Leadership gaps arise as projects trend toward higher complexity. It will take some significant new skills to succeed in complex near-future projects. When you succeed with the workforce, however, much of the complexity evaporates.
Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. But by having the ability to easily share knowledge and information, various aspects of social media can contribute to the framework of business interactions and create a foundation that can forge a competitive benefit.
It’s not just project managers who need to be strong communicators. Team members must be willing and able to communicate with each other, but many may lack experience or training in this area. Here are some simple tools and techniques to help them connect with each other.
Having an integrated understanding of customer and business needs, a command of technical components, a keen eye for upcoming technology trends, strong communication abilities and a tight grip on the ramifications of change are critical. Here are some steps you can take to help.
This presentation has been designed to proactively reduce ineffective supervisory actions that have been identified as critical to employee satisfaction and workforce performance. It clarifies the role of the supervisor in implementing effective strategies to handle employee performance and behavior problems, both major and minor. If supervisory competency in these areas is inadequate, this presentation can be delivered in the Activation Phase of the project.
As the year draws to an end, it’s a good time for self-examination, professional and personally. For project managers, it’s important to conduct an honest assessment of your leadership and communications performance this past year — and identify opportunities for improvement in the coming year.
How robust and ready for launch is your project? Rate your own project on many success-indicator details in important areas using this extensive questionnaire. The results should help you discover your project's maturity level in terms of probabilities for success and where adjustments should be made.
Companies always work toward having the competitive edge, and key issues often focus on the perceptions of their customer service. That's all the more reason to be on top of the innovations and benefits of speech engines.
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.
A project out of control doesn’t just happen overnight. It often takes weeks or months of inadequate knowledge of what the workforce understands about the project. Use these techniques to avoid failure due to naiveté.
Communication is a vital tool that any candidate for employment must demonstrate. Use these questions and suggestions to help evaluate candidates' written and oral communication skills.
What’s the best training for a project manager who already has the basics? Here's what you need to keep in mind when trying to advance your knowledge--and your career.
Technology has brought tremendous advances in how we manage our projects, but in some areas it can hinder us. One area is communication, which has become increasingly a virtual activity. In pursuit of ease and volume, the quality of interactions is devalued, putting projects at greater risk.
So you want a career in project management? What will it take to be successful, and what about earning potential? This article will explore the pursuit of a career in project management, including looks at characteristics of successful PMs, what employers are looking for and salaries.
How do the rules around communication change when we add the global element? When we add a global perspective into the picture, things can get a lot more complicated. The physical distance can be a big part of that--as can time, language and culture. In this article, we look at how communication needs to adjust on a global project in order to remain effective.
Some love 'em. Some loathe 'em. But these frameworks and schools of PM thought are here to stay. What benefits and challenges do they present? Read on for both sides of the alternative equation...
What do you do when newly trained project workers are not applying on the job what they supposedly learned in training? What can you do? Here we look at the risk of (and the responses to) project training failure.
Can’t get your team members together because of cost containment measures? Make full use of team collaboration sites and restore successful project communication without face-to-face interactions.
Project managers rarely have direct control over anyone on their teams; they don’t rule by decree. But good project managers do exert influence, which is more effective than making demands anyway. Strong leadership, with or without official authority, requires constant refinement of techniques and personal tactics. Here are five standards to keep in mind.
While all project planning should account for the possibility of change, Agile projects live by it. They can also die by it if team members don’t embrace change as part of the process and work collaboratively to manage it.
We know a project manager must be able to express clear goals to team members, define scope, delineate tasks and report status to stakeholders. But it is your ability to receive communication — to listen — that gets to the heart of pressing issues and reveals solutions.
Training in the 21st century is all about maximizing your returns. Technology has changed training--are you able to take advantage? In order to maximize the return on your training dollars--whether personal or for an entire department--you need to leverage each of the various training modalities.
Social media has become a mainstay for people and companies these days. However, not all social networking tools are prudent for use on projects--and in some cases can spell trouble. So which types of social media tools are best suited for inclusion in project communication plans?
The social engagement of the project is what underlies every aspect of the project process more so than normal. In social PM, collaboration, transparency and mutual participation is central--with the assumption that if this socially engaging environment and the necessary collaboration tools are in place with a clearly defined project goal, then success should follow. But in order for social PM to work, some principles and guidelines need to be incorporated.
Business stakeholders are always looking for evidence as to how your project is running. What clues do your workers provide?
Do you have a dual personality? A PM that also has a foot in the business analyst camp has a “leg up” on the competition for jobs--and has more job security.
If you’ve ever been involved in a highly visible project in which major stakeholders are jockeying to position themselves to impose their own agenda, then you would have experienced project partisan politics. And If you are a ScrumMaster on an agile project, there isn't a more important impediment to get out of the way.
The PMBOK Guide and other best-practice frameworks provide considerable detail on schedule, budget and risk management techniques, but much less guidance on how to manage the people-related challenges that threaten the execution of these plans, and are the most commonly cited reasons for the failure of complex change initiatives.
It’s time to make way for new training tools and techniques…or get run over. Old methods are fast becoming obsolete, but the replacement tools have not been fully tested and will not be immediately acceptable to all organizations. Use these tactics to move more quickly toward faster project workforce development.
Be careful...there are some incorrect assumptions you don't know you're making. To avoid unpleasant surprises when the workforce is scattered throughout the globe, these assumptions must be dragged out into the light of day. Here are some examples inspired by this writer's experience.
Here are some key recommendations for organizations with distributed teams who are looking to make the transition to agile software development. When working with distributed teams that are adapting agile practices to their environment, use these values as one guide to keep them from straying off the agile path.
Much has been written about project failures, but what about teams? It seems that management has little or no appreciation for the value of a team that exists beyond the project. Why do teams fail and what is the impact of those failures?
Harnessing the power of social media tools can greatly improve the communication and collaboration on your projects. But a test drive is prudent, and you must take into account team skills and location, among other considerations, before you dive in. Here are five pre-requisites for a successful social media deployment.
Ignoring resistance is futile. Use these tactics to be prepared for inevitable resistance to alternate project management techniques. Otherwise, be prepared for a whole lot of frustration.
Your project work climate may be bad enough for you to adopt an unusual set of workforce management techniques to be successful. (Would you tell an overworked worker to do something extra? You might want to think twice about that...)
As achievers, we all want to know how we’re progressing toward career goals, advancement and greater financial rewards. A simple career development matrix is a helpful tool to prepare for future success and put practical steps into action.
Matching people and skills to your project is tricky. Use this worksheet and checklist to help plan your resource requirements.
The average project manager has a challenge, and a large one at that. Most of us don’t have a career development plan. In fact, most of us didn’t necessarily pick this as a career--it picked us. But now that we’re here, the challenge is to figure out exactly where we go with it. To understand how our careers progress, it helps to have a model with which we can associate. Find out what important trio awaits inside...
How do you lead and develop resources across the miles? Having a strengthened project team can be hard enough if everyone is located in the same location, but how do you ensure success when the project is global in scope? In this article, we explore different aspects of team and individual development and leadership--and some of the specific challenges that are introduced in a global project.
Use this template to help manage your virtual team's performance by providing stage-specific guidance in key management areas. This handy virtual team management matrix will help you through all stages of JPACE (Justify, Plan, Activate, Control, End).
What does it take to have a well-oiled, cohesive, smooth running, self-motivating project team? One that seems to effortlessly accomplish tasks and where no one is complaining or stepping on any toes in the process? Here are five key components these teams have in common.
Communications 2.0 is all well and good...but when do we get to 1.0? If we’re going to criticize communication that is taking place today, it would be helpful to define what we mean, what the challenges are and what should (or at least could) be done to improve our essential communications.
When you are putting together a project management team, you need to know who has what skills as well as experience. This form will help you inventory what each team member brings to the table.
This checklist allows you to perform an audit of your requirements documentation. Use it when scope is defined, when requirements are documented for sign-off, or any time the completeness or accuracy or your requirements docs are called into question.
If your project has adversaries, participants who are hostile or reluctant to contribute, it can damage team cohesion and threaten the outcome. You must confront the problem early on, taking steps to win them over to allies, minimize their negative impact, or remove them from the effort entirely.
Many project managers that are more advanced in their careers no longer see PMI as offering the kind of training, development and career advancement opportunities that they are looking for. So where do we go from here?
Wouldn’t it be easier if someone just sent you all the information that you needed to know? Social media helps accomplish this goal by leveraging the interactive and collaborative platforms that Web 2.0 provides.
Agile adoption outside of software is nothing new--it dates back very close to the origin of today’s agile methods, predating the term “agile”. However, what is new and noteworthy is the rate and scale of non-software agile adoption being witnessed today. Now--as more companies than ever are exposed to agile methods in their IT practices--these methods are being employed beyond the regular IT domain.
The fostering of any successful relationship requires us to see the world, issues, concerns and needs through the lens of the other person. Additionally, you need to factor the person’s influence, position and attitude toward you into your assessment of how to cultivate and manage the relationship. This holds true for SRM as well--and purposely taking these elements of the relationship into account when designing your communications plan will only add to your success.
