and keep them on track as you go along. The Project Management Formula, this is an easy five-step system for running projects from start to end that you’ll be able to start using straight away.

On the tool side, we offer you the Elementool’s Project Management System, which includes Issue Tracking for managing your project tasks and the team’s daily workflow. Help Desk, for running customer support and making your clients happy. File Sharing, for sharing files online and saving time. Test Cases, for making sure everything is tested and no bugs are slipping through the cracks. Requirements Management for making sure the project is developed according to what your clients want. Scheduling, for managing the project plan and schedule, and making sure tasks are completed on time. Conference, for running online meetings and approving communication. Amazing, isn’t it?

I think this entire deal is a game-changer. This is what I would like to offer you. You’ll sign up for Elementool’s Project Management System, which includes the seven tools that I mentioned just now for one year with unlimited users for only $2,519. As a bonus of signing up, I’m going to give you free access to the Project Management Formula Training Program for 50 people on your team. Usually, the price of the Project Management Formula is $497 per person, times 50, this is a bonus of $24,850. I want to give you this bonus because I want you to be successful.

We at Elementool love our clients, and we want to help you and share our knowledge with you. Now, I bet you said to yourself, “This is too good to be true. There must be a catch.” Well, you’re right, there is a catch. This offer is only valid for 24 hours. It’ll expire soon, so you better act fast. Click on the Sign-up button below now.

Product Requirements

Every project begins with requirements.

Although this step is very important, it is often neglected by companies because people see it as a “waste of time.” Both the developers and clients want to get right to writing the software code because then they feel that the project is progressing, but the result of poor requirements is having to make changes to the system later in the project and sometimes even starting the project all over. And this is a waste or precious time, money and resources.

Not defining the project’s requirements and business objectives is considered to be the number one reasons why projects fail.

Clearly, we must learn the requirements before starting the project. In other words, what does the client/customer require? That is the original question upon which the rest of the project hinges. If you don’t know what the customer really wants, then you’ll be managing the wrong project or, just as bad, managing the right project in the wrong manner.

        Many companies trust the client to know what he wants. Unfortunately, clients generally only know what they “think” they want and rarely work through to the end result. One of the most important aspects of project management is getting to the requirements first so that the rest of the project goes smoothly.

       Careful planning, questioning and soliciting are critical to the requirements process, and that is the groundwork we’ll be laying in this first, critical section.

Projects aren’t just comprised of a beginning, a middle and an end but dozens, even hundreds, of working parts. The more “parts” you’re forced to work with, the more challenging the project can be. But if you can nail the requirements before even getting started on the project itself, the challenges you’ll face later will be both less problematic and less frequent.

Project Management is Learned, Not Given

Nobody is just automatically born a great project manager, nor does becoming one happen overnight. Instead, like anything else of value in work or in life, being a great project manager is a skill – or, to be precise, a series of skills – that you have to master over time before those skills become habitual. But many people never quite acquire these skills, because after all change takes time and very few of us have time to spare these days. I understand all this, which is why I’ve done the work for you by assembling the six basic strategies and five simple steps you’ll need to, as the subtitle of this book suggests, “complete projects on time.”

The knowledge is out there; it’s simply a matter of distilling it all down and putting it to use. The challenge isn’t just how, but when? Case in point: there are many books about project management, but who has time to read 400-page books when there is barely any time to finish the things you need to do right now, today?

And even when the project manager is knowledgeable about how to manage projects, usually the team of developers, testers, managers and clients have no knowledge in project management methodologies and that creates miscommunication between the different project stakeholders, leading to frustration and project failure.

Let me give you an example: Tracking the time that team members spend on tasks is very important. It enables the project managers and the team to see how the project is progressing, if there are any delays that need to be addressed, or any changes that need to be made in order to keep the project on track.

The project manager knows that, but the team, who might be a group of excellent programmers who have no knowledge in project management and are not aware of the importance of time tracking, might feel like “big brother” is watching them when team members are asked to report the time they work on assignments.

As a result of not knowing the true reason behind this request, they often object and even refuse to report their time. While it’s human nature to see requests like this as “interference,” this type of basic miscommunication between the project manager and the team leads to arguments, frustration and project delays. In short, project mismanagement.

This is why it is so important for everyone on the team, including developers, testers, managers, and even clients themselves, to be familiar with all the stages that are involved in the project development cycle. And who’s responsible for making them familiar with those stages? That’s right, you; the project manager.

How to Create Agile Project Schedule

In this clip I’m going to show you how to create an agile project schedule.
As you know, in agile development we take the project and divide it into mini projects called Sprints.




There are many advantages to using the agile method of sprints. A few major ones are:

• Agile development gives you better control over the project – when you run a project, there can be many factors that you need to control. Such as resources, tasks, clients, etc. The more variables there are, the greater the changes are that something will go wrong. Dividing the projects into sprints, gives you better control over the project process since the sprints are shorter and require you to worry about a limited number of factors.
• It makes it easy to keep the project on schedule – if your project is a few months, or a year long, it makes it harder to estimate the project’s schedule. Who can predict what might happen 6 months from now? When you divide the project into short sprints, you only need to schedule one or two sprints at a time. This means that the estimation period is much shorter and more accurate.
• Agile development also helps keeping your clients happy – this is something many people are unaware of. While you work on the project, your clients wait to see results. If the project is long and the clients don’t see results for a period of several months, they start to worry whether things go according to plan. They also sometimes forget why they ordered the project in the first place and might change their mind about it.
When you develop the project in sprints. Each sprint is a mini project. At the end of the sprint, you release it to the clients. This shows them that the project moves forward and keeps them in the loop. They are likely to get less nervous about the schedule and be more committed to it.

OK, now let me show you how you build an agile project schedule.

The first step is to divide the project into workable tasks and submit them to your Issue Tracking account as separate issues.

Then go to Scheduling and click on Edit Schedule to build the project schedule.
The first step is defining a project.
• Click on the Add button and choose the Project option.
• Type the project name.
• The project’s description and start and end date are optional. The system will automatically update the start and end date based on the schedule.
• Click Save.

Now that we have a project, the next step is to define the sprints.
The sprint length is determined based on the project’s length. For example, if the project is 12 months long, the sprints should be between 1-3 months each. On the other hand, the sprints should not be too short. They should be long enough to be considered as a small project.

Click on the + button next to the project’s name.
Choose the option Sprint.
Type the Sprint’s name.
The third step is to add the tasks that should be completed as part of the sprint.
These are the actual work that will be done as part of the sprint.
Click on the + button next to the sprint name and choose the option Issue to add an issue from the Issue Tracking account.
Select the account name and type the issue number. When done click on Save.

Repeat this until all the issues are added to the project.
The final step of building the agile project schedule is to define the estimated time for each issue in the sprint.
Use the Start and End date fields to define the schedule.

As you can see, the schedule of the first sprint is set.
You can repeat these steps to add additional projects and sprints to your project plan.

That’s all for now.

If you already have an Issue Tracking account, you can add Scheduling to your account for only $29.99/month by going to “Control Panel”, clicking on “Edit Accounts”, then clicking on “Manage Account List”, changing the Scheduling package to Premium and clicking on the Update button.

If you still don’t have an Elementool account, click on the ‘Sign Up Now’ button below to open a free trial account.

Do You Have an ETA?

Visibility is one of the main reasons why projects fail. It means that the project manager doesn’t have a full picture of the project’s progress at any given moment.

 

 

 

When you have full visibility, you’re able to stop bottle necks in your project’s progress. This allows you to make changes to the project plan and find ways to solve these bottle necks before it is too late.

I would like to introduce a new feature, The ‘Task Completion Date’ that will allow you to know at any given moment what the status of your project is, and when tasks are going to be completed, by integrating Elementool’s Issue Tracking and Scheduling.

As you remember from our previous clips, you can use Elementool’s Scheduling to define the project’s schedule and the start and end date of each issue that is assigned to the team members.

You can watch the clips called ‘How to Create Project Schedule’ on our blog for more details on how to build the project schedule.

The team members can submit the time that they spend on the tasks in Elementool’s scheduling and this enables you to see the development progress of each task.

I explained how to do that in a recent clip called ‘Track Time Spent on Tasks’.

Now I’m getting to the new feature that we just added:

When a user works on an issue, they can define the estimated completion date on the issue itself, by submitting the completion date in the Priority List section.
The Completion Date is also being displayed on the Scheduling Gantt chart.
When you look at the chart, you can see the issues that are part of the project, their start and end date, and the dark blue bar shows you the actual development progress of each issue. The border of the progress bar represents the estimated completion date of each issue.

By looking at Gantt chart, you can tell within seconds the development progress and the estimated completion date of each issue.
That gives you full visibility of your project development progress and allows you to know if things start to get off track, and make changes to the project to keep it on schedule.

Isn’t that cool?

If you already have an Issue Tracking account, you can add Scheduling to your account for only $29.99/month by going to “Control Panel”, clicking on “Edit Accounts”, then clicking on “Manage Account List”, changing the Scheduling package to Premium and clicking on the Update button.
If you still don’t have an Elementool account, click on the ‘Sign Up Now’ button below to open a free trial account.

 

 

Track Time Spent on Tasks

In this clip I’ll show you how you can use Elementool to track the time that team members spend on issues.
Tracking time enables you to view the progress of the project and make changes to the project plan if needed.
It is also useful for billing in case clients pay you by the hours you spent developing their projects.

To start using this feature, you should have the Issue Tracking and Scheduling services, because time tracking is done using the integration between Issue Tracking and Scheduling.

The first step is to submit the issues to the Issue Tracking account and assigned them to your team members.
I’m guessing you already know how to do that. If not, please see the Issue Tracking User Manual clip for instructions.

The next step is to assign the issues to a project or projects in the Scheduling service.
To do that, please follow these steps:
• Switch to Scheduling.
• Click on Edit Schedule
• Click on the Add button to add a project. You can assign issues to one or more projects.
• Now that the project is defined, click on the Add button to add the issues to the project.

After the issues have been added to the project, the team members can use the Scheduling section on the Issue form to submit the time that they spend on the issues.

To submit the time spent on an issue, please follow these steps:
• Open the issue
• Scroll down to the Scheduling section
• Submit the date and time that you spent working on the issue.
• Click on the Update

If we go back to Scheduling and look at the Gantt chart, we can see the project plan displayed in light blue and the actual time that the team spent on the issues in dark blue. This gives us a quick view of the project progress.

If you still don’t have an Elementool account, click on the ‘Sign Up Now’ button below to open a free trial account.

How to Submit Issues Faster

Hi, I’m Allison, and I’d like to tell you about new options that we added to the Field Dependency feature. This is a very helpful feature that allows you to quickly locate and select relevant information when filling out a form.

The Field Dependency feature enables the creation of relationships between fields in such a way that a dependant field’s value list is determined based on a value selected in the source list.

For instance, let’s say that you have two fields on a form: State and City. The State field lists all 50 states in the U.S., and the City field lists the 10 largest cities in each of those states. Currently, without using Field Dependency, the State field list shows all 50 states and the City field displays a long list of 500 cities in those states. So if a user wants to choose their city from that list, they need to scan through all 500 to find the one they want.

However, by using the Field Dependency feature, the process becomes much easier. It allows the person to first select their state in the State field. At that point, the Dependency rule automatically filters the city list so that the City field only displays the 10 cities from the selected state. This means that the user can simply select the appropriate city from the list of 10 rather than poring through a long list of 500.

To access the Field Dependency feature, you should go to Control Panel, click on Edit Issue Form and then click on ‘Edit Dependencies’.

Click on Add New Rule to add a new rule.

In Step 1, select the source field that triggers the Dependency rule.
In our example it was the State field.

In Step 2, select the target field that is being changed based on the rule.
In our example it was the City field.

In Step 3, define the rules.
For example:
Select State = New York.
Select cities in New York State.

Click on the Add button to save the rule.

You can repeat these steps to create additional rules for these fields.
When you’re done, click on the Save button to save the rule.

We added two new options to the Field Dependency feature:
• The ability to make a field required based on the value of a certain field.
• The ability to hide fields based on the value of a certain field.

Let me explain how these new options work:

The first option enables you to make fields required based on a value of another field.
For example:
I would like to make the City field required when selecting a State value to make sure that when a person fills out the form and selects a State, they also select the city.

To define the city as a required field, move it to the Required Fields list on the Dependency setup form.

The second option is to hide fields based on a Dependency rule.

For example:

I have a field on the form called Country with a list of country names.
When a person selects a State, they should not select Country. To prevent the person from selecting the Country, I hide the Country field when a state is selected.

To define this rule drag the Country field to the Hidden Fields list.

As you can see, the Field Dependency feature makes filling out and submitting forms much easier and far less time-consuming.

How to Learn and Acquire New Habits

We at Elementool have been happy to share our secrets about how to practice good project management. But we also recognize that there is more to your job than just the technical process of managing projects.



Right. That’s why we’d like to take a moment to talk about the process of learning and the process of change. These are big ideas that affect the way you perform as a project manager, so they’re really worth exploring on their own.

When you’re managing a project, you are always adapting to new changes as they come along. On a larger scale, you also frequently have to make changes in the way that you and your team function on a regular basis – and you may find that some people on your team resist those changes, no matter how logically you explain the benefits of that change.
Even if you force them to implement changes, if they don’t truly accept the importance of the change, it’s likely that they’ll resist and eventually go back to their old habits. Making lasting changes can take a lot of time and persistence, and it requires genuine commitment on the part of your team.
This program itself is going to bring changes to your work and your life as you implement the ideas we’ve been talking about. You’re learning new techniques and methods that will create changes in the way you run your projects.

But change can be difficult, and we know that the idea of making so many changes may seem overwhelming. It might even be tempting to think, ‘Well, my current system works fairly well, so I don’t really have to make changes.’ Or maybe you’re thinking, ‘I’d like to make changes, but I’m just too busy working on all these projects to actually do it.’
But don’t let yourself get bogged down in that kind of thinking. Learning new things and making changes can be a positive force in your life.
Part of the trick is just understanding how we learn and change. It’s helpful to know how our minds take on these vital processes.

Take the learning curve. When we imagine a learning curve, we usually think of an image that shows a slow beginning as we attempt to learn, followed by a steep acceleration in success, then finally a plateau at the performance level that we are trying to reach. This leads us to expect rapid changes. This happens often, where people start learning something new, assuming the learning process will move fast, as the curve suggests. But then, when things don’t progress at the rate they expected, they feel a little stuck. As a result, they get discouraged and give up.

That’s why you need to understand that the actual learning curve looks a bit different. Imagine looking at the traditional learning curve through a magnifying glass. What you’ll see is a much more staggered and complex process. You make some improvement as you learn the new skill, followed by a slight decline, leading to a plateau that is higher than the point where you started. The skill improvement, decline, and plateau might vary from one step to the next, but this process will continue gradually upward until you have finally mastered the new skill.
So what is the reason for this process? Well, when we have a skill, we perform it using the habitual part of our brain. That skill becomes a habit, and the subconscious brain is in charge of executing the task. This means that we are able to perform the task without even thinking about it. An example of this that almost everyone can relate to is driving a car. Once you have learned to drive and become experienced, you don’t even think about it anymore. The action is performed almost subconsciously, allowing you to do other things while you drive, like talking to the other passengers in the car, singing along to the radio, or thinking about the day ahead.

When we learn a new skill, we take in new information that allows us to do things that we couldn’t do previously. This is represented by the increase in the learning curve. But, in the beginning, we absolutely must be focused on the task. As we’re learning the new skill, we need to use our conscious cognitive brain – that’s the part that does the thinking. We have to be aware of everything going on around us, and we have to think before taking any kind of action, no matter how small.

If you think back to when you first learned to drive, you’ll probably remember how focused you were on every little aspect of the process. You may have even been a little scared, worrying about getting the sequence just right. Pressing the gas pedal, keeping the steering wheel straight, watching the road signs as you drove along, and making sure to hit the brakes in time. The last thing you wanted to do was turn on the radio or have a conversation with the person next to you because your cognitive brain was too busy focusing on the act of driving.

Even after you’ve become comfortable driving, you’ve probably had the experience of driving in an unfamiliar area. Suddenly you find that you have to shut off distractions like the radio so that you can put your conscious mind on the task of concentrating on turning lanes and street signs as you try to orient yourself in the new environment.

That’s how the learning process works. New information improves our situation by helping us to accomplish things that we couldn’t have done before. This is the rise in the learning curve. But the learning process also requires us to think about and practice the new skill, causing a slight decline in our learning curve. Then, after we have spent some time practicing, the new skill becomes a habit in our subconscious mind and we can do it without thinking. At that point we reach a plateau, which is higher than the place we were before we began the learning process.

This process of learning a new skill might sound difficult, but studies have found that, on average, it only takes 30 days to acquire a new habit. NASA discovered a good example of this many years ago when it used an experimental training program to help astronauts deal with the disorienting effects of space travel. The astronauts in the experiment wore glasses that turned everything upside down, and they wore those glasses day and night for 30 days straight. Then, a totally unexpected phenomenon occurred. After Day 30, the brain re-programmed itself and flipped everything right side up again! They did the experiment again with a few changes, asking some astronauts to take the glasses off on Day 14 and put them back on again on Day 15. But those who had removed the classes had to start over again. Their brains only flipped the image after 30 consecutive days.

That just goes to show that 30 is the magic number when it comes to learning a new habit. The habit comes through practice and repetition, so you must repeat the new behavior each day for 30 days for it to get locked into your brain. After 30 days of regular practice, you’ll find that the new skill has become a part of you.
This applies to the skills and practices that you’re learning from Elementool. Focus on one thing that you’ve learned in this program and do it every day for 30 days. Once you’re sure that it’s become a habit, take another lesson and practice it for 30 days. Repeat the process with each new lesson that you learn. The truth is, you can’t learn everything in one day. Concentrate instead on moving one step at a time and engaging in a lot of repetition. Make it your goal to turn new skills into good habits.

For example, you’re going to learn several different topics in this program: requirements management, estimating, scheduling, and so on. Don’t try to implement everything at once. Pick a subject, like an estimating technique, and use this technique for 30 days for every task that your team runs. Once you feel that you got it, and you start seeing good results out of this change, pick another topic, like a scheduling technique, and use it for 30 days. Then move on to the next subject.

We’re not saying it’s always easy. Look, we’ve all made that New Year’s resolution that we were so excited about, so determined to keep, only to backslide weeks – maybe even days – later. It’s human nature. We’re biologically programmed to resist change. It’s called homeostasis, and it’s actually a pretty good mechanism for protecting us and helping to keep our lives stable. But sometimes it also works against us when we’re trying to make a positive change. That’s why people have such a hard time getting rid of bad habits.
The question is, then: How do we overcome homeostasis when we want to make a good change? First, you need to understand how it works. Expect resistance to change from yourself and from the people around you. Second, be willing to negotiate the resistance to change. When you feel that resistance, don’t fight it, but don’t back off. Instead, accept and negotiate. Be prepared to take one step back for every two steps forward.

Third, find people who will help you get through the process. Find people on your team that will join you for the ride, so that you can support each other, share your experiences, and get advice. The fourth step is to create the change process through routine activities. By integrating these activities into your daily work, it will become much easier for you to practice the new skills that you’re learning.

There are three main factors that might speed up or slow down this change process: The change agent, the culture, and the people. The change agent can simply be described as the person who starts the change process – this can be anyone, and a lack of power on their part is no excuse for not taking the initiative.
The culture refers to the environment that the change is taking place in, and it can have a major impact on the speed of the innovation-decision process. If the culture is supportive of new ideas and change, and everyone is prepared to help with the change effort, then the process will be much faster and easier. Ideally, the culture will also allow for time to learn and adjust to change, understanding that failures often happen on the way to success. And the culture must let people know that it is okay to fail. Unfortunately there is often limited time available to spend learning new processes that would actually increase efficiency – but the fact is that change can’t happen without patience and an investment of time.
The people involved in the change process are also a significant factor in its success, and every person reacts differently to change. Some will accept it right away, but most are slow to change. They often cause problems in this process because people tend to make decisions based on emotions, then justify them with facts. It’s not that people resist the change itself so much; it’s that they resist being changed. Most people handle change much better if they are actually involved in the process and feel some sense of control over it.

Given these factors, you should always introduce new ideas gradually, accepting that it’s a learn-as-you-go process. We suggest that you start slow, be patient, and allow plenty of time for changes to take place. Don’t just throw out the way you currently do everything and replace it with a whole new process. A better strategy is to implement gradual, experimental changes to see if the new ideas are actually able to improve the current process.

And be sure to celebrate the small successes along the way. It’s a good way of encouraging the team to continue with the change process.
Whatever you do, don’t try to do everything yourself, even though it may be very tempting to you go-getter types. And you know who you are. (looks at Allison)
Guilty as charged.

Instead, you should bring on as many people as possible to help out. This ensures that everyone feels a sense of ownership over the change process. When people know that their contribution is an important part of the effort, they start to feel like this thing is theirs, and they want to keep it going strong.
Through every step of the change process, you will be interacting with people, so that means you need to communicate. Everyone will want to know what’s in it for them. Help them understand how the change will be useful in solving their particular problems.

Now that you’ve learned a bit more about the process of learning, we hope you’re ready to take on a lot of exciting new changes.
Just remember: Be patient, be persistent, and you’ll be fine.

Goodbye until next time!

Issue Tracking with Unlimited Fields

In this clip I’m going to introduce you to Elementool full issue form customization.
Everyone who develops projects has specific needs and processes for running the software development. That’s why it is important to choose an Issue Tracking that gives you the flexibility and customization to allow you to fit it to your unique needs.

Elementool’s Issue Tracking offers you full customization of the issue form.
This includes defining the positions of the fields on the issue form and using different field types, as well as the option to add unlimited fields to the system.

Now let’s go into a bit more detail about each option:

First, you should login to the account as an administrator.
Click on Control Panel.
Click on Edit Issue Form.
Click on Edit Fields.

The Issue form is divided into field containers.
Each field container can contain fields.
As you can see, there are different types of field containers.
Some enable you to display large and wide text fields.
Some enable you to display short fields.
You can change the position of the fields by dragging and dropping them around the form in the different containers.

Elementool Issue Tracking offers a selection of 15 different field types.
For example: Text field, dropdown, date, URL, etc.
The tool box on the left top corner of the Edit Issue Form page displays the different field types that you can choose from.

To add a field to the issue form, simply click on it on the toolbox, hold down the mouse button, and drag it to the form to the position where you would like it to be displayed.

Very simple, right?

As I mentioned before, Elementool Issue Tracking allows you to use an unlimited number of fields on the form. This means that you can add as many fields as you wish.
Isn’t that awesome?

That’s it for now, but
I’ll be back soon with more great tips.