Blog about planning

It's April, and the majority of your colleagues are probably busy planning and booking their holidays. Chances are that, as a manager in charge of staff leave, you're already knee-deep in a pile of leave applications, with more streaming in. So, how do you determine who is eligible for leave? Everyone is entitled to a holiday, but how do you ensure that your organization will continue to operate smoothly in their absence? And how do you ensure that you don't waste unnecessary time dealing with the whole process? Read more…

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into being on 25 May 2018. The GDPR defines regulations for the protection of personal data throughout the European Union. This will impact on every service provider who facilitates the planning of projects and resources and therefore makes use of personal data. In this blog post we will look at the effect this new legislation will have on the planning of your employees and what needs to be done as a service provider. Read more…

Everyone is familiar with the good old calendar. We plan our work and our private life in it, as well as all our other appointments. Sometimes it can be quite daunting. Now imagine that you need to plan for fifteen, seventy, or two hundred colleagues. In such a scenario, planning without the right tools is an almost impossible task. In this blog post we take a look at five powerful features that the digital planning board can deliver to your organization. Read more…

We regularly see that project-based service providers enthusiastically start a trial version of Timewax, only to find that they’re not properly prepared. Their organization is not yet in place. Obviously, that needs to be sorted out first before starting to use a software planning tool. In this blog, we will discuss the 3 building blocks for good organization in terms of planning. Read more…

Many companies struggle with how to use their employees for projects. In particular, the tug-of-war over employees from different parts of the company has shown to be disastrous for the correct and timely execution of the projects. You can deal with this by choosing the right project approach, assigning full-time employees and distinguishing between projects and other work. In this blog we will discuss this further. Read more…

Planners and project managers sometimes clash in the workplace. We are all familiar with situations where project managers eagerly start to claim employees, only to be blocked by the planner. And this is a source of irritation for both of them. In this blog, we will be looking at the drives that motivate these two roles, to gain more understanding about why they compete with each other and also to see where their middle ground is and where they can actually support each other. Read more…

Waste is around us everywhere, every day, including in projects. You have probably heard of the Lean method. This method was originally used only by production companies, but is now also being used in other business sectors. One of the priorities of Lean is to eradicate waste. In this blog we will look at how we can apply this in the world of project-driven service providers. Read more…

The Gantt Chart, a type of bar chart, is a specific method to make the project comprehensible in a graphic way. The question, however, is: when does it make sense to use a Gantt Chart and when doesn't it? When speaking to organizations, I have noticed that they are not always sure about this and therefore waste time or lack certain insights. In this blog, we will provide concrete guidance on the truth and myth of using the Gantt Chart. Read more…

Planning is about working together. There are several different parties in projects that have significant input with regard to project planning. The customer will first indicate within what timeframe they need to see results and then the subject matter experts will indicate how much will be needed to achieve those results. The project manager structures the project so that the project results are realised in an orderly and efficient manner. Read more…

The 80/20 rule, also known as the "Pareto principle", asserts that 80% of all outcomes are a result of 20% of the effort. Everyone knows about the example where 80% of all sales are a result of 20% of the customer base. Thus, by giving more attention to a small group of customers this leads to disproportionate revenue. In this blog post we'll look at how to use the principle within the 80/20 in regards to project & resource planning. Read more…

Service providers who carry out projects for their customers generally want two things: on the one hand, a fast and satisfactory result for their customers, and profitability on the other hand. An optimal allocation of employees to the projects is crucial. Yet, we often see that project and resource planning is limited to a one-off activity at the start of the project. Shouldn't more attention be paid to this? Read more…

Our clients, who implement projects where multiple people are involved, often struggled with the question of how to organise in regards to resource planning. In this blog post we will look at the different development stages companies go through and the organisation of resource planning which would be appropriate. We will spell out what the risks would be if you do not prepare for this within a reasonable period of time. Read more…

I mean Parkinson's law, not the terrible brain disease. Parkinson's law states that work is spread over the time that is available to complete the work. This is one of the 4 time wasters in project planning which we discussed in one of our previous blog postings. In this blog we will see how you can determine if your project planning has this condition and how to manage it. Read more…

If you look at the picture, you might be thinking there are more stones and sand in the first jar than in the second jar, but nothing could be further from the truth. The second jar contains the exact same amount of sand and stones, only the content doesn't fit in the first jar. That has to do with the order of filling the jar. If you first fill the jar with the large stones, then the smaller stones and the sand is easier to add. Read more…

For many organizations, they are only able to see in hindsight what the margin was they achieved for their project, which for many, leads to disappointment. The project ended not being as profitable as they had thought. Even while remaining within the budgeted number of hours. How is that even possible? An analysis showed that they, for example, relied on freelancers instead of internal staff on which the project was budgeted. Read more…

Planning is as ancient as the human race. Ever since humans began to think ahead and started hunting in groups, plans have been made to achieve the best possible result. At first, planning was based purely on (non-)verbal communication. With the recording of the first hunting scenes, the famous cave drawings of animal hunts, the first planning was possibly created. Read more…

A business lead recently asked me if I could help forming the business case for purchasing Timewax. Although he saw the value in it, he needed outside input to "sell" it internally. Management asked for a business case with hard data, as in, how would they be better off using it? It’s a legitimate question. In this blog entry, we will focus on three key benefits to using a project planning tool and we will try to quantify them as well. Read more…

I have been in touch with a number of organizations lately, which had all tried to plan their projects in Workforce Management software. In other words, they tried to make up a roster of their projects in rostering software. Can this actually be done and if so, what are the limitations? In this blog we will look at this, using a practical case. Read more…

When giving demos of Timewax, customers often ask me whether they can also make the planning part of their calendar (for instance in Outlook). They would like to have two-way processing: everything they plan in Timewax should end up in their calendar and every item that employees plan in their calendars should end up in Timewax. But does that make sense? We will discuss this topic in detail in this blog. Read more…

If you create many small tasks and include in your planning, you can end up "blowing up" you planning. The risk is that you will end up spending your entire day on updating your planning, especially in a dynamic environment that requires many changes. This blog will explore what alternatives there are and what factors determine whether you should plan in detail or not. Read more…

These days Scrum has become essential for software development. Scrum is a successful method, which fundamentally changes the way projects are organized. The method does not employ any traditional ways of budgeting planning or reporting on project progress. So will a planning tool offer added value within Scrum projects? In this blog we are going to find out. Read more…

Timewax will talk about the decisions that you need to make in order to successfully implement your planning software. Part 3: Process or system driven implementation. The final decision you have to make is deciding how the system and the organization (the processes) will be aligned with each other. This often manifest itself as a strong ambition to improve the processes, countered by the major pressure of being expected to deliver something on the short term. Read more…

Timewax explains in a number of blogs on what you should make a decision to implement your planning software successfully. Part 2: Big bang or phased implementation? It applies here too: you have a small business and you just want to improve the planning process, then you should rather opt for a ‘Big bang’ approach. Read more…

You have opted for new project & resource planning software. Now is the time for implementation. Just a matter of doing, right? Or maybe you should reconsider the approach? I explain in a number of blogs what you have to make a decision on to make the implementation successful. Part 1: the central or decentralised implementation of your scheduling software. Read more…

You are looking for planning software to better schedule the time in the business. To save time. But you do want to find the correct planning software. And that takes time. Mark de Jong of Timewax, as a former software selection consultant knows like no other how this process can best be performed - in three clear steps. Read more…

With Lean, we want to change things to better and maybe even more than better. Working daily towards continuous improvement is the goal. Entwine the Lean DNA with the own DNA. Because we use Lean in our business and planning processes or at home in the kitchen, it is possible to eliminate steps that don't matter and never deal with them again. Read more…

There are, of course, numerous ways to analyse your projects. Budget vs. actual, planning vs. actual, spending variances based on percentage completed, and so on. And all are valuable, but only aimed at looking at the past. Not that looking at the past is wrong, because this is how you will learn when budgeting and planning future projects. But during your projects, you would mostly like to look ahead. Read more…

There are more and more signals that the future labor organization without far-reaching forms of flexibility will not last long. The discussion on flexibilization focuses mainly on the distinction between 'bad' and 'good' flexibility. This blog contains a number of topics on what will now be called 'sustainable flexibilization'. Read more…

Personnel costs are the biggest costs in many organizations. Professional planning can often lead to substantial cost savings, especially in situations where both the Organization and the staff are pushed to change. What does this mean for the planning organization and for planners?
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The Standish Group conducts research on project performance every year. It turns out that the majority is not delivered within the scheduled time. The main cause is that much time is wasted by the way in which projects are planned. Employees include a generous margin of safety in the project plan to ensure that they will complete the activity in time. However, research shows that they waste their safety margin. Read more…

You often bump into central flex pools, especially in health care, but also in other branches. That is a pool of temporary staff and other flexible employees who are employed in different places in the organization. The staff planning of the flex pool is organised centrally, for example by the planning office or a flexi agency. The goal is to create a safety net to plug gaps in the 'time planning' in the departments. Read more…

Research has shown that almost half of all projects exceeds the end date and the budget. Reports on the progress of projects are often inaccurate. The causes of this inaccuracy can often be traced to lack of project administration of planning, spending and progress. As a result, it generates some risks for the project manager. Read more…