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There are certain strategies and actions that the PM may take when managing a virtual team in order to make it more productive. These strategies will also increase the likelihood for a successful project implementation--and hopefully a very satisfied customer post-deployment.

The move to mobility is on a significant rise. This new breed of independent worker helps open the gates to a workforce that can operate with confidence remotely--and not be wholly dependent upon organization talent to get them started and maintain their operations.

A project manager’s desk is often surrounded by scraps of paper with brief reminders and to-do lists, but this writer suggests a solution to eliminate “sticky note suffering".

When traveling long distances to a job site either as a mobile employee or contractor, the trips can get more than a little trying. To help lessen the burden upon these corporate nomads, it's important to make things easier at the job site. Here's how you can help.

In Part 1 of our review of trends and technologies that will impact the project manager in 2009, I described a period of financial tightness, energy dislocations, lessened globalization, and an increasingly unstable geo-political environment where small and medium-sized business will see growth because of their adaptability. I also anticipate increasing use of web mashups, digital convergence and unified communications, presence/video surveillance-based security, and collaborative technologies in economic activity.

With the increase in distributed teams and the rise of online meetings among them, a Web conferencing tool like GoToMeeting Corporate can help project managers accelerate project cycles by enabling better communication, increasing engagement and sharing ownership of project results.

So much for 2011 being the year of recovery. Next year should be much like the last. Some recent developments may impact your success as a CIO. What trends are likely to impact your organization from an IT perspective? What strategies and actions will yield the best outcomes for CIOs and their companies?

Staying on top of technology trends is one of the biggest advantages a CIO can grab. Here's a look at what's hot for this year, so you can keep your sites on the ever-moving technology target.

Cell phones are getting smarter by the second. What does this mean for project managers--and for those increasingly archaic laptops? (Don't get us started on desktops...)

Students in three countries test the value of an IBM all-in-one development tool as they learn about agile and Scrum.

With a world economy in recession, there isn't a whole lot of technology spending on the horizon. For an idea of where those precious IT dollars will (and should) be spent, here are the hot technology investments to look forward to in 2010.

From data processing centers in the '60s to PC networks in the '80s to this century's Cloud, the systems for managing large amounts of data are coming full circle. Read up on the latest trend: Mobile Data Centers.

Globally dispersed teams and stakeholders present daunting challenges to project, program and portfolio leaders. It is imperative that organizations develop a formal communication strategy that addresses distance, language, culture and access to information. In this undertaking, “the cloud” is a friend.

Here’s our December 2010 roundup of the latest technology solutions and services for project leaders, teams and organizations, including an application to leverage SharePoint … Agile offerings for distributed environments and portfolio-level planning … mobile capabilities for PPM … a free project management tool for small teams ... and more.

Managing customer expectations in an era of aging analytics can be challenging. IT business interface managers need to become more active in understanding business intelligence users’ gripes and "wow" factors regularly.

Listen up, IT project managers: If you've been casually following the UC market, get on the stick pronto, and find out what's going on. If you don't, your livelihood could be seriously affected.

Shortsightedness can shortchange your organization on the benefits of project portfolio management. A top PPM analyst shares best practices on how to embrace the big picture and how evolving PPM tools can help.

Are you considering using the iPad for project management activities? Here are some useful observations from the field, along with a selection of project management applications already available for the new device.

How have things changed in the world of CIO priorities, IT strategies, salaries, spending and such since September of 2010? Certainly the rise of the Cloud has had an impact on CIO thinking--as has the anemic and languishing global economy.

2010 saw Cloud Computing advance in popularity and in controversy. While the allure of reduced investments in infrastructure grows, so do the issues related to security and control over information. So what does the future of Cloud Computing look like?

It's easy to get lost in the Cloud if you are unsure who the major players are out there. This overview will examine several Cloud frameworks and identify the who's who of the big-league Cloud riders.

There is a growing roster of iPhone project management apps that could help you take your project mobile. That’s the focus of our latest Cool Tools roundup.

The cloud is moving in and taking over. What does this mean for the typical project manager? And as importantly, what does this mean for the organization considering moving its projects into the cloud? Clearly there are some benefits, but there are also some potential challenges. In this column, we examine both sides of the issue in an effort to bring some clarity to project management in the cloud.

Recent appointments, promotions, openings and awards in the world of project management.

In the next few years the PMO is going to evolve considerably as EPMOs become the new norm. The concept of an EPMO is gathering support in a lot of different environments, and the recent economic challenges have only accelerated the process. In this article, we look at what that might mean for traditional PMOs and identify some of the things that you can do for the arrival of an EPMO in your organization.

You say you want a revolution? Think again. The true power of the Internet isn't in creating new businesses, but in leveraging it to improve existing processes. Companies need to deploy emerging technologies creatively to exploit available opportunities that can introduce fundamental changes to the way business is conducted. And that old cliche about the real estate industry--location, location and location--sums up the true potential of the mobile and wireless technology industry.

Not only are we more accessible, but the devices we use are now becoming increasingly more robust to the point that we can be effective CRM agents anytime, anywhere--handheld and connected.

Great CIOs are not necessarily great technologists. They don’t even need to have had hands-on experience in programming, networking or infrastructure. But what they must have is the ability to understand enough about those disciplines to know fact from fiction--and the ability to surround themselves with an appropriate team of IT subject matter experts. For many, this will sound like heresy; for others, a refreshing change from stereotypical norms.

A technology forecaster and strategic planner predicts the trends that will dominate IT in 2008.

The future of storage is a dynamic target, with many opportunities. This year--for the first time--there is more streaming data in the world than we have the ability to store. While storage virtualization is getting all the play, there are other exciting data-storage domains where breakthroughs and disruption are expected in storage technologies.

Outsourcing can come in many forms, and it is important to understand which type of outsourcing that maximizes the risk-value balance before selecting an approach.

Mindjet’s task-based collaboration tool keeps teams in sync by making information more people-centric, organized and transparent. With social aspects similar to Facebook and Twitter, Cohuman helps colleagues coordinate projects and tasks with each other. Here are five reasons to consider the tool for your collaboration efforts.

Project management-based efforts helped relief organizations work on the same local telecommunications infrastructure, improving communications and cooperation.

Global projects face some difficulties unique to their far-reaching nature. Some issues, however, are universal. No matter how far you travel or how wide your geography, you can't escape project politics and administration.

What do the prevailing wisdom purveyors and pundits believe the top information technologies will be over the next 12 months? Since 2009, these predictions have been pretty volatile...can you guess what's hot and what's not for 2012?

How are wireless technologies impacting the marketplace and the workplace? Read on to find out.

For those of us that face the economic challenges of having an appropriate desktop, laptop or other computing device for our business operations, the evolution of the cell phone provides an attractive alternative.

Are you a power leech? Plenty of options out there--including upcoming ones on the tech landscape--will feed your need.

An increasing number of Mac-based project management applications now have mature feature sets, increased flexibility and attractive usability that rival their Windows-based counterparts. Here’s one senior IT pro’s review of five Mac apps gaining notice in the project world.

There are now more than 240 PM-related apps for the iPhone and iPad. One of the latest contains 675 flashcards to help individuals preparing for the PMP exam or seeking PDUs for re-certification.

What's with these wireless technology trends? With apparent doom and gloom at one end and happy upsurges at the other, this Jeckyl and Hyde is now making its mark in Customer Relationship Management, a powerful business strategy that companies are using to achieve higher profits and build competitive advantages.

New technologies are being introduced every day without being accompanied by proper change, resulting in poor adoption or suboptimal value creation. Here are five change management strategies that will greatly enhance introduction of new technologies into the enterprise.

We could see it coming - the massive armies of the information technology and communications industries finding a killer app that they all could claim ownership of, and one of huge revenue potential. Welcome to the war of unified communications.

It’s obvious that the present bromides for implementing IT security are ineffectual. IT departments have introduced everything from two-phase authentication to e-discovery analytic tools. What is really called for is a transformation in how IT treats security. This must be the priority for 2009. The reasons are too numerous and they can’t be disputed.

Promoting, marketing and branding your internal projects are key elements of successfully implementing change management within the organization--and social media tools are the answer.

Organizations should recognize that personal data is an increasingly valuable and complex asset requiring strategic decisions to effectively meet both the challenges and the opportunities of the emerging global information economy. The need for privacy and security fundamentally comes down to the human need for safety.

Recent alliances, acquisitions and implementations in the world of project and portfolio management.

What mattered most in 2005? Intelligence and information, probably more so than they did in any other year. Now what can we learn as we head into 2006?