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Elance Blog: 10 Ways To Produce A Winning Blog

Elance Blog: 10 Ways To Produce A Winning Blog

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My Newsletters: Bidding Projects on Elance – The 5 W’s

Where to start?

There are 56 different topics listed on the Elance Help – Providers web page, viewed over 586,000 times (at the time of writing). Analyzing the information, I found that 50% of all page views were on only within 6 Topics (see Figure 1 below). This was an indication of where to start looking for what I should know prior to starting my Elance service offerings, I could learn from the experience of existing Elance Providers.

Where to find useful information?

The most useful document to read is Elance’s “Provider Guide”, in which I learned how to keep an eye on projects I can bid on, while working no other projects. In other words, I organized my time and efforts while ensuring I didn’t miss opportunities. I now receive email notifications when projects I can bid on are posted on Elance, This is based on keywords I have selected. Next I searched the Web & within my network for further information on Elance, where to find tools & templates I could start from, learned from past & current Elance Providers through Forums * blogs, etc. The list below contains most interesting ones:

Blog:

• Elance: Is a Bidding Site Worth It?


• How To Use Contract Work Sites to Break Into Freelancing


• Give great value, but charge accordingly

Website:

• ALL Freelance Directory : Read short advises on the front page
• Testimonials from Companies Using Elance
• What Does "The New Way To Work" Mean To You?
• Elance Tour
• How it works

How does it work & What are your responsibilities?

Another great place to visit is Elance’s Water Cooler, where Providers and Service Buyers can post & share comments & questions with peers, as well as provide suggestions to address issues that are not yet managed, resolved or monitored by Elance administration. Listed below are the most interesting ones, starting with the must reads (in bold) prior to paying or providing services on Elance:

• Elance Service Agreement between Client & Provider
• Payment Methods available & which ones you should NOT use
• Elance Escrow
• Communications rules & guidelines between Employers & Providers
• Unawarded projects
• How Customers review & evaluate Provider’s Profile
• How to handle vague job descriptions
• Elance Online Work Index
• Elance Blog
• Tips, Tools & Tricks

Which template to start with?

Elance’s Sample Project Agreement and Statement of Work

Summary

I hope this has provided you helpful and sufficient information on whether to use Elance or not. From my experience on Elance and similar sites, especially for North-American freelancers, I believe Elance is in the top 5 freelancing sites. What do you think? Share your story on the challenges you faced when you started freelancing. Do you have any particular, good or bad, experience to share? Let me know either by emailor via comments below this blog post!

You can also subscribe to all updates on my blog’s home page in order to receive notifications by email when we release our next newsletters!

About Me

I am a Project Manager, PMP certified, with over 10 years of experience in web design & development projects, process improvements, data entry, quality assurance, and translation skills. I'm details-oriented, with strong inter-personal & analytic skills, reliable, and a great team player.I am offering my skills & experience to customers in need of resources to work with them on their project endeavours for activities such as:

• managing their website/portal design & development projects;
• data entry & processing tool like Adobe Acrobat, Excel or Word;
• research information on the web;
• perform quality assurance activities & tests;
• translate content from English to French and vice-versa.

I can speak and write in both languages (English & French) fluently, and able to communicate at all levels of hierarchy. I've built strong relationship with current and past customers, mostly because of my reliability and versatility. I am able to think outside of the box. I have also established strong relationships with key business partners over time, but always interesting in building new connections & partnerships. So if interested, contact me by email.

Project Management Sayings

We all have to deal with difficult issues in our busy life, so we hope these will help make your day!

• It usually makes the gentlemen in the room a tad uncomfortable
  
• The famous Parkinson's Law is often quoted to highlight the work psychology of poorly motivated project team members.
  
• Work expands to fill the Time. Cost expands to meet the Budget
  
• A goal without a deadline is only a dream
  
• Dates on the calendar are closer than they appear.
  
• Take ownership of your failures and document the missteps you tryed to prevent.
  
• If it is not measurable it is not meaningful. If you can't measure it you can't manage it.
  
• Write your deadlines with erasable markers... keep the permanent ones for the pristine whiteboard.
  
• There are only 24 hours in a day.
  
• The best chef can do a great meal with some eggs, a tad of oil and a pan, but he cannot get the same result with nothing at all.
  
• Execution without planning is like putting the horses the horses behind the cart.
  
• Today you idiot proof it...tomorrow a new and improved idiot arrives
  
• Launching a project without a plan, is like climbing a tree to catch a fish
  
• Never confuse enthusiasm with competence.
  
• Never confuse motion with progress.
  
• The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time. The last 10% takes the other 90%.
  
• The more ridiculous the deadline the more money will be wasted trying to meet it.
  
• Too few people on a project and they can't solve the problems - too many, and they create more problems than they solve.
  
• Any project can be estimated accurately (once it's complete).
  
• A badly planned project will take three times longer than expected - a well planned project only twice as long as expected.
  
• The sooner you get behind schedule, the more time you have to make it up.
  
• When the weight of the project paperwork equals the weight of the project itself, the project can be considered complete.
  
• For a project manager overruns are as certain as death and taxes.
  
• If there were no problem people there'd be no need for people who solve problems.
  
• If everything is going exactly to plan, something somewhere is going massively wrong.
  
• Never underestimate the ability of senior management to buy a bad idea and fail to buy a good idea
  
• All project managers face problems on Monday mornings - good project managers are working on next Monday's.
  
• Projects happen in two ways: a) Planned and then executed or b) Executed, stopped, planned and then executed
  
• There's never enough time to do it right first time, but there's always enough time to go back and do it again.
  
• It takes one woman nine months to have a baby. It cannot be done in one month by impregnating nine women (although it may be more fun trying).

My Newsletter: PMP Certification: The Five W's

***** Note added on Feb 24, 2010 *****

I found a blog containing further details about the PMP certification, Read all here...

***** End of Note *****

I’m reading a lot on my business and profession, and using different methods to receive notifications when new interesting articles gets published on the web, such as newsletters and RSS feeds updates. Recently, I’ve seen lots of discussions and questions about PMP: What is the benefit of having PMP certification (for the employers or for the employee/consultant), what does it takes to become PMP certified, etc. So, I’ve decided to provide a little summary here of what this is all about and where to find additional information from official well documented sources. Feel free to post comments at the end of this post, or to contact me by email.

For Who & Why??

• Growth of PMP’s since 1995
• PMP is 7th on the 10 best IT certifications – December
  2008
• Better salary. PMPs typically have attractive salaries, which are 10-20% more than the uncertified counterparts.
• Employers who use PMPs are assured that they have
  hired Project Managers who have a core competency in Project Management and the requisite experience to perform as a project manager.
• Studies have shown that projects managed by people who are not certified Project Managers have only a 25% chance of success, whereas projects run by those who are knowledgeable in Modern Project Management tools and techniques - as are people with the PMP certification - have a 75% success rate.

The Value of Credential per PMI

Click here for the PDF format of this chart

More information here

What is PMP certification?

The PMP Credential was established in 1984 in order to recognize practitioners’ skills and knowledge in the field of Project management. Passing the Project Management Professional
(PMP®) Certification Exam, along with experience and education, is key to achieving the PMP Credential.

What is PMP about and its requirements?

Candidates must complete Project Management Experience Verification Form(s). The Experience Verification Form is used by candidates to properly document and report project management experience. There are two sets of experience requirements depending on whether or not an applicant holds a baccalaureate degree:

• For candidates who hold a baccalaureate degree:

4,500 hours minimum PM experience gained within the last 8 years prior to application and covering at least 36 unique, non-overlapping months are required. At least 35 contact hours of specific instruction that addresses learning objectives in project management.

• For candidates who do not hold a baccalaureate degree:

7,500 hours minimum PM experience gained within the last 8 years prior to application and covering at least 60 unique, non-overlapping months are required. At least 35 contact hours of specific instruction that addresses learning objectives in project management.

How?

Candidates must complete a PMP Certification Examination Application. Once the application and fee have been processed, PMI will electronically send the Examination Scheduling Instructions, confirming that the applicant is eligible to take the exam. The exam cost is:

• US$ 555.00 ( Non-PMI® Member )
• US$ 405.00 ( PMI® Member )

Most people require the following amount of time at minimum to complete the credential applications:

• 10 days/weeks for PgMP
• 8 hours for all other PMI credentials

When & Where?

Once eligible to take the exam, you have one year to prepare for the test and schedule the date & location of the exam at a Prometric centre. The exam is made of 175 multiple- choice questions to complete in 4 hrs maximum; which is around 1.4 minute per question, and get your score results printed immediately. The exam may be taken three times within the eligibility period should applicants not pass on the first attempt. PMP Prep students should expect to spend around 40-50 hours studying for the exam in addition to the time spent in the classroom.

How to maintain PMP credentials?

To maintain the PMP qualification a number of 60 professional development units (PDUs) must be earnt over a three years cycle, from activities such as researching, authoring articles or speaking on Project Management related topics or being engaged full time in a project management.

References

• Wikipedia: To get a short description of CCR, relation with other accreditations and training programs, references and links to useful sources available on the web, read this page on Wikipedia.
• Project Management Institute (PMI): To read details about CCR from the official source, read PMI’s information about CCR here.
• PMP® Password – June 2008: The June 2008 publication
  (sent to PMP exclusively) is about overcoming challenges in participation to
  professional development activities for PMP who are required to complete their
  CCR to maintain their accreditation.
• PMP versus CAPM exam
• Project Management Institute Publications:
• PMP® Passport: This e-newsletter is distributed
  exclusively by PMI to PMPs, quarterly, and focuses on the needs of individuals
  who have attained the PMP credential and the project management community.
• PM Network®: Award-winning monthly magazine that
  covers trends, tools, techniques and best practices
• PMI’s Career Track: Biannual publication delivered
  with PM Network that helps practitioners plan and advance their careers
• Leadership in Project Management: Award-winning
  publication that helps readers build leadership skills; features advice and
  lessons learned from top executives
• Project Management Journal®: PMI’s quarterly
  peer-refereed academic and research journal
• PMI Today®: Monthly newsletter delivered with PM
  Network that keeps members up-to-date on Institute news and events
• Continuous Credential Requirements - CCR

Deliverable Review Template

The deliverable review template can be used to capture reviewer comments. It can be used to capture :

• Code review comments
• Test case review comments
• Design review comments
• Architecture review comments,etc.

Each review comment can be addressed by the team and fix them and mark it to closure. It is a useful tool for the project manager/team to pull out some metrics on the quality of review or the quality of the deliverable. Please download it here .

(please donate to PMTools if you find it useful).