Great product managers are made, not born. There are plenty of jobs out there where people can get by on talent and charisma alone. But a product management role isn’t one of them. That’s because the skills, experience, and competencies required to manage and make a great product are numerous, diverse, and overlapping. Some might come naturally, but others require hands-on experience and still others, formal training.

If outdated processes are holding you back, business process management (BPM) can help. In this article, learn how to streamline essential business processes so your company can get more done, faster.

Need a great Accelo alternative? Maybe it’s the price, maybe it’s the functionality. But, Accelo isn’t for everyone. In this guide, we’ll highlight eight Accelo alternatives that help you manage your resources, keep track of projects, and streamline processes.

Project portfolio management helps you organize data and highlight crucial information during project life cycles inside each portfolio, which saves time and increases efficiency. In this article, learn how you and top-level executives can get a bird’s-eye view of all your business project life cycles and remove barriers to high-level performance. If you manage various initiatives across different teams and departments, you know how hard capturing and sharing results can be.

A flowchart is the perfect way to visualize a complex process for your team. There are over 30 standardized symbols you can use to create a flowchart. These symbols can indicate anything from a process to a document or decisions that need to be made. In this article, you’ll learn what the different shapes mean, when a flowchart can be useful, and what types of flowcharts you can implement at work. A flowchart is a diagram that illustrates the steps, sequences, and decisions of a process or workflow.

Marketing campaign management is the process of coordinating all the moving pieces of a campaign, from planning to launch. Learn why effective campaign management is essential, and how to streamline your process into seven key steps. Marketing campaigns can be big, unwieldy projects. With many stakeholders, teams, and deliverables to coordinate, launching a successful campaign can feel like a herculean task. But it doesn’t have to be so hard.

Creative production is the process of transforming creative concepts into tangible outputs. Learn how to bring creative visions to life in six steps. Cutting through the market noise with high-quality creative assets is essential to setting your brand apart. Whether it’s captivating video content, compelling graphics, or innovative digital campaigns, every creative asset is a chance to capture your audience’s attention—and keep it.

Burnout happens when the stress or pressure from work reaches a tipping point—it either becomes too much or goes on for too long. While burnout is surprisingly common (71% of knowledge workers experienced burnout at least once in 2020), you’re empowered as a manager to prevent and reverse it within your team. Read on to learn about the signs of burnout, what causes it, and most importantly—how to prevent it. As a team lead, the last thing you want is for a team member to feel burnt out.

Global employee engagement figures reached a record high in 2022, and this upward trend is expected to continue gradually over the next few years. According to Gallup, this result means that “more workers found their work meaningful and felt connected to their team, manager and employer.” That only accounts, however, for 23% of the employees surveyed.

An employment application serves as the first point of contact between a potential employee and an employer. It is a crucial document that provides essential information about a candidate’s qualifications, work experience, and personal details. In this comprehensive guide, we will delve into the significance of an employment application, the fundamental components it should include, and a detailed breakdown of each section.

Consulting has become a huge part of daily operations for businesses and governments worldwide, and for good reason: It’s a great way to seek expert advice and outside perspectives to achieve goals, reduce costs, and improve performance. The numbers back up this rapid growth. According to Global Data, the global consulting industry (valued at a whopping$347 billion in 2022) is expected to hit $449 billion by 2027!

The tech company Amazon, well-known for controlling the e-commerce market, has made headlines lately for its contentious performance ranking system. It has been reported that Amazon is pressuring managers to reduce performance points for workers who don’t follow its Return to Office (RTO) guidelines. This article explores the report’s specifics, the effects of implementing such a policy, and Amazon’s and its workers’ responses.

Regular performance reviews are a staple of any successful company. They identify employees’ needs, help managers provide better support, and indicate what works and doesn’t work within your business. They can also help managers understand performance gaps, uncover roadblocks, streamline processes, identify training needs, and even get a picture of what new hires they need to make. In short, performance reviews are critical to give leaders visibility of where their operations are at.

Pricing is a constant balancing act in the world of consulting. Charge too much, and you risk losing potential clients, charge too little, and devalue your expertise and skills. Unfortunately, for most consultants, hourly rates are the norm. You know — set an hourly rate, multiply that by the number of hours worked, and there’s your consulting fee. So, what’s the solution? Project-based consulting fees.

Managing time effectively is critical to success in today’s fast-paced business world. While DeskTime has been a popular choice for monitoring employee productivity and tracking time, various alternatives in 2024 offer unique and potentially more fitting solutions for different business needs. This article dives into the 15 best DeskTime alternatives, helping businesses make an informed decision for their time tracking and productivity analysis needs.

Companies use various business planning tools and frameworks, but none are as simple and evergreen as a simple SWOT analysis one. It’s a quick and effective way to analyze a company, process, individual, or strategy by looking at important internal and external factors at play. Given the frequency of use and the number of use cases, it’s smart to have a ready-to-use SWOT analysis template for your business.

A DuPont shift schedule is a type of shift schedule used in various industries to manage employee work shifts. It was developed by the DuPont Company in the 1950s and has since been adopted by many organizations due to its effectiveness in managing work schedules. The DuPont shift schedule is also known as the 12-hour rotating shift schedule or the continuous rotating shift schedule.

In the world of business, where communication moves quickly, virtual meetings have become essential. Even if a lot of businesses currently utilize AI to improve their video conferencing systems, the arrival of generative AI is going to change everything. This blog article discusses how virtual meetings are going to experience a radical change and how generative AI has the potential to completely transform the way we work together online.

Tight deadlines in the workplace have long been a subject of debate. While some argue that they are necessary for driving productivity and efficiency, others believe that they can lead to stress and compromised work quality. In this article, we will explore the pros and cons of tight deadlines and discuss factors to consider in their use. We will also provide alternative strategies for effectively managing deadlines.

Resource management is the process of planning and scheduling your team’s resources and activities—essentially anything that helps you complete a project. Developing a resource management plan can give you visibility into team member workloads. Learn how to manage resources and improve team performance. Making sure your team doesn’t feel overworked or underutilized is a challenge you’ll often face as a leader. It's easy to lose sight of your team's workload and bandwidth.

Strategic planning is a process through which business leaders map out their vision for their organization’s growth and how they’re going to get there. In this article, we'll guide you through the strategic planning process, including why it's important, the benefits and best practices, and five steps to get you from beginning to end.

Like the ingredient list on a recipe card, a bill of materials (BOM) lists what's required to complete a project. Though typically used for product manufacturing, BOMs can benefit software developers, engineers, and even marketing and sales teams. In this guide, we’ll cover the different benefits, types, and best practices for writing your bill of materials.

In the dynamic landscape of today’s business world, the term “window-sitting” has emerged as a relevant issue affecting both employees and organizations. This phenomenon refers to work environments where staff members find themselves uncertain about their professional futures, often due to factors such as skill depreciation, organizational structural changes, and recurring roles.

Looking for the ideal project management tool for your marketing, advertising, or design agency? Agency project management tools help you plan projects, assign tasks, and keep your team on track. But with so many solutions, choosing the right one to suit your needs can be tricky. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the best agency project management software, including pricing and main features.

In the dynamic world of employment, certain actions and behaviors can lead to the termination of an individual’s position. It is crucial for both employees and employers to understand what constitutes a fireable offense in the workplace. This comprehensive guide will explore the top 17 reasons why companies may choose to dismiss employees, ranging from poor performance and attendance issues to more serious violations such as dishonesty, harassment, and safety breaches.

A recent survey conducted by software company Checkr indicates an unexpected development in the remote work debate: 68% of managers, including CEOs, middle managers, and business owners, favor remote work, compared to just 48% of workers. In spite of this, many businesses continue to enforce return-to-office (RTO) policies.

An onboarding process is a structured approach to welcome new hires and set them up for success. When done right, onboarding helps new employees learn quickly, grow in their roles, and understand why their work matters. Learn about the benefits of great onboarding and how to achieve them, plus create your own onboarding process with four simple steps.

Nick Sinclair, Founder & Managing Director of TOA Global, and host Liam Martin discussed the changing accounting landscape and how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the sector in a recent episode of the Future Workforce podcast. This conversation illuminated the fine line that accounting must walk between automation and the essential human touch.

Standard operating procedures (SOPs) map out how your company or team performs a specific procedure or work process. You can use SOPs to improve communication and consistency among team members and make training easier for new hires. Read on to learn how to write an SOP. The most efficient teams have processes for everything, from best practices to naming company file folders. Teams perform these processes routinely and get better at them over time.

Timeboxing is a simple but efficient time management method where you set an allotted time to work on a task, then evaluate your progress afterward. This gives you valuable control over your schedule. Because the timeboxing technique is so versatile, you can apply it to both project management tasks and your day-to-day to-do lists. We’ve all had that 30-minute task that spirals out of control and takes up a whole day’s work.

Since the pandemic forced the world indoors, many people have embraced this new age of remote work and the benefits it has brought. Lots of companies now offer wholly or partially remote work environments as there is a high demand from workers for more control and flexibility over both where and when they work.

Project management is now essential to organize tasks and stay productive. The need to succeed has led productivity apps to turn ambitious ideas into actionable plans. Therefore, kanban boards take center stage as a central hub for your team to collaborate. But you are probably wondering what a Kanban board is.

Consultants striving for efficiency and precision often face the challenge of managing client billing seamlessly while ensuring accuracy. The traditional approach of manual billing is time-consuming and error-prone, which can hinder your productivity and impact your bottom line. The solution? Billing software catered specifically to the needs of consultants.

A perceptual map is a chart used to illustrate where a product or brand and its competitors are positioned according to consumer perception. Learn how your brand can unlock industry insights through perceptual maps and identify paths into new marketplaces. When it comes to positioning your brand or product in the marketplace, consumer perception is king. But for marketers, it can be difficult to distinguish between your actual position and where you perceive yourself to be.

Firing an employee is never an easy task, but it is sometimes necessary for the success and well-being of a company. However, it is important to understand the legal considerations and steps involved in terminating an employee to avoid any legal issues that may arise. Knowing how to properly fire an employee can help protect the company and ensure a smooth transition for all parties involved.

To kick off the year, we’re bringing ‘Triggers and actions’ back into focus and adding Slack into the mix. This goes hand in hand with some smaller work management improvements!

What are the two biggest challenges facing your consulting business today? If “finding more clients” or “increasing profitability” were your top two answers, you’re not alone. And if finding (and keeping) clients is key #1 to success, then figuring out how to price your services in a way that’s attractive to them and profitable to you is key #2.

Optimizing team workflow and streamlining project management are constant battles in today’s fast-paced business environment. While traditional methods may fall short, Kanban boards, along with the Kanban system and Kanban project management, offer a powerful solution. This article dives deep into advanced strategies and best practices to help you harness the full potential of Kanban boards and revolutionize your workflow.

We’re now several years from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but remote and hybrid working models are seemingly here to stay. Many companies favor these flexible work models thanks to their wide range of benefits, including lower attrition, more engaged employees, and lower operating costs. But while remote work offers employees greater flexibility and control, it also presents unique work-life balance challenges as the line between work and personal life blurs.

Although time travel is still a figment of our imagination, our latest release will give you the illusion of going back in time. Picture this: You’ve given your team member a much deserved promotion for their hard work on a big project and amidst the happy celebrations, you’ve forgotten to change their billable rate on said project.

In the world of project management, staying ahead requires more than just a basic understanding of project tracking. Team leads need practical strategies that not only align with their project goals but also address common challenges effectively. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll delve into efficient project tracking strategies to empower team leads in achieving ultimate success.

Time is a precious resource, especially for consultants with multiple projects and clients to juggle. With each project's timeline and billing cycle, keeping track of time can be challenging. That's where time-tracking software comes in. Time-tracking software is a tool that helps consultants track the time they spend on various tasks and projects. It allows them to monitor their productivity, allocate resources efficiently, and accurately bill clients for their services.

Although time travel is still a figment of our imagination, our latest release will give you the illusion of going back in time. Picture this: You’ve given your team member a much deserved promotion for their hard work on a big project and amidst the happy celebrations, you’ve forgotten to change their billable rate on said project.

A business contingency plan is a backup strategy for your team or organization. It lays out how you’ll respond if unforeseen events knock your plans off track—like how you’ll pivot if you lose a key client, or what you’ll do if your software service goes down for more than three hours. Get step-by-step instructions to create an effective contingency plan, so if the unexpected happens, your team can spring into action and get things back on track.

In the world of business, one of the most crucial administrative tasks is the accurate calculation of payroll. Whether you’re a small business owner or a human resources professional, understanding the intricacies of payroll calculation is essential for the smooth operation of any organization.

Workplace well-being has become more and more recognized in today’s business environment. Positive trends are revealed by the American Psychological Association’s 2023 Work in America Survey. It demonstrates that over 77% of workers are happy with the mental health assistance that their companies offer. But a more complex story comes to light when we compare this with Mind Share Partners’ 2023 Mental Health at Work Report.

Project managers and teams can struggle to make balanced resource allocation decisions, often opting for too much or too little. But the key to navigating this delicate balance is continuous adjustment and real-time responsiveness to project needs. This approach ensures that resources are optimally utilized, preventing both surplus and shortfall and steering towards project success with precision and efficiency. When you think of the most important elements of project planning, what comes to mind?

A proof of concept (POC) demonstrates the feasibility of a proposed product, method, or idea. You must prove why your idea will work in the real world, so stakeholders and investors feel comfortable moving forward with the project. In this piece, we’ll explain how to write a POC and why this presentation is a beneficial part of product development. Before you spend time, money, and energy on a project, it makes sense to research whether your idea is worthwhile.

Human Resources (HR) have experienced an important change in the constantly changing field of people management. With a variety of titles like People Operations, Human Capital, or Employee Experience Architect, HR is emerging as a key role in navigating the unknowns of the work of the future as we stand on the edge of a new age. Today’s HR professionals face a variety of challenges in this dynamic climate, which calls for a proactive and strategic vision.

We all love it when a project runs smoothly. When there’s a clear plan, everyone knows what needs to get done, and they follow deadlines, projects tend to get completed on time and within budget. But all that doesn’t just happen—it takes a lot of careful planning. Project planning takes time, and tends to require a lot of manual, repetitive work—like defining project goals, creating timelines, drafting tasks, and distributing information to stakeholders and collaborators.

An onboarding checklist is a comprehensive guide for new employees that outlines all the necessary steps and tasks to be completed during their initial days, weeks, and months at a company. It serves as a roadmap for both the employee and the employer to ensure a smooth and successful integration into the organization. According to Forbes, a well-structured onboarding process can improve employee retention, increase job satisfaction, and boost overall productivity.

Think business intelligence (BI) is only for the big guys? Not anymore. In the past, business intelligence software was expensive and effectively limited to big businesses. Integrating it into existing systems (let alone running it) required more resources and IT infrastructure than the typical small to mid-sized professional service firms could muster.

Managing resources effectively is crucial for large enterprises to succeed. As organizations grow in size and complexity, work that was once manageable becomes a multifaceted challenge as more projects, cross-functional teams, and objectives enter the mix. Often, enterprise leaders find themselves tackling demands and shifting priorities to maintain efficient and effective resource management.

When team members struggle to understand their individual responsibilities and deadlines, it can lead to confusion and delays. And without a clear view of a team’s project progress, it's difficult for managers to identify which tasks are lagging behind or need immediate attention. Project tracking addresses these issues by providing a transparent and real-time overview of all tasks, responsibilities, and due dates, ensuring everyone is aligned and on schedule.

There are five key project management phases that can help streamline your next project and enable your team with an organized plan. These phases include initiation, planning, execution, performance, and closure. Project management is often misunderstood. While many professionals view it as managing project timelines, there is so much more to the job. Thankfully, we’ve put together an easy guide to understanding the five project management phases. Why are the five phases so important to know?

Innovation has a critical role in enhancing patient care and operational effectiveness in the dynamic field of healthcare. Dentistry Support, which was established in 2019 by Dr. Stefan Borgas and Sarah Beth Herman, is a pioneer in the dental field, providing remote support services that enable dental businesses to thrive. This blog post explores Dentistry Support’s journey, the services it provides, and the transformative impact of its approach on the dental practices it serves.

By this point in your freelance career, you’ve likely got a few clients under your belt. But as your client list grows or as more projects come through the door, you will need a way to handle this. How you manage your time, workload, client communication, and everything in between ultimately affects the quality of your work and your relationship with your clients. Having a handle on your freelance project management skills will make your career much easier and far more rewarding.

In the evolving landscape of AI, sticking strictly to the traditional playbook is unlikely to yield the best results. Integrating new technology like AI into your business operations is often met with resistance. It's human nature—we're generally wary of change. To truly get your employees on board with AI, you'll need to think differently. Flipping the script on conventional wisdom could be the catalyst you need for change.

As we wave goodbye to 2023, it’s a natural time to look back and reflect on all of your achievements from the past year. To help you out during this time of observation, we’ve launched 4 new reports that will help you analyze, understand, and draw conclusions about your work. Now with greater ease, you can report on the past and know what actions to take to set your team, projects, tasks, and time up for success in the future. Here we come, 2024!

Your team is in a relentless, repetitive cycle: manually updating project statuses, sorting through work requests, and dealing with endless email threads—tasks that demand attention but add little to your organization’s strategic goals. This scenario is all too common in today’s enterprises, where manual tasks eat into valuable resources and sideline core objectives. That’s where automation comes in.

In the ever-evolving landscape of Human Resources (HR) and people management, 2024 promises a pivotal year marked by the redefinition of culture, connection, and the future of work. As organizations navigate the complexities of a post-pandemic era, HR professionals emerge as architects and builders of the path forward. This blog series delves into HR’s top priorities for the coming year, dissecting the challenges, opportunities, and strategies that will shape the workplace of tomorrow.

What goes through your mind when you hear the term “KPI report”? A small percentage of people are already big believers, having seen the results that KPI reports can create. Another slice of folks might not be entirely sure what a KPI report is. And the rest? Well, we can’t blame you if you’re muttering, “Please, not another report!” while pulling your hair out. But stick with us: a KPI report isn’t just another TPS report.

An effective annual plan is critical to keep your teams, departments, and company together, working toward the same goals. As an operations leader, you oversee how your organization runs its business. By reviewing how your company performed in the past year, you and your operations teams can identify which strategies worked—and which fell short—to build an effective annual plan designed to maximize the impact of every department.

From billboard ads to social media posts, high-quality creative assets are essential to make your brand stand out. But the larger your company, the harder it is to coordinate all the moving parts of creative production. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible. These three enterprise companies—Discovery Inc., Benefit Cosmetics, and Dr. Martens—have all cracked the code on large-scale creative production.

Too many project management software solutions fail IT teams in one of two ways. Either they’re so streamlined they can’t handle the complex projects common in IT, or they’re prohibitively difficult to learn and use. But many IT teams and agencies need solutions that can go deeper — without requiring an army of technical project managers just to scrape by.

It's a bright, lazy Sunday morning. You roll out of bed, and drag your weary self towards the kitchen, heading straight towards your coffee maker. But in place of your old, simple machine, there's a shinier contraption laden with varied brewing options - a meaningful birthday gift from your colleagues. At first, all of the new options look enticing; but, navigating the poorly labeled, illogically placed buttons just to make your coffee the way you like it leaves you frustrated.

Navigating the ever-changing technological landscape is a critical challenge for today's IT leaders—but it doesn’t have to be done alone. At The Work Innovation Summit, top IT executives from Slack, Zscaler, and Asana weighed in, discussing strategies for effectively navigating technological advancements, with a particular focus on AI.

Are you looking for a reliable, cost-efficient solution to monitor your business operations in real time? The Ultimate 2024 Guide to Real Time Monitoring System Solutions has everything you need to make sure you’re up-to-date with the newest and most advanced technologies available. Find out which system is best for your business needs and get the most out of your investment with this comprehensive guide!

Are you looking for an effective way of defiing project scope and ensuring that tasks are completed on time? nTask, an easy-to-use task management platform, can help. In this blog post, we’ll provide a step by step guide to using nTask to define the scope of any project, so you can stay organized and keep everything on track. With this comprehensive guide in hand, you’ll be able to create milestones, assign tasks and monitor progress – all from one convenient platform.

Work plan – you don’t stand a chance without one, but you also can’t succeed with simply having one by your side. Confused? Yes, creating a work plan really helps. It enables you to achieve your goals, and it can also elevate your task management skills like the multi-tasker that you wish to be! Work plans can turn your ideas into tangible results, and they can also hone your dedication, adaptability, and execution skills.

Strategic consulting would be easy if it weren’t for all the problems your clients have, right? But then again, all these problems are why your clients are turning to you in the first place. Maybe your client is having issues with their company vision. Maybe they’re struggling to adapt to market forces. Or perhaps the issues are more tactical, like struggling to develop or stick to a project plan or project timeline. Maybe it’s all of the above, plus a half dozen other issues.

While subject matter experts (SME) are always in high demand among KPO services, BPO and other related businesses too can benefit significantly from them. An SME in BPO provides much-needed expertise to efficiently carry out a business function and helps with the smooth transfer of knowledge within the company. As a call center, contact center, or BPO provider, if you’re considering dedicated SMEs for your team, this article is for you.

Determining your consulting rates can be anxiety-inducing, but it doesn’t have to be. The price tag you put on your services isn’t just a number — it’s your value. Setting your consultation fee can be an empowering opportunity to showcase your worth and set yourself apart in the competitive market of service agencies. Your expertise is valuable. If you need help determining just how valuable, you’re in luck.

Discover how Insightful's latest integrations with Trello, ClickUp, and Asana transform project management, offering seamless workflow, enhanced time tracking, and data-driven insights.

As the year 2024 unfolds, the pace of our daily lives only seems to quicken. With so many tasks to juggle and meetings to attend, keeping track of our schedules and staying organized is becoming increasingly difficult. Fortunately, technology has again aided us with various powerful agenda management software tools. If you want to take control of your agenda in the coming year, there are several exciting new options worth checking out.

Great client management will not only make it more enjoyable for your team to work with your clients, but it will also benefit your business in the long run. Besides making it easier to retain clients, happy clients also tend to give referrals and bring in new business. We’ll cover best practices for client relationship management, client management pitfalls you should look out for, as well as how you can use business integrations to keep your team on track and your clients happy.