Best Ways to Manage Your Projects

Put the words into the gaps in the text

Hello, my name is Jenifer Waite, director at project manager.com. Hello, welcome to our whiteboard session today on «The three best ways to manage your project». This is the most common question that I get when people contact me or people ask on the (1)____ in our project manager.com community. So people ask: “How can I manage my projects more effectively and more quickly?” So I think the key word is “to (2)___”, organize your work and these are the three things that I try to implement that helps me and also the people in our (3)_____. So, number one: share project plans easily. So number one: you have to have a way to share the plans. In many organizations and many companies, as we see, there’s no way for people to (4)____ different documents, so by allowing people to access the plans real-time and easily, it helps to manage your  projects. Number two: manage teams online. So, to be able to have a (5)_______ for people, team-members, to go on to your project plans online, I said that you can manage their task an assigned task and they can actually complete in (6)____ on their status. Number three is track progress daily. I submit real-time, if you have these mechanisms in place and online accessible by your team-members and they keep going as they (7)___ items, then when you report status to your executives, your shareholders, your (8)__ they’re able to see what’s happening real time. So those are the three best ways to manage your project, so many people say: «Well, how do I do that, what things or what do I need, in place to be able to do that?» We think they’re six, six (9)____ that you must have in order to (10)_____ your projects better.	forum
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Number one: your dashboard. You must have a dashboard in there for you to be able to (11)__ how the health of your project – is it on track, is it off track, are there a red, a yellow a green (12)___  and being able to have your (13)___ members to be able to see the status of the project too. Number two: a project planner. You must have some tool in place to be able to plan your projects - the task, the resources and the timelines, the milestones. Number three: intelligent reporting. Not only do you need to see reports of your project but so do other team-members. If they have worked (14)___ upon someone else completing theirs, they need to know how that the other person, the other organization, that they’re waiting on how they’re coming. They need to know if something’s going to be late, so they can (15)___ accordingly. And also for your executives and your (16)____ too. Number four is a way to manage your teams. So you need some way again to manage your resources. How have you managed their (17)____, have you overloaded their work? Maybe they’re not getting things done because they’re overloaded or maybe they have projects that are (18)____ therefore they’re not getting things. So by having a tool you can be able to see how you had your resources (19)____. Number five: tracking results. Having a tool in place to track of results, of task, of people, of resources, of assets, of your budget.        Number six: a way to (20)____ online. So, again, many team-members are even if they in the same building - they may be on a different floor, they if they’re in the same city - they may be in different buildings. Of course we have people working on projects in different cities and now internationally, so being able to (21)___ documents and collaborate, and talk about documents, give feedback in real time, having a way to have a discussion group just sounds like some of the the social (22)___ channels  have ways to have discussion groups.	statuses
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So, to have this type tools, (23)____ for your projects. Some people say: “Well, that’s great. How do I even do that?”, because people are struggling for (24)____.  So I say I like to make my life easier. So there’s actually software available now. They can do all of these things, they’re software that you can purchase, that have all six of these tools (25)____, so you can deliver these three things and  organize your work better and therefore manage your projects better.	available
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1.

Vocabulary focus. Study the words and  word combinations, practise their translation, spelling. Check your knowledge in the test. Play vocabulary game and set your own vocabulary game record.

2. Complete the sentences.

1.     This is the most common question …

2.     You must have a dashboard  …

3.     You must have some tool  …

4.     In many organizations and many companies …

5.     So, to be able to have …

6.     They can do all of these  …

7.     Not only do you need …

8.     Maybe they’re not getting …

9.     Of course we have people …

10.  If they have worked …

3. Say if the following statements are true according to the text.

1.     The key word in successful project management world is ‘control’.

2.     Managers need to share the plans in one organization or company.

3.      Software allows manners to contact all team-members and supervise their tasks.

4.     It’s better for your project, when stakeholders can see what happening real time is.

5.     A dashboard allows managers to assess changing demands of the executives.

6.     You never can determine in advance what the task, the resources and the timelines, the milestones at your project will be.

7.     The team-members need to see reports of the project but not your executives.

8.     The health of your project is one of the most important conditions for you and your team-members.

9.     Nowadays a lot of computer programs with a variety of tools can help you with your projects.

10. Successful project needs your weekly progress tracking.

4. Comprehension questions.

Why do you need to share the plans?

Why do you have to manage a workload or your resources?

What does tracking of results include?

What are the main ways to collaborate online?

What are the main tools that help to manage your projects better?

Traditional Society, Primary Groups

1 Watch the video   and put the words into the gaps in the text.

To understand how (1)____ groups shape human beings let’s look at some pre-modern images of group life that (2)____ primary groups in their sort of natural (3)____ of traditional society. The images that follow come from Russian peasant paintings of the nineteenth (4)____ and then there are remarkable series of paintings created by Pieter Bruegel of the elder and Pieter Bruegel the younger in the sixteenth-century in Brussels.  So primary groups have again (5)____ size, most of the people or all of the people in a primary group know each other personally and intimately and have known each other for a long time. There’s also an expectation in primary groups that the (6)____ will not change very rapidly, you have an expectation to be around the (7)____ in a primary group forever or at least for the rest of your life.  There it is again a much tighter connection between self and society in primary groups, tighter that the one which you would find in secondary groups, the self is merged with society in primary groups. One (8)____ identifies oneself with the group rather than with one’s own biological heart. In class we talked about Emile Durkheim’s distinction between egoism and altruism. Egoism literally means ‘selfism’ or ‘I-ism’. It is a psychological emphasis upon the sort of reality status of the individual self: an egoist views him or herself as reality and views all other human beings as essentially unreal. An altruist, on the other hand, views society as more real than the self. Altruism is a psychological focus upon the (9)___ of others and welfare of the group, welfare of the society. An altruistic person will engage in (10)____ actions to help the group survive. Primary groups have this kind of altruistic quality. So primary groups often depend upon this kind of tight identification between self, society, and the willingness on the part of individuals to give up oneself for the group in order to function. Contemporary (11)____ and bureaucracies lack that kind of high level of emotional and psychological identification and they require inducements like (12)___, pay, tightly controlled regulations in order to get people to work. Primary groups aren’t like that, you work because you identify with the group, you (13)___ because the group is you and your life. When we look at these images from 19th century Russia this way we see people who are working together (14)____ pretty effectively without rules and regulations that are specified by (15)____, without contract because of a shared identification as part of the primary group. Let’s look now at Pieter Bruegel’s image of the harvesters. This picture demonstrates the (16)___ between individuals in primary groups. One of the qualities of primary groups is that you actually are (17)____ of essentially one and only one group, the primary group is the world, the social world. (18)____ the people that you work with are also the people you tend to live with, the people you are (19)___ to, the people you (20)____ with, the people you celebrate with, the people you grieve with, again multi-sided relationships. So in Pieter Bruegel’s paintings of (21)___ life in pre-modern Europe you see people who work together, relax together, love together, celebrate weddings, go to church together, fear God together, all of these things. So again this image shows that kind of multi-sided quality of primary group life: simple, local living, relatively small groups, but multi-sided and complex relationships between the members of the group. So traditional societies’ work and life are not (22)___, family and workgroup and worship group aren’t segregated either. Primary groups have a tendency again to touch on all sides. The same idea is contained in this image of harvesting in Russia in the nineteenth century and again a kind of multi-sided intimacy: eating, sleeping, reproducing with the people you work with in a tight community that has been in existence for many (23)____ and that has an expectation to continue for more generations as well. Again multi-sidedness, high levels of emotional variability, experience of others in (24)___ occasions: not just at work but at home, not just at home but in church, not just in church but in parties that one really sees others in all sides of life and they see oneself as well. So in these kind of intimate communities where one’s life is lived almost entirely (25)____ by a cocoon of others, the self doesn’t quite develop as an individual, rather the self remains tied to the group. I and the group are one, the group has more (26)___ and more durability than any of its members, and so I identify closer with of the group than with myself. Again the image from dancing peasants again showing them giving themselves up to group life. So again even though this Russian image from the nineteenth century shows a lone young woman with something like a sense of self, again the small size, the local quality of interaction, the primary group as the originary of all social life prevents that kind of emergence of individuality. The famous line from Hillary Clinton that it takes a village to (27)___ a child is reflected here in this image.  The high levels of work required from pre-modern people working many many hours in order to meet the basic needs of life meant that (28)___ were often raised by elderly people or by  those who weren’t able to fully (29)___ in social life and work in any other ways. Imagine yourself growing up in this village, you would have known all of the other children from your earliest memories, you would have know other people in the community from your earliest memory. You wouldn’t view yourself primarily as a child of two parents but would instead view yourself as a (30)___ member. But in a traditional society your parents are only ones of a number of people who do care, and you identify then with the broader group as a (31)___.  So against this traditional village life, relatively (32)____, relatively intimate, all sides of life being co-experienced together and identification of the self with the group and the group with the self. In Durkheim’s writings, as we’ll talk about later, textbook talks about altruistic (33)____, killing oneself for the good of the group is possible in traditional society. They will be one of the most common forms of suicide in (34)____ societies when you closely identify yourself with the primary group, the perpetuation of the primary group matters more than the perpetuation of your own biological husk.  You don’t (35)____ if you die as long as the group continues to exist. This attachment to group is linked to the willingness of (36)___ in tribal society to go to war and to embrace the death of the self for the (37)____ of the group as a good bargain.	reveal
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 2 Vocabulary focus. Sudy the words and  word combinations, practise their translation, spelling. Check your knowledge in the test. Play vocabulary game and set your own vocabulary game record.

3 Mark the following statements as True or False.

1.      In primary groups people know each other well.

2.     The structure of primary group changes very often, you cannot expect to see the same people for all your life.

3.     In primary group a person identifies himself or herself with the group, group is real and more important than the life of one individual.

4.     Egoist believes that he or she is real while all other people are unreal.

5.     Altruism focuses on the welfare of the society.

6.     Concepts of egoism and altruism were defined by Hegel.

7.     Modern workplaces function like primary groups.

8.     In primary groups people didn’t need money or other forms of inducement to work, they did their work because it was necessary for the group.

9.     In primary groups order was not based on laws and regulations.

10.  In primary groups children grew up and didn’t know their parents.

11.  In primary groups children knew all other members of community.

12.  Family and workgroup were separated in traditional societies.

13.  In traditional societies warriors were ready to die for their group.

14. Altruistic suicide was not common in primary groups.

4 Answer the Questions.

1. What is the connection between people in primary groups? How long do they know each other or hope to be part of the same group?

2. How can a person identify himself or herself in primary group? Is it the same in secondary groups?

3. What do terms ‘egoism’ and ‘altruism’ mean?

4.  Why do contemporary workplaces need rewards and inducements? Was it the same in primary groups?

5. What does emotional variability mean in primary groups?

6. Who raised children in primary groups? How did it influence children and the group as a whole?