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Standard Time® helps you win by increasing your sales! It can keep track of project proposals and task lists for your clients. Your employees can download an app for their Android or iOS phones.

Scroll down for the video.

This project revenue chart is like a sales funnel.  You can set the percentage of possible win, and the chart will forecast how much revenue you are likely to get from all the deals.  So let’s say you set the percentage to 50%.  the chart will show half the expected revenue.  If you set the win percentage to 100%, it will show the full amount.  The fact is, you will either win the proposal or not.  There is no such thing as winning 50% of a proposal.  But the chart is trying to forecast the probably income from all the project proposals combined.  You probably won’t win all of them, so the revenue shown is your probable results.

Standard Time does a lot more than project project revenue.  It’s got a full task list for each employee.  There is time and expense tracking.  And PTO time off accruals.  You can run your whole consulting or engineering organization from it.  Not bad for a timesheet app!

 

 

This video will show you how Standard Time uses rates for client invoicing. Different rates for different employees. Once Standard Time is set up you won’t need to fuss with it.   Just set each project rate for each employee and you’re done.

You have several models to choose from:

1. User rates (Default.  Each user has their own rates for each project)
2. Role rates (each role a person plays on a project has it’s own rates)
3. Category rates (each kind of work has it’s own rate)
4. Project rates (each project has it’s rate, regardless of user or kind of work.  Least flexible)
5. Option Year rates (for government contracting)

Check stdtime.com for more details.

Here’s a graph of employee availability in Standard Time®.  It shows when employees are available for work.  This is a lot like a resource allocation graph, but inverted.  The bars show when employees are available, unlike a resource allocation chart where the bars show hours the employee has work assigned.

You’ll need this if you are a consulting, engineering, or manufacturing organization.  It’s important to see when employees have projects assigned.  Standard Time provides that.

 

 

This video shows how the Standard Time timesheet displays project tasks.  Each timesheet is different for each employee.  That makes things pretty handy!

 

 

 

 

 

So I got home around 10:30 last night and there already was about four inches of snow on the ground. As I pulled into my garage, I know my truck is packing the snow on the driveway into hard ice. That is nearly impossible to get up. Then I thought…hey this is a job for the Project-team blog. Before I hit the sack I sketched out a rough project plan to start first thing in the morning.

6:00A.M.- emailed the team to begin the day announcing immediate project escalation for driveway snow removal by end of day.

Pete, my lead engineer: The driveway is 25’ x 40’ long and the snow is 6 inches deep. Please determine the cubic feet of snow removal and determine the most cost efficient shovel for the job. Oh, and we may have packed ice under snow. Find a tool for that, too.

John, our labor liaison: Get with Pete and determine the number of man hours needed to remove the snow…will we need one, two…three labor resources to complete on time? Remember, we need the job finished by 5pm today. Please provide estimated labor expense accordingly.

Les, in materials procurement: Please let Pete know if any ice melt is available. Please advise as to whether there are any has mat concerns and what costs are associated with procurement.

To All: I will be on site to assess progress and will be available throughout the morning. The plan is to begin removal by noon…let’s get to work…my wife has Christmas shopping to finish!

9:00AM: received message from Pete. He has located a shovel at Lowes for $15.99 and a tile remover for the ice, $34.99.

Pete: please get a P.O. together and have Dave Johnson and Allison Fields sign off immediately. We need their signatures by 10:30 A.M. because Betty Thomas (CFO) has an 11:00 AM. and is heading straight to the airport for Christmas break. We have to have Betty’s final approval before we can purchase equipment from Lowes.

10:00AM: John sent IM stating we can only get one labor resource because all the others are currently working at 98% capacity. We can only have the one available person from 2-4pm.

10:15AM: Pete: Just ran the numbers and we can have the ice removed utilizing one person in 3.5 hrs.

10:20AM: I replied to Pete…SCOPE CHANGE! I forgot we need to include the front side walk and porch. We are talking an additional 70 square feet! Please get back to me on man hours needed.

10:40AM: Message from Pete: We will need an additional 30 minutes for the sidewalk and porch… almost a 15% increase. I will get with John and see if we can secure additional resources.

11:00AM: Email to Pete…Have you got the P.O. approved…what is your ETA for getting equipment to site?

11:10AM: reply from Pete: We only have Allison’s signature, Dave is out sick. I will need to get Eric Jansen to sign off in place of Dave. Then I still have to catch Betty for her signature…working on it!

11:45 AM: Message from Pete: I have Dave’s signature trying to catch Betty before she leaves the building.

12:20PM: Message from John: I can’t get additional resources. I know we are behind on our project plan, but it looks like we have to go with what we have.

12:27PM: Message from Pete: It looks like I missed Betty, her 11:00 A.M. meeting was cancelled and she took an early flight. Can you get a petty cash disbursement for the equipment? (I don’t know why I didn’t think of that sooner!)

12:30PM: My reply to all:

Project Snow Team,
Due to a minor scope change and lack of funding the snow removal project has been delayed and it looks like I will just have to do it myself. Take the rest of the day off and have a Merry Christmas!

My definition of “default behavior” is: doing what 90% of the world’s population does, when faced with a new or unfamiliar situation.  Panic and give up.  Let me explain.

The “average guy on the street” almost always acts the same way when faced with something new or unfamiliar.  He throws up his hands and asks for help.  No thought.  No research.  Just give up and ask for someone else to do it for him.  “Tell me how to do it.”

If you expect to manage projects or people, you must learn how to think independently.  And learn how to handle unfamiliar situations without exhibiting “default behavior.”  Here are some examples:

You are asked to download a program:

Default behavior: “What’s the URL again?”

Better: Google the name or look it up in your list of products.

 

You are asked to reconfigure all the users in a certain program:

Default behavior: Call tech support and ask how

Better: Explore the program and learn it

 

Your project is over-budget and stalled:

Default behavior: Ask for more money, time, and resources

Better: Huddle up and cut secondary priorities

 

You may not suffer from these exact scenarios, but the general advice is sound.  Learn to recognize your responses to unfamiliar and stressful situations, and improve them beyond the default behavior.  Career advancement depends upon it!

–ray

Here’s a small piece of advice registering as a user on this (or any other blog).  Don’t look like a spammer.  Because your account will get deleted for sure.  We won’t even ask first.

What do I mean by that?  Make sure you provide a little personal information about yourself.  Nothing that will get you into trouble, but enough to let us know you’re a human being instead of a spambot.  Spammers attack the blogs regularly, trying to register with fake names so they can post “comments,” which are really just ads for crap.  Its a despicable practice, one that requires a complete lack of integrity and moral backbone.  But hey, if your in the spam biz, you don’t have those luxuries.

–admin

CIO Insight had a short article that got my attention.  See the link below.  It caught my attention because it lists the business areas where CIO’s are not typically involved.

http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Foreward/What-IT-Leaders-Dont-Do/

Areas CIO’s are not involved: 

1. Choose geographical markets to enter
2. Choose product markets to enter
3. Choose product lines to enter
4. Hiring non-IT employees
5. Acquiring other companies
6. Merging with other companies

 

I’d like to hear your opinion!  Should CIO’s be involved in these areas?  The first three are the domain of sales and marketing executives, and the last three belong to the CEO (who the CIO normally reports to).  So what involvement should the CIO have in these areas?  I would think little, if any.

CIO’s typically care about the information infrastructure of their organizations.  So how do these things apply to that.  Well, there’s web sites, databases, web services, network traffic, logins, etc, etc, etc.  I suppose that’s a fair degree of overlap.  But does it warrant anything more than a token seat at the conference table (when discussing the issues)?

Your thoughts?

 

 

–ray