Project Management Made Easy

Meetings, e-mails and no time to work on my stuff – oh my !

Lions and tigers and bears, in today’s world of managing projects equates to meetings, and e-mails and no time to work on my stuff – oh my!  The #1 challenge of managing multiple projects is keeping track of all the details. If you find yourself juggling different priority lists, sticky notes, reminders on your phone, notes in your bound notebook, and multiple to-do lists – you’re not alone.

How do you gain the courage, the intelligence and the heart to decrease the stress and take control?  Better organization, by taking advantage of technology, is the answer.

The product I’m recommending, based on leading marketing, marketing research and new product development projects for 25+ years, is an Excel based tool from W5Templates. While Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is all the rage, this tool is equally powerful for project and portfolio management.

These templates are easy and simple to use with three major components: a Dashboard page, a Settings page and Individual client/project sheets. 1) The Dashboard page provides a top line summary of the projects and clients being managed; 2) the Settings page enables easy customization of the tool to fit specific business needs and terminology including – priority and status codes, categories of business type, strategic evaluation criteria as well as the length of time for reminders tied to follow up dates; 3) Individual client/project sheets retain contact information (name, address, telephone numbers, e-mail …) and a complete detailed record of historical meeting notes.

Export and import features allow project files to be shared between team members. To learn more about the product, visit www.W5Templates.com where you’ll have the option to download a free trial.

With a structured way of managing projects you’ll be able to more confidentially ask, like the Guardian of the Emerald City Gates, “now state your business”.