5 Why 101 – Everything You Need to Know

5 Why 101 – Everything You Need to Know

The 5 Whys problem-solving method makes use of a very easy iterative approach in attempting and analyzing to find the root cause of a problem. In case you didn’t know yet, the 5 why technique comes from the Toyota Manufacturing system founded in the country of Japan by the Toyota car corporation. The idea consists of defining the problem in a problem statement and asking why is this the case, or why is the concern what it is. This method often times approaches in a team setting and can involve brainstorming as a concept generation process to determine potential causes.

How does it work?

If you want to bring about huge change in the way your company functions, you must start utilizing the 5 Why in order to deal with any issue. It’s extremely easy to use and it involves the asking of a question after the other to get the root of any issue. The first why make an answer that must quick another why and so on. Some of the perks of utilizing this method for problem-solving are the following:

  • There’s a rarely any need to gather data for utilizing this tool and doesn’t call for statistical analysis of any kind.
  • The process unearths a whole of many problems, which are connected to the main problem.
  • It aids you to get the genesis of an issue so that it can be managed right at that point. Trying to deal with the symptoms of an issue doesn’t amount to anything but window dressing.

In the following examples a production problem, the 5 why a problem-solving method is appropriate to use because of the problem requires to be found quickly and tends to not need a complicated fault finding the procedure.

Example:

A production process found in the food manufacturing sector that generates potato chips in a continues production line, at the same time has a production problem where during testing of food productions samples, the potato salt levels are very high continuously in all samples taken over the last time. A solution for this problem should be found promptly as because to being food manufacturing each production out of spec isn’t able to be purchased.

  • 1st Why: Too much salt feeding throughout the process
  • 2nd Why: Probably fault along with the salt feeder equipment
  • 3rd Why: Failure of measurement paddle cell

In the given example, we’ve reached a probable root cause for the production issue by asking Why several times, this will depend on the issue being analyzed. Below are the corrective and investigation actions that should be carried out to approve the root case as true. If the probable cause is found to be not correct, the Why could be repeated until the real root cause is determined.

In other cases, an answer or cause to one of the Why’s could itself be caused by some failures or issues. In the given example mentioned, the disaster of feeding equipment could be triggered by improper weight readings coming from the salt feed bin down to the process controller or maybe a failure of the process controller too.

— Slimane Zouggari

Podio

Every company or business requires a good and effective tool in order to make the company successful. With the use of this tool, business and company management and planning could be done in an easy way. The success of the company lies with the greatness of Podio.

History

For several years Podio served clients who large and small businesses in different parts of the globe. As part of Citrix, it has developed a large communication for clients and company owners. Today Podio has a 99. 99 % rate of service to all its major clients.

What it does?

Podio is an agile software that makes use of the effective planning procedures of a company. These concern the updating of tasks, sharing information and project planning procedures. With the effectiveness of this tool, you have the big edge in having an efficient communication with the entire workforce, taking time in making updates and organizing planning methods. Thus, Podio makes your business grow and become successful.

You have the chance in sharing information, communicating with employees and making effective transactions if you will use Podio as a software tool. This would also provide an assurance of strategic planning, management and organizing procedures of the business.

For whom it is Useful

The collaborative software is useful to management leaders, planners and company owners.

Advantages

  • You will have a collaborative way in communicating with your team by sending them in a single part of the office.
  • You will have the capacity to have a real time collaboration using mobile devices with your team or any company of business staff.
  • Collaborate with many clients and co-workers using the social media technology as a tool.
  • There is a free employee network for any employee
  • Each of the Podio users will have a great time due to the low costs it provides. Aside from this, you could also share tasks and communicate with them in an easy way

Disadvantages

  • A company or business who has no sufficient resource will have a difficult time in using Podio.
  • This is mainly used in joint ways so there is no chance to strengthen  the individual skills of the employees will not be developed
  • Some of the features of Podio would not match the requirements of other companies.

Pricing

This agile software could be purchased with the following plans:

Podio Lite 

This comes with a free package and suited for the use of 5 teams and smaller groups.

Podio Teams

The price of this could is down to $9 per month and a 20% price for group employees.

Podio Business

This can be availed by larger teams in an unlimited price. The standard cost will depend on the number of times the plan is used.

Competitors:

When it comes to collaborative software companies, Podio has competitors namely:

  • Trello
  • Team Work
  • JIRA
  • Base Camp
  • Zoho Wiki

The use of Podio in the work place provides a secure way of sharing information, files and documents. With this, you can be assured of a great and effective result for your company as a whole. Hence, partnerships and success are attained.

— Slimane Zouggari

Huddle

Huddle –Unlocking Cloud Power As the Ultimate Solution for Collaborative Works

With collaboration, the productivity is higher. As time passed by, collaborative works is not just defined as working with the people within your organization. Now, you need to collaborate with a network of clients and external partners while allowing it to grow. Huddle is the agile software made out of the ambition to help people make working together a better one. They are doing through the power of the clouds making it ideal for the scrum framework.

Huddle is offering a secure cloud collaboration for both enterprise and government agencies. Be it with coworkers or the clients, collaboration is made simpler, safer and more secure through Huddle. All of your team communication, files and task are managed in just one place – the clouds.

What It does And Who Uses It?

It offers a user-friendly and flexible design that will get you running fast in the industry. It can create, control and mange work for you. With this agile software,   it will be easy to let everyone in the team synchronized with the latest version of their project. Through this app, you can see who dad last accessed a certain document making it easy for you to track your collaborative work’s progress.  You can make it work how you want it to. It has a mobile and desktop version, which provides you the freedom to choose your medium for it. Huddle can also work seamlessly with your existing project tool. Moreover, it is easy to customize this one.

Huddle is not just helpful to the ream you are working with and everyone in the organization. It also helps the clients and external partners to get up-to-date news on how the project is going. This makes collaborating easier and quicker for them. Gone are the days where they will need to deal with endless stream of emails to grasp what is happening.

The Good

With Huddle as your agile software for project management, you will be in for many benefits such as:

  • Money Back guarantee
  • Ease with storing and managing files
  • Workspaces control access
  • Feel and look customization
  • Custom task fields add

The Downside

Like everything around us, Huddle also have its share of downsides you should know about:

  • Relatively expensive
  • No Gant Chart
  • No report generation
  • Tracking time is not possible through its resources

Pricing

You have three options to choose from for this agile software to make your collaborative work easier:

  1. WorkGroup

For this plan, the price starts with $20 per user every month. It accepts up to 25 users and up to 20 projects.

  1. Enterprise

Price starts with $40 per user in a month. You can create 250 projects here with 100 users.

  1. Unlimited

Price here varies. Everything here is unlimited, which is ideal if you want to manage a project using scrum framework.

Competitors

Many products are similar with huddle.  If you are looking for alternative agile software, you might to consider:

  • Attask
  • 5PM
  • Basecamp
  • DAptive PPM
  • Celoxis
  • Easy projects
  • Desk Away
  • GlassCubes

Huddle will be the perfect software for your scrum project setup. If you want the solution of letting your collaborative works be done in just one location, this is the agile software for you. Allow yourself to discover how unlocking the cloud power is the solution you need.

 — Slimane Zouggari

Genius Project

Every business or company requires a collaborative software in its project management needs. One of the great companies to mention is the Genius Project that has served many users and clients over the years and still counting.

History

The Genius Project was started in 1997. It provides a platform-independent SaaS and On-Premise Project and portfolio of project management software. It has offices in North America and has a huge number of global network of resellers. This project has global users of up to 93, 000 and 1,050 consumers worldwide. For the past 15 years of project management service, it was recognized by IBM and gained numerous awards.

What it does?

The Genius Project sets a flexible and useful function of project management. It gives durable, scalable and reliable solutions in terms of project management software and devising projects for the company and business. With Genius Project, you will not have difficulties in terms of securing the projects of teams and the things to be considered so that the business would have effective solutions.

This agile software is used also to secure data in business and company transactions. Every business project requires a secure way of handling information and Genius Project does the best it can in securing company files, documents and projects. With this, a company or business can adopt to different transactions most of the time. Thus, a successful business project transaction is given at all times.

For whom it is Useful

The Genius Project is useful for project software managers and planners. Aside from these, the owners of a company can use the insight this provides in running the business or any company project it has.

Advantages

  • Incorporate the workflow engine in order to adapt to process of securing data.
  • You can use industry templates in creating daily reports
  • Watch your team to work together with the collaborative approach given.
  • Capture repetitive tasks and standard process of instruction
  • Use scalable tools in meeting company growth and performance

Disadvantages

  • This is only focused in project management software and does not handle the other related processes that a company needs such setting the structure and database of a business
  • It has limitations on the implementation of projects and tools of the company
  • It centers on collaborative approach and does not deal with single task measures that a company also needs for it transactions.

Pricing

The collaborative software has can be purchased in three plans namely:

Standard

It costs $19.95 a month per user who pays it annually.

Professional

The cost is $24.95 per month.

Enterprise

It has a price of $34.95 per month.

Competitors:

There are a great number of competitors of Genius Project. Other agile software companies include, Power Steering, Microsoft Project, Work groups Da Vinci and many more.

The Genius Project has made big difference when it comes to project management of a company. If you are looking for the right software, this one of the best that you can find. Here, you are assured of success for your company and your business all the time.

— Slimane Zouggari

Basecamp

Basecamp – Marking the End of Chaotic Way of Doing Collaborative Works

Basecamp is the most popular product of its maker under the same name, which is formerly known as 37signals. The creation of this agile software comes from the problem they faced when doing long-term projects.

The Chaos That Gives Birth to Basecamp

Many works are in need to be completed and collaboration from each member of the team is necessary. However, they were disorganized, which then lead to dragging of projects for far too long.

What they needed are project management tools that will help them communicate their ideas with each, organize their work in need to be done and present their works to the stakeholders. This need for such thing gives birth to Basecamp.

Basecamp is a collection of methods and tools for a collaborative work all packed into one product.   This agile software helps businesses to have a better handle on the things they need to do. With it, handling different projects regardless of how long it takes will not be chaotic. Instead, it will be organized like no other.

What it Does And Who benefits from It 

Businesses run better because of this tool.  It makes doing collaborative works calmer, organized and saner. The communication between the team members is better and clearer. Everyone in the team can move in the same direction reaching for same goals. With this agile software in your disposal, you can have clear timeline and tracking who is assigned to which assignment is easier making your work organized and quicker.  It makes things easier for the member of the team to see what they need to do and how much time they have to complete it.

Basecamp is not just useful for small businesses and business professionals who need to manage a collaborative work. They are also now offering a personal plan for those individuals who want their works to be organized along with giving their followers update for their works.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Many benefits wait for you with Basecamp.  With this agile software, you can:

  • Add notes and updates
  • Email without the need to signing in
  • Share files
  • View the schedule of everyone
  • View project schedule
  • Integrate with other business apps
  • Create email list
  • Lessen Errors
  • Up the productivity of individual members and the team

Basecamp is a great application and if there is a downside to this app tool it would be the limit it issues on how many people or project you can have for the lower costing plans. For some users, they also found that there are clients that are hard to get it to use.

Pricing

Affording this agile software is made simpler by the company through offering 5 different plans that you can choose from depending on your budget.

  • Basic – $24/month
  • Plus – $49/month
  • Premium – $99/month
  • Max – $149/month
  • Classic –ranges from free to $149/month

They are also offering a free plan for those who want to try their software.

Competitors

If basecamp is not your thing – here are the list of its competitors that you can choose from for the alternative.

  • Freedcamp
  • Asana
  • JIRA
  • Paymo
  • Mavenlink
  • Attask
  • Clarizen

Regardless of how small or big, your project is, Basecamp is agile software that will make things easier for you without any data being lost. Following the projects will be quick and easy for your team members giving your collaborative work with a higher chance to succeed.

— Slimane Zouggari

Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects is an online project management app, which helps a person to work and keep track of their progress. It allows the people within the project to communicate easily, discuss their own ideas and stay informed at all times. This enables them to deliver high quality results on time.

Zoho Project is an online integrated project management software, that offers project management, agile project, customization, notifications, learning and support, which comes from Zoho business suite of products and services like Zoho CRM, Invoice, Creator, Mail and others. A lot of people are familiar with this brand and they know the modularity of the products made it simple to add, scale or expand functions and features as the business grows.

Zoho is a privately held company in Plesanton, California, the company was established in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu. In 2008, the company reached its 1 million users and continued to develop as a company.

it shortens project planning, collaboration and tracking with its different features. Every stakeholder is capable of working on the same page getting the same goal with the aid of automated processes as well as real-time information planning.

Zoho Projects Features and Benefits

  • Project Collaboration, Document Management, Chat Rooms

Zoho Project makes it simple for the team to works to their goal by a single interface. Spreadsheets, documents, presentations and more could be shared together with the team. It could import a wide variety of files of PDF, images, documents as well as ZIP files.

 

  • Project Planning, Timesheets and Gantt Charts

Zoho Projects enable their users to determine talk lists, milestones, tasks and subtasks. The whole interface enables the project manager to assign tasks to resources, be able to set start and to end dates, reminders and priorities.

 

  • Reporting Tools, Mobile Apps, Integrations and more

Zoho Projects could be combined with Reports – an analytics and business intelligence application, which offer meaningful visual information.

Pricing

Zoho Projects provides a freemium plan. The pricing is based on the amount of project, however enables unlimited users throughout all plans. Further, the free plan (for 1 project) includes 10MB storage and limited features. On the other hand, the Express Plan begins at $20/month and includes 5GB storage and 20 projects. You get access to 8 project management templates, a Gantt Chart (view only) and several core features. Meanwhile, the Premium plan costs $40 per month and the Enterprise Plan with unlimited projects costs $80/month.

Advantages and Disadvantages

There’s no doubt that Zoho Projects provides countless collaboration features to maintain information flowing in your teams. The Facebook-like social platform offers collaboration together on a forum, which must be familiar to majority of users. However, Zoho Projects comes shot in their dealing with agile software development. While it helps and supports user stories, it still lack the capability to facilitate a product backlog.

Zoho Projects has been around the market for many years. Though they already launched their version 5, still a lot of user complain that it’s still basic. Information on customer support are missing, however the resource center is there with knowledge base, user guides, community forum and blogs.

— Slimane Zouggari

10,000 ft

Every major workforce needs a software that not only functions on the creative side of running the company but also to the process of making workforce run in a collaborative manner. 10k can give you this software and many more.

History

10, 000ft was launched in the year 2012 and with comes the release of the product, 10,000ft Plans. This brought a wide integration of customers in over 100 countries and over 20, 000 projects in just seven million hours. With the design and collaborative approach presented, the company gained awards; one of this is the Design Award.

In the summer of 2015, the company released the product 10, 000ft Insights that marked a difference on the ways of how companies management business and create solutions. This pave a way in the creation of more creative projects under the name of the company.

What does it?

This agile software is created in order for users to manage and use their resources. This provides an integrated platform that will make you use all your resources in a collaborative manner. This pertains to creating business platforms and delivering a creative and accurate result to clients. Thus, the creation of reports, presentations and spreadsheets are made in a fast and excellent way as possible.

This will provide you with a flexible managing interface, project and resource matching and a digital board. In using this, you will have a picture of the resources that you have personnel and projects.

For whom it is Useful

The 10, 000ft software is useful to project planners, company owners, and other individuals who are in need of creative planning needs.

Advantages

  • Adaptable and Flexible User interface

This lets you use all the strategic planning and collaborative approach in an easy and simple way.

 

  • Better Personnel Management

This simplifies the assignment of tasks to each company employee

 

  • The projects are made visible

All the clients could see all the laid out projects and plans.

Disadvantages

  • A company that has no agile software resources could use this planning tool. It would be difficult if the company has not enough flexible resources.
  • If the business has no large number of staff, the full potential of the software could not be used

Pricing

There are three price plans that you can choose from in 10, 000ft projects. These are as follows:

Basic

The price of this plan is $10 per month that is available for group users.

Professional

The price of this is $20 dollars per month for every group of 10 users.

Enterprise

This price plan could be availed for $45 per month and fit for larger teams.

Competitors

10, 000ft has many competitors. These are as follows:

  • Hi Task
  • JRA
  • Trello
  • Up Keep

The 10, 000ft does provide a creative response in terms of collaborative manner of running the company. In using this as a project-planning tool, there is an assurance of a good way of running your business or company. Aside from these, you can also save big time with the features it has to offer. Hence, a successful result will be achieved.

— Slimane Zouggari

VersionOne

VersionOne is a spectacular agile software that has flexibility and versatility. It was developed in order to help teams become more collaborative. It is also designed to support a variety of projects. It is considered as a compact system that provides exceptional performance in managing and tracking multiple teams and projects. As a web and mobile application, it is simple to employ that has a highly scalable feature. Because of that, it continues to become one of the leading software in the market. Whatever your business is, it is highly recommended that can give you a 100 % assurance.

Advantages of Using VersionOne

Compared to other agile softwares available online, VersionOne is easy to navigate or use. It is also equipped with functionalities, features and benefits which can make task or project management easier.

  • You will have a huge advantage over your competitors out there. From planning, tracking processes, tasks, communication to issues, your whole team members will become more efficient and collaborative. Through an innovative and comprehensive visibility of VersionOne, all of you can have a high level of productivity.
  • You will never have a hard time updating people including your stakeholders about the progress of a project. You can effortlessly communicate with them as well. When your present web or mobile application is not that effective or useful, you can take VersionOne into consideration.
  • It has over 50 agile metrics which can give you an unparalleled analytics or reporting that can result to a better insight and enhanced decision making. Apart from that, there are available and viewable information through several dashboards. If you always make inefficient decisions, it is an awesome solution that can address your problem.
  • It has strong functionalities that can help portfolio management. You will never encounter a difficulty in preparing a project portfolio for sure. The agile software can also assist you to identify potential risks, visualize the best technique, create more detailed reports and offer your stakeholders with useful information.

Disadvantages of Using VersionOne

Although it has many benefits which can make you feel contented and happy as a business owner, it has minimal disadvantages that will not greatly affect optimal comfort. When a certain task management application handles PM approaches that are traditional, gantt charts are unavailable. The agile software lacks this feature and does not have memo. However, it can still give you a fulfilling experience.

Competitors – VersionOne has many competitors such as Trello, Basecamp, Asana, Microsoft Project, Workfront, Slack, Podio, Pivotal Tracker, Teamwork Projects, Sciforma, etc. Like other project management software, it is offered at an affordable price which can help reduce high expenditures and provide more savings. Whatever your budget is, it is one of the most relevant and responsive software for you.

When you belong to a business that involves online projects of all sizes, you can take VersionOne into account. It serves as one of the most useful applications that can help handle all related aspects. When you do not have the means to spend for expensive services, it is the software that you should have.

— Slimane Zouggari

Team Foundation Server (TFS)

Team Foundation Server (TFS) is considered as a Microsoft product that offers a lot of services such as source code management, requirements management, automated bills, reporting and a lot more. When you are looking for the same services with the need to choose a reputable and dependable one, TFS is the service provider that you totally need. They have spectacular quality services which can give you a hassle free experience.

TFS is able to support the Visual Studio (2010) and Microsoft Test Manager (2012 & 2013) with its long years of service. Because of its superb help, it has served Microsoft Project and Microsoft Excel. As a result, their clients became more capable of managing a number of work items that allowed them to have a bulk update, bulk export and bulk entry.

Advantages   

  • Great Extensibility – Microsoft offers APIs for connecting to the Team Foundation Server such as Java and NET Framework SDK. They allow every client to experience a wonderful connectivity to the Microsoft product. Since TFS is available on a particular architecture that is service-oriented, it can effectively communicate with a variety of tool which can call a certain website service.
  • Centralized Control System – The Microsoft product supports two kinds of source control such as Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) and TFS 2013. TFVC allows any team to store various kinds of artifact in their repository.
  • Work items tracking – As a business owner, there is a need to track many company’s aspects such as requirements, tasks, defects and scenarios. With the use of the agile software, tracking will be as easy as pie. There will be no hassles on your part as well.

Pricing – Aside from providing services that can make your team collaborative, it is available at an affordable or free cost. However, it depends on what type of version that you will choose. When you plan to select TFS Express, you do not need to allot a budget because it is totally free. If you are eager to make Visual Studio Online as your topmost option, you need to pay $20 every month when you exceed to 5 users. Whatever your budget needs, the agile software is responsive and relevant.

As a part of the industry, it is able to stand out from its competitors such as Jenkins, Codeship, Travis CI, CircleCi and many more. As as agile software, it has become the topmost choice of many individuals out there. When you engage in a business that requires various software projects, it has the ideal development tools that you cannot afford to miss. At the end of the day, you will witness a huge difference in your company. More specifically, it can make your entire team more collaborative.

Do you belong in a business venture that includes software projects?  Do you want to make many things more organized? If that is the case, you can take TFS into consideration. Certainly, you will be able to achieve all your objective with just a click. Within a short period of time, you will become a successful entrepreneur like other business owners out there.

— Slimane Zouggari

Oracle Primavera

Ever since Oracle Primavera has been published, it has been of great help to various industries including utilities, aerospace, construction, communication, industrial manufacturing and others. It has been created as an enterprise project portfolio management software on the web that can help business allocate their resources and reduce their cost with the use of real time data. Various updates has also been available for the Oracle Primavera as well.

What is it?

It is a known fact that managing a lot of projects all at the same time is quite challenging. Nevertheless, with the help of this software intended for project and portfolio management, everything would surely become much easier. What makes this software even great is that you can select your function and from there on, you would be provided with the tools and resources that you need. It is very helpful in increasing transparency and meeting the deadline.

Pros

  • Sub activities creation. It is very much possible for you to create sub-activities using this portfolio management software in which you can allot a start and finish date that would allow you to determine which one has already been completed in order for you to proceed to the next one.
  • It contains a variety of tools. This agile software is capable of providing you the tools that you would ever need to manage your projects including scheduling and path calculations. Not only that, through it, you can also update your products easily. Through it, you can also create plan template and the project manager can even customize it for each project.
  • It can be used to manage large projects. One great thing about this portfolio management software is that it can manage large projects. In fact, it is more than capable of managing projects with over 100,000 activities. In addition to that, it supports bug tracking and customer issues as well. Also, if it can manage large projects then it would surely do a better job in managing small projects.

 

Cons

  • It may take some time for you to get used to it. You should be willing to spend an ample amount of time getting used to it for it is not that intuitive. This only means that you might have a hard time using it for a couple of days, weeks or even months. So, if you are looking for a software that you can master fast, then better look for another software.
  • It is not suitable for presentations. Unfortunately, this software does not come together with aesthetic tools for presentations but on the bright side, you can just export it to the Microsoft Project where you can change its format to your liking.

Pricing

Oracle offers 3 Primavera products which includes the P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio, P6 Professional Project Management and the Contract Management. Nevertheless, if you want to know its price, you can just visit their site and you would be asked whether you already have a system or not. From there, you would be provided with a suitable plan for you together with its pricing.

— Slimane Zouggari