DEV Community: Marina Pilipenko

Ensuring SMS Integration Testing Success: Best Practices and Common Challenges

Marina Pilipenko — Wed, 31 May 2023 09:54:01 +0000

When it comes to SMS integration, failure to organize proper testing can lead to several issues that negatively affect user experience.

When delivery fails or messages get lost, users can understandably get frustrated. Also, delivered message content that isn't complete or correct can cause confusion or even hurt the reputation of the brand or app.

In this article, we'll discuss, how thorough SMS integration testing can reduce these risks and ensure a positive user experience.

The importance of SMS integration testing
Best practices for SMS integration testing
- Test environment setup
- Functional testing
- Error handling and edge cases
Main challenges in SMS integration testing
- Rate limits and throttling
- Network connectivity and delivery delays
- Synchronization and data consistency
- Compliance and regulatory requirements
- Handling dynamic content
- Performance and scalability
Summary

Why SMS Integration Testing Should Be a Priority

Here are the key reasons why you should prioritize SMS integration testing:

Preventing delivery failures by addressing any issues that may arise during the transmission process, such as incorrect routing or compatibility problems with SMS gateways.
Avoiding message loss by finding any potential vulnerabilities.
Ensuring correct message content by validating the proper handling of message content, including special characters, encoding, and length restrictions.
Enhancing user experience by finding usability issues, such as delays in message delivery or improper handling of user responses.

In the next section, we'll talk about the best ways to test SMS integration, including how to set up the test environment, test functionality, handle errors, and plan for edge cases.

Best Practices for SMS Integration Testing

Why reinvent the wheel when there are best practices for SMS integration testing, you ask? Let's look at some of them.

Test Environment Setup

The most important part of any testing process is setting up a test environment that is very close to the production environment. To do this, you need to set up a place where you can simulate real-world situations and interactions. Think about the following:

Mimic production environment: Make sure that the infrastructure, configurations, and parts of the production environment are as close as possible to what is in the test environment. This helps find any problems that might come up when the app is used by the public.
Use virtual numbers or test accounts: If real SMS messages were sent during testing, it would cost a lot. To avoid this, you could use test accounts or virtual numbers that SMS service providers offer.

The last step is more complicated than it seems. Usually, it's hard for developers to find enough numbers with the properties they need, especially if they need to test in different countries. So, let's go over how to get test numbers:

SMS service providers - There are a lot of SMS service providers that offer virtual numbers or test accounts for testing. Contact your provider and ask about the tests they offer.
Developer APIs and SDKs - Some SMS service providers offer APIs or SDKs with testing features, such as the ability to get test numbers. Check your chosen provider's documentation or developer resources to see if they offer such options.
Online testing platforms - There are sms testing tools that give virtual phone numbers or test accounts for testing SMS integration. These platforms may have a variety of tools and features that can help test scenarios.
Open-source tools - Some open-source tools or libraries made for SMS testing may have ways to get test numbers. Most of the time, these tools have community-driven resources and documentation that can help you get the test numbers you need.

Functional Testing

Functional testing is all about making sure that the SMS integration in the application works as it should. Here are some important things to think about:

Sending and receiving SMS. Check to see if your app can send SMS messages to the intended recipients and get responses back.
Message content validation. Confirm the proper handling of message content, including special characters, encoding, and length restrictions. This ensures that messages are rendered correctly and that no content is lost or distorted during the transmission process.

Error Handling and Edge Cases

Prepare your app for unexpected situations by testing error scenarios and edge cases. For example:

Invalid phone numbers: Test how your application handles situations where an invalid or incorrect phone number is provided. It should respond appropriately, such as displaying an error message or notifying the user of the issue.
Network failures: Simulate network failures and interruptions while the data is being sent to make sure your application can handle these situations well. Test how the application gets back to normal after these kinds of failures.
Message length restrictions and concatenation: Test how messages are handled when they are longer than the standard length limits. Make sure that the application uses concatenation techniques to correctly split and reassemble long messages.

In the next part, we'll talk about some of the problems you might run into when planning SMS integration testing.

Main Challenges in SMS Integration Testing

When developers are doing SMS integration testing, they may run into problems that are unique to SMS communication. Let's talk about some important things to think about and problems to solve, as well as good ways to deal with them.

Rate Limits and Throttling

SMS service providers often put rate limits and throttling in place to stop abuse and make sure that everyone uses the service fairly. During testing, it's important to keep these limits in mind so that you don't send more messages than you can. Contact the SMS service provider to find out what their rate limits are, and then build your test scenarios around those limits.

Network Connectivity and Delivery Delays

SMS delivery depends on the network, and network problems or congestion can cause delays in message delivery. To test how reliable your application's message delivery is, it is important to simulate situations with different network conditions, such as a weak signal or intermittent connectivity.

Synchronization and Data Consistency

In distributed systems or multi-component architectures, it can be hard to make sure that all of the modules work together and share the same data. When testing SMS integration, pay attention to how data is synchronized, like how messages are handled in a queue or how the database is updated. This will help you avoid inconsistencies and make sure communication goes smoothly.

Compliance and Regulatory Requirements

Compliance and regulatory requirements, such as data privacy laws or consent management, may apply to SMS communication. During SMS integration testing, think about compliance-related scenarios, such as the right way to handle personal data, validating consent, and following industry-specific rules.

Handling Dynamic Content

SMS messages often have dynamic content, like personal information or information that changes based on time. When testing SMS integration, make sure that dynamic content is rendered and sent correctly. Check that variables, placeholders, or template tags are handled correctly and that the message is sent correctly.

Performance and Scalability

As the number of SMS messages goes up, it's important that the SMS integration works well and can grow as needed. Do load and stress testing to see how your application works when it's getting a lot of messages at once. This will help you make sure that it can handle multiple SMS requests at once and grow smoothly as the number of users grows.

Error Handling and Logging

For diagnosing issues and fixing SMS integration problems, it's important to have good error handling and logging systems. Test different error scenarios, like invalid phone numbers, network failures, or services that aren't available, and make sure the right error messages are generated and logged so they can be looked at later.

By thinking about these specific challenges and putting them into your SMS integration testing plan, you can make sure that your app works well and gives your users a smooth SMS communication experience.

To Sum It Up

Remember that SMS integration testing is an iterative process that needs to be improved and changed all the time. Keep up with industry trends, new technologies, and changes to SMS service provider APIs to make sure your SMS integration stays strong and up to date.

By investing time and effort into thorough SMS integration testing, you can deliver a reliable and seamless SMS communication experience, enhancing user satisfaction and driving the success of your application.

The Value of Time Tracking During the Epidemic

Marina Pilipenko — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 18:01:00 +0000

As an outcome of the coronavirus pandemic, telework has become mandatory. It is now clear more than ever that remote work can play a critical role in sustaining both the national and global economy. However, a relatively small number of US businesses are prepared for the shift. Hence, if your company continues to operate during the quarantine – even if you’ve never regarded telework as a viable option before – you are among a few lucky ones.

In case you have no prior experience in managing remote teams, now it’s high time to find out how to optimize the overall work process and attain superior productivity results with time tracking. Let’s explore this matter step by step:

1. Develop Telework Directives

Create a remote work policy and discuss the rules with your teammates to make sure everyone agrees and follows. A few points to cover in your telework code are

employee availability and responsiveness requirements,
productivity measurements,
and cybersecurity.

Feel free to outline any other relevant employee responsibilities and rights in your policy as well.

2. Educate Employees on How to Perform Productively When at Home

Give recommendations to your employees on how to improve performance outcomes while telecommuting. To help you out with this, we’ve already written a guide to remote work for beginners. There, you can locate a ton of valuable information on methods to organize your home-based workplace, work processes and online team communication.

3. Select the Right Time Tracking Instrument

Choose appropriate tools for remote work management. Don’t try to utilize many different apps simultaneously – this approach will only add more pressure to the lives of already stressed employees. What you need to do is just decide on which software your team will use to communicate, coordinate tasks and track work progress.

Here’s how you can carry out all the 3 of the above activities in actiTIME:

Form a detailed work plan and distribute workloads

To observe whether your team shows any progress when telecommuting, create a work plan and make an exhaustive list of tasks in actiTIME. Then, assign each of these tasks to individual employees to show what they’re expected to work on. To minimize the risk of errors and misunderstanding, attach clear instructions to all assignments. Also, don’t forget to set deadlines and estimates for every objective in the developed plan to make the best use of the organizational time.

Promote performance transparency with task comments

For a more accurate picture of the team’s progress, ask your staff members to not only track their work hours daily but also add comments on tasks they’re engaged in. Encourage them to specify which part of the job is already completed, what’s yet to be done and which problems they’ve encountered on the way. As a result of such a task breakdown practice, you will increase employees’ accountability and gain a chance to detect factors hindering productivity promptly.

Coordinate tasks among employees

Instruct your employees to overview workflows and general project progress on the Kanban board and pass assignments to one another by switching their statuses. When assigning tasks to others, your teammates may add notes to clarify the essential points their colleagues should consider when taking over the job. In this way, the team will avoid communication failures and save precious time.

Run daily reports to inform decision making

actiTIME has a plethora of valuable reporting features that can be applied to evaluate different aspects of business and team performance:

With the Time Track in Detail report, you can review the whole of the time tracking data submitted by your employees and see all of their comments. As an outcome, you will form a comprehensive picture of the work progress.
If you want to control project costs more efficiently, assume running the Cost of Work report. With its aid, you’ll see the total cost of conducted works based on subordinates’ hourly rates.
To assess employees’ performance efficiency and make sure they complete tasks on schedule, utilize the Estimated vs. Actual Time report. It will let you understand if your team experiences some productivity issues or whether your approach to task estimation requires improvement.

4. Advance Your Leave and Schedule Management Practices

It is hard to maintain performance transparency when you struggle to monitor who is absent from the workplace and why. An efficient tool for leave and schedule monitoring can assist you in resolving this problem, and we happen to have an excellent solution for you – actiPLANS. We’ve made a thorough review of ways you can apply this piece of software to make your leave management system more accurate and responsive to the present-day epidemic situation.

Also, actiPLANS mobile app displays which members of your team are absent and why in a straightforward chart. By using it, you’ll gain more clarity about employees’ availability and, as a consequence, your company’s current performance capacity. Besides, it will help your subordinates manage day-to-day communication and task coordination during the telework period much better.

Project Estimation Methods in Prehistoric World

Marina Pilipenko — Fri, 30 Aug 2019 14:03:44 +0000

Since people started coordinating their activities within communities, the first outlines of project work appeared. Planning actions, distributing participants, and estimating how much time and resources the work can take (this is our favorite part here at actiTIME) became necessary to procure food, protect the community, and migrate to better locations.

In the prehistoric world, the “projects” people ran were different but the estimation techniques were basically the same – with allowance for state of the art, of course. How did ancient people estimate and plan things they needed to get done?

Expert judgment

This estimation method is based on expertise and opinions of experienced specialists, not necessarily from the project team. The judgment is based on theoretical approaches, existing practical knowledge, a set of criteria, or a summary of previous experience.

Comparative/analogous estimation

Comparative method consists in using the experience from previous similar projects to analyze work scope, forecast possible risks, and estimate delivery timelines. Whether the previous project was a success or a failure, it can provide decision makers with relevant data for estimation and important insights.

Top-down estimation

This type of estimation works as a quick method for providing ballpark estimates for prospective projects and assessing whether they are viable. In it, a high-level breakdown of project steps is used. Later, more specifics can be added to the rough estimate.

Bottom-up estimation

As opposed to the previous method, bottom-up estimation implies a detailed breakdown of project tasks and estimating each of them separately. The next step is usually calculating the totals at higher levels and seeing the big picture. This method allows managers to obtain more accurate results than the previous one.

Parametric model estimating

In this method, measurable variables are used to forecast and estimate upcoming work. Parametric model method is a more scientific technique and it ensures maximum accuracy of the results. With special tools, it’s possible to automate calculation and estimation process.

Three-point estimation

In this method, a mathematical approach is used. It is based on producing the weighted average of three estimates: optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic estimates. This method allows automation and is quick, but it requires significant amounts of data and detail levels.

What Causes Scope Creep and How to Avoid It

Marina Pilipenko — Wed, 24 Jul 2019 12:27:12 +0000

It’s already three months after the planned launch date of an online shop. The customer doesn’t blame anyone though: they really like what the initial concept eventually turned into, and are looking forward to…

Oh, wait. Did we just say eventually? But on yesterday’s meeting, the customer’s representative listened to the PM telling how the new suggestions would bloat the scope, increase the budget and postpone the delivery date, and excitedly insisted on three more months and another zillion dollar for the new shiny mobile app. The project no longer seems to be predictable, and much less manageable.

No one knows when it will be finally delivered. Scope creep celebrates its glorious victory.

Why scope creep happens

Being a complex problem, scope creep is the consequence of various decisions – and lack of decisions too. Most of them are related to the planning phase – but not all of them. So, in order to better know the enemy, let’s take a closer look at what causes scope creep.

Project scope is not defined clearly enough

Vaguely defined expected results and features of the final product open the way to feature creep – an ongoing expansion of new features added to the product. They are not necessarily critical or important; mostly they are not. Its negative influence doesn’t limit to delays in project delivery: the most adverse effect of feature creep is overcomplicated design, and excessive functionality and, consequently, a product that no one really wants to use.

Changed client’s priorities or needs

This happens often: clients change their minds, want a bit more for the same price, make project-related decisions in the middle of the project course, or look at their competitors’ products and realize they want something similar. This results in new requests to the project team, changes in requirements, and feature creep mentioned above. Again, adapting to the new requirements and delivering new features takes time – large and unpredictable amounts of it.

Poor identification of stakeholders and their needs

It’s not uncommon that stakeholders are not identified clearly at the beginning of the project and their interests are not taken into account or balanced. This is especially the case of large-scale projects like Berlin Brandenburg airport, where there are too many stakeholders and not all of them are interested in the earliest possible delivery of the project.

Poor initial analysis of what’s necessary and reasonable

What a client demands in the course of the project is not always unnecessary bells and whistles. Sometimes, analysis of a new feature request shows that the feature is critical for the end product. This could be identified before the start of the project, at the planning phase – but that’s something easier to do in hindsight than in real time.

Inability to say no

The proverbial client who is always right is another reason of scope creep. A project manager who is not able to say no to the client or lacks the authority to do so cannot prevent the project from expanding, and time, labor, and costs grow uncontrollably. Also, being not vigilant enough and allowing new features to be added to the scope leads to blurred boundaries and unclear requirements.

How to avoid scope creep

No matter how thoroughly your project is planned, scope creep is always lurking around. Not giving leeway to it is key here: careful control of project scope should start before the beginning of actual work on the project. Here’s a checklist of scope control steps that won’t allow scope creep to usurp your project.

Identify all stakeholders and understand their goals

Do it before you start working on the project: identifying visions, interests and requirements of all involved parties in advance is a necessary step of project planning phase. It reduces the risk of scope changes in the middle of your project work and helps avoid conflicts caused by unaccounted interests. Communicate more to understand everyone’s vision and expectations, and prioritize the requirements depending on their importance for the project goal.

Clearly define project scope

Another indispensable step of the planning phase that needs close attention to details. Here, it’s important not only to define what is included in the project scope, but also to list what is not included. This minimizes the risk of misunderstanding and reduces the number of new requests, suggestions, and requirements. A clear scope plan also prevents gold plating – a resource-consuming process of development of unnecessary enhancements.

Plan room for changes in advance

Sad but true: not all risks can be foreseen and prevented, and modifications are inevitable. That’s why change control and management procedures should be clearly defined and documented, and room for possible amendments needs to be provided. Make sure your change management process is focused on project goals, and carefully document steps required for making a decision on a project scope modification.

Take action as early as possible

Identify and address possible scope creep at its early stages. New suggestions from clients or sponsors, updated requirements, or feedback from the team on time estimate changes need to be heard, documented, and communicated to involved parties for consideration. The sooner you make decision on a change, the less harmful effect it will have on the project course and result.

Know when to say no

It’s tempting to implement all suggested features and functions, but it’s rarely good for project delivery time, budget, and the product itself. Saying no to unreasonably time-consuming and expensive features and parts of work is crucial for delivering a quality product on time. Make sure you have a justification for saying no: it can be too much time spent on its development and QA, bloated budget (which may include not only labor costs, but also logistical, legal etc. expenses), or overcomplicated product design.

What to do if it has already happened

How to deal with a project when you’ve already noticed that its scope is expanding? The first obvious step is slowing down or stopping the expansion. However, to make it possible, you need to reclaim control over the project scope and course. How?

Understand the importance of new requests and suggestions

New feature suggestions can be just gold plating – or totally reasonable improvements. Establish a process for considering their significance for the end result. If you figure out that they are important for the product’s functionality, comply with the requirements and need to be implemented, prepare necessary changes to the project scope.

Identify the root cause

Identifying the reason why scope creep has started helps a lot with regaining control over it. Depending on it, initial counteractions can be bridging the gaps in determining project boundaries, balancing stakeholders’ interests, re-prioritizing features, or something else that minimizes or stops the scope creep process.

Analyze the effects of scope creep

In the beginning, it’s not always clear how bloated scope will affect delivery date, project budget, and labor input. Analyze already spent time and budget, forecast future expenses, and prepare a report with exact figures of final project costs. It will help all participants of the process understand the scale of the problem and possible outcomes. this data can also be used to rebuild the process and adapt it to necessary changes.

Find the solution with the stakeholders

Prepare your suggestions on how to stop or prevent scope creep, and communicate with project stakeholders to try to find the solution that suits everyone.

Summary

In most cases, project manager is the person responsible for scope creep and the person who can prevent it. Taking necessary measures to identify its signs at the very beginning and minimizing its consequences is an important part of the project management work. Well-defined and documented processes are key here: prioritizing work, checking how new suggestions align with the project goal, and efficiently managing changes is only possible with clear procedures defined for each step of the project management process.

Getting the Right Talent for the Project Team

Marina Pilipenko — Fri, 18 Jan 2019 15:12:36 +0000

Regardless of what project management methodology you’re using, organizing work within a dedicated project team requires special attention and effort. Distributing roles and assigning responsibilities is the first step towards the project goals.

Bringing the right people on board is another thing to handle before kicking off a new project. For management and non-management positions, both professional abilities and soft skills matter. This is what needs to be taken into account by HRs and hiring managers when building a functional team.

Clear understanding of roles, ability to work in a team, and professionalism of team members is what drives a project team to success. Below, we’ll discuss how to organize an efficient team and establish clear roles and responsibilities within it.

Key Project Roles

“Everything is individual” seems to be the mantra of project management: roles, responsibilities, approaches and practices significantly depend on the particular project, its goals, environment, and requirements. While this is true, there are several typical roles that work for literally any project team.

Sponsor

Sponsor is the most senior member of a project team who has crucial responsibilities and is accountable for the project performance. Sponsor is the key person in communication of the team with the company’s management and key stakeholders. This is also the person who provides necessary resources for project performance and approves or rejects the outcome.

In some teams, there can be more than one sponsor, or they can act as a sponsoring group. Sometimes, sponsors appoint a senior responsible owner who translates the vision and the strategy to the team’s plans and assignments.

Key responsibilities of a sponsor:

Defining project’s goals and expected outcome;
Providing necessary resources;
Managing communication between project team and key stakeholders;
Translating company’s strategy and vision to the team;
Approving or rejecting the outcome.

Some project teams have a project steering committee that consists of the sponsor and key stakeholders. It represents the interests of parties involved in project implementation, provides leadership in the work process, and resolves issues escalated by project managers and team leads.

Project manager

Project manager is the team member who defines the framework and course of the project, sets estimates and milestones, defines required resources, and manages project activities. While the responsibilities of a project manager can include a wide range of activities that depend on specific project. In general, the key activities are:

Defining project milestones and estimating upcoming work scope;
Identify resources necessary for successful project implementation;
Scheduling project activities;
Coordinating team members’ work;
Solving problems and issues that appear in the course of the project implementation;
Managing change;
Monitoring work progress and results.

Team lead

In smaller projects, this role is merged with the project manager’s one. In larger ones, team lead (in the widely used Scrum methodology also called Scrum Master) takes on team management responsibilities that mostly require soft skills:

Initiating work processes;
Identifying and handling possible issues in work and team environment;
Providing and receiving feedback;
Coaching team members and maximizing their potential;
Leading by example by performing their share of work.

Team members

Needless to say, this role is the heart of any project. By participating in project activities and performing their work assignments, regular team members contribute to the expected outcome of the project. Alongside with that, their project responsibilities include:

Clearly understanding project goals and contributing to their achievements;
Following project plan and meeting deadlines;
Escalating issues related to their responsibilities to the team lead.

How to build a functional project team?

Historically, it’s been considered that only professional skills matter when it comes to creating an efficient project team. However, recent trend is taking soft skills into account. This ensures better communication, teamwork, and outcome of the project work.

Below, we’ve listed the key parameters to pay attention to when hiring and building a project team.

Skills and experience

Seems to be obvious, but this is the most important criteria for most positions. Relevant previous experience and related skills are critical for a smooth start of a project work.

Willingness to learn new skills

Some hiring expert advice that it might be useful to look beyond the skills needed for the role. Employees need to be willing to get out of their comfort zone to help the team – and learn something new.

Personal traits

Personal traits are often a reason why a team of professionals turns out to be dysfunctional. They are nearly as important as professional skills, experience and expertise – if you won’t be able to get along with a person in everyday life, it’s hard to expect that healthy collaboration with them is possible.

Unwillingness to help, arrogance and other types of toxic behavior impair teamwork too often to overlook this – so it’s better to prevent this on the first steps of building a project team. And, while this is one of the most subjective criteria for hiring, eventually this helps build a healthy work environment and trust on the team.

Cultural fit

It’s a matter of fact that professional cultures are very different and depend on industry, region and many other factors. Making sure all your employees fit in your office culture not only simplifies their onboarding process, but also prevents work environment issues in the future.

How to efficiently manage a project team

Creating an efficient team is essential but obviously not enough: bringing it to success requires a wise management approach. From the perspective and experience of many project managers, in order to get the best from your team you must:

Be a decisive leader.

If you are the project leader, then be a decisive leader. Make decisions on the basis of the information you have at the time, and make sure to involve your team. Team members, being a part of that process and seeing you as a leader who is focused on the success of the project, will be motivated to focus on their work, identify and point out possible issues, suggest improvements, and perform better.

Involve everyone in planning processes.

When planning strategy or planning the early phases of a tech project, involve the entire team, not just the top techs on the team. Make sure you receive each team member’s feedback on the process and their particular part of work: they might help you identify weak points and suggest great process optimization ideas that will help you plan better.

Look for contributions and accountability from everyone involved.

Don't just go to the stars. If you are a project leader, get productivity from everyone. Assign tough tasks to all project team members and expect weekly accountability from each team member for their respective tasks. One of the best practices for monitoring team members input into the project is to use some project management software.

Acquire team members who can work well and play well with others.

Teamwork and communication is key to productivity of the team. That’s why just finding great professionals for your team is not enough: it’s not uncommon that the best ones come with big egos. Arrogance and unwillingness to communicate are extremely detrimental for productivity of an otherwise great team – and for overall results too. It's not always easy to identify that during hiring processes or team selection processes, so be careful to ask tough questions and not just take the best talent with blinders on.

Summary

Building a highly productive project team may seem to be challenging. How to identify who is the right person for the team? How to distribute the roles and make sure everyone understands their part? What if a team of great specialists turns out to be totally dysfunctional?

While some part of the knowledge that answers these questions is quite intuitive, there are rules and recommendations to follow that help create an efficient project team. Seek advice from your colleagues, receive feedback from your employees, and don’t forget about learning from failure if it occurs. Project management is a field where individual approaches and custom solutions bring success, so use your experience to find the right approach for the team you manage.

8 Free Project Management Software for Small Teams

Marina Pilipenko — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 09:03:36 +0000

For startups and small businesses, it’s crucial to start using special project management tools early on. However, the price of most tools is barely affordable for a new business. Good news is that a tool with all necessary functionality can be cost-efficient! We’ve prepared a list of free project management software tools that are great to start working on your projects with.

1. GanttProject

This free app allows to organize work structure and manage projects in an easy way. Create tasks and break work down in a hierarchical tree, set deadlines, priorities and milestones, and create dependency constraints between tasks. Set up profiles for system users with basic contact information, pay rates and roles. Assign them work and monitor their workload.

You can export your data from the app in different formats for processing and analyzing it in other software. The app can be installed on Windows, OSX and Linux machines and works as a desktop tool without an Internet connection.

2. VivifyScrum

VivifyScrum is a scrum and Kanban app for software development teams. It helps plan and manage development sprints, monitor work progress, and accumulate a backlog of features for future sprints. The tool is a single-page app with a clear view on all its boards. It’s cloud-based, so it is available from anywhere and doesn’t require any installation works. Its free plan includes basic features, one active sprint, one active integration, and limited disk space for file storage. The paid Premium plan unlocks advanced functionality, unlimited disk space, and any number of active sprints and external integrations.

3. actiTIME

actiTIME is a work management and time-tracking app for teams of any size. Simple and intuitive, it allows project managers to distribute teams by projects and monitor work progress, set up estimates and compare them with time their teams actually spend on work, and get valuable insights by running time and cost reports. The tool is available in the cloud and as on-premise software. The basic on-premise version for up to 5 users is free, so this option is a great choice for small teams and startups.

4. Orchard Collaboration

Orchard Collaboration is a ticketing, project management and collaboration tool targeted on website development and content management. It allows planning projects and controlling their progress, creating tickets and issues per project, and inviting customers to the projects. The system integrates with GIT and SVN servers and with third-party services for more efficient work on your projects. As for price, Orchard Collaboration is a free and open-source tool.

5. Teamweek

This tool is designed to visualize the process of project management. It allows you to create project roadmaps, get an overview of your long-term plans, and see your team’s current advancement. Set up team timelines, plan work for near future and for a longer perspective, schedule work, and share all relevant information with your team. Teamweek offers free basic plans for teams of up to 5 users, and if the team grows and advanced features are needed, it’s possible to switch to a paid plan.

6. Hubbion

Hubbion is a free project management and collaboration tool for small teams. It provides basic functionality for managing tasks, assigning work to employees, and collaborating. The tool allows managing tasks, tracking deadlines, commenting, and sharing files. Users can add their bosses or customers to the tasks they’re performing to keep them informed on the work progress.

7. Workep

This tool is a collaboration platform that automates and centralizes G Suite to turn it into an efficient environment for project management, collaboration and planning. Create Google Docs, sync calendar events, use Hangouts, and more – and automate work on your projects. Workep visualizes your team’s work as lists, Kanban boards, or Gantt charts, and allows project data export. The basic plan for one team of up to 10 users is free, and as the team grows, additional features in paid plans are available.

8. OpenProject

Another open-source project management tool that helps organize the entire life cycle of your projects. Its features include project planning, scheduling, monitoring, creating charts and reports, and many more. It also offers security and data privacy features that help you protect critical project data from unauthorized access. As paid options, cloud-hosted and enterprise editions are also available.

Is your team using a free project management software tool not listed here? Share it in the comments!

How to Work from Home and Be a Productivity Hero

Marina Pilipenko — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 09:09:12 +0000

Working from home seems to be a dream. You don’t have to spend time and money for commuting, you can cuddle with your cat or play guitar in pauses, and you (usually) have a flexible schedule that allows you to combine work with hobbies, studies and other activities.

But sooner or later, any remote employee faces the problems that make it look not so attractive. Literally, you are surrounded by the worst enemies of productivity and efficiency. Distractions, procrastination, losing connection to your coworkers – all this is extremely disruptive for your work and career.

So, how to work from home and stay productive – and successful?

Dream come true? Not exactly

Home is a place where you’re busy even when you are not doing anything particular. As easy as it can seem first, fighting everything that gets in the way requires discipline and effort. Sometimes much more discipline than an office employee needs.

Problems that telecommuters face are pretty much the same. And the first step to tackle them is identifying them. So, what are the enemies of your success at work?

Distractions. Home is full of distractions, and let alone TV and the Internet – household chores, even small and fun ones, are consuming your workday. Doing laundry, watering flowers, organizing closets during your workday seem to be a great idea: you switch off from work for a while and do something useful. But many of remote employees end up using this as an excuse for not doing their actual work.

No consistent schedule. If you’re working shifts — for example in support — you have a regular schedule. What a blessing! The other side of flexibility is that you are tempted to put everything off for later. Later turns out to be late night, and you find yourself working on pending tasks instead of having a good night’s rest. This results in accumulated tiredness and irregular sleep.

Unhealthy eating habits. As if unhealthy sleep wasn’t enough, working from home tends to influence our eating habits – and not in the best way. We eat more when we stay home because it’s easier to snack when the kitchen is just a few steps away, and – admit it – we rarely indulge ourselves with healthy snacks.

Interruptions. Working from home is not “really working” – that’s what friends, neighbors and family sometimes think. And it’s not always easy to explain them that it is not quite true. This is why they keep interrupting you while you’re working, asking you to do more chores, or to cook – this destroys your efforts to be productive.

Losing connection to your boss and colleagues. It’s easy to communicate when you’re physically in the office. For a remote employee, regular communication can be a challenge. Different working hours, no scheduled meetings, no defined procedure for communication with remote coworkers are the main reasons of that.

Returning to the office – do you really need it?

Indeed, being disciplined is easier with external control from your boss or coworkers. That is why some remote employees prefer to return to the office. But if you really love working from home, there is nothing that could hold you back.

The first thing you need to do is regain self-discipline. Commit to being focused and organized, and don’t let anything distract you from work.

Easier said than done – so here are several crucial steps that will help you stay productive and make your lifestyle healthier.

Define a set schedule. Define your working hours and stick to them – this way it’s easier to resist the temptation to relax and make up the hours later this day (or this week, or this month). It will also help you set a healthy sleep schedule by preventing you from working late hours.

Get rid of distractions. If you easily get distracted by web surfing or video games, use special distraction blockers on your computer. If your distractions are household to-dos, try pomodoro technique with a real timer or a software analog. Anyway, be mindful about how you are spending your workday, and don’t abuse your employer’s trust.

Create a to-do list and put it in a place where you can see it regularly throughout your workday. You can also try special to-do list apps on your mobile device or computer.

Track your time. It’s much easier to focus on your work and try to get it done faster when you are aware of your time expenses. For that purpose, try adopting special tools that summarize your daily, weekly, monthly etc. results and show them in a graphic chart.

Communicate proactively. Remember that sometimes even the fact of telecommuting can make your coworkers wonder what you’re doing throughout your workday. Let them (and your boss) know what you are working on, share your results and concerns, and ask for feedback.

Be accessible in your work hours. Don’t let calls or messages unanswered. First, this will help you let your colleagues know that you’re working as hard as if you were in the office. Then, it prevents your coworkers from trying to access you outside your working hours.

Explain your friends and family that you are not available for any additional chores, household to-dos or long talks during your working hours. Be clear with them that it is not okay to interrupt you when you’re at work.

Stick to healthy habits. Don’t overwork, follow your schedule, take breaks to exercise (it’s much easier at home than at the office), don’t eat throughout the day more than at the office, and opt for healthy snacks.

Summary

Being productive while working from home is challenging. There are quite a few reasons why, including constant distractions, no external control, and seemingly valid excuses for not work-related activities.

Follow some simple rules, and you will build up healthy habits and develop a mindful approach to your work and rest. This will improve your work-life balance, make your lifestyle healthier, and help you be more successful at your job.

Do you work from home? What challenges do you face in your work?

How We Make Decisions

Marina Pilipenko — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 10:48:07 +0000

How do we make decisions? Are there “right” and “wrong” ways to do that? What makes successful managers and business owners great decision makers? Decision making is a hard job. It is tough, risky, and demanding. It determines success or failure of the entire businesses and careers – and it doesn’t seem to be regulated by any rules.

Being the crucial part of any work, decision making is thoroughly researched by psychologists and neuroscientists. It seems that there are no blind spots on the subject.

At the same time, there still are aspects that sound counterintuitive or unclear. There are common misconceptions, arguable ideas, and controversial points of view around decision making. So let’s try to bring some clarity into it.

Decisions and Emotions

The biggest uncertainty is the proportion of reason and emotions. We know that emotionally-driven decisions are poor (just remember a toddler climbing to a high shelf to get candy) – but it turns out that without emotions the ability to make decisions totally degrades.

The neurologist Antonio Damasio noticed that the patients with damage to the brain parts that process emotions are often struggling with indecision.

One of his patients, named Elliot, had been a successful businessman. But, after removing a brain tumor that was pushing into his frontal lobes responsible for processing emotions, he stopped showing any emotional responses.

At the same time, he became unable to make even routine decisions. He thoroughly considered every single detail, which resulted in being not able to efficiently reach decisions – because no option provoked any emotional reaction.

A research followed that showed a trend. Patients with injuries similar to Elliot’s shared this combination of emotional numbness and inability to make decisions. So, there’s something important between emotions and efficient decision-making.

We usually call it gut, or hunch. It works faster than reason and, surprisingly, is quite a reliable way to make the right decision. It helps detect what is your best interest – and eventually turns into a foundation of good judgment.

Intuition: Friend or Foe?

We’ve always been taught to rely on reasonable things: lists of pros and cons, if / then logic, estimation, calculation. But in reality, it is not uncommon that we let the non-reasonable part of our brain do the math. Is it good or bad for our decisions?

Intuition is our ability to come to a conclusion momentarily, skipping all logical deductions. Such insights save time and effort when they happen, but is relying on them the right way for a wise decision-maker?

In fact, sometimes we need just a couple of details to see the entire picture. But missing out something important can completely distort it and mislead you. So instead of just relying on intuition, be sure to have on hand as many details as possible to make informed decisions.

Traps of Decision Making

Even when our decision-making process is reasonable and logical, we can get caught in common thinking traps that affect the final result. Our previous experience and information circulating around us create biases – and they cause flaws in our reasoning. Here are some of them.

1. Anchoring trap.

It’s easier to estimate anything when you already have some reference figures. It is particularly tricky when you have a vague idea about the subject. This trap is widely (and often efficiently) used in price negotiations, when the selling party sets an overprice “just for scale”. They don’t really expect that the buying party agrees to pay their initial price, but the resulting amount is usually higher than otherwise. How to avoid anchoring? View the problem from your own perspective before consulting others, seek information from different sources, and carefully think through your position before any actions or negotiations.

2. Status quo trap.

In short, we tend to keep things unchanged. It is demanding to adapt to new conditions, and there’s always fear of failure. In business, waiting and hesitating often leads to missed opportunities. This often occurs in investment: instead of taking a risk and placing money, an investor prefers to wait and look. However, waiting can be even worse for the capital than placing it into a risky undertaking. To avoid the trap of status quo, remind yourself of your goals, ask yourself what would you do if the current situation weren’t actually status quo, and never think of the existing situation as of your only alternative.

3. Sunk cost trap.

It’s about making choices that justify our previous choices, even (and especially) if they were bad. Our past decisions act like what economists call “sunk costs” – investments that are irrecoverable – and each new decision is biased by them. This bias shows up in banking quite often: when the borrower runs into financial problems, the lender provides them additional funds, even if it’s clear that these costs will never be recovered. To avoid the sunk cost trap, listen to people who are not involved in earlier development of the events, don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes as early as possible, and don’t let the fear of failure influence your thinking and decisions.

4. Confirming evidence trap.

It’s about finding justifications for a choice we’re subconsciously leaning to. It’s not that subconscious choice is always a poor choice – just make sure that your decision is smart. Be honest with yourself about your motives, find counterarguments for your decision or have somebody to do this for you, and when seeking advice, don’t ask leading questions that invite confirming evidence.

5. Framing trap.

Framing the problem is the first step that defines the final decision to a great extent. The crucial idea is to frame it appropriately: with focus on right things, with relevant reference points, and in appropriate terms. Let’s take a look at the classic experiment formulated by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, the following was proposed:

Three barges have sunk, each one with $200.000 worth of cargo. You cannot save all three of them, but part of the cargo still can be saved. Which of the two options would you choose?

Plan A: Save the cargo of one of the three barges, worth $200.000.

Plan B: Have a one-third probability of saving the cargo of all three barges worth $600.00, but with a two-thirds probability of saving nothing.

Unsurprisingly, 70% of participants chose the “less risky” Plan A – even though the potential outcome of both options is the same. The options were just framed differently. To avoid framing mistakes, always try to find several different frames, don’t automatically accept default frames, and if other suggest ready frames, challenge them with different ones."

6. Estimating and forecasting trap.

Not really many of us are good at estimating, but we still let our estimates guide our thinking and decisions. Both overconfidence and overcautiousness are bad, because estimates influenced by them have little in common with reality. To avoid failures related to estimation and forecasting, be honest about your estimates and their accuracy, remember that previous events can influence your estimates, and always consider the extremes beyond your estimates.

This list contains only the most common traps. There are more of them, but the best protection against all traps is the same: being aware of them, recognizing them as early as possible, and making well-considered choices.

Overcoming Indecision

Like any other work, making decisions takes time. But when it comes to indecision, the process of pondering each option and choosing the best one might turn into a time-waster. How to avoid it? There are three simple rules to follow:

Use habits for making routine decisions. This way you avoid the decision-making process entirely and save your time and energy.
Use if / then logic to routinize unpredictable choices. If a specific event occurs, then you react in a certain way.
Use a timer to reduce time expenses on weighing your decision and avoid postponing it. This method helps if there are several equally attractive choices and there’s no clear answer what to prefer.

Summary

Making decisions is not always easy, but it is crucial for success. Decision making is a skill, and there’s no limit for improving it. Being aware of its hidden mechanisms and traps helps avoid typical mistakes, make better choices and reach wiser decisions.

Time-Tracking Software for Linux: Solutions for Teams and Individuals

Marina Pilipenko — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 09:31:01 +0000

Linux distributions are widely used as server operating systems due to their security and reliability. Being in general not really popular for desktops, various Linux flavors are still used by freelancers and office employees on their personal computers.

To control personal or team’s time expenses and measure productivity, various Linux compatible timekeeping solutions are available. Many of them are free and open-source, which is a plus. The bad thing about Linux-based time-trackers is that mostly they are buggy and require additional effort when installing and configuring them. But we did some research and found time-tracking software for Linux operating systems that is easy to install and use.

1. actiTIME
For: Teams, Individuals
actiTIME is an intuitive and robust time-tracking and work management system. It runs as a web application in the cloud or on the company’s internal server. The cloud solution is accessible from any device that is able to connect to the Internet. As for the self-hosted option, it is compatible with both Windows and Linux platforms.

The functionality of this tool includes recording time spent on specific tasks (with comments), running reports on the collected data, calculating billable amounts, invoicing, managing projects, and keeping track of employees’ absences.

actiTIME is a useful tool for project managers, accountants, HRs, and all office employees and freelancers who need to keep track of their time. It helps companies of any size and self-employed individuals organize their workflow and have a better control over their individual productivity, team performance, and profitability of specific projects.

2. Project Hamster
For: Individuals
Hamster is a popular Linux-specific time-tracker. Its functionality is quite simple: it includes tracking time spent on tasks throughout the day, calculating totals, and exporting time-track data into an HTML report.

To track time expenses in Hamster, change your activity in the program when switching from one task to another. The program counts time totals and shows them in the interface.

To simplify search through your historical data and categorize the time-track results, tag your activities. The results will be split by tags and shown in the Statistics section. Adding descriptions to the activities helps keep track of specific parts of work in the overall progress.

3. Kimai
For: Teams, Individuals
Kimai is an open-source time-tracking application that works as a web service. The program allows to configure regular worker, admin and customer accounts with different data access levels.

The app provides basic timesheet and invoicing functionality. Users can track their time expenses with a timer and then, if necessary, edit their entries. As for cost and billing features, Kimai supports user rates, entry of project budgets and expenses, as well as invoice export.

4. Rachota
For: Individuals
Rachota is a portable time-tracking software for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It can run everywhere, as it allows to keep time-tracking data on a USB drive.

Alongside with collecting time-track data, the app analyzes it and suggests hints on how to use time more efficiently. What’s more, it has reporting and invoicing functionality.

Rachota is an open-source solution, so it’s totally free. Unlike many other apps, it is localized into 10 languages which simplifies time tracking for those who are not proficient in English.

5. KTimeTracker
For: Individuals
This app is a time-tracking part of Kontact, the personal information manager for KDE desktop environment. It provides basic to-do management and timekeeping features, allowing users to create task lists and record time spent on the tasks. The data is summarized and stored in a journal where the user can review the results.

Time expenses are calculated automatically; the user only needs to start and stop the timer. The application also allows to edit already recorded time, if necessary.

KTimeTracker’s configuration options are quite simple: they include idle time detection, time saving frequency, and displayed details. So it’s a good choice for those who don’t need more than just keep track of daily time expenses.

6. GnoTime
For: Individuals
This Gnome time tracker is distributed under the GNU GLP license, so it’s a free tool. It is designed for Unix systems (so it runs not only on Linux, but also on Mac OS X). it offers simple interfaces and basic time-tracking and billing functionality.

Like in many other time-trackers for Linux, a timer is provided for recording time expenses. The specific feature of this app is auto-merging short time intervals recorded for one task. The length of the intervals to be merged is defined by user.

Each entry has a “billing status” parameter: it can be flagged as billable or non-billable, and billing rates can be set up. Urgency and completion statuses are also provided.

Recorded information is collected in the application and then can be displayed in various HTML reports. They can show tasks performed throughout the given day, billable amounts, and statuses of projects.

7. Fanurio
For: Individuals
Fanurio is a time-tracking and billing app mostly used by freelancers. It supports Windows and Unix systems and can run from a USB drive on any computer, which is convenient for those who work from different locations.

The app has a timer and a manual time entry form. Its specific feature is smart timing that combines idle time detection and reminders – just in case you forgot to start the timer. Fanurio’s billing functionality includes invoices that contain detailed data on works performed and amounts billed for them.

Fanurio is a commercial software. It is licensed per user, which means that one license allows you to run the application on multiple computers. Paid maintenance plans are also available for Fanurio users.

8. arbtt
For: Individuals
ARBTT means “automatic rule-based time-tracker”, so the user doesn’t need to enter anything manually. The program records which windows have been open and active and for how long, and then calculates the time.

The product supports both Windows and Linux and is distributed under the GPL license. No updates seem to have been released since early 2014, but arbtt is still available for download on the developer’s website.

9. jTimeSched
For: Individuals
jTimeSched is a lightweight time-tracking software for Linux. It allows to create tasks and projects, track time against them using timers, add notes to the time-track, and save the collected data into log files.

The app basically consists of just one .jar file and can run from a USB stick. Its configuration data is stored per directory, which means you can use multiple configurations. The author of this solution emphasizes that the app would suit for those who need a simple time-tracker with minimalistic interfaces, but might not fit your needs when advanced features, fancy interfaces and detailed task hierarchy are required.

10. GTimeLog
For: Individuals
GTimeLog is a small GTK+ application for timekeeping. The developer says it is designed to be as unintrusive as possible, so it provides simple time-tracking functionality. When you arrive to work and start the workday, start up the app and type in it “arrived”. After finishing each activity throughout the workday, enter the name of this activity in the GTimeLog prompt.

The program calculates your time expenses and creates an activity report at the end of the day that shows how much time you have spent working and “slacking”. Simple configuration options are available: there are commands to flag specific activities as non-related to work or to completely omit them in daily reports.

11. TimeSlotTracker
For: Individuals
A simple application for tracking work time in time slots against tasks in a hierarchical tree. The tool is available for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows and distributed for free under GNU GPL.

The app offers integration with Jira and iCalendar. Users can run reports based on the collected time-track data and export them into CSV, HTML and TXT formats. Seven localizations are available for this tool.

Do you know other time tracking software for Linux? Let me know in the comments!

Keep calm and code on: Productivity tools for developers

Marina Pilipenko — Tue, 20 Feb 2018 15:01:38 +0000

Productivity turns into a vague concept when speaking of jobs in the technology environment. Programming is one of the areas where productivity is really hard to measure and manage: a developer’s productivity cannot be measured in trivial figures like lines of code. There are various opinions about how to handle it and many management approaches, but in any case, adopting special productivity tools for developers is a great way to improve team’s results. Alongside with the apps designed specifically for developers, general productivity tools that work for everyone can also be helpful for software development teams.

Work management and focusing tools

Let’s start with general productivity tools that help organize the work process regardless of the type of activity you’re engaged in. Keeping track of time, controlling workflow progress, and blocking workplace distractions is important for everyone when you need to get things done.

1. actiTIME
This tool is designed for keeping control over individual and team’s time expenses, but it also a good work management instrument. It is used both by companies and freelancers for recording time spent on work tasks, controlling project progress, analyzing performance and profitability, etc. With its rich reporting functionality, managers can always get a detailed picture of their team’s productivity and individual results, compare actual results with initial estimates, and better plan work for future. For regular employees, the tool offers a detailed overview of their work time structure, and a possibility to control their work time expenses and productivity.

2. Cold Turkey
A popular distraction-blocking app that helps you focus on your work, not on everything funny and attractive on your desktop or on the Internet. Set it up to block your access to specific websites, or to the entire Internet, or to any applications on your computer to create a distraction-free environment. The app helps develop self-control habits and get more done in less time.

3. Strict Workflow
Experts say that 25-minute focusing sprints with 5-minute breaks are an efficient way to increase productivity. Strict Workflow is a Chrome extension that implements this idea: set up and start the timer, and follow its work-and-break cycles. Or, alternatively, you can use the traditional pomodoro technique with a kitchen timer to develop concentration and build up productivity habits.

4. Habitica
If you enjoy playing RPG, why not gamify your work too? Habitica is one of the most popular productivity apps that motivates you with RPG-like rewards and punishments. The app turns your tasks into monsters that you need to defeat. The more you get done, the more you progress in the game (and you can customize your avatar, prizes and punishments). And if you find it boring or disappointing to play alone, there’s a social network feature: compete with friends who are also working on their productivity, fight bosses that can hurt your teammates, and tackle challenges with special prizes.

Special productivity tools for software development

There is another category of tools that can help developers get more productive at the workplace. Special tools that create a more comfortable work environment and speed up routine processes can be of help even for those who are not facing productivity issues.

1. Oh My Zsh
Oh M Zsh is an open-source framework for managing a Zsh configuration that comes with lots of useful functions. It is designed for developers working with the command line. When creating the tool, the developer focused on keeping it simple for people who are new to the command-line environment, but those who need advanced functions can choose among various plugins, helpers, themes etc. As for now, there are more than 200 plugins for different technologies, and over 1000 contributors keep working on the project.

2. The Silver Searcher
The Silver Searcher is a code searching tool. Its author explains that a lot of time he spent on “writing” code was actually reading the code and searching through it. So he needed a tool that would search quickly and relevantly, and he built it. Now The Silver Searcher is ranked among the most efficient productivity tools for developers, as it saves a lot of time and effort.

3. UltraEdit
UltraEdit is a text editor that is often used for editing code and markup in virtually any markup or programming language. It can handle large files (up to 4 GB) and allows to configure the work environment according to the user’s preferences. Besides syntax highlighting for unlimited number of languages and other visual features, it supports FTP, provides a SSH/telnet console, and allows logical grouping and ordering of files and folders, which is convenient when working on n large projects.

4. Homebrew
Homebrew is “the missing package manager for MacOS”, as the authors call it. Its purpose is quick installation of freely usable open source tools from binary packages. Its lead maintainer, Mike McQuaid, says that it is particularly useful for developers, as it offers the quickest and easiest way to find and install commonly used developer tools, or to create your own Homebrew packages.

5. GitHub Changelog Generator
As the name of this tool suggests, it offers automated creation of change logs for projects you’re working on. It generates change logs by tags, issues and pull requests in developers’ tools. This way, you can spend less time on describing important changes you made to your project, and focus on developing tasks.

DEV Community: Marina Pilipenko

Ensuring SMS Integration Testing Success: Best Practices and Common Challenges

Contents

Why SMS Integration Testing Should Be a Priority

Best Practices for SMS Integration Testing

Test Environment Setup

Functional Testing

Error Handling and Edge Cases

Main Challenges in SMS Integration Testing

Rate Limits and Throttling

Network Connectivity and Delivery Delays

Synchronization and Data Consistency

Compliance and Regulatory Requirements

Handling Dynamic Content

Performance and Scalability

Error Handling and Logging

To Sum It Up

The Value of Time Tracking During the Epidemic

1. Develop Telework Directives

2. Educate Employees on How to Perform Productively When at Home

3. Select the Right Time Tracking Instrument

Form a detailed work plan and distribute workloads

Promote performance transparency with task comments

Coordinate tasks among employees

Run daily reports to inform decision making

4. Advance Your Leave and Schedule Management Practices

Project Estimation Methods in Prehistoric World

Expert judgment

Comparative/analogous estimation

Top-down estimation

Bottom-up estimation

Parametric model estimating

Three-point estimation

What Causes Scope Creep and How to Avoid It

Why scope creep happens

Project scope is not defined clearly enough

Changed client’s priorities or needs

Poor identification of stakeholders and their needs

Poor initial analysis of what’s necessary and reasonable

Inability to say no

How to avoid scope creep

Identify all stakeholders and understand their goals

Clearly define project scope

Plan room for changes in advance

Take action as early as possible

Know when to say no

What to do if it has already happened

Understand the importance of new requests and suggestions

Identify the root cause

Analyze the effects of scope creep

Find the solution with the stakeholders

Summary

Getting the Right Talent for the Project Team

Key Project Roles

Sponsor

Project manager

Team lead

Team members

How to build a functional project team?

Skills and experience

Willingness to learn new skills

Personal traits

Cultural fit

How to efficiently manage a project team

Be a decisive leader.

Involve everyone in planning processes.

Look for contributions and accountability from everyone involved.

Acquire team members who can work well and play well with others.

Summary

8 Free Project Management Software for Small Teams

How to Work from Home and Be a Productivity Hero

Dream come true? Not exactly

Returning to the office – do you really need it?

Summary

How We Make Decisions

Decisions and Emotions

Intuition: Friend or Foe?

Traps of Decision Making

1. Anchoring trap.

2. Status quo trap.