In this Edition

Note From the Editor: Coming to a Town Near You
Feature Article: Project Management Software Development: A Fresh Look From a New Perspective
Events:On-Demand Webinar: The Case For Social Project Management
Blog Posts: Is Certification Losing Value?
Do Project Managers Really Make a Difference in Project Success?
Overcoming the Knowledge Worker Assembly Line
Culture Change and Project Management

Note From the Editor

Connecting with customers, understanding their needs, and responding to those needs is important to any business—particularly a business dedicated to helping customers increase efficiency and solve problems. With that in mind, AtTask offers a number of one-on-one opportunities for customers to provide feedback and learn more about the product roadmap and what you might see from us in the future. The annual User Conference is probably the most publicized opportunity (which will be in February next year)—but not the only opportunity. The Idea Share is also a great way to contribute ideas and express your opinion. And, our CEO Scott Johnson is also committed to visiting groups of AtTask customers and friends in cities across the country.

As we prepare to visit a city near you—you’re invited you to help us design our next event and trade your opinion for an AtTask t-shirt. Click here to complete an anonymous survey and tell us what you think an AtTask event should look like.

Feature Article

Project Management Software Development: A Fresh Look From a New Perspective

Human behaviors are complicated to measure. There are so many variables in how we react to different situations that quantifying our behaviors in a way that can be illustrated in a graph or spreadsheet is problematic. The best way to understand how people interact with the project management process is to borrow from the science of anthropology—and observe. Observing how users…

Read the complete article here

Events

On-Demand Webinar: The Case For Social Project Management:
3 Imperatives that Will Drive Greater Project Success

As PPM methodologies spread departmentally throughout the organization, one of the greatest challenges facing business leaders is a lack of voluntary team member participation in the project management process. The traditional top-down work management approach doesn’t work with today’s workforce, resulting in:

1. Project information that executives don’t trust
2. An overly structured work environment that nobody likes
3. Frustrated project teams whose accomplishments often go unrecognized

Access the webinar and listen to guest speakers Tim Harmon of Forrester and Nate Bowler of @task discuss in depth The Case for Social Project Management and how to revolutionize how you manage projects for your company.

Click here to access the webinar

Other Events

Blog Posts

Is Certification Losing Value?

Regardless of the industry, certification doesn’t necessarily indicate proficiency in the discipline, but rather a successful completion of a particular course of study, followed by the completion of a test. I’ve known very successful college graduates that don’t have a “real” understanding of what they’ve learned until they’ve had some experience in the workforce. I wonder if the same could be said for…

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Do Project Managers Really Make a Difference in Project Success?

By the end of WWII, General George S. Patton (Old Blood and Guts) had lead the Third Army to liberate or conquer 81,522 square miles of territory. Patton’s greatest success was his ability to lead men in combat and motivate them to succeed against great odds. Can project managers…

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Overcoming the Knowledge Worker Assembly Line

A large number of highly skilled and talented people, who because of the way they are managed at work, feel like they are trapped on a treadmill for eight hours every day in an unfulfilling job working for people who don’t appreciate their individual skills and need to micro-manage everything they do. In large part, I think this is the result of the tools they use, but there are some organizations that don’t understand that today’s workforce just doesn’t respond to a command-and-control management style…

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Culture Change and Project Management

Benjamin Franklin said, “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Franklin wasn’t talking about project-based work, however the way we think about and manage work is changing. As organizations’ work management processes mature, change happens…

Read the complete blog post here