Slow Consumer Spending is Impacting UK Retail Sales

The uncertainty for business in the UK remains palpable as the country edges towards its exit from the European Union (EU) in March 2019. The latest figures show that consumer spending has begun to tail off significantly, with total year-to-year UK retail sales of 0.7% for September being much slower than the 2.3% growth for...

10 Trends and Predictions for Software Development and Delivery in 2019  

Earlier this month our CEO, Mik Kersten, studied the tea leaves to provide five predictions for the software industry over the coming decade – but what about the more immediate future? A lot happened in 2018, for both Tasktop and the wider industry, not to mention the geopolitical landscape (but we won’t go into that...

6 Reasons Why Projects are Late

The following content is based on the whitepaper, “Bigger Than a Breadbox: 10 Tips for Better Project Estimates, Part 2,” written by Jerry Manas. For your reading convenience, we’ve decided to give it everlasting life here on the blog. So far in this series, we’ve examined a number of ways to improve problems with project...

Project to Product: Value Stream Management with the Tasktop Flow Framework™

We continue from Remember Value Stream Mapping and drill into the content of Project to Product. With every chapter I read, the significance of the Project to Product book and the Flow Framework™ appears. After reading about the technical revolution, the Age of Software & Digital, and the uncertainty around the next turning point, I was intrigued by...

No, Working from Home Is Not Remote Work…Here’s Why

For many existing in a standard, office-based work environment, “working from home” can often seem completely interchangeable with “remote work” but the truth is that the two terms are actually very far from being synonymous. As technology changes and planning and working with teams without any physical contact becomes more common, the entire dynamic of...

Product Release: What’s New in Tasktop Integration Hub 19.1

A new release of Tasktop Integration Hub, 19.1, is available today, including support for Jira Cloud API changes related to GDPR, a new connector for XebiaLabs XL Release, and features that make it easy to move project routings between integrations and provide one final update to twinless artifacts. Below are the release highlights. For full details...

Start Viewing Your IT Department as a Strategic Partner to the Organization

The following content is taken from the whitepaper, “Portfolio-Driven Performance: The 7 Process Areas That Drive IT and Business Results,” written by Jerry Manas. To make it more easily accessible to you, we are giving it everlasting life here on the blog. We’ve discussed how portfolio-driven performance improves project delivery, how and why you must...

Six Techniques to Keep Teams Focused

Focus isn’t just the absence of distraction. It’s an immersive state in which meaningful work simply flows. Organizations that truly want to get stuff done will do everything they can to empower their teams to reach this state. Here’s six ways your businesses can stay focused on focus. Have a plan Meditation is all about...

How to Host Meaningful Meetings for Non-Managers

Getting the heads of different teams together to get updates on project progress and the state of play for each team is an important and relatively straightforward element of project management that is often made easier by the fact that everyone is speaking the same “management” language of KPIs, milestones and deliverables. Knowing how to...

Technology: The Key to Resolving Product Portfolio Challenges

In our last piece, we explained how top performers leveraged consistent and effective product portfolio management processes to ensure continued industry leadership. In this, our sixth installment of our eight part series, “The Complexity of Managing Smarter, More Connected Products,” we explore the notion of leveraging technology to resolve product portfolio challenges. Review the previous...