Performance, Productivity and Efficiency
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 10. March 2010
How one can manage to accomplish in a project best possible performance, productivity and efficiency at once? Is it a realistic goal in a real world, on real life conditions? Is it better to transit as times change from efficiency to productivity? Which PM methods help the most while trying to do so? Is it Agile? Questions over questions…
We would love to read your answers in the comments.
Tags: Efficiency, Performance, Productivity
Ch-cha-changes; News in our blog
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 9. March 2010
Ch-cha-changes… This is to inform you that the name of our blog ‘MacPM.net‘ as shown in the navigation menus of our website http://www.projectwizards.net/en is now ‘News’. Please note that only the name changes, the URL remains the same. The contents of our MacPM.net blog for Project Management with Merlin on Mac OS X remain. We will keep you posted in the usual frequency.
How to access Merlin projects from dynamic-IP driven locations
John Kranz on 9. March 2010
If you are publishing Merlin projects from a computer that has a dynamically generated IP address, this can cause problems for your users already having received the project URLs and use in the meanwhile obsolete IPs to access the projects. This situation easily occurs, as the IP address of your router changes upon re-connecting to your internet provider.
In this case the actual project URLs will fall out of sync with the URL and IP address that Merlin has originally published. Fortunately, there is a solution readily at hand thanks to the free service provided by DynDNS.org that allows you to create a static host name that can be used instead.
Tags: DynDNS, Merlin 101, Merlin Web
Merlin at the CeBit: An interview with Frank Blome, ProjectWizards’ CEO
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 9. March 2010
Frank Blome, our CEO, was interviewed by Richard Joerges at the CeBit, on the second day of the trade show.
He was asked for a resumé to the CeBIT so far and whether he sees any current trends in the Project Management.
Frank talks about Windows based PMs thinking about switching to the Mac platform, traditional project management, Agile and Scrum. Enjoy the interview 
Tags: Agile, CeBit, Scrum, Traditional Project Management
Merlin: resources utilization dynamically adjusted
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 8. March 2010
This is a tip of our CEO, Frank Blome, as discussed at the CeBIT 2010 and published on our German MacPM blog:
Supposedly you plan an activity of 5 days work to be accomplished in the duration of 10 days. As an experienced PM and Merlin user you create the activity in your project as follows:
This results to a 50% utilization for the assigned resource
Tags: Actuals, Documenting actual work, Merlin, Merlin 101, Utilization
Merlin on a web browser
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 5. March 2010
The other day we received the following question in support:
We are testing Merlin for project management on the Mac and are very interested to use your solution but there is one functionality which seems to be not covered in the web access; we are not able to add elements (risk, issue, or files)
That’s correct. Merlin in the web module allows users working on other platforms to collaborate on Merlin files using a web browser*. It is not just another implementation of the Merlin Mac OS X application for the web.
While behaving similarly to the native Merlin application, its functionality and graphical user interface is deliberately minimalized** to insure better usability from web users not having deeper Merlin knowledge.
_
*) Supported web browser: IE7, IE8 in compatibility mode, Safari 4, Firefox 3
**) All differences between Merlin on Mac OS X and in the Web module: here
Tags: Elements, Merlin, Merlin Web
Quote of the day
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 4. March 2010
Under a quality system, if it wasn’t documented (according to your own rules), IT NEVER HAPPENED!
Found in a post about Managing Projects in the Medical Device Marketplace
My thoughts in random order:
- It pays to document things as you do them, it’s a horror to catch up later on
- There is no such thing as over-documentation
- Next team meeting ToDo: Suggest to develop dietary supplements additionally to our Mac OS X project management software; Merlin
- When documenting don’t forget localisation aspects
Quote of the day
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 3. March 2010
Why is it that we seek a silver bullet to magically solve all of our problems?
Found here
CeBit 2010
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 2. March 2010
Merlin and ProjectWizards are this year as intended at the CeBit 2010 in the OS X Business Park. According to the organisators, CeBit is
… the world’s foremost tradeshow for the digital industry in Hannover – Germany
If you prefer some independent information about Cebit 2010 you may want to check this one.
OS X Business Park: 25 companies with business solutions for Macs and iPhones. A fitting place for your favourite wizard.
Our CEO, Frank Blome presenting Project Managent on the Mac OS X with Merlin.
Tags: Business solutions, CeBit, Germany, Hannover, Mac OS X, Merlin
Merlin import of EXCEL files
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 2. March 2010
Merlin can import seamlessly lots of file formats, here a list of the currently supported formats:
- MS Project (.mpx, .mpp, .xml)
- OmniOutliner (.ooutline, .oo3)
- OmniPlan (.omniplan)
- NovaMind (.nmind)
- MindManager (.mmap)
- Merlin 1 (.merlin)
- Merlin 2 (.xml)
- Text files (.txt, .csv, .tsv)
- OPML files (.opal)
So you look on the list above, have project WBS saved in MS EXCEL and don’t know how to proceed?
Tags: Excel, Import, Integration, Merlin, Merlin 101
PMOT, AGILE Tweets
- Focused on Making Projects On-Time With Quality. Read http://PMToolsThatWork.com #pmi #pmp #cio #agile #PMOT #scrum #project BruceWBenson (Bruce Benson)
- Dr David F Rico indicates agile is based on product development approaches from the 19th century #SPaMCAST #agile #PMOT http://bit.ly/ulZBQ TCagley (Thomas Cagley)
- New:: Managing Multiple Projects Using Microsoft® Office Project... http://ricoslist.com/?p=280 #freepdu, #pmot, #agile, #scrum, #msproject ricoslist (Rico's List)
- New:: Agile and Waterfall - Friends or Foes?; 60 Minutes, ... http://ricoslist.com/?p=1073 #freepdu, #pmot, #agile, #scrum, #software, #emea ricoslist (Rico's List)
- RT @ourfounder The LSSC Lean Software/Kanban conference in Atlanta Announced http://cot.ag/9XWQyk hope to see you there #kanban #agile #pmot Sprezzatura (Tonianne)