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The Employee as an Independent Consultant
Categories:
Career Development
Categories: Career Development
| This post was updated from its original version, published on 8 July 2011. I've been employed by the same multinational corporation for the past 27 years. About 15 years ago, I decided that I didn't like feeling like an employee, and decided to adopt the mindset of an independent consultant. Strictly speaking, I was and am still an employee. What changed was my mindset. I decided to think and behave like an independent consultant while continuing to be an employee of the same corporation. It's a nice arrangement. I treat my employer as if they were a client, my main client. With a couple of notable exceptions, they've given me steady work. Since I see myself as an independent project management consultant (even though I am really an employee), I have to think about marketing. If I don't keep the pipeline full, business could dry up. I make sure people know who I am, what my capabilities are and that I stand ready to help them. I do a lot of business development. I help people "on my own time" so they'll know what I can do for them should they have a need. I get to know who the decision makers are, who holds the budgets and who has influence. I keep myself sharp. Sometimes, my client/employer pays for my training and pays me when I take training. Sometimes they cover any travel expenses to take the training. Or, I may take training on my own time and expense to increase skills and my value proposition as an independent consultant. I interact with others in my profession apart from my client/employer. I belong to a professional organization (PMI) and volunteer with them as a speaker and writer. When I begin a new project, I approach it as a consultant, looking not only at how I can satisfy the immediate need, but also looking at the potential for follow-on work. When people I deal with are unpleasant or difficult to work with, I remind myself that they are my client, and will be paying me for my work. It helps keep things in perspective. I do the occasional "side job" for other clients, but only to the extent that it doesn't result in a conflict of interest. I don't think I would have the courage to make the career switch to truly be "independent." At least not yet. I have the utmost respect for those who really are independent. I understand that I don't face the same risks they do, which is why I have such respect for them. I've learned a lot from them and hope to learn more. But this works for me and seems to combine the best of both worlds. I have the satisfaction of doing work for people who seek me out as a professional, and doing so at a level of risk that I find tolerable. What do you think? Do you think working as an employee and behaving like a consultant would work for you? Why or why not? See more posts from Jim. Get more career help. |
The Benefits of a Change Control Board
Categories:
New Practitioners
Categories: New Practitioners
| You may think that a change control board (CCB) has to be some official project governing body, but it's not so. A CCB can be a small group of project team members who are willing to review and approve or reject change requests. Even if your projects are small, it's better to have some semblance of a CCB than to have none at all. A CCB can help you manage the myriad changes that will come your way as a project kicks off. Your sponsors, stakeholders and project delivery team may all have agreed on scope, cost and schedule -- but it's inevitable that something will change before the project closes. Those changes come in many shapes and will impact your project positively and/or negatively. A CCB helps you figure out which changes are acceptable to undertake, which aren't and which can be shelved. Instead of shunning change or accepting every idea without examination, use the CCB to determine the best course of action for the project. There will be times when members of your project delivery team have great ideas for the project, for example. After all, they're right in the mix during the execution phase and can clearly see where things could be improved. If you always shoot those ideas down, you will create strife between yourself and your team. You may find no one comes to you with great ideas anymore. Part of a CCB's job is to listen to all ideas, carefully consider the merits, and explain to the project team (or stakeholder or sponsor) why an idea was approved, rejected or held until more favorable conditions arise to implement it. A CCB can be more than just a repository for tracking changes and a governance tool. A CCB can show team members and stakeholders that their ideas are worthwhile and innovative, and can help foster those ideas that most positively impact a project. What kind of CCB do you use? What do you have them help you with? See more posts from Taralyn. See more posts for new project managers. |
Your Project Stakeholders are Biased!
| Have you ever wondered why communication with senior stakeholders so often breaks down? It's because of the deeply embedded cognitive biases innate to all of us. Research by behavioral economists has demonstrated people are naturally irrational. The challenge is to accept people as they are and then work rationally within our innate biases. When your project has an issue that has already caused a cost overrun and needs more expenditure in the short term to potentially recover some of the losses later, you and your stakeholders may experience a bias called loss aversion. Most people will make risky decisions to avoid a loss, but are reluctant to make a decision of exactly equal to achieve an exactly equal gain. And most people also tend to prefer short-term gratification to long-term benefits. Therefore our natural instinct is a strong bias towards not losing more money -- even if the short-term loss is significantly outweighed by a longer-term gain. The best antidote is a credible communication process that outlines the issues and risks, supported with additional reference materials such as the PMBOK® Guide. Proximity bias is to prefer our own creations to other people's creations. This tendency is reinforced by what behavioral economists call the "IKEA Effect." The more labor we expend on a project, the more we love the result -- regardless of its quality. Before your manager expends too much effort on her own solution the problem, you should communicate in a way that allows a jointly crafted solution to develop. When communicating with senior stakeholders, try to help them resist these biases while working to avoid them yourself. Rather than provide your solution, offer a range of ideas that allows stakeholders to own the solution (with your help). Aim to shift their thinking to a viable benefits-focused solution. How do you cope with biases among stakeholders? Read more from Lynda. Read more on stakeholder management. |
Avoiding Friction through Project Management
Categories:
Teams
Categories: Teams
| It can be an obstacle when project teams encounter friction among members, as it impacts their ability to work together and finish a project successfully. Often, that friction can come from a team member's experience in project management -- or lack thereof. In my opinion, a great deal of control over the project and its outcome depends on how well a project manager or team member is trained in a well-structured project management environment, whether through formal or on-the-job training. Truly understanding project management practices and how all the components of it can work and integrate together can save a lot of grief and reduce or avoid friction among the team members. It provides the tools for "winning the game." Project management provides a pathway to successfully managing a project and its components toward its completion. Any given practice of it is regularly fine-tuned and updated based on the experiences of various project managers and their teams. Equipped with that understanding, project managers must pay attention when there's friction among team members. Project managers can get team members back on track with the project management practice they use, while allowing the team members to focus on the goal: to deliver results in the area for which they are responsible. Do you think project management training can impact friction among team members? Why or why not? See more posts from Dmitri. See more about professional development. |
Project Communications: A Visual Understanding
| The purpose of communicating with any stakeholder is to build his or her understanding of a project. But there is a huge gap between looking at a written message and understanding its contents. The PMBOK® Guide differentiates between the: • Message -- what you want to communicate • Medium -- the way you send the message and • Noise -- things that interfere with comprehension. The concept of noise disrupting communication is easy to appreciate when you are talking with a stakeholder, either face-to-face or on the phone. But what many project managers fail to realize is that the same principles apply to written communication. A significant body of research suggests a well-designed document can communicate up to 80 percent more information to your stakeholder than one that is poorly designed. Consider these elements when designing your next project document: Page layout: In most cases, the eye starts naturally at the top left of a page and flows down to the bottom right. Ignoring this flow disrupts the natural reading pattern and reduces comprehension. Clutter: Multiple fonts, font sizes and colors may create a great visual impression but fail the communication test. The best combination for text color is a black font on white background. I find that serif fonts, like Times New Roman, are easiest to read in the body of a document. Sans serif fonts like Ariel look cleaner in headlines. Use one of each with minimal embellishment to reduce noise. Page design: Leave plenty of white space at the margins, between paragraphs and around images. Place key messages in headlines, use diagrams wisely and caption them effectively. Designing an effective document layout is an art -- you need to balance creating an attractive document with making the information inside easy to read and understand. Do you think document design can impact your project's communications with your stakeholders? Why or why not? Tell us about your experience. Read more posts from Lynda. Read more posts about project communications. |