Volume 10: Free Resources to Hit the New Year Running
"Celebrate endings—for they precede new beginnings." -Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Free resources for 2023 and beyond
Instead of those best-of lists that litter the web at the end of the year, we thought it’d be more valuable to offer a top-10 list of resources that'll prepare you for 2023. This is the time for New Year's resolutions, but they don’t have to be empty promises. ProjectManager is sharing free content to help you hit the ground running (and, if you use our software, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish).
Manufacturers can learn about efficient processes and productivity by applying project management principles. Our Project Management eBook for Manufacturing can help manufacturing project managers with capacity and demand planning, supply chain management, manufacturing resource planning and much more. Don’t fall behind schedule in the new year, read this enlightening and free eBook.
Construction is like a dozen little projects that build into one large, complex project. That’s true for residential, commercial and industrial projects. Project management methodologies help keep construction projects on track without going over budget. Read our free Construction Management eBook and get best practices for bidding and contracts, schedules and quality control, team and risk management and much more.
There's no more dominant tool in project management than the Gantt chart. It’s the visual scheduling tool that's the backbone of most projects. But often Gantt charts are dismissed as difficult to use, which is certainly true if you’re trying to create and maintain one on an Excel spreadsheet. But project management software long ago changed that and our Gantt chart guide is a great place to learn how this versatile tool can help you manage projects.
Gantt charts are tools for project planning, but before you can use one you have to have a plan. Our free project plan template for Word is a great way to make sure you don’t neglect anything essential. With this free template, you can gather all your project guidelines and procedures to execute the project successfully. You have space to outline your project scope, milestones, phases, tasks and resource requirements. But that’s not all, you can also schedule and show task dependencies, budget and everything you need for the planning phase of your project.
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You’ve got eBooks, guides and templates to help you in the coming year. Now let’s look at some of the project management skills you’ll need. In this blog, we discuss hard and soft skills as well as personality traits that'll carry you through the most challenging situations when managing projects. Learn about methodologies, software, leadership and communication, which are just a few of the many skills that will make you a better project manager.
Are you still using Microsoft Project? MS Project is expensive, cumbersome and doesn’t work with Apple products. But you don’t have to go down with that ship. Read our roundup of the best Microsoft Project alternatives of 2023. If you can’t switch products, though, some of the tools listed will let you import and export MSP files so at least you can edit and share them without hassle.
Documents are the lifeblood of projects, but they might also be the bane of existence for project managers. Regardless, they’re not going away. Projects must be thoroughly documented, which is why we wrote this blog that explains what documentation is and shares examples with free templates of each that can be downloaded and used on your next project. Who says Christmas comes but once a year?
Getting all your ducks in a row is the essential job of a project manager. Those ducks can be unruly, though, and it’s good to have a place to keep them together and organized. That's what our free project timeline template for Excel was made to do. It’s a great tool for project planning if you don’t have project management software, of course. But this template is a good place to start, especially if you’re a beginner.
Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned professional, it’s never a waste of time to brush up on your project management knowledge. The new year is a good time to start or refresh yourself on the knowledge areas, the project life cycle, the triple constraint, project phases, methodologies, certifications and software.
The last gift we’ll give you before the end of the year is a free project budget template for Excel. Projects are just a glimmer in a project manager’s eyes until they’re funded. The project budget is how all the necessary costs are forecasted. Our free template lets you accurately estimate everything from labor costs, consultant fees, raw materials, software licenses and travel. Our template helps you budget correctly so you have the funds to complete your project successfully.
ProjectManager is award-winning software that empowers teams to plan, manage and track projects in real time. Our collaborative platform lets you comment and share files, while managers get visibility through real-time dashboards and reporting features. Use risk, task and resource management tools to stay on track. Join the teams at Avis, Nestle and Siemens who succeed with our software. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.
Realtor Associate @ Next Trend Realty LLC | HAR REALTOR, IRS Tax Preparer
2yWell said.