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Questions - Selecting and Enrolling a Sponsor
Categories:
Management Approaches
Categories: Management Approaches
| Situation: You could use some help selecting and enrolling a sponsor for your project. I really believe that managing well is often less about knowing what to do than knowing what questions to ask. The answers to those questions get you really familiar with the project and the environment you are in - allowing you to adjust your approach to the specific situation. That's why, as a part of our PM process Project HEADWAY, we include a set of questions for each task. I thought that exposing them, task by task, to all of you would make for an interesting series of blog postings. I'd love to get your feedback on whether these are the right ones for Enrolling Sponsors. To identify a sponsor, think about the following questions:
Ask your sponsor or a trusted colleague the same questions. |
Posted on: April 13, 2008 09:18 AM
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Comments (1)
A Faster Way to Schedule Meetings via Outlook?
Situation: You spend too much time scheduling meetings. Some people set aside blocks of time for catching up on email, phone calls, or some other endless ongoing task. Meetings can be that way too - and just the scheduling of them can take an incredible amount of time. There are many schools of thought on how to send a meeting request. Some say you send a specific time through Outlook and have that back and forth trying to find a time that works for both parties. Others say you should offer 3 different times over two days, offering both both morning and afternoon options in email - then send the outlook request. Outlook also allows you to share your availability with others with or without letting them know what you are "busy" doing.Jiffle gives you yet another Outlook-integrated option thats sort of a mix of everything I've described above. With this tool you: - pick time blocks that you want to leave open for meetings - share those meeting time blocks with the people you need to meet with - they select a time block when you send them a meeting request. - you get an outlook confirmation. Up to 10 meeting confirmations per month are offered as a free service. There are quite a few of these web 2.0 scheduling services out there. Timebridge is another that might be better for large groups. Everyone offers their availability, then people "vote" on which time to select. |
Posted on: April 13, 2008 08:15 AM
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Comments (1)
Finding the Right People - an Impossible Task?
Situation: You need to staff up again, but are dreading the whole interview process... We go through it here at gantthead fairly frequently. We need more people, go through a fairly frustrating process of hopeful anticipation (after a successful resume review and screening), mild disappointment (post interviews), confusion (picking between multiple candidates, none of whom seem perfect), then finger crossing (hoping the choice we made was the right one). We have a fantastic team here - the best. However, we only get it right half of the time when we try to add to it.We've gotten better at interviewing, but I wonder if its ever possible to really uncover what's real in the process. I thought about this when reading How to Catch a Liar on Forbes.com. I really liked this article BTW, which gives you a top ten list in pictures - things that go way beyond blink rates to the "Tricky Tilt" or "Heavy Hands". At any rate, one of the recommendations in the article, was to look at the Reid Technique for interviewing which seems like it would be a fun way to spend a day. A lot of what they do is grounded in police-style interrogations, so maybe I could learn to interview like Stabler on Law & Order SVU. I personally like to ask for examples a lot. "Tell us about a time when you... [insert desired behavior here]" I also like to ask people things like, "What is the one thing you are most proud of doing over the entire course of your career?" or "Tell us about a time when you were particularly creative in developing a solution to a problem - or just creative in general." Maybe I just like to hear stories more than most people. I know its important to me that the person being interviewed does most of the talking. What are your favorite interview questions and why do they work? |
Posted on: April 09, 2008 10:35 AM
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Comments (4)
Get Yer Mind Maps Here!
| Situation: You're a MindMap Fan... A week ago, Christine Sellers started a Mind Mapping gantthead interest group (GIG) and nearly 100 people quickly joined. The group is packed with resource links, so I wanted to share a few of them here with you...
How to use them
Libraries of them to get you started
Life beyond mindmaps |
Posted on: April 04, 2008 04:42 PM
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Comments (2)
Project Insight Integration with Outlook
Categories:
PM Software
Categories: PM Software
Situation: You Use ProjectInsight in a MS Environment. PM Tool vendors have been all about SaaS for the last year or two. All of the tools emphasize the following traits:
All of the factors above contribute to the success of SaaS - but USABILITY is what really sells. Thats why I find this move by ProjectInsight so interesting. It brings together the usability of a simple software tool with the email client that most of us "live" in. Essentially it integrates Outlook Tasks into ProjectInsight projects - bridging the gaps between those users that never want to look at a project plan if they can avoid it, with the people who depend on the plan to deliver their work. That's something that Microsoft themselves have only delivered (MSP to Outlook Tasks) within the past year. Project Insight is a tool I've written about in the past. It's easy for new PMs to use, while still delivering many of the basic capabilities more seasoned PMs demand for small to mid-size projects. I've also written about Outlook integration with MS Project. Take a quick look and see what you think... |
Posted on: March 28, 2008 04:44 PM
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