Building Team Synergy and Resilience
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Categories: Agile, Benefits Realization, Best Practices, Career Help, Change Management, Complexity, digital transformation, Facilitation, Human Aspects of PM, Human Resources, Innovation, Leadership, Lessons Learned, Mentoring, PMOs, Portfolio Management, Program Management, Roundtable, Stakeholder, Strategy, Talent Management, Teams
By Peter Tarhanidis, PhD As the pandemic stretches on, work-from-home programs continue to keep teams working virtually. During this time, we have performed courageously to deliver our strategic and business outcomes. Here I will share a select review of advice from industry experts as they explore how to build a post-pandemic response strategy. According to McKinsey (2022), organizations have pivoted to deliver sustainable and inclusive growth toward building a better world. And Harvard Business Review (2020) notes that all types of companies have navigated the pandemic by pivoting their business models in the short term to survive—becoming more resilient in the long term. Yet not all pivots generated an improved business outcome. Three trends in particular can help ensure a successful pivot:
PWC’s Global Crisis Survey identified three key lessons that businesses can adopt for long-term resilience:
An opportunity, therefore, exists to consider how to prepare your team’s competence in driving synergy and resilience in order to lead post-pandemic growth strategies—and simultaneously pivot from those same strategies. Here is a shortlist of what leaders can do to prepare for a post-pandemic recovery and support an organization:
In the end, the teams that are ready to execute and can pivot as necessary will be ready for the post-pandemic competitive environment. Let me know if you have uncovered additional successful strategies—or any pitfalls to avoid—in building team synergy and resilience. References |
3 Atomic Habits for Program Managers
By Sree Rao, PMP, PgMP, PMI-ACP Atomic Habits has been on Amazon’s top 20 most read books of the week for 167+ weeks. In his book, James Clear proposes a four-step model of habits and the four laws of behavior change:
Here are a few book excerpts that form the foundation for this blog entry: “What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided. The first three laws of behavior change—make it obvious, make it attractive, and make it easy—increase the odds that a behavior will be performed this time. The fourth law of behavior change—make it satisfying—increases the odds that a behavior will be repeated next time. It completes the habit loop.” “Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations. Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. “ What can we take away from this? Here are three habits that I strongly recommend program managers implement. These are proven techniques that will help regardless of the type and size of the projects/programs: Atomic Habit #1: Run regular retrospectives
Atomic Habit #2: Templatize
Another advice from the book is “standardize before you optimize” and this is perfectly applicable for templates. Standardize the use of templates first and based on the patterns that emerge, optimize the templates Atomic Habit #3: Consolidate project tasks and action items
In summary, here are my top three atomic habits that you can cultivate amongst your project/program teams for success over the long term:
I would love to hear the habits that have helped you as a program manager. Share them in the comments below! |
AI To Disrupt Project Management
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Categories: Career Help, Change Management, Cloud Computing, Complexity, digital transformation, Education and Training, Ethics, Facilitation, Generational PM, Human Aspects of PM, Human Resources, Innovation, IT, Leadership, Leadership, Nontraditional Project Management, PMOs, Portfolio Management, Program Management, Stakeholder, Strategy, Talent Management, Teams, Tools
By Peter Tarhanidis, PhD Technology has demonstrated tremendous benefits and efficiencies (many of them unstated) over time. The technology lifecyle enhancements that started with our initial computers, software programs and the internet of the past have given way to the modern-day cloud, Big Data and artificial intelligence. Throughout this maturing landscape, technology has affected all industries—especially how we collaborate. According to Peng (2021), here are some key impacts to consider:
Project management has benefitted from the overall technology lifecycle, either by implementing aspects of it or by being a user of its collaboration outputs. Yet project managers are at the doorstep of being part of the next wave of AI disruption. What a PM organization must consider is the methods and concepts used in managing past programs and become proactive in shifting to an AI-enabled PM organization. There is no doubt that the role of PMs and our methodology will be augmented with AI-enabled assistance. PwC identified five areas of AI disruption and decision making in project management:
To prepare for these changes, project managers should:
In order for these changes to emerge, there are a few considerations that may hold one back from the changes—such as organizational readiness, employee skills assessments, and the state of technical tools. PwC outlines a change approach to assist in the transition that relies on updating project management strategy, leveraging technology investments, integrating digital and AI, and a comprehensive communication plan to generate awareness through adoption by the future project management workforce. What other approaches have you used—or should be considered—to manage AI disruption in project management? Reference: |
Plan for the Velocity of Change to Keep Increasing!
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Agile,
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Complexity,
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Lessons Learned,
Portfolio Management,
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Project Planning,
ROI,
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Strategy,
Talent Management,
Teams
Categories: Agile, Best Practices, Career Help, Change Management, Complexity, Facilitation, Generational PM, Human Aspects of PM, Human Resources, Innovation, Innovation, IT, Leadership, Leadership, Lessons Learned, Portfolio Management, Program Management, Project Planning, ROI, Stakeholder, Strategy, Talent Management, Teams
By Peter Tarhanidis, Ph.D., M.B.A. Today, developments in emerging technology, business processes and digital experiences are accelerating larger transformation initiatives. Moore’s Law means that we have access to exponentially better computing capabilities. Growth is further fueled by technologies such as supercomputers, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, Internet of Things (IoT) and more across industries. Emerging Tech Business Process Maturity According to market research group IMARC, automation and the IoT are driving growth in business process management (BPM); the BPM market is expected to grow at a 10 percent compound annual growth rate between 2020 and 2025. Customer Experience Customer experience is redefining business processes and digitizing the consumption model to increase brand equity. Gartner reports that among marketing leaders who are responsible for customer experience, 81 percent say their companies will largely compete on customer experience in two years. However, only 22 percent have developed experiences that exceed customer expectations. Economic Forces The Way Forward I’ve developed a few guidelines to help navigate this change:
Change is now inherent and pervasive in the annual planning process for organizations. Given that, I like to ask: What is the plan to prepare staff and colleagues to compete in this hyper-transformation age? What observations have you made to keep up with this new era’s velocity of change? |
What Does the Future Hold for Project Leaders?
By Wanda Curlee Some believe that project management needs a complete overhaul. Whether you agree or not, there’s no doubt that technology is driving radical change. As I have mentioned in different blogs and presentations, I believe that artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) will have a large impact on the next generation of project managers. Thanks to this new tech, project managers will be adding more value, versus completing mundane tasks. Technology will do the mundane for the project, program or portfolio manager. So, what will be left for the practitioner to do? For starters, the project manager will be able to focus on the many things put to the side because they’re doing their best to keep stakeholders informed and complete routine tasks, as well as trying to maintain their sanity. Targeting the Mundane The good news is, AI and IoT will take on these mundane tasks. Technologies will be able to review a schedule and track down those who haven’t inputted their time. The schedule options, along with recommendations, will be provided to the project manager. And that’s not all: Tech can also assist with drafting presentations and status reports. The project manager can then add the final touches. Potential risks can be assessed and the probability and cost to the project can be determined. Impact on the Project Manager They’ll also have to deal with problem resources already on the project. This may mean less qualified individuals who aren’t able to do the work (through no fault of their own), those who are unhappy on the project and are projecting the feeling throughout the project, and those who are lazy, among other things. The project manager may need to counsel these individuals or may even have to fire them, which, of course, creates risk for the project. In addition, the project manager may have to deal with subcontractors and vendors. More attention can be paid to higher-level risks and preventing or minimizing their occurrence. Integration management is also an area of focus. There are project managers who put this aside because they feel if the schedule is all right, the project integration is handled. This is not true. There may be individuals who are not sharing their information promptly, or those who are producing a major milestone but have a family emergency. Without them, no one else can finish a milestone that’s critical to the remainder of the project. Predicting the future is hard. Time will tell how technology will be used in project, program and portfolio management. Technology should not be considered a silver bullet, but a means to provide help with everyday tasks, allowing leaders to devote time to value-added work. What do you think: How will future technology change the way we manage projects? |