Project Insight Blogs

The Hard Truth for Project Managers: Most tools aren't built for you. They’re built for dashboards. For executives. For task tracking. For time clocks. But not for the practice of project management. If you’re a PMP or someone trained in the PMBOK® (Project Management Body of Knowledge), you know this struggle. You’re trying to build charters, capture risks, track scope c...

Driving organization-wide change isn’t about getting everyone on board at the same time. The most successful project leaders know where to focus first — and who to focus on. In a recent Project Insight webinar, Diane Buckley-Altweis, PMP from Core Concepts, joined Steve West, CEO of Project Insight, and Mathew Sparkes, Product Champion at Project Insight, to outline 5 must-know steps that proje...

Managing multiple projects simultaneously can be a complex challenge for organizations. Without a strategic approach to Project Portfolio Management (PPM), businesses may struggle with resource allocation, financial forecasting, and risk assessment—ultimately impacting profitability. This report explores the latest trends in project portfolio management and highlights how organizations can optimiz...

KPIs can Seem Elusive at FirstWhen you first hear about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), they sound straightforward—measure what matters and track success. But in practice, defining and using KPIs effectively is far more complex. Many professionals struggle to bridge the gap between understanding the concept and applying it in real-world scenarios. Why? Because KPIs often seem abstract until app...

A Project Charter serves as the blueprint for a successful project, defining its purpose, scope, and objectives while aligning stakeholders. Without it, projects can quickly become disorganized, leading to misalignment, wasted resources, and scope creep. According to the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) Guide, the Project Charter is a critical document that formally authorizes...

In the world of business and organizational change, project and program management play crucial roles. However, while they share some similarities, they require distinct skill sets and serve different functions within an organization. In this article, we’ll break down the key differences between project and program management, outline the necessary skills for each role, and map out the typical c...

A well-structured Project Management Office (PMO) is more than an operational necessity—it’s a strategic function that drives efficiency, governance, and long-term business success. However, research shows that many PMOs fail within three years due to lack of executive support, rigid processes, or misalignment with organizational goals. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), only 30%...

In today’s fast-paced business environment, organizations need dynamic, real-time visibility across projects, programs, and portfolios. Traditional project management tools and spreadsheets fall short, leading to inefficiencies, siloed data, and increased manual work. Project Insight (PI) is revolutionizing the industry with its newly enhanced Program & Portfolio Management capabilities, empower...

Organizations today rely on an extensive range of software tools to manage projects, track resources, and oversee budgets. Teams adopt specialized platforms—Jira and Azure DevOps for development, Microsoft Project for scheduling, ServiceNow for IT operations, Salesforce for sales, and various financial systems for budget tracking. While these tools improve efficiency within individual departments...

Companies grow, business goals become more ambitious, products evolve, and development teams work to execute bold new initiatives. But too often, there’s a disconnect—business leaders set the vision, product teams define features, and developers build the solutions, but without alignment, projects stall or miss the mark. That’s where project managers (PMs) step in. They don’t just keep projects o...

Close to 70% of our days are reported to be spent in meetings. Achieving work-life balance in a world of back to back calls often feels like an elusive goal. An innovative use of color blocking offers a practical solution to this challenge, enabling a structured yet flexible approach to managing time. Let’s explore how color blocking can revolutionize your schedule and enhance productivity while m...

Project managers are accustomed to managing risks and navigating unforeseen challenges, but what happens when the unexpected hits close to home? For Michelle Dickstein, a nonprofit PMP, managing large-scale, mission-driven projects became deeply personal when life threw her not one, but two major curveballs. From discovering she was pregnant with twins while working on a maternal health projec...

Managing projects in the nonprofit humanitarian sector isn’t just about budgets and timelines; it’s about aligning your work with a mission that matters. For PMPs like Michelle Dickstein of the American Red Cross working in nonprofits offers a unique opportunity to make a tangible difference, whether it’s reducing preterm births or improving access to healthcare. Along the way, the right tools...

"You have to have a positive idea about change. Part of that positivity is being able to select the best tools and practices from the diversity that’s merging together.” –Sukanya Krishnamurthi, Activision, Blizzard King (Acquired by Microsoft for $75 billion) We spoke with Jen Farrar and Sukanya Krishnamurthi from Microsoft's Cybersecurity teams about what it's like to manage projects when ...

"The cyber landscape changes all the time, and so we have to be able to change direction continuously in what we do. Sometimes we don't finish projects. They get repurposed, they get stalled, they get cancelled, and we have a whole new direction that's more urgent. And just having that mindset that that's ok to do; let's put on our other hat, and we'll go in this direction. But it's also exci...

Change is a constant in the workplace, and managing it effectively is critical to achieving organizational success. As project managers, we’re often at the center of these transformations, navigating resistance, facilitating communication, and ensuring that change efforts align with organizational goals. This blog post dives into the highlights of our recent webinar on change management, offering ...

In the world of project management, there's often a lot of focus on the execution of individual projects. However, when it comes to achieving larger strategic goals, we also need to understand how projects connect into programs and portfolios. Program and portfolio management play a crucial role in aligning multiple projects with overarching business objectives, ensuring that all initiatives w...

ServiceNow is a cloud-based platform that provides a wide range of IT services management (ITSM) solutions and tools to help businesses manage their IT operations and automate various business processes. Originally focused on IT service management, ServiceNow has expanded its capabilities to include other areas such as customer service, HR service delivery, security operations, and more. It he...

In today’s fast-paced project environments, team engagement is crucial to ensure success. As project managers, we are tasked not just with delivering projects, but with creating a team dynamic that fosters productivity, collaboration, and high performance. In a recent webinar, we delved into ways project managers can improve team engagement, focusing on understanding personality types, promoti...

Organizing a multi-day event, whether it's a conference, a corporate gathering, or an annual meeting, can be both exciting and challenging. With so many moving parts, having a well-structured project plan is critical to ensuring every detail is covered. This blog will guide you through the process of planning a seamless multi-day event and provide you with a ready-to-use project plan template ...

Understanding the personalities of your team members can make a profound difference in project success. At our recent webinar, we delved into how personality tools like Myers Briggs, DISC, and Big Five can be leveraged to improve communication, collaboration, and overall team dynamics. Here are some key insights: Why Personalities Matter in Project Management Every person on your team perceives ...

The healthcare industry is a vast and multifaceted domain encompassing hospitals, health systems, insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms, healthcare vendors, and medical groups. Healthcare organizations today face numerous challenges, including rising costs, staffing shortages, and stringent regulations. These factors create significant pressure on healthcare teams to optimize resources, cut ex...

In today's digital landscape, integration capabilities are crucial for SaaS tools. They enable seamless data exchange and workflow automation between different software applications, enhancing operational efficiency, improving data accuracy, and supporting scalable growth by creating a unified data ecosystem. When shopping for software, understanding integration capabilities is essential. Here's w...

If you're new to the world of project management, learn about crucial PM concepts, principles, benefits, and applications - going beyond just timelines and checklists. In his recent blog post, Take a Glimpse Into the Strategic Side of Project Management, Roderick Conwi, PMP, CAPM, LSSWB shares about the essential foundations of successful project management and comments on Project Insight's Pr...

In the dynamic world of project management, transitioning seamlessly from the initial sale, through diligent work efforts of your team, to the final invoicing and billing phase is a complex journey that takes sophisticated workflows. Our recent webinar in the Project Insight Power Tutorial series shed light on how our award-winning tool simplifies this journey, transforming it into a streamlin...

Introduction In the dynamic world of project management, understanding and managing finances is crucial for success. Two key components of financial management are Capital Expenditures (CapEx) and Operational Expenditures (OpEx). How these are handled can significantly impact a project's outcome. The new feature in Project Insight, named "CapEx OpEx," offers a streamlined way to manage these expen...

Project management has a rich vocabulary of key concepts, tools, acronyms, and methodologies. We've assembled the top 100 project management terms (and then some) in this glossary to serve as a comprehensive list of project management terminology. Project Insight is committed to helping project managers make work life easier with clearer communication, better decision-making, and a more profound g...

The remote work force is growing exponentially and is becoming commonplace. The tools that we have available to manage remote work are numerous, but the Project Manager is being asked to take on additional responsibility for making remote work go more smoothly for their teams. This webinar will discuss some of the benefits of remote work and the key challenges of not working in person with you...

Irvine, CA — 12-2-2022 – Project Insight (PI) announced today that it has been nominated for Best Project Management tool as part of the 38th annual CODiE Awards. The CODiE Awards honor the best products, companies and teams in the business and education technology industries and are widely recognized as the “academy awards of the B2B technology industry." The CODiE Awards are presented by the...

What are You Thankful for on This Project Management Thanksgiving? As Thanksgiving 2022 approaches, I'm sure most of us have lots to be thankful for. I know I do. But taking this from a different perspective, in terms of Project Management, what do we have to be thankful for? These things come to mind for me... 10. A steady job 9. A new project 8. A cohesive team 7. A cooperative cl...

Is Your Project Haunted? As we approach Halloween this year, let’s consider – could these project be haunted? Old techniques for project management may have worked for you before but, don’t always work for everything and may never work again. Resurrecting them may seem like a good idea, but is often a symptom of complacency and can lead to zombie project nightmares. Those old projec...

The CEO is in charge and likely arrived in their position through leadership, success, and doing the right things, right? One would think that the CEO has it all together – surely there’s nothing more the CEO can learn. They’re at the top of their game – the pinnacle of their profession. Here’s the problem, the typical CEO has to maintain a fairly high level of focus on the organization as a ...

Five Top Causes of Project Delays Delays happen – sometimes for things way out of the project lead’s control. Project delays are a way of life in the project management world. We do everything we can (at least we think we are doing everything we can) to avoid project delays by starting with a good project schedule that we’re watching closely. We stay on top of all the project tasks, we create fil...

Some Key Risks Lengthy Projects and How To Mitigate Them A high-dollar, high-visibility, long-term project for a customer ready to spend top dollar on a successful solution sounds like a great opportunity. A career-changer, a resume-booster, and attention-getter. A very desirable scenario... right? Well, yes it, it definitely can be if it goes well, is deemed successful and doesn't becom...

2022 PMI Jobs Report Opportunity Amid Recovery Even in the face of ongoing economic uncertainty, one thing is clear: Job seekers are in control. After two years of pivots and resets, organizations are settling into new ways of working and delivering innovative solutions. As the world rebuilds and reinvents, there is historic investment in infrastructure, healthcare, mobility, digital transf...

In honor of "National Superhero Day" on 4/28 this year, this article talks about how to be a superhero project manager. It can be a very good thing and a resume boost and an ego boost – or it can turn out very badly and be a disaster. And, the biggest frustration factor in all of this is that if it deemed a failure at the end anyway, there may have been nothing or not enough within your own contro...

There is no question that our project resources – their strengths, weaknesses, ability to handle pressure, and their availability at the right time is key to the success of any project. Is resource management easy for you or is it a pain-point like it is for the rest of the project management world? Egos, conflicts, tracking delegated tasks, and making sure team resources are fully utilized ar...

If the Covid-19 pandemic has shown us anything, it has definitely shown us that remote work and virtual teams are still a productive way to work. In some cases, they can actually be more productive than co-located and face-to-face teams. Now that things are resolving, Employers have opted to allow some or all employees to work from home rather than go back to the typical office situation. Why? Bec...

The project manager is the project leader, the go-to person on the project, the one everyone is supposed to look to and listen to for direction and status. What about the project customer who can’t reach out and touch the project manager whenever they want to? Do they have concerns? Is their money being well spent? And what about the project manager? What obstacles does the remote PM face that...

While not that much changes in project management from year to year, that doesn’t mean there is no change at all. In one of my favorite shows – the “Big Bang Theory” – there’s a quote early in the series when Leonard and Penny are out to dinner… Penny: So, what’s new in the world of physics? Leonard: Nothing. Penny: Really, nothing? Leonard: Well, with the exce...

Communication is Job One for the project manager. If there is a breakdown, the responsibility has to fall to the project manager, and it can be devastating to the project. Have you ever been there – a breakdown in communication or key pieces of information falling through the cracks starts to cause an otherwise successful project engagement to experience timeline issues, deliver...

Project Insight recognized as finalist for prestigious industry award IRVINE, Calif., May 2, 2019 - Project Insight® (PI®), a leading work management solution, is excited to announce their nomination as a finalist in the 2019 SIIA CODiE Awards in the category of Best Project Management Software. Finalists represent the best products, technologies, and services in software, information and...

The tech industry is at the forefront of innovation and problem solving. And while engineering and computer-related roles are some of the fastest growing fields in the U.S., women only hold about 25% of those positions. We sat down with Christine Cunliffe, Chapter Director of ChickTech OC, and Ellen Tran, volunteer with the organization, to discuss the importance of presenting hands...

Irvine, CA, April 18, 2019 - Project Insight, the leading work management and aggregation platform, announced today the second version release of its portfolio synchronization and estimation conversion add-on for Atlassian's Jira. With the proliferation of development tools using story points and other agile techniques, it has become increasingly difficult for portfolio ma...

The project management job market is as competitive as it is diverse. How do you set yourself apart? We know there are many questions surrounding getting your PMP certification such as, "When as a project manager should you make it official?" or "Does the certification make the person?" We sat down with Melvin Randle, Independent Project Management Consultant, to get some answers an...

Ah, Valentine's Day! The one day we get to publicly express our gratitude for the love, friendship and partnerships in our lives. So, we're ready to wear our heart on our sleeve to bring you the Top 5 PI features you'll fall in love with! 5. Communication: If communication is the key to every great relationship, then @mention-ing, email notifications and our VirtualPM for Slack inte...

You wake up early in the morning. You quickly get your coffee, eat a light breakfast, and go to work. You do your best to complete all tasks on time, but you always seem to struggle with that. You see that one special employee, who manages to complete much more work than everyone else, and they still enjoy their breaks and casual talks with the team members. This person also goes to a...

The project management field is constantly evolving, so it is important for leaders and other professionals working in this area to keep up with the latest trends and to change with the times. Similarly, it is imperative that employee development strategies and online project management training programs adapt and evolve. In this article, we take a closer look at some of the most sign...