Nearly everyone at some time has to manage other people. This can be either through formal appraisal, as is customary at this time or year, or through day-to-day management. For any manager having to appraise staff, we’ve taken a leaf out of the Google book to develop better managers.

In 2009, Googleplex geeks started Project Oxygen. Google analysed performance reports, feedback reviews, and appraisals and came up with the definitive list of actions to develop betters managers.  Here’s the edited list of the key principles to develop better managers, as well as a few no-nos.  Many of them are fairly obviously, but it’s the ranking which is important. We can’t do everything right? So here they are listed from the most to least critical.

1. Be a good coach

Provide specific, constructive feedback, balancing the negative and the positive.  Have regular one-on-ones, presenting solutions to problems tailored to your employees’ specific strengths.  Coaching should be about encouraging the other person to think for themselves.  Ask open questions and don’t be frightened of awkward silences.

2. Empower your team and don’t micro-manage

Balance giving Freedom to your employees, while still being available for advice. Make stretch assignments to help the team tackle big problems. Avoid creating dependency chains where your employees feel they have to ask permission for everything.

3. Express interest in team members’ success and personal well-being

Get to know your employees as people. with lives outside of work.  Make new members of your team feel welcome and help their transition.  Interact with your employees as equal peers.

4. Don’t be a sissy: Be productive and results-oriented

Focus on what employees want the team to achieve and how they can help achieve it.  Help the team prioritise work and use seniority to remove roadblocks.  Tell your employees what is expected of them on a weekly basis.

5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team

Communication is two-way: you both listen and share information.  Hold all-hands meetings and be straightforward about the messages and goals of the team.  Help the team connect the dots.  Encourage open dialogue and listen to the issues and concerns of your employees.

6. Help your employees with career development

Develop career plans for your employees and ensure they are regularly reviewed.  Balance on the job training with focussed eLearning sessions.

7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team

Even in the midst or turmoil, keep the team focused on goals and strategy.
Involve the team in setting and evolving the team’s vision and making progress toward it.

8. Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team

Roll up your sleeves and conduct work side by side with the team, when needed. Understand the specific challenges of the work.

Three Pitfalls of Managers

1. Have trouble making a transition to the team

Sometimes, fantastic individual contributors are promoted to managers without the  necessary skills to lead people.

People hired from outside the organization don’t always understand the unique aspects of  managing at Google.

2. Lack a consistent approach to performance management and career development

Don’t help employees understand how these work at Google and doesn’t coach them on their options to develop and stretch.

Not proactive, waits for the employee to come to them.

3. Spend too little time managing and communicating

Go to dabbleboard.com and click on Get Started.  The free version doesn’t require any signup so it’s quick to get started. The whiteboard session can be shared with any number of people by providing the unique URL of the whiteboard.   In freehand mode, the pointer simply paints whatever you doodle.   Switching off freehand causes dabbleboard to interpret a drawing and turn it into a tidy shape representing the doodle.

Dabbleboard also allows the upload of images which can be used as a background to sketch over. It also supports uploading of MS Word,  MS PowerPoint and PDF documents making it possible to quickly mark up the documents.  There is also a built in chat window supporting video and voice chat.  The audio and video chat works beautifully and makes the whiteboard session much more personal and interactive.

Saving the image is simple and the free version supports download to PNG format, or the image can be saved online.

Whether delivering a new product to market or a a new website, the principles of managing the project are the same. I’ve been privileged to witness fantastically successful projects, and out-right disasters. Bad projects always stem from the same 6 problems. 

Define the Project Scope

Define exactly what the project is going to deliver and, just as importantly, what the project is not going to deliver. State the reason why you’re doing the project and the project success criteria. Answer the question: how will you measure if the project was successful? The project scope should cover all basis including hardware, tools, software, functionality, user interfaces, people, skills etc. Discuss and agree the project scope with the customer and project bill-payer. In my experience, projects fail primarily because the project scope isn’t defined and agreed with the project customer. For larger projects, review the project scope after 60 days to make sure the project is still on the right lines. The key output from this project phase is a clear project scope definition.

Define the Project Plan

Create the list of key tasks to be completed for the project. It should be at the most detailed level possible. More detail is better. Start by listing the basic activities for the project, and then group them into a sensible project structure. The duration of each project task isn’t important at this stage, so focus on listing the key tasks for the project. If necessary, use Google to find an appropriate project methodology used to deliver similar projects, but resist following the methodology blindly. The project methodology shouldn’t be a substitute for common sense. The key output from this project phase is a clear list of key activities to be completed by the project.

Schedule the Project Plan

There is a well known scenario where a job expands to fill the time given it. A project has to have deadlines – even if they end up moving. Establish the amount of time it will take to complete the project tasks. Establish dependent tasks and key deadlines. Determine the number of people required to complete the project activity in a reasonable time. Ensure the plan has several catch-up points in case things slip. Gain opinions from colleagues to verify how long each activity should take – don’t guess. The key output from this project phase is a clearly scheduled project plan with achievable project milestones.

Identify Project Resources

Identify the people who are going to deliver the work products, manage the work, and report progress back to the customer. If you are doing all three, ensure the project schedule accounts for splitting your time 3 ways – you can’t be developing software and project managing staff at the same time. Define the key project governance structure, and project stake holders. If cutting edge technology is being used, define the project training requirements. Use productivity ratio’s to reflect that all projects start slow, and become quicker as staff become more experienced. Ensure the project plan accounts for holiday time, and headroom for unplanned leave.

Build Relationships, Communicate and Escalate

Escalate priority areas early and often to key project stake holders, including the bill-payer. Building up a personal relationship with the project sponsor before things go wrong is invaluable when you need a bit of leeway. Let the project sponsor know about any project issues as soon as they start to arise. Get up and go talk to the project people. Replace email with the phone to build up personal relationships. It is impossible to build a relationship using email and instance messaging.

Create Several Project Estimates

Gather a least 2 to 4 different estimates, which are put together in different ways by different people.  One should be a top down estimate,  the other a bottom up so you can compare. Use metrics from other similar projects.  Allow enough “fat” for negotiations, whilst ensuring risks aren’t double counted.  Look at different sourcing models (sub-contractors, off-shoring) to create different cost models. Include all materials, licences, training, facilities, maintenance, travel and so on.  Create estimates which don’t include any profit to determine the cost of the project, and calculate the margin and profit from that.

Agree? Disagree? Use the comments below.

Select the file to share, copy it into the Public folder inside the Dropbox folder, and wait for the file to sync up with the web storage.

On completion, right click on the file, and select the Dropbox menu option, followed by the option to “Copy Public Link”, as displayed below. Simply copy that URL into an email, and IM message, and hey presto.

Here’s one we prepared earlier.

Epressr is a neat web application that lets you quickly create online Flash content for your website, or rich presentation material. 

You can upload your own media assets such as video, audio, images and animations to the Empressr media library, import them directly from other sites like Flickr, Google, Yahoo and Photobucket or link to digital media from around the web.   It’s ideal for creating engaging content with charts, tables and audio.

Empressr is a Flash application so it’ll run happily in any web browser.  Simply point your web browser to Empressr, and create yourself a free account.  You can then start a new blank presentation or import an existing one.

One the left of the Empressr window are the slides,  the right contains the property and object panes, and in the centre is where you can create your content.

On the right you have access to tools to create Text, Shapes, Tables and Charts.  

The text properties are fairly limited and allow you change the font, colour and alignment. You can also create links to web pages.

The shapes object in Empressr allows you to create circles, rectangles, triangles and stars.  But that’s about the lot.

The table functionality is also fairly limited, and you’d be better using an HTML table if this is all you need in your page.

The real gem in Empressr is the Chart functionality. You can create very quick column, pie, line, area and bar charts.   It’s also really easy to edit the data by using the pop-up dialog box.  Here you can add rows and columns of data, swap the axis, and change the colours of the bars.

Empressr also allows you to add a background image, and an audio file which is ideal for voiceovers and background music.   You can also changes the transition between slides from a range of swooshes,  squeezes and stretches.   You can change all these by selecting the Master Properties from the menu bar.

If you already have a Powerpoint presentation which you want to publish, Empressr allows you to import those also. You can upload a PowerPoint file to Empressr and use its slides as pictures (One slide equals one picture) or as a fully editable presentation in Empressr (with some losses.) There is currently no support for any download functionality, but they say it’s planned in the near future.

There are several ways to share your creations. You can make a presentation public on the Empressr site, email or embed the code, or simply use the share button to grab the embed code or select the auto embed into a number of social network sites like Facebook and MySpace or even place it on your own site.

At the moment,  Empressr is still in beta stages but you’ll be able to access your presentations once Empressr launches.

There is currently no limit to the the amount of storage you have. In the near future, however, they may introduce limitations on storage and bandwidth and will roll out pricing plans for these.

Here’s an example we prepared earlier using Empressr.  We’d prefer it if the content started immediately, but I guess we can’t have everything.

Other Options for Flash Web Content

Microsoft Office Live is great for online editing of Powerpoint,  but it doesn’t support embedding of the material in a web page. No support for Google Chrome either.

Google Docs has great support for creating and editing online presentation material, and also allows you to quickly embed the material in a web page using an iFrame. Using the Spreadsheet functionality, you can publish great looking charts of any type including scatter and radial.

Zoho Show also has really good support for creating and publishing online presentation material, and also allows embedding in a web page.

Visit Empressr.com

• Backup your laptop to the internet using Mozy.com so you’ll never loose any precious work
• Transfer all your tasks to an online task manager such as RememberTheMilk.com 
• Download a News Reader like FeedDemon  to subscribe to work related news feeds.
• Setup a Project plan to track the tasks using ClockingIT.com and share the schedule with colleagues.
• Setup an online collaboration workspace using Zoho.com enabling your team to work more effectively
• Install a light-weight desktop search engine like Everything so you’ll be able to find your work more quickly.
• Create a quick and light-weight website using hubpages.com
• Move all your working files into a file syncing tool such as DropBox.com so you can work anywhere, anytime.
• Sort out your expenses by using an online tracker such as spendingdiary.com
• Backup your cell phone data including contacts and ringtones using bitpim.org
• Free up some storage space by using TreeSize Free to find and remove large files.
• Setup a blog to promote yourself and company using wordpress.com.
• Register your personal splash page at about.me and link to all your social media sites.
• Download and install the HP Universal Print Driver to give you quick access to a range of HP printers
• Check the security of your precious passwords at howsecureismypassword.net
• Create yourself a Virtual Desktop PC using Opendrive
• Clean up your PC to make it faster using CCleaner
• Download and install yellow sticky notes tools to remind you of important tasks
• Download and install a free mind-mapping tool such as Freemind and amaze colleagues with out-of-the-box thinking.
• Sign-up to an online tutorial site like lynda.com to learn anything and everything.
• Make some extra money by selling some of your old technology and gadgets on gumtree.com
• Get a URL shortening account like bit.ly to use for posting URLs into chat sessions and emails.
• Setup an account with Ping.fm so you can post across all your social media accounts at the same time without copy and paste.
• Learn some basic HTML skills from w3schools.com.
• Get yourself a Web Dashboard like netvibes.com to see everything interesting in one place.
• Setup a free online sales and customer tracking tool such as simplesalestracking.com
• Learn some mental arithmetic tricks
• Send eCards to your colleagues and staff to say thank you using bluemountain.com
• Sign up for a service which allows you to send large files to colleagues.
• Use a service like ADVFN.com to find financial information about your employer.
• Learn to develop a basic ASP.NET, PHP or Ajax application using coderun.com
• Register with an email spam filter like spamarrest.com
• Install the StumbleUpon toolbar to pick an random website to view.

If you need to send a large file over the internet, email is probably not the best way.  To send a large file voato towers has been using this fantastic free web app for quite a while now and can really vouch for it.    iSendr is an on-demand direct file transfer system to send large files over the internet.  It makes sending any size file between two people as simple as clicking a link.

iSendr is completely secure as it only facilitates the direct connection, but all file transfers take place between the two parties.  They do not monitor or capture the large files sent.

iSender offers security through obfuscation and you can set a password to protect the large file.  Once started, transfers use 128-bit AES encryption.  However, you should still be cautious when transmitting highly sensitive data over a connection you do not control.

Simply point your web browser to isendr.com and you see the landing page as below.  Here you can chose to send a large file or receive a large file.

Select the large file to send, and wait for the peer link to be displayed.  You’ll see the holding paging below waiting for a recipient to collect the large file from you. 
 

You then need to send the peer link to the lucky recipient using either email, IM, or good-old telephony.   They need to simply point their web browser to the isendr.com address and enter the peer link from the sender.   Simply make a cup of tea and wait for the large file to be downloaded your computer. 

Visit isendr.com

I came across this great little feature in Windows 7 to add folders and locations to the “Favourites” in My Computer / Explorer.   With this neat little shortcut,  you can add any folder you use often,  and save you having to continually hunt around for it.  The favourite folder is always available when you open or save a file in any other application – ideal for opening and saving files in Office applications.

In order to use this Windows 7 feature,  simply open up any folder in Explorer and on the left of the folder view you’ll see a section called “Favourites”.

Next, navigate to the folder you wish to add to this list of Favourites.  Once you have the folder in view, Right-Click on Favourites and select “Add current location to Favourites”.  A shortcut link will then appear to your favourite folder.  Every time you open Explorer in the future,  this shortcut will also appear.

The displayed Icon can be changed by right clicking on the shortcut and selecting Properties. From the box which pops up, you can then select Change Icon.

Not only does the link appear in Explorer,  but the shortcut will also appear in the Open and Save dialogs in any other application.  This is perfect for opening and saving files to a favourite folder in Excel or Word, for example.

We’ll use the OneNote Guide as an example to demonstrate how easy it is to share any notebook online.  We’re also going to make use of the Microsoft Office Online Web Apps and SkyDrive.  You’ll first need to create yourself a Windows Live SkyDrive and Office Web Apps user ID.  If you already have a .NET Passport / Windows Live account then you have everything you need.

Share Your OneNote notebook.

Open up your notebook in OneNote 2010 and select File > Share.  This will take you to the screen below.

Looking at the section  “3. Web Location” above, if you already have a SkyDrive account you simply need to Click Sign In. Otherwise follow the Sign-Up process to create an account.  After you Click Sign-In you’ll be asked to enter your Windows Live ID credentials.

Once you’re authenticated, OneNote will display the list of folders for your account so choose the location to share your notebook. It’s best to choose “Documents”.

Select the folder your want for the share and then click Share Notebook. Wait a few moments and depending on the size of the notebook you’ll be shown the following dialog.   Click Yes to email a link and your favourite email client will open with a pre-prepared couple of links.

One of those links will enable you to open the notebook in OneNote and the other using a Web Browser.

Edit your OneNote notebook using a browser

Simply copy and past the http URL into a web browser and enter your login credentials when asked.  Your OneNote document will open using Microsoft Office Web Apps.    This will allow you full control over your OneNote notebook on the web. Any changes you make will automatically be synced with your “local” copy of the notebook.  I found that some larger OneNote notebooks took several minutes to synchronise with the web when they are first shared, so don’t be surprised of not all the content appears straight away.  Patience.

Down the left hand side of the browser window you have access to all your sections and pages.  You may find that some pages display the yellow warning banner at the top saying “This page contains items that cannot be displayed in OneNote Web App”.   This usually occurs if you’ve used the Draw functions in OneNote to create lines and shapes which aren’t part of an image.

Now, if you make a change to the OneNote notebook using the browser,  wait a few moments and the change should be automatically updated in your local version as if by magic. We found that you have to click onto another tab or page before the syncing in triggered.   Once you make any change,  the green synchronisation icon next to the notepad name will begin to spin. Once the synchronisation has completed, a small green tick appears next to the icon. This also works if you make a change in the OneNote client application.

Finally,  you might want to create yourself a desktop icon with a link to the OneNote Web Application. To do this,  copy the HTTP URL from the email you prepared earlier and then follow the instructions here.

PhotoJoy is a beautiful program to set free your photos bringing them to your desktop using a choice of striking collages and desktop gadgets.  No longer will your pictures be confined to the My Pictures folder. Use them to brighten up any Windows Desktop.

Download and install the application, and then add in your library of pictures which PhotoJoy cycles through to display.  There are a whole range of options for displaying your pictures.

Collages

PhotoJoy Collages are beautiful dynamic backgrounds merged with several photos chosen from random to create a striking desktop.  You can choose from the 25 provided, but you will have to download each background individually. The photos will changes around ever 5 minutes so you’ll never get board looking at the same desktop.

PhotoToys

PhotoJoy Toys are amazing gadgets for the desktop which display photos from your gallery.   The pictures change very frequently and you can also click on the toy to change the picture.  Choose from a photo-string, photo album and several mosaics. There is a selection of five provided for free, but you do have to down each individual one. 

Photo Screen Savers

PhotoJoy screen savers are dynamic screen-savers which display the photos on a selection of beautiful backgrounds. The pictures are cycled through endlessly so you may find yourself glued to the screen saver rather than actually using the PC.  There’s a selection of eight provided by PhotoJoy,  plus a number of other non-photo animated screen savers.

There is also a great demo video which you can watch below.

Download [via PhotoJoy]

There was some good news this week for users of one of the best GTD tools. MyLifeOrganized has been released for Blackberry Public Beta test.  MLO has always been one of our favourite GTD tools,  but it’s lack of mobility was always an issue, so we’re delighted to see this step forward.

MLO Mobile has all the common features you would find on the desktop version and includes both the Outline and To-Do list views. The Outline view provides a tree-like view of all your tasks, along with the tags, context, due dates, and notes. The tree-view means all your tasks for a particular project are gathered together which is useful if you have a large number of tasks.

The To-Do list provides a list all the upcoming tasks which you have in the Outline view.  These are prioritised in order of due date so only upcoming tasks are visible.

You can already import/export your MyLifeOrganized desktop data to BlackBerry client using XML but MLO are still finishing the sync functionality to include it to the final version. We can’t wait for the final version.

You can read the full review of MLO here on voato.

Download [via MLO]

Having a great set of PowerPoint slides can turn your presentation style from a nervous wreck to a confident lion. And, not many of us have the time to get to grips with the huge range of features in PowerPoint to help tart up a presentation. So we’ve rounded up the 6 most common fixes in PowerPoint 2007 you can use to add a bit of spice to a dull presentation.

The first set of quick tips are cunningly hidden on the right hand side of the Home ribbon, and are really easy to use – if you know they exist.

The key polishing feature you can find here are Convert to SmartArt, QuickStyles, Shape Effects and Shape Fill.

1. Convert to SmartArt

Convert to SmartArt will take any basic list, and turn it into a slick graphic at the click of a button. There are dozens of out-of-the-box PowerPoint designs, and the text even remains editable when you’ve converted it to SmartArt.

Simply select the text you want to convert to SmartArt, and then Click on one of the graphics already provided.   PowerPoint will then convert your text to a neat graphic. Once you’ve changed to SmartArt you can then quickly change the style of the graphic to your particular colour scheme, make it 3D, bevel the text and so on. Below are a couple of examples, left is before, and right is after after just two clicks of the mouse.

2. Use Quick Styles

These out-of-the-box PowerPoint styles provide neat preset combinations of shading, gradient fills, borders, bevelling and so on.  When you click the QuickStyle button a whole palette of colours and shadings are given to you. 

By simply selecting the box or shape you want to change, you can create some profession effects with just a few clicks.  Below are a couple of examples, left is before, and right is after after just a few clicks of the mouse.

3. Gradient Shape Fill

It’s difficult to get too excited about shape fills,  until you discover all the features for light variations, dark variations and of course gradient fills.

By selecting the object or shape, you can apply some simple directional shading,using combinations of light and dark shades.  You can also select More Gradients to give you a full selection of preset gradient merges. Below are a couple of quick examples, left is before, and right is after after just a few clicks of the mouse.

4. Preset Shape Effects

This one’s our favourite and silver bullet for sprucing up any dull presentation.  It provides really cool features including bevelling, shadows, reflections and 3D rotations.  Guaranteed to get a few gasps from the audience!

You have to select the object you want to pimp-up and then simply apply the effect you need.  We’re a big fan of the Presets which provide some great combinations and bevelling and shadowing without having to do much work at all.  Below are a couple of quick examples, left is before, and right is after after just a few clicks of the mouse.

The Format Ribbon

The next ribbon we take at look at is Format Ribbon where there are a couple of neat features for beefing up text.  The effects you can find here are Text Effects and WordArt Styles.

5. Cool Text Effects

This is slightly similar to the Shape Effects, but will help transform the boring text into a thing of beauty. With this feature you can easily add bevelling, shadows,  glows, 3D rotations and wacky shapes.

With just a few clicks of the mouse you can create some neat looking texts which will standout from other presentations.

6. Lazy WordArt Styles

This is a little bit similar to SmartArt but can produce some amazing effects on simple and plain text. There are a whole range of beautiful preset styles which make the text look profession and different.

The image below shows a couple of examples of before, and after, and also with some Text Effects to add a bit of extra zing!