A good induction can increase staff retention, reduce the time needed for a new staff member to settle into the workplace and generally make for a happier work force.

Common complaints about induction processes include being bored, being overwhelmed by too much information or inductees just being left to their own devices.

Below I have put together my tips for what makes a good induction process.

When many people think of project management, they picture large corporations, boardrooms and large-scale, multi-employee undertakings.

While it’s true that big companies already reap the rewards that project management strategies provide, many SMBs and start-ups are beginning to realise the benefits of improving output using project management.

A project management team does not have to include twenty team members; it can be just as valuable with just one.

For complete beginners, it's worthwhile attending an Introduction to project management workshop, but if you already know the basics then learning an established framework to use by becoming a PRINCE2 Practitioner or Agile project management Practitioner is the next logical step.

For start-ups, good project management skills can mean the difference between surviving and dissolving and although some methods do  not directly apply, many of the techniques, can help bring about more organisation and efficiency.

Let’s take a look at some techniques that you should be considering when starting your own enterprise.

Here's what we think are the 4 essential Project Management soft skills:

1/ Communication

So many issues arise during projects due to bad communication. This may be the Project Manager misunderstanding the requirements of the Project Board or team members not being given clear instructions.

Make sure you have the ability to both listen and explain. Listening really means active listening; not assuming based on past experience or pretending to accept their way while secretly planning to continue with your own methods.

Simple words at first and then more detailed points go along way when trying to explain a course of action or reason for one to team members. Nip any misunderstandings in the bud by asking for feedback. Get them to offer any problems they see or clarifications they require, upon explanation rather than days or weeks later, when some damage may have already been done.

Throughout history there are certain figures who stand out as naturally great leaders. It is always useful for managers to focus on the qualities that made these people great and try to emulate them.

You can learn how to develop these qualities and much more on our leadership and management courses.

We recently gave some tips for managing a start-up but in this post we will focus on the more general skills that can apply to anyone in a leadership position, whether your business is just getting off the ground or you're an established manager with years of experience. And we'll be having some fun with it too... hopefully.

John F. Kennedy - Aspire to Greatness

JFK was perhaps the most youthful, vivacious and daring president there has ever been (and we're not just talking about his extra-marital exploits here).  While this sometimes got him into trouble (*nearly caused the apocalypse) he will be remembered as the man who dreamed of putting a man on the moon, reversing the centuries-old persecution of African-Americans and bedding Marilyn Monroe!

Dare to dream like JFK. Aim for the stars and still land on the moon, aim for Mila Kunis and still land on...actually, I think we'll leave that analogy there. Aspiring towards greatness instills a confidence in your employees in both you, and themselves. Be like JFK. Be remembered. Be great.

Throughout history there are certain figures who stand out as naturally great leaders. It is always useful for managers to focus on the qualities that made these people great and try to emulate them.

You can learn how to develop these qualities and much more on our leadership and management courses.

We recently gave some tips for managing a start-up but in this post we will focus on the more general skills that can apply to anyone in a leadership position, whether your business is just getting off the ground or you're an established manager with years of experience. And we'll be having some fun with it too... hopefully.

John F. Kennedy - Aspire to Greatness

JFK was perhaps the most youthful, vivacious and daring president there has ever been (and we're not just talking about his extra-marital exploits here).  While this sometimes got him into trouble (*nearly caused the apocalypse) he will be remembered as the man who dreamed of putting a man on the moon, reversing the centuries-old persecution of African-Americans and bedding Marilyn Monroe!

Dare to dream like JFK. Aim for the stars and still land on the moon, aim for Mila Kunis and still land on...actually, I think we'll leave that analogy there. Aspiring towards greatness instills a confidence in your employees in both you, and themselves. Be like JFK. Be remembered. Be great.

Microsoft Project 2010 was released last year and many of our clients are upgrading to the new version.  Our guest blogger this week is one of our MS Office trainers and she has put together a list of some of the bugs in Project 2010 and (most importantly!) ways of getting around them.  In time these bugs will be ironed out with updates but for the time being they can be extremely frustrating if you encounter them.

To learn more about the Office Suite of products, see our Microsoft Office training courses, including MS Project training, Beginners Excel training and Advanced Excel training. If you are upgrading from a previous version, our Office 2010 Upgrade training course covers all the new features in Office 2010.

Bugs in Microsoft Project 2010

As a Microsoft Project trainer I was interested to see the new Project 2010 and how it compares to previous versions. I am always keen to find out what’s new with an application and what benefits it can bring to the users that I train, and how best to communicate these features.  There are some great new features such as:

• The Team Planner - this enables you to click and drag work from one resource to another.
• The ability to use the drop down list in the Resource Names column in the Gantt Chart table to select more than one resource.
• An icon in the Indicators column in the Gantt chart table to indicate over-allocations. This saves you having to go a view such as the Resource Sheet to check for over-allocations.
• The ribbon interface which matches the other MS Office applications.

Whilst working with Project 2010, various bugs came to light and a quick “google” and a chat with some other Project trainers reassured me that it isn’t something that I am doing wrong and that I am not the only one to have discovered these problems. For the most part, these bugs affect the display only and if you dig deeper into the detail in other views, the data in the background is correct.

Look out for the release of the Service Pack, but in the meantime, here is a description of the bugs that I have discovered and my suggestions of how to get around them:

Agile principles are now being applied to software development, software testing and project management, but what are the basic principles that Agile is based on?

All Agile methods were designed around a simple premise; the smaller the project, the greater the success rate.  For agile to be successful it must be both quick and simple.

In 2001 the Agile Manifesto was born.  Representatives from several Agile methodologies (including SCRUM, eXtreme Programming & DSDM) came together and devised a set of values and principles that any Agile methodology should adhere to.  These values and principles would increase the success rate as projects would be constantly revised to meet customer requirements.

We now offer the Certified Agile Project Management Training, please see our Agile Project Management Foundation Training and Agile Project Management Practitioner Training courses.

Students all over the UK are either celebrating their A level success and looking forward to a future at University with excitement or have been shocked into a “What am I going to do now?” dilemma when they didn’t make the grade.

If you or your offspring are faced with the latter it’s not the end of the world. Do not despair, some of the richest and most successful entrepreneurs in the world dropped out too! In fact, 6 out of 10 of the world’s richest people have no formal higher education qualifications, and some no qualifications at all. Great leadership skills are rarely learned at school or even university, although our training will give you some insights. Determination, hard work, enthusiasm, dedication and motivation may get you a lot further than you think.

Bill Gates – Microsoft

Co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates was the world richest man for thirteen consecutive years. Worth $62 billion he is still number two, second to Carlos Slim Helu. Bill dropped out of Harvard. Bill Gates says: “We were young, but we had good advice, good ideas and lots of enthusiasm.” Good ideas and enthusiasm can earn you lot more than qualifications.

Amancio Ortega Gaona - Zara

Spanish billionaire Ortega had no higher education and began working for a shirt maker at the age of 13 and continued to work in the textile industry until the early 1960s. At the age of 27, he founded his own company manufacturing fine bathrobes. Today he is worth $37.5 billion according to Forbes.