Joan RoseChange & Technical Project Manager| Samaritan Health Services
Any resources you can recommend? Tips or tricks specifically related to bringing engineers along on the soft skills side of Project Management? I'm looking specifically for ideas related to helping them manage scope, changes and risk, as well as not postponing discussions about budget just because it pushes them outside their comfort zone. Saving Changes...
In my view one of the reasons people avoid hard conversation is,one of course it is not comfortable to do and second they hope that someone else will do it on their behalf and hopefully they can get away without doing that.
The core is accountability and understanding that they are responsible for a piece of work end to end. Also they are enabled to execute what they are accountable for.
One of the tip that has worked for me is, having PMs prepare periodic report that gives the status of various attributes of a project like scope, budget, etc and explain what they are doing to Get to Green (GTG). This kind of helps them introspect, develop confidence and understand that their actions (like hard conversations) are required for success of the project. Saving Changes...
Philippe SchulerSenior Instructor/Lecturer in Project/Program/Account PMO Management| Independant ConsultantLes Choux, France
Provide appropriate development of required soft skills. Good example are the ones for the Help-Desk agents who have to deal with "angry" clients most of the time. Prepare the individual or team when hard discussions are anticipated (with a Customer for example). If you have to deal with strong people who are difficult to convince, take training on "Managing by Influence" and improve your inter-personnel communication. Saving Changes...
Chanukya RajagopalaDirector - IT Strategy - R & D| iPOCA Private LtdUnited Kingdom
New PMs, at most times, would have come through the ranks of Project Management as Project team member, like a Business Analyst, Project consultant, project coordinator, team leader, before being a Project Manager. All the necessary lessons are learnt by experience or expertise and in absence of project manager, a deputy project manager takes charge and gains full insight into the role of PM. These lessons if taken advantage of, will institute a full expertise skill set in the junior management professional. Such a person taking over this project, will be able to use previuos experience and expertise, to take on role of a project manager / mentor etc Saving Changes...
Joan:
In my experience it is challenging because an IT PM can be both the PM and Technical lead. IT engineers need to understand how a PM would approach an operational, strategic and customer facing project and what template to use and what outcomes to expect in both the SDLC and Project Life-cycle. Core skills coursework with provide IT staff with some foundation knowledge of how to manage both the product and project life cycle. Mentoring will also help them understand how to manage and control a project. Saving Changes...
"I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near."
