Estimating Work Efforts

    Estimating work effort and duration of the tasks on a project is challenging because it often requires input from many different team members. I reviewed two resources that assist project managers in building project schedules and developing resource management plans. The first resource I reviewed is Workamajig. Workamajig is a resource that assists project managers in developing schedules and determining the number of resources that are required to accomplish the tasks on project schedules (Cohen, 2020). There are best practices for identifying the inputs into the tool to develop a project schedule and plan. To develop a schedule, project managers must consider the timeline, the task list, and how they will handle changes (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.). A helpful feature is Workamajig’s ability to provide customizable dashboards for tracking the status of projects (Cohen, 2020). Workamajig allows project managers to divide the work among resources so that team member’s time is properly allocated to the work efforts (Cohen, 2020). 

    The second resource I reviewed is Nifty. Nifty (n.d.) is an intuitive and user-friendly project management software application that works on multiple platforms. Nifty (n.d.) is a tool that helps project managers specify deliverables, due dates, and responsible resources on a project schedule. Project managers can use Nifty (n.d.) to track the status of a project and track project variables. An innovative feature that Nifty (n.d.) offers is providing a visual snapshot of the overall project on the project homepage. Effective project management requires the flexibility to change the schedule and adapt the project plan as issues and scope changes arise (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.). Using software tools can ease the difficulty of managing projects.

References

Cohen, E. (2020). A Beginner’s Guide to Resource Planning in Project Management. Retrieved from    https://www.workamajig.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-resource-planning-in-project-management

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (n.d.). Creating a project schedule [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Nifty. (n.d.) Tired of Juggling Multiple Tools to Manage Your Projects? Retrieved from https://niftypm.com/


Comments

  1. Tammie Dixon - Colleague at WaldenNovember 26, 2021 at 6:52 AM

    Mary,

    I enjoyed reading your blog this week. I have never heard of this resource. You pointed out a helpful attribute of Workamajig, is “it’s ability to provide customizable dashboards for tracking the status of projects.” I think I like the feature of capacity planning. Workamajig’s capacity planning is a schema of mapping out what each resource is presently being used for across the entire establishment involved in the project (Cohen, 2021). Moreover, this tool allows for you to basically approximate your capacity use or utilization. Performing this task will aid you in determining what type of resources you require, who you might need to allocate to a specific task, what project roles might be pursued and by whom, etc. (Cohen, 2021). What do you think of this feature?

    References

    Cohen, E. (2021, March 05). A beginner’s guide to resource planning in project management.
    Retrieved from https://www.workamajig.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-resource-
    planning-in-project-management

    ReplyDelete
  2. kaseyash77November 28, 2021 at 2:13 PM

    Mary,
    I enjoyed reading about your resources today. I’ve seen similar software but nothing like Nifty, I hope you had time to read my article I reviewed about “investigation into the problems of estimating activity durations in projects.” It presents an investigation into the challenges of activity duration estimation in projects. It provides an empirical and a theoretical into such problems of estimating activity durations. The individuality of projects and their complexity makes the process of duration estimation particularly challenging but still essential for effective project planning and implementation. The objective of this study was to investigate the actual use of estimation practices and methods, evaluate their usefulness, and identify the hindrances in the process of project time estimation.

    References:
    Wyrozębski, P., & Ścierski, P. (2020). An investigation into the problems of estimating activity durations in projects. Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wrocławiu, 64(2), 181-198.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Erica (Airyn) LongoriaNovember 28, 2021 at 10:53 PM

    Mary,

    Thank you for providing insight into this week’s blog. After reviewing both your resources, Nifty is the ideal program to use when collaborating with team members, tracking milestones, and reviewing tasks for yourself & team members. Nifty also has a feature that integrates documents using Google Docs and Sheets while still being on the Nifty system (Nifty, 2020). How would you propose to the stakeholder to allocate money for organizational software that will help manage the project?

    References
    Nifty. (2020, November 22). Intro to Nifty in 1 minute [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/5GaV5EZX22o

    ReplyDelete
  4. Leah30November 28, 2021 at 11:43 PM

    I enjoyed reading your post this week. I am not familiar with the resource guides you provide for project management planning. You offered excellent guides to assist project managers in building project schedules and developing resources management plans (Bentsen, 2021). With Workamajig, the developer discusses how the guide will provide the planning process, why it's essential, and excel at it. I like the concept of capacity planning as mapping out what each resource is currently doing across the organization (Cohen, 2020). With the spread, it will help the project manager figure out what kind of resources need to be hired and what project to pursue (Cohen, 2020).
    Reference
    Cohen, E. (2020). A Beginner’s Guide to Resource Planning in Project Management. Retrieved from https://www.workamajig.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-resource-planning-in-project-management

    ReplyDelete

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