Mae Virtucio

About Mae Virtucio

Mae is a subject matter expert in the project management field. She focuses on project management software reviews, books reviews, training site reviews, and general articles related to the project management industry.

How to manage a project with a remote team?

Remote teams are already a growing trend in various industries today, considering the benefits it gives to both team managers and members. It is expected to be even more popular as 50% of the workforce now is working various telecommuting roles and about 80% of all employees desire to work remotely for part of the week. However, many managers still cannot fully accept this and they have reasons for that. One of these is fear that they have no control over their actual productivity and level of commitment; therefore, putting the desired result for a project at risk.

What is a remote team?

A remote team is a virtual team that works together, similar to the traditional workplace where a team works for a common goal in a project. It has a manager or leader that the members directly report to for their specific functions. And since it is virtual, the team members and the leaders may not be co-located geographically. In a remote team, there are members that […]

By |2020-01-22T09:58:06-05:00January 22nd, 2020|
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How to make sure your team stays motivated?

A team’s success lies in the hands of everyone and how they work together to achieve their common goals. It is every manager or CEO’s objective to put the people with the right skills set together. This is expected to result in high productivity and good quality outputs. However, in order to keep it like that, teams have to be kept motivated. As the years go by, employees can become lax, especially with mandatory overtimes, tight deadlines, and high expectations. When motivation fades, productivity falls and the company fails.

Benefits of having a motivated team

The benefits of leading a motivated team cannot be underrated because its effects are tremendous. Some of these include the following:

  1. Higher productivity. When a team is motivated, each member’s output goes up. As a result, the costs of production are lowered, allowing a company to put their products in the market at a much lower cost.
  2. Lower staff turnover rate. When workers are motivated, they like to go to work and will not […]
By |2020-01-22T09:50:46-05:00January 22nd, 2020|
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What are Gantt charts and are they essential for project management?

Project management involves numerous operations being done simultaneously. It is like juggling a dozen balls and having to keep one’s eye on all of them. The challenge here is on how organizations can make sure that all processes are completed and quality output is delivered.

Two of the most important elements of project management are time and budget. A project needs to be completed within a given period and a pre-defined budget. If it does not meet the deadline, the budget may be depleted which may cause even more delays. Thankfully, numerous project management tools help organizations meet these crucial elements and track their projects. These include Trello, Basecamp, Monday.com, AceProject, and Asana, to name a few. To enhance their features for progress tracking, they use third-party integrations like Gantt charts.

What is a Gantt chart?

A Gantt chart is a tool used to provide a view of tasks that are displayed against time. It contains the course of a project, along with all the elements involved in it. It is […]

By |2020-01-21T14:55:05-05:00January 21st, 2020|
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Agile project management: 4 lessons learned this year

Project management may now be considered as one of the most popular and widely-practiced fields today. More organizations have become involved in handling projects while the number of software for project management continues to grow. Moreover, various project management methodologies have sprouted and among these is the Agile methodology.

What is Agile Methodology?

Project managers may be familiar with it but here is additional information for those who want to know more. The Agile methodology uses the iterative approach to delivering output throughout the life cycle of a project. This means that the project is broken into stages which are called sprints and the team collaborates with the stakeholders.

There are basically four main values of Agile which are:

  1. Putting more importance on the use of software than on documentation
  2. Working hand-in-hand with customers over negotiating a contract
  3. Being more open to change than sticking to a plan
  4. Choosing individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Lessons learned this year about Agile Methodology

The Agile […]

By |2020-01-21T14:51:29-05:00January 21st, 2020|
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Top 10 Best Hive Tutorials – Training and Courses

Hive is a project management tool that provides the solution for seamless collaboration for project management teams and individuals. Regardless of the business’ size, Hive makes it easier to complete tasks and deliver quality project outputs. It was designed by its creators, John Furneaux and Eric Typaldos, to be suitable for all businesses across various industries. Hive allows teams to use it as a tool for centralized communication through its native chat and email integration. Moreover, it offers various project layouts wherein users can easily switch between them for easier organization. They can choose among the calendar, Gantt chart, Kanban board, and table for their convenience.

The Top 10 Tutorials

Hive is a project management tool that combines the capabilities of other software to become the go-to software for collaboration. It is easy to use but there are various tutorials that help users make the most of its features. Here are the top 10 Hive tutorials that are worth reading and watching.

1. Edureka

By |2020-01-21T14:15:45-05:00January 21st, 2020|
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Top 10 Best Todoist Tutorials – Training and Courses

Todoist is the top to-do software in the market today, helping project management teams stay at the top of the competition. Many organizations choose it for its myriad of great features that promote productivity and team efficiency. Todoist automates many processes which users would otherwise have to do manually for long periods of time. It helps users organize their tasks, create schedules, and set deadlines. Todoist is even better because it is a freemium app that also offers a premium plan which provides more features and capabilities. With Todoist, teams are more efficient and productive and are able to deliver outputs that exceed expectations.

The Top 10 Tutorials

Todoist has numerous features that make it a great online tool for project management. Among the best capabilities is allowing its users to track their projects and getting their work organized. With this, teams can focus on more important tasks from their to-do list without missing anything important. Like other software, there are tons of tutorials online that can be […]

By |2020-01-21T11:39:48-05:00January 21st, 2020|
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Trello FAQ – Comment with Slack and Create Checklists

Trello is one of the many project management software available in the market today. But what sets it apart from others is its Kanban-style

which appears like a whiteboard filled with Post-Its. The Kanban system was developed by Toyota to maintain high production rates and flexibility. Trello’s main elements include boards, lists, and cards which all help show the progress or status of a project. These all help teams and individuals have an overview of the project and determine what is most needed and where they can provide help. Specifically, the board is typically the product or project that is being worked on or developed. It has specific members that can see it and control the creation and flow of cards within the board. Additionally, they can also add themselves or other members to the cards, make attachments, and start conversations. Lists, on another hand, divide a board into categories that represent a stage of the project’s development. Examples of lists would be ‘to be done’ ‘being […]
By |2020-01-12T16:09:43-05:00January 12th, 2020|
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How to keep track of your project with Bridge24?

Project management is a continuously growing industry with more teams joining it and online collaboration tools being developed. In fact, according to the Project Management Institute, there were only more than a hundred of this software back in 2000. Today, more than a thousand are available options for project management teams. It is believed that one of the reasons for this is the temporary nature of projects. This means that every project is unique and each of them may require various tools. Another reason is user satisfaction wherein a user will keep using a tool for as long as it meets its needs. With this, it can be concluded that what project management teams need is a tool that can adapt to the different types of tasks and hold many features that are easy to use. These can be found in Bridge24.

What is Bridge24?

Bridge24 is not another project management tool in the market but is an online application that bridges various project management software. Thus, it […]

By |2020-01-01T19:26:29-05:00January 1st, 2020|
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Do you need a certification to be a project manager?

Project management is a steadily growing field wherein numerous teams and organizations manage workflow and various projects. Project managers are at the top of these projects and are responsible for overseeing the members, clients, and projects. These team leaders need to have the right knowledge, experience, and qualifications to do their job. They have a variety of duties which include creating and implementing budgets, managing staff and team resources, coordinating tasks and their assignees, and understanding the technological needs of every assignment, among others.

Because of the uniqueness of the job and the demand for project managers, many of them have opted to reinforce the existing skills and knowledge they have by getting certified. Various universities are already offering certification courses these days both online and onsite. There are undergraduate and graduate courses for project managers; some of which can be completed in two years or less. Depending on the target of the course, these courses may focus on leadership, risk management, communications, budgeting, technology, negotiations, and performance […]

By |2020-01-01T15:30:51-05:00January 1st, 2020|
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Asana FAQ – Task Reminders, Task Dependencies and more

Project management software has been proven to help teams and businesses better manage their workflows. These online tools have been proven to increase work productivity and help organizations deliver more quality outputs. Among the most famous software of this kind is Asana, the cloud-based collaboration tool, which provides users with a virtual workspace where they can collaborate for a project. Project managers can create tasks, assign these tasks to members, and set their due dates so no deadline is missed. Members can also ask about the details of the tasks by commenting on them and attaching files.

Asana can be used for various purposes, including for communication which is one of its most basic functions. It offers an option where users no longer have to use multiple tools for communication. Through its instant messaging tools, users no longer have to use the email all the time. They can skip digging through emails as they can search through conversations in one place. Asana can also be used for holding […]

By |2020-01-01T18:51:30-05:00January 1st, 2020|
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