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	<title>PMServicesNW &#187; Tools</title>
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	<link>http://www.pmservicesnw.com</link>
	<description>Free project management information and downloads</description>
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		<title>Gap Analysis</title>
		<link>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/12/gap-analysis/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/12/gap-analysis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Dec 2010 03:22:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gap analysis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[project management tools]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pmservicesnw.com/?p=352</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By: Ray Myers, Jr., PMP Gap analysis is a simple but useful tool that can help project managers achieve their objectives and improve performance.  It is a study that helps to find ways to bridge-the-gap between the current state and a desired future state. Gap analysis can also help to understand and prioritize business needs by helping to identify any deficiencies or shortcomings that need to be overcome. The basic principle for performing a gap analysis is simple.  Define where you are today.  Then describe where you want to be.  The difference between the two is the gap.  Here’s the process: Describe the current state by asking where are you now?  Use checklists to help identify, categorize, and prioritize important points and concepts.  Describe the desired future state by asking where do you want to be?  Use the same checklists that were used to guide the current state assessment. Compare and analyze the gap or the difference between the two states. Look for ways to close the gap.  Use tools like Brainstorming to identify specific strategies to bridge the gap. About the Author: Ray Myers, Jr. is a PMP certified project manager with over 2o years experience planning and managing [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Common Project Documents</title>
		<link>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/12/common-project-documents/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/12/common-project-documents/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 Dec 2010 03:45:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Project Management]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[common project documents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[project documents]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pmservicesnw.com/?p=330</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By: Ray Myers, Jr., PMP Initiation Feasibility Study Business Case Financial Analysis Requirements Document Project Proposal Contract Project Charter End of Phase Checklist  Planning Scope Statement WBS (baseline) Statement of Work Project Management Plan Stakeholder Analysis Risk Management Plan Communications Plan Change Management Plan Issue Management Plan Quality Management Plan Procurement Management Plan Acceptance Plan Schedule Gantt Chart Network Diagram Functional Specification Human Resource Plan Organization Charts Project Budget End of Phase Checklist Monitoring and Controlling Change Control Plan Issue Management Plan Risk Management Plan End of Phase Checklist  Closing Client Acceptance Form Lessons-Learned Report Final Project Documentation End of Phase Checklist Reports Project Status Report Project Issue Report Earned Value Report Performance Reports Stakeholder Notifications Lessons Learned Logs Risk Log Change Request Log Change Log Issue Log Action Log About the Author: Ray Myers, Jr. is a PMP certified project manager with over 2o years experience planning and managing technology projects.   Contact Ray at wwwpmservicesnw.com Article source: www.pmservicesnw.com . &#169;2012 PMServicesNW. All Rights Reserved..]]></description>
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		<title>Project Manager Tools</title>
		<link>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/project-manager-tools/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/project-manager-tools/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:45:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Project Managers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[project manager tools]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pmservicesnw.com/?p=238</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By: Ray Myers, Jr., PMP Project manager tools include, but are not limited to: Scope Project charter Scope statement Statement of work Change management plan WBS Time Gantt charts PERT charts Critical path analysis Cost Cost estimates Earned value management About the Author: Ray Myers, Jr. is a PMP certified project manager with over 2o years experience planning and managing technology projects.   Contact Ray at wwwpmservicesnw.com Article source: www.pmservicesnw.com &#169;2012 PMServicesNW. All Rights Reserved..]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Project EVM Formulas</title>
		<link>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/project-evm-formulas/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/project-evm-formulas/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2010 17:45:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Earned Value]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[earned value management]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[earned value management formulas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EVM]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PMI formulas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PMP formulas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[project management formulas]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pmservicesnw.com/?p=215</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By: Ray Myers, Jr., PMP If you haven’t seen or used EVM formulas, you will at some point in your project management career and you will need to know these formulas to pass the PMP examination.  EVM stands for Earned Value Management.  Earned Value is a simple and easy to use method to quickly determine your project status.  Just a few simple calculations will provide useful information regarding your project schedule and budget. EVM begins with accurate information about your project.  Most organizations have internal accounting systems that can provide daily, weekly, or monthly reports showing the cost of your project to-date.  Next, you’ll need to know the dollar value of the most recently completed project milestone, for example, the completion of the project planning milestone is valued at 20% of the total project.  Finally, you’ll need to know the baseline budget of the entire project, that is, the completed project is valued at say $95,000 dollars.  EVM Variables and Formulas PV = Planned Value.  This is the estimated actual cost of the project PV = Hourly Rate x Total Hours Planned or Scheduled AC = Actual Cost.  This is the cost of the project at a reporting date AC [...]]]></description>
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		<title>SWOT Analysis</title>
		<link>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/swot-analysis/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/swot-analysis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:44:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[project management tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SWOT]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SWOT Analysis]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pmservicesnw.com/?p=478</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By: Ray Myers, Jr., PMP The SWOT analysis is an extremely useful tool for understanding and decision-making for all sorts of situations in business and organizations.  SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. SWOT analysis can be done in either an individual or group setting.  Conducting this analysis as a group activity using Brainstorming has an advantage because of the volume of ideas that can be generated in a short amount of time. Procedure Answer following questions, add questions as necessary.  These questions are examples only and should provide a starting point.  Feel free to add more questions or refocus them to be sure that they adequately describe the situation that is being analyzed. Write the answers into the relevant sections of the SWOT Grid see the sample grid below.  Strengths (Internal) What are your advantages? What do you do well? Weaknesses (Internal) What could be improved? What is done poorly? What should be avoided? Opportunities (External) What are the good opportunities? What are you good at? What are interesting trends? Markets without competition?  Threats (External) What are the obstacles? What is the competition doing? What is your financial condition?   About the Author: Ray Myers, Jr. [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Pareto Analysis</title>
		<link>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/pareto-analysis/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/pareto-analysis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:56:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Quality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[80/20 analysis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[80/20 rule]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[decision tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pareto anlysis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[project management tools]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pmservicesnw.com/?p=150</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By: Ray Myers, Jr., PMP Pareto Analysis is a statistical technique that is used to focus attention to the vital few factors that are responsible for producing most of the problems in a project.  You’ve heard it said that 20% of the causes are responsible for 80% of the effort to resolve the problems.  What if we could identify the 20% of the issues that cause the most problems?  How would that benefit your project?  Well, the Pareto Analysis will help you do just that. The Pareto Analysis is a methodology that enables the project manger to focus and correct those problems that will increase the probability of delivering a successful project.  The project manager should do the Pareto Analysis when problems arise to help focus the project team’s efforts on the key cause(s) of a problem. The Pareto Analysis is best performed after conduction a cause-and-effect analysis to count the frequency of different causal factors and to identify problems.  The result will be identification of the 20% of the factors that when resolved, will generate 80% of the advantage.  The goal is to identify which 20% of the factors will provide the greatest advantage when addressed. How to Conduct [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Decision Tools: PMI</title>
		<link>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/decision-tools-pmi/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/decision-tools-pmi/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 14 Nov 2010 16:09:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[plus minus interesting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PMI. decision tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[project manager decision tools]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pmservicesnw.com/?p=148</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By: Ray Myers, Jr., PMP Here is another decision tool that is easy to understand and apply.  Is called PMI or Plus, Minus, and Interesting.  PMI is commonly used to compare alternatives. PMI P     Plus-positive reasons M    Minus – negative reasons I     Interesting- points of interest The process is quick, easy and may result in surprising results. Procedure List reasons under the appropriate heading Assign a positive or negative score to each reason or point Use a scoring range of -5 to +5 Score Evaluate the results Analysis PMI score = Plus + Minus + Interesting About the Author: Ray Myers, Jr. is a PMP certified project manager with over 2o years experience planning and managing technology projects.   Contact Ray at wwwpmservicesnw.com Article source: www.pmservicesnw.com &#169;2012 PMServicesNW. All Rights Reserved..]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>The Deming Cycle</title>
		<link>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/the-deming-cycle/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/the-deming-cycle/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 13 Nov 2010 15:57:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Quality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deming Cycle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deming process improvement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PDCA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[process improvement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[project management tools]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pmservicesnw.com/?p=141</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By: Ray Myers, Jr., PMP The Deming Cycle is a 4 step process that is typically used in business or project process improvement.  The 4 steps of the Deming Cycle are: Plan, Do, Check, Act or sometimes referred to as PDCA.  PDCA was the brainchild of Dr. Edwards Deming who is considered by many to be the father of modern quality control.  It is typically used as a repeating process to improve project quality. Here a few notes on the Deming process improvement philosophy: Managers are encouraged to stop sacrificing quality for short term gains Managers must manage for the long term Workers can only correct 15% of quality problems The other 85% is the management’s responsibility because they result from the system Productions systems must be stable for quality to be realized Processes can be tested with statistical process control charts Quality cannot be “inspected” into products or services. Quality must be designed into the product, service, or system processes Here is a brief description about how to perform the Deming Methodology: Plan —Set the short-term objective Study the process Determine the time frame Define the opportunity Decide what data will be needed Decide what each member will do [...]]]></description>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>SMART Goals</title>
		<link>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/smart-goals/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/smart-goals/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:54:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[project management tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SMART]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SMART Goals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[strategic planning goals]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pmservicesnw.com/?p=135</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By: Ray Myers, Jr., PMP SMART Goals have become a part of the vocabulary of project planning and performance management.  Everyone will benefit from goals and objectives when they are SMART because the object is to keep the project requirements clear and focused. Goals should be SMART Specific Measurable Achievable (alternatives: Ambitious or Agreed upon) Realistic Time-based   Some organizations use this as an alternative: SMAC Specific Measurable Achievable Consistent About the Author: Ray Myers, Jr. is a PMP certified project manager with over 2o years experience planning and managing technology projects.   Contact Ray at wwwpmservicesnw.com Article source: www.pmservicesnw.com &#169;2012 PMServicesNW. All Rights Reserved..]]></description>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>2 Decision Making Techniques</title>
		<link>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/2-decision-making-techniques/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pmservicesnw.com/2010/11/2-decision-making-techniques/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Nov 2010 15:48:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[decision making techniques]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[how to make a decision]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[project management decisions]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pmservicesnw.com/?p=130</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By: Ray Myers, Jr., PMP Decisions are hard to make and they are even harder to make if you don’t have enough information about the problem or situation. Can’t make up your mind?  Too many options?  Don’t know what to do?  Well, don’t feel bad about it because everyone will have difficulty making a decision at one time or another in their lives. Here are 2 simple decision making techniques that may make it easier for you to make up your mind. 6 Step Classical Model Recognize the need for a decision Diagnose the problem Develop alternatives Select a solution from the list of alternatives Exercise control, follow-up and analyze the results.  Repeat the process if necessary 8 Step Decision Model Recognize the problem Define the solution goal Gather relevant information Identify feasible alternatives Evaluate alternatives Evaluate risks Choose options Follow-up Just a few thoughts and suggestions Decision making without adequate information about the situation or problem is nearly impossible.  Take all the time you need to gather all relevant information about the problem or situation Be sure to thoroughly evaluate all the alternatives Use tool like brainstorming or Fishbone Diagrams to aid understanding of the problem or situation Seek [...]]]></description>
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