Aarni's Blog

Our very first iPad app, Thinking Portfolio® Risk Analysis, is now available on App Store.

The app helps you in the identification and analysis of project risks and opportunities. You can use it effectively in all kinds of projects, large and small.

Studies suggest that around a third of all projects fail. One of the most under-reported areas of project failure is risk management. In many cases the management has neglected proactive risk identification, analysis, and mitigation. All too often project managers and steering groups address problems reactively, causing schedules and budgets to be exceeded. This leads to schedule slippage, budget overruns, and staff overtime, even burnout.

Thinking Portfolio® Risk Analysis makes proactive project risk identification and analysis an engaging, positive experience.

The application is intuitive, versatile, and visual. It makes it easy to determine and discuss project risks and opportunities, analyze them visually, and share the results within the project management team.

Check it out at http://www.thinkingportfolio.com/riskanalysis/ or go directly to App Store to buy it.

Every consulting assignment is a learning and development opportunity. One good way to pass on that learning to future clients is to turn your experience into consulting tools. Consulting tools are methods, processes, templates, or software that you can use repeatedly, but with sensibility, to the client’s specific needs.

Business Consulting Buzz published my two guest posts this week:

From Scenarios to Vision – A Case Study

and 

Creating New Consulting Tools

In these articles I share my experiences on using and developing tools for managment consulting.

Is there life outside of meetings? A manager is either in a meeting or on the way to a meeting. You can always ask if all the appointments are necessary, but one thing is sure: it is a pain to schedule a meeting.

A typical scenario is that one person sends emails to the attendees from different companies and organizations. The message contains a list of possible dates and times. Gradually people respond and a date and time that seems to suits everyone is about to emerge. Finally one person, probably one whose attendance is very important, sends a message saying that none of those dates is possible. He or she may suggest another date and the messaging starts all over again.

On the day of the meeting everything seems to be all right, but not quite. The person who wanted to change the date does not show up, because of an urgency elsewhere.

I don’t know if anyone has calculated how much time and money is wasted because of these kinds of incidents. I think that one cure is to radically reduce the number of large face-to-face meetings.  You should really think if a meeting is necessary and if there are other ways to work together and discuss. This is also a learning issue. People should take time and some effort to learn new ways to communicate and collaborate. Tools for that are already there.

What are the best tools for getting things done? I'm always looking for new ones, but these are the ones that I've found most useful. I'm a Mac user, but most of these are available for Windows as well.

1. Google calendar

I gave up paper calendars years ago when mobile phones started to have decent calendars. The problem, however, has always been to back up and sync the calendar. Now I have many devices that are capable of reading and syncing calendars. The problem is, how to be sure that nothing gets deleted in the process. My default home page for my browser is the calendar.

Since I'm not working in a big company I was able to make my own choice. Today it is Google calendar. It is my master calendar that works with every device that I have, perfectly.

2. Dropbox

Dropbox the way to automatically store files online and sync contents between table and laptop computers. It is also indispensable for iPad. File sharing with colleagues and projects is really easy.

3. Evernote

Evernote is a versatile note-taking tool that I use on iPhone, Mac, and iPad. I can write notes, take snapshots, grab web pages and so on with Evernote. Everything gets synced between devices, if I want. Indispensable for me at the moment.

4. MindMeister

I've done mind mapping for years. I started off with MindManager. Now my favorite is MindMeister. It is available online, for iPhone, and iPad. It also allows sharing of mind maps online.

5. Inspiration

Inspiration is a very flexible piece of software for creating system and process diagrams, mind maps, concept maps and so on. Inspiration will be launching an online version soon.

6. PowerPoint or Keynote

Depending on the project, I use one of these tools for presentations. And no, I don't use bullet point lists!

7. Excel

"Excel is the most popular management software in the world", I've often said. But let's face it: it's a standard. You have no idea what kind of uses of Excel I have witnessed over the years.

8. Pixelmator

This is an image editor for Mac.

9. Skype

I have Skype meetings several times a week.

10. Seesmic

I use Seesmic daily for creating and managing social media content.

Videos are becoming the next PowerPoint. Perhaps iMovie will be on my next top 10 list, because I seem to use it more and more often.

UPDATE: I was surprised that Word is not on my top 10 list. It is not a mistake. I use it occasionally, but it is not my daily tool any longer.

Image: Aarni Heiskanen