“Unclear project contract“, “fuzzy project goals” or just a simple “we’ve completely talked past each other” – a lot of times a project is missing an important foundation for its success from the very beginning: a clear scope specification, which functions as an essential guideline throughout the progress of the project. Client and contractor should both be clear about what they expect from each other and clearly define what they consider a successful project completion. 

It’s always important to look back and identify what went wrong, but also what went really well, which aspects you can improve and what you want to achieve next. The same goes for our blog so we compiled a list of your, our readers’, favorite posts on the InLoox blog – a little flashback, if you will. 

“Being able to look into the future” is probably on every project manager’s New Year’s wish list. [Tweet this] Unfortunately, that’s not possible. What is possible, is to look at the past and make predictions for the future. 

We’re one week into 2016, how many New Year’s resolutions have you already broken? If you’re one of the very few who’ve kept their resolutions: Congratulations! Though you still have time to do so as January 17 marks the official Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day. But if you’ve broken them already: Don’t worry! Here are 3 reasons why sometimes it’s better to break your resolutions. 

Happy New Year! Before we fully set foot into 2016, let’s quickly travel back to 2015. If you want to catch up with our blog after the Holiday and New Year’s celebrations, here’s what happened in December on the InLoox blog. 

The time between Christmas and New Year is a bit peculiar. If you still have to go to the office or at least finish your work for this year that is. Your to-do-list seems longer than the Nile and you worry constantly whether you can finish it in time before the new year starts. But at the same time your motivation to do something productive is at its lowest level because it’s the holidays and everybody else is relaxing while you have to work.

If you think about it, Santa Claus is probably the best project manager out there. He manages to deliver presents to 1.6 BILLION children on Christmas Eve (that’s a few hours at most), this means that he has to visit 822 homes a second. Add to that, he has to manage 3,000 elves and 5,6 million reindeers (including Rudolph) who help him meet his deadlines. 

Social media has become an indispensable part of our lives. We use it to keep in contact with friends and family, and businesses have also realized the possibilities that it offers to generate leads. Social media is also used as a communication method in projects more and more. 

Running the perfect meeting. Running the perfect project. Putting together the perfect project schedule. It's hard. Perfection is hard. I'm an Iowa Hawkeye fan and alumni of the University of Iowa – class of 1985. They have had some great teams and great football players, but never achieved a perfect 12-0 record until this season. While they weren't perfect – lots of mistakes and luck played into the final outcomes of some of the games – they did manage to complete their regular football season with a perfect record.

You’ve probably heard the saying ‘If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it!”, or some kind of variant of it (‘never change a winning horse’ for example), a million times. Many people are apprehensive about change because it poses a risk, the risk that the endeavor might fail. But there are many reasons to actually embrace change, the most important ones are: Innovation and progress.