Method123

If you are a reseller, master reseller, distributor or even an MPMM customer, then you will often want to add your own brand to the product. By "brand", we mean the logo, page headers, footers, and start-up splash screen graphic. You will also want to add your own corporate colors, document layouts and formats – so that the methodology perfectly matches your corporate brand. To enable you to do this, we are creating the MPMM Brand Manager. It will be a plug-in that you can purchase to enable you to completely customize the MPMM product so that it looks and feels like it is your own. After all, you will be uploading your own internal project management life cycle processes, methodologies and templates into the project management software to become your project management knowledge repository – so why not customize it so that it fits in perfectly with your corporate environment. This feature will be released before the end of 2007. The MPMM Support Team

When you create customized project management methodologies within MPMM you will usually want to model your project management processes at the same time. To do this, most existing clients will use a process modelling tool such as Visio to create specific project management processes for their business. However within the next 12 months, we will release this core functionality within MPMM itself. It is a lot of work but it means that you will be able to create process diagrams within the MPMM project management software tool set, so that you can use processes as part of your methodology when managing projects. A Project Manager will be able to create a generic project management process within MPMM itself, and then describe that process by writing detailed procedures for those that should be completed. They can then attach forms, templates, practical examples and business case studies to each process to add further explanation as to how it should be completed. The MPMM Support T...

Would you like to keep all of your project management template in one place and update them all at the same time with the click of a single button? You will shortly be able to compete this using MPMM. We are currently building project management software functionality within the MPMM tool set which allows you to update all of your templates at the same time, with generic information such as the project details, company log, and document layout. You will also be able to auto-generate a set of project management templates specifically for your project. For instance, you will be able to generate a suite of templates that are specific to small, medium and large scale projects. The auto-generate function will allow you to create a suite of project management templates that are relevant to your particular project with the click of a single button. You will then be able to update those templates with generic information about your project, on the fly – saving you time and effort. This featu...

Within the next 3 months, we will release a new Master Reseller Program for MPMM Project Management Template Methodology resellers. A Master Reseller is responsible for the appointment and management of new Certified Resellers. It is a little like being a distributor, except that you can resell MPMM yourself. The advantages of being a Master Reseller for MPMM are that you can signup Certified Resellers and earn a commission of 10% of their annual sales activity. This means for instance that a Master Reseller who convinces five online project management consulting companies to join as resellers will earn a commission on all of the MPMM sales that those consulting companies make throughout the year. If you have a large number of contacts in the industry and you believe in the MPMM product set, then email us at support@mpmm.com to enquire about becoming a Master Reseller for MPMM now. The MPMM Support Team

The online project management of a portfolio is usually a high risk activity. A portfolio usually consumes a large amount of an organization’s resources (people, equipment, money and materials) – so it has more to lose when things go wrong. To increase the chances of you delivering your portfolio successfully, we are creating the MPFM portfolio management methodology. This methodology tells you how to set up a new portfolio and manage it through to a successful conclusion. It also helps you to set up programs, projects and operational work within that portfolio and to manage that work through to a successful conclusion, which can also be done by using this project management kit . The MPMM Support Team

Whether to make or buy your Project Management Life Cycle If you’re involved with managing projects and you want to improve your success rate, then you’ll need to implement some form of Project Management Life Cycle. A life cycle gives you a “roadmap” for delivering projects, providing your team with an element of structure, in a frequently chaotic and stressful work environment. So you need to implement some form of project management life cycle for delivering successful projects, but should you... Make or Buy Your Project Management Life Cycle? Before we help you find an answer to this question, let’s define what a “project management life cycle” is. A methodology is a pre-defined set of steps that describe how a project should be managed, from end-to-end. It sets out what needs to be done, by whom, when and how. It also describes how time, cost, quality, change, risks and issues should be managed to ensure that the project delivers on time and under budget. It gives you a complete d...

If you are involved with the project management life cycle of programs of work, then you will know that you need a suite of materials and tools to succeed. However there is not a lot available on the web to help you. With the release of MPGM we hope to change that. The MPGM program management methodology offers all of the tools, processes and methods for running programs of work. It helps you to select new projects within programs and to manage them towards a successful conclusion. MPGM will use the same online project management software technology used by MPMM, but it will have customized content which is specific to the management of programs as opposed to the management of projects. The MPMM Support Team

We are currently building a brand new set of project management processes – for the implementation and execution of a Project Management Office (PMO).  A PMO is a physical permanent department within an organization that is responsible for the successful delivery of projects.  It may either be directly responsible for projects under its care, or responsible for influencing the success of projects through the provision of advice and guidance.  Most PMOs these days are started and executed without a lot of guidance, as there are not a lot of project management tools and materials readily available in the market.  By building MPOM, we hope to change that.  At www.MPOM.com we will release a new methodology (akin to the MPMM project management software tool set) which provides project management offices with the tools, processes and templates required to set up and run successful project offices from scratch. The MPMM Support Team

Over the coming 6 months we plan to license the entire PMI PMBOK standard and include it within our project management methodology tool set. The advantage of doing this for our user base is that users will have the choice of implementing MPMM project management processes as they come “out of the box” or to implement PMI project manager processes instead. Of course, MPMM and PMBOK are aligned, so regardless of the project management processes that you choose to implement within your environment, you will be implementing project management best practice. Planned to be released well before the end of 2007, the PMBOK plug-in to MPMM will enable you to choose which processes, methods and project management templates to implement for projects. The MPMM Support Team

Have you ever thought – I would love to implement Prince2 project management processes within my project management life cycle environment? If so, you will shortly be able to do so through the implementation of MPMM. We are planning on licensing the Prince2 worldwide standard for project management and to include all of the intellectual property within the MPMM project management software tool set. This means that you will be able to choose to implement either the MPMM project management methodology as it exists currently in MPMM, or to implement Prince2 project management processes and templates. We are also considering licensing Prince2 training packs so that you can use MPMM to run Prince2 training courses and gain Prince2 certifications. The MPMM Support Team

Over the coming months we are looking to appoint a suite of project management software distributors around the world to market MPMM to their current base of resellers. These distributors will be responsible for advertising the MPMM product set within their local sales channel, appointing new project management resellers and supporting the sales channel. They will typically be large existing software distribution companies who specialize in the distribution of software licenses across the internet. We will look at appointing distributors in the US firstly, and then the UK and Europe shortly afterwards. Our goals is to appoint project management template and software distributors in every country in the world by 2010. The MPMM Support Team

Project Management Templates Have you ever had a project go over budget or schedule, as part of project management ? Most Project Managers encounter budget overruns or project delays at some point in their career. What can you do when you’ve stretched your schedule, exceeded your budget and you have your Project Director breathing down your back to finish your project, like, yesterday? To help you out, we’ve described in this newsletter... How to get Projects back-on-track. Whether you project’s suffering from cost overruns or delays, it’s likely that it’s because: The initial schedule was a little too optimistic The project was under-resourced from the outset There was insufficient funding allocated to the project The customer has changed the scope during the project New risks and issues are impacted on the project. So what do you do if your project has experienced these problems and it’s starting to “veer off the track” ? We suggest that you take one or more of the followin...

Method123 have partnered with a range of companies to bring you a new concept in project management processes, it is called PMEarth. Within 6 months at www.PMEarth.com you will be able to find all of the project management tools , templates and processes that you need to manage projects – for free. Of course the tools will not be of the same level of quality as those included within the MPMM project management methodology, but they will still be extremely useful to you when managing projects. The exact offering of the PMEarth website has not been publicly released yet but it will be one of the first project management software services websites worldwide that will use the Web 2.0 concept by allowing project managers to openly share project management knowledge with each other. The MPMM Support Team

We are currently working on creating an Enterprise edition of MPMM to enable small, medium and large sized companies to install MPMM in a shared user environment. Users will then be able to create customized project manager processes and share them more easily. Administrators will be able to allocate users to projects and assign them a project management methodology for use. The advantage of this model is that companies will be able to retain all of their project management life cycle knowledge in one place, creating a knowledge centre for projects. MPMM will become their knowledge portal for their enterprise. They will be able to allocate methodologies to projects so that project teams know exactly what they have to complete, how and by when. Coming within the next 6 months it will be deployed on the Windows web server platform so that users can access MPMM within the internal network as well as remotely over the web. The MPMM Support Team

Q: I have downloaded and tried the method123 ' Project Management Templates '. I like the engine and am particularly interested in using it to upload and perfect my own methodology for developing alliances. My question is if I train using the 123 engine with my own method, what kind of licence would my students have to buy to be able to use it afterwards? What possible licence options are available? A: Currently only the project management Professional edition of MPMM allows you to create, customize and distribute project management methodologies to other clients (or in your case, your students). Although this is unlikely to change in the future, we will most likely provide a cheaper edition for your students to be able to access the methodologies that you have created. For instance we may decide to allow the Educational and Standard editions of MPMM to be able to read the customized online project management methodologies that you have created. We are also toying with ...

Q: I bought MPMM and created my own customized project management methodology. I would now like to edit the header and footer in each project management template . How do I do that? I would like to include my own header and footer if possible. A: This is a good question. You can easily edit each project management template included within the MPMM project management methodology, and then edit the header and footer if you wish. However MPMM uses an HTML editor for editing documents so it is a little different from using Word and Excel. HTML does not really make use of headers and footers so you will need to just insert the content into the page where required. Within the next 3-4 months we are planning to release a new version of MPMM that includes a Word editor. This editor will allow you to complete standard Microsoft Word functions such as creating a table of contents, page headers and footers and page numbering. We are planning to go one step further by creating  project m...

Q: Please advise me whether this product is the right product to use for management consultancy? If yes, what is the cost? If not, what other product do you recommend? A: Yes MPMM is the perfect product for your project management consulting. Any project management software company will tell you the same thing – the difference is that once you have downloaded the project management software trial for MPMM, you will immediately see how it benefits you. Project management consultants usually need to use a project management methodology to show clients that they will undertake their projects according to a best practice framework for success. MPMM provides such a framework by giving you all of the project management tools, processes, methods, and templates needed to deliver projects on time and within budget. It helps you to manage projects by giving you a solid roadmap for delivering projects, as well as project management templates to save you time and effort in creating deliv...

Project Status Report for Online Project Management Template You know as well as we do, that effective communication is critical to delivering successful projects. But providing your stakeholders with the right information at the right time is not as easy as it seems. The trick is to create a single report that summarizes the entire status of your project, so that your stakeholders feel comfortable that you’re on-track and likely to meet their requirements. To help you do this, we’ve described here how to: Create a bullet-proof “ Project Status Report ” The Project Status Report summarizes the entire progress of the project to date. It also provides the stakeholders with a list of the critical changes, risks and issues which require immediate attention. If you want to create a bullet-proof status report, then make sure that your report includes each of the following sections: Executive Summary Summarize the overall progress to date and any key achievements. Then state whether the proj...

Q: I teach Project Management best practices in a form that involves more than 180 project management executives per session, one of the largest executive forums in the country. I think I can promote your portfolio using some of the templates in the workshops, during part of our online project management training . I can also act as a freelancer for your company in my activities as an advisor to project managers. How can you help me? A: Firstly, consider joining our Reseller program at www.mpmm.com . Next download a free trial of the project management Professional edition for MPMM and determine whether it meets the general needs of your course recipients. If you purchase a copy then you will be able to use the single user license to teach project management best practices to your executive attendees at each forum you hold. We are creating a Partner Program for trainers to enable them to be able to take official Certified MPMM Training Courses later in the year. This will help...

Q: I have had a brief review of your project management life cycle , but at my age I dislike reading long documents on my PC. Do I have to purchase your software in order to print a copy of your life cycle or can I purchase a hard copy for my review? A: At the moment there are two options. You can purchase the book (go to Amazon and type in "Jason Westland" as the author and you will find the book version of MPMM called "The Project Management Life Cycle". Or you can print each page within the product individually. We have added your request to our feature list under development. Within the next 6 months we will release a new button within MPMM that allows you to be able to print whole sections, or the entire product, as a manual with the click of a single button. The reason why we have not provided this feature to date is that most people want to quickly find specific information relating to a particular project management topic, and to do that, it is best to navi...

Q: If the computer that I install the single user version on has a problem, how would I be able to re-install your project management methodology on another computer? A: This is a good question. Like most project management software , you would need to take regular backups of your project management methodology data and keep those backups on CD or a device external to your PC. If you then encounter a problem that makes your PC irrecoverable, you would need to download and install the latest trial edition of MPMM from our website. You can then simply enter the serial number that you have purchased and activate the software. If you have any problems activating then please let us know. You will of course need to import your project management methodology data from the CD into your new MPMM installation and at that point, you will have recovered your MPMM build back to what it was before you experienced the issue. You will need to complete this same process for all other project man...

Q: I am a project management consultant and I would like to replace the MPMM logo within the product with my own. Can you please tell me how I can do this? A: At the moment, the MPMM logo is included within the main software banner. We are building a feature in the product that allows you to be able to replace the project management software banner with the click of a button. This will allow you to add your own banner or the banner of your client. We are also looking for a way of allowing you to replace the logo at the top of each project management template with your own logo, again with the click of a single button. This is a challenge, as there is currently no way that you can technically achieve this with the current version of Microsoft Word. However with the introduction of Office 2007, there may be a way that we can achieve it. We are hoping to release this feature within the next 3 months. The MPMM Support Team

Q: I run project management training courses and I like the look of your project management methodology MPMM.  However I want to use the content to run training courses. How do you suggest I do this? Do you have an official MPMM project management tools course? A: We are currently working on creating a set of project management training courses for using the MPMM project management methodology. These courses will be primarily suitable for professional project manager training and will range in course length, from a 1-day synopsis to a 10-day intensive training camp. We will release the courses as part of our Partner Program coming later this year. The Partner Program will enable consultants and trainers to signup to become an official MPMM Certified Partner. This will enable them to run official training courses, perform certified consulting services and to manage projects under the MPMM banner. We will provide all of our certified partners with leads so that they can increas...

Project Management Templates Methodologies ... When you manage projects, you should repeat the same processes to initiate, plan, execute and close your projects. Only by repeating the same successful processes, can you gain a level of efficiency and gain a high project success rate. Of course you can often buy online project management templates as part of an “off the shelf” methodology , or you can create a new methodology yourself from scratch. If you choose to develop a methodology from scratch, then we’ll help you do it by describing here... How to Create your Own Project Methodology If you need to build a project methodology from the ground level up, then take these 3 steps to do it: Step 1: Identify your Needs The first step is to define your requirements for new project management templates , by answering the following types of questions: Which project methodologies are currently in use? Which types and sizes of projects are undertaken? How many projects are usually run...

Q: I have purchased a single user license for MPMM but I have a whole team of people that need to use it. Why do I need to license every person in my team to use it and which staff do I need to create licenses for? A: If you and your staff want to gain the benefits from running this project management tools in-house, then you will need to purchase a license to use it. To help you out, we have heavily discounted the cost of additional license purchases. Larger teams can receive up to 75% discount on the price of each individual user license. So who needs a license to use MPMM? In general anyone who wants to use project management processes to run projects more efficiently, will need a license. This means that customers will typically obtain licenses for their project managers, business managers and project teams to use MPMM, as well as their Project Management Office. Within the next 3-4 months we will release a server version for MPMM which will enable you to save even more o...