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Category Archives: Project Management

7 Project Management Tools that are making Life Simpler for Project Managers

01 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by Young Brain @ Work in Project Management

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Today, project management tools available on a cloud model or web-only model come in various types. Some can be all encompassing “does it all” solutions while others are much simpler.

Certain project management tools have specific defining methodology behind how they work. For instance, Trello and Agile Zen along with Blossom.io follow the Kanban method of project management. A few other project management tools are almost like Facebook or Twitter.

The options can be bewildering indeed. So, here’s an attempt to point you in the right direction as far as project management tools are concerned. If you are a project manager looking for a great tool to bring your team together to work collaboratively and manage projects successfully, look out for these options:

Telerik TeamPulse

Telerik TeamPulse is an all-in-one team management solution that enables multiple project management, enhanced collaboration, planning work, and even helps you leverage agile best practices.

Ideally suited for any software project management requirements, you can improve your decision-making, keep up-to-date on team progress, bridge the boundaries between team roles, open gates for communication, manage bugs, and much more. The web-based solution also extends itself for time-tracking, cross-project reporting, and also doubles as an ideas and feedback portal.

Agile Zen

Focused around visualization, communication, improvement of workflows, and efficient organization of work, Agile Zen is project management software that aims to offer a lean solution for businesses.

It renders itself very well for projects of all types – with a slight emphasis on the coding, software and development niche — while featuring some nifty features such as “performance metrics” showing you cycle times, lead times, and percentage efficiency. On the communication tab, you’ll see some inspiration from Trello-like flow with ready, working and complete columns to minimize interference in communication and to make sure that you are able to call attention to problems as they surface in the midst of a project.

Basecamp

The folks led by Jason Fried at 37Signals– the company behind Basecamp, High Rise, and Campfire – practically invented web-based project management. They are still big except that they chose not to add too much cream to the milk. By that, we mean that you won’t find anything fancy in Basecamp. No rich UI motions, no Gantt Charts, no visual reporting (except for a project progress bar, if you can call it that).

Yet, it has a strong following. It’s appeal as a simplistic project management tool is irresistible for many businesses. All you need is to assign projects to teams, and check the progress while keeping everyone on the same page using a calendar.

How much more simple can it get?

Asana

It’s amazing how many different ways a simple but powerful project management software tool can be used. Asana is the brainchild of Facebook’s co-founder Dustin Moscovitz and it’s rapidly growing to be a hugely popular web-based project management tool and it’s completely free to use for up to 15 users.

You can choose to run private or public projects, have granular control on who gets to see what, use Harvest App for time tracking, and Google Drive for document uploads and usage (In addition to Dropbox and your own computer hard drive). The project tool makes project management accountable with work assigned efficiently to the right people.

Deskaway.com

Project collaboration tools are getting smarter and with that, project managers and teams get the best of what is available. Deskaway.com is a smart, web-based collaboration tool, which provides you with project collaboration, which includes time tracking, project templates, documents, timesheets, and milestones.

It also provides you with a choice of options for reporting and analytics such as Gantt Charts, individual project and user reports. Deskaway does integrate with third-party apps while also being made available on your mobile devices.

Workzone

For project management, you need security along with plenty of other features that teams find useful. Some of the web-based project management tools either go overboard with features or underplay it completely missing out on what’s important.

Workzone focuses on exactly what teams need with features such as Status alerts, secure file sharing, flexible and manageable permissions, approvals workflow, file version, a group calendar, and even image markup. It has the ability to manage multiple projects and easily duplicate tasks that have similar workflows. It’s easy, intuitive to use, and gets you to work.

Worketc

How about using a single tool for almost everything you’d ever need to do for your business, managing projects and even billing or invoicing? Worketc.com is one single, web-based app that almost gets there with integrated CRM, project management, Billing, Help Desk (Customer Support), and much more.

The cost of using Worketc is much less than if you were to use CRM and project management separately. Further, everything remains on the cloud (much like all other project management tools) with business-wide visibility and real-time accountability. It’s the perfect way to get your team onboard and give them one single office to work from. Even the remote workers feel at home with this tool.

There’s no one tool that’s the best as most of these listed project management tools have some great features and each has their own breed of users. Asana, Workzone, and Basecamp for instance, can fit any type of project while Agile Zen and TeamPulse make better choices for software development projects.

As a project manager, try to fit a project management solution around your needs instead of picking up any project management tool. You’d need a fairly flexible solution, which is also easy on the eye and easy to use. Look for the third-party apps your project management tool integrates with – sometimes, that will decide which tool to go for.

For instance, Agile Zen mostly integrates with development tools and not with some popular apps such as Google Apps, High Rise, Zen Desk, etc. Do your due diligence and you won’t have to waste time working with the wrong project management solution.

What’s your favourite when it comes to project management solutions?

5 Tips for Improving Your Project Schedule

01 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by Young Brain @ Work in Project Management

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You have a project schedule, right? It’s probably the most important document for a project manager, whether you have plotted it with sticky notes on flip chart paper or used sophisticated project management software to produce it. It is the document that the whole team uses to work out what they are supposed to do by when. It’s the document your project sponsor will use to understand the project work, and you will use it too for project reporting and monitoring status.

In fact, without a project schedule, you could say that you don’t have a project! However, a project schedule is more than just a list of ordered tasks. It also needs to include much more to be useful. Here are 5 things that you can include on your schedule to ensure that it a great tool for your project.

1. Resources

Schedules aren’t just for tasks. While you resourcesmight start out by creating a comprehensive task list, you can do a lot more with your project schedule, including adding resources to each task. Adding the details of who is doing the activity to the entry on the schedule makes it easy to see what work each individual is doing. The information will automatically feed through to your reporting software if you are using an enterprise-standard project management tool and you’ll be able to create resource reports with just a few clicks. The benefit of these is that you’ll quickly be able to see who has too much work and who needs some more tasks allocated to them so they aren’t sitting around waiting for things to do.

There is also a benefit for your team members as they will instantly be able to see what they are supposed to be doing when. It can really help them plan their diaries and it’s a visual reminder of deadlines. Some software will even let you send automated reminders to team members when tasks are due.

2. Milestones

If you start off your project planning by creating a long task list, the chances are you are short of a few milestones. Milestones aren’t tasks per se, they are moments in time where you can take stock of what’s going on – activities that mark the end of a phase, the start of a stage or something similar.

Scatter some milestones through your project schedule at logical points. Aim for a couple of milestones per month so that you can use these in your project reporting to track your progress. Milestones are normally marked on a schedule by including a task with a duration of zero days or specifically marking the task as a milestone in the task properties.

3. Summary Tasks

A summary task, also known as a hammock task, is an overarching task that comprises of several smaller tasks. It is different from a milestone, which marks (for example) the end of a phase. Instead, a summary task would be for the whole phase. All the tasks within that phase sit underneath it.

Summary tasks are useful because they allow you to group together related activities. Again, this makes project reporting easier as you can focus on the status of the project at a higher level.

4. Actual Dates

It’s great to plan out your project at the beginningcalendar and add in all of the forecasted dates. In fact, you definitely need to do this! It gives you a schedule to work to and it ensures that your team have deadlines to aim for.

But when the work starts, you’ll also find it useful to record actual start and actual finish dates. You can use these to compare to your project baseline. A baseline is a snapshot of your schedule in time, so when you then begin work you can look back and see how well you are doing.

Using your actual start and actual finish dates will help you see if you are hitting your original target dates for task completion. They can show you if you are running late, in comparison to your forecasted plan, or even early! And they can help with task estimating, as if you notice that a particular task has taken a lot longer than you expected, next time you come to schedule that task on a project you’ll know exactly how long it really takes.

5. Dependencies

Dependencies are the links between tasks. They help determine how long a project will take because some tasks can only be done in a certain order. Most tasks run one after the other, so your dependencies will run from the end of one task to the beginning of another. However, you may also find on your project that you have tasks that need to be done in parallel, or which have to start before another task. Dependencies will let you link all the tasks in the appropriate way.

Dependencies normally appear on your project schedule as little lines that end with an arrow. The arrow shows you which way the link goes, so it makes it clear which task is dependent on something else. A task can be dependent on several tasks so you can find your schedule looking very messy with lines going up, down and across it! Think about the order of tasks on your schedule and try to put related tasks next to each other so that the dependency lines don’t get too messed up.

Project schedules obviously include a lot of information – they are the most important thing for managing a project professionally so they need to really help you do a good job. They are a very useful tool, and so much more than a task list, but they are only as good as the information you include in them. Do your project schedules include all these elements?

Create beautiful, comprehensive project schedules with ProjectManager.com. You can even upload your task information from other software applications and share it instantly with your project team members. Never miss a deadline again.

Project Management: Warning Signs Your Project May Be in Trouble

01 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by Young Brain @ Work in Project Management

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All projects have the potential of getting into trouble, but generally, project management can work well as long as: 1) the requirements do not impose severe pressure on the project manager, and 2) a project sponsor exists as an ally to assist when trouble does appear.

Unfortunately, in today’s chaotic environment, this pressure appears to be increasing because:

  • Companies are accepting high-risk and highly complex projects as a necessity for survival
  • Customers are demanding low-volume, high-quality products with some degree of customization
  • Project life cycles and new product development times are being compressed
  • Enterprise environmental factors are having a greater impact on project execution
  • Customers and stakeholders want to be more actively involved in the execution of projects
  • Companies are developing strategic partnerships with suppliers, and each supplier can be at a different level of project management maturity
  • Global competition has forced companies to accept projects from customers that are all at different levels of project management maturity and have different reporting requirements

These pressures tend to slow down the decision-making processes at a time when stakeholders want the projects and processes to be accelerated. One person, while acting as the project sponsor, may have neither the time nor the capability to address all of these additional issues. The result will be a project slowdown, which can occur because of:

  • The project manager being expected to make decisions in areas where he/she has limited knowledge
  • The project manager hesitating to accept full accountability and ownership for the projects
  • Excessive layers of management being superimposed on the project management organization
  • Risk management being pushed up to higher levels in the organizational hierarchy, resulting in delayed decisions
  • The project manager demonstrating questionable leadership ability on some of the nontraditional projects

The problems resulting from these pressures may not be able to be resolved by a single project sponsor, at least easily and in a timely manner. These problems can be resolved using effective project governance. Project governance is actually a framework by which decisions are made. Governance relates to decisions that define expectations, accountability, responsibility, the granting of power or verifying performance, and relates to consistent management, cohesive policies, processes, and decision-making rights for a given area of responsibility. It enables efficient and effective decision making to take place.

Every project can have different governance even if each project uses the same enterprise project management methodology. The governance function can operate as a separate process or as part of project management leadership. Governance is not designed to replace project decision making, but to prevent undesirable decisions from being made.

Historically, governance was provided by a single project sponsor. Today, governance is a committee and can include representatives from each stakeholder’s organization. Exhibit 1 shows one such governance approach. The membership of the committee can change from project to project and industry to industry. The membership may also vary based on the number of stakeholders and whether the project is for an internal or external client. On long-term projects, membership can change throughout the project.

 Exhibit 1: Typical Governance Structure 

Project Management: Warning Signs Your Project May Be in Trouble image Post PIc 1 300x241

Governance on projects and programs sometimes fails because people confuse project governance with corporate governance. The result is that members of the committee are not sure what their roles should be. For governance to work correctly, each member of the governance committee must clearly understand the committee’s responsibility and decision-making authority in relation to the project team’s responsibility and decision-making authority. If significant overlap exists, confusion will reign and problems will occur. If clarification is not made, the project team runs the risk of micromanagement by the governance committee. This understanding must be made early on in the project, preferably before the project actually begins.

6 Characteristics of Superstar Project Managers

01 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by Young Brain @ Work in Project Management

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You’re good at your job, right? Brilliant, in fact. You have all the bases covered, all of the time and you always get the job done, usually on time and on budget. But are you really a good project manager?

There is a world of difference between being good and being efficient, and the two do not necessarily always go together. A superstar project manager is one that is highly efficient and is good at the human side of the job; a person could be fantastic at delivering results, but dreadful at man management and the soft skills that make a truly great manager.

What makes a superstar project manager then?

—

  1. A true people person, a superstar project manager knows how to build relationships with people in order to get the best out of them without having to crack the whip.
  2. Someone who can teach their team members new methods and new ways of looking at things, as well as being open to their ideas and suggestions. Help your team to better themselves and help them along within their own careers if progression is on their mind, you are building a much stronger team that way.
  3. A social butterfly. Social media presents a magnificent opportunity to learn and teach, as well as to reach out to others in your profession with tips and leads. A social project manager, that actively engages with others in online communities, is one that is open to new ideas – as well as being more discoverable by prospective clients.
  4. A moving target. Project managers cannot sit and waste away behind a desk all day, delegating tasks and communicating by email and the like. While delegation and communication are important, getting out and meeting with managers and team members is equally as important. If you are connecting with people ‘on the ground’ you are being more proactive, and things are more likely to move forward a little quicker because you able to respond and communicate faster and more effectively.
  5. Someone who can be aware of other peoples strengths and weaknesses. This means you can assign tasks that you know an individual can accomplish. For example, do not ask Paul, a graphic artist, to go and set up a sound studio for a recording session that needs to take place. You need be aware of which member of your team is best in which area, and you have play to those strengths to the benefit of not just the project at hand, but the stability and confidence of the team moving forward too.
  6. —Someone who has the willingness to learn and improve upon their craft, the best project managers are constantly looking to learn new skills that will help them with present and future projects; attending PM courses or brushing up on current think by listening to PM podcasts. We all know about the people that have medals on their chests, but have never seen the front line – don’t be that guy; work hard, and work harder at being even more awesome than you already are.

Project Management Introduction (PMP Certification)

15 Sunday Aug 2010

Posted by Young Brain @ Work in Project Management

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Scrum in under 10 minutes (HD) by @hamids

15 Sunday Aug 2010

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Scrum Tuning: Lessons learned from Scrum implementation at Google

15 Sunday Aug 2010

Posted by Young Brain @ Work in Project Management

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Google Tech Talks December 7, 2006 ABSTRACT Adwords introduced a Scrum implementation at Google in small steps with remarkable success. As presented at the Agile 2006 conference this exemplifies a great way to start up Scrum teams. The inventor and Co-Creator of Scrum will use this approach in building the Google Scrum implementation to describe some of the subtle aspects of Scrum along with suggested next steps that can help in distributing and scaling Scrum in a “Googly way”.

Moving to Agile from Waterfall

15 Sunday Aug 2010

Posted by Young Brain @ Work in Project Management

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Most of us working in Agile now, have moved from waterfall to Agile at some moment of time in their career. You must have experienced lot of questions in your mind while doing so. Many of us moved for various reasons – their own interest, due to project requirement, due to management decision, customer demands etc.

Why Agile? and Why not waterfall?

This was my first question while I was stepping towards Agile methodology. I would not say that I don’t like waterfall, but it would be worth while to look in what difference you would see while moving to Agile.

Waterfall has it’s strength in believing what logical path a project can take. Looking at the requirements, all great ideas can be implemented well in design phase, code and test and deliver. All those deliverables are given to customer that were planned. But any ideas that are introduced say later in the testing phase, might make you think 10 times whether to incorporate and how to incorporate without affecting schedule and cost of the project. You might remember the cost of defect equation which stresses upon defects found in later stage of the project cost much more than in design phase. Now you can compare good ideas coming at the later stage that require lot of change in system design with defects. Sometimes even good ideas coming up in later stages of the project could prove to be threat instead of doing any good for the project. Unfortunately it happens more often than expected as not all good ideas are brought up at start of the project itself.

At the same time, biggest strength in Scrum framework lies in adapting change and it becomes easier with it’s interative approach. Agile suggests to work in rapid iterations, deliver working product and get as much as inputs from customers on the way as possible (or product owner if he can play the role of a customer). This feedback loop is very important to make sure that the product delivery is as expected by customer.

Business value from Scrum

I remember a very good difference between these two, waterfall and scrum – business value at some moment of time in project life cycle.

If I remember correctly, it was explained by my scrum trainer. In this example, we run two projects for identical requirements, same time period (For example: say 1 year) with same team, but one in waterfall way and another in scrum.

Assuming you know how scrum and waterfall both work, if you look at the project delivery after 6 months, it would be very interesting output. In the 6 months, the waterfall project might have reached a stage where the requirement analysis is fully complete, design is complete, programming has started and half way through. If I am a customer, how much business value this stage would give me, think about it.

At the same time, the scrum project team would have against prioritized product backlog and started delivering shippable product after every sprint (say of 1 month each). If as a customer, I ask them to stop working after 6 months, they would have at least bunch of product backlog items done, and shipped as workable product. Simply because it focuses on shippable product in small iterations, and that not only gives the best business value at certain moment in project life cycle but also allows change during the development process that can be taken up in future sprints.

This is huge difference between what Scrum can do, and what Waterfall might not help in.

Credit: Abhijeet’s Blog (Certified ScrumMaster)

Lessons from Project Management: 101 ways to organize your life

02 Saturday Jan 2010

Posted by Young Brain @ Work in Project Management

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Lessons from Project Management: 101 ways to organize your life

Project Management (and life) Wisdom straight from the mouths of the horses – oops, I mean project managers:

Leadership

1. Keep your approach friendly: People are not looking to make friends at work, but refraining from114689384_cfc52799ed an aggressive approach towards your employees is a good idea. The whip – your – team – into – submission approach worked with the “Pyramids of Giza” project – but it is outdated now. The days when you could bully and scare the s*** out of your team are over. Be diplomatic and assertive, instead.

2. When taking on a new project/responsibility at work, convey to your management the extent of authority you need in order to effectively execute your project. Ensure that you have the authority that you need before you start work on your project.

3. Being people-oriented does not mean that you cannot be task-oriented (and vice-versa).

4. One-to-one: Meet regularly with your team members on a one-on-one basis. When you apply this principle to your kids, it makes each of them feel special.

5. Nobody appreciates a micro-manager: Don’t sit on the heads of your team members.

6. Giving autonomy does not mean not keeping track of progress.

7. Learn how to manage people (more difficult than it sounds, believe you me!), and the rest of your job will that much easier to execute.

8. As a leader, you should have the ability to bind the team together and give them a sense of “we’re in this together.” For instance, as the head of your family, you can promote bonding by setting aside time for family board games, story-telling sessions, family picnics, family prayers and the like.

9. Stay visible – As a leader, you need to be visible in good times, as well as when there are problems to address.

10. Your reputation depends on your perceived credibility and integrity: A very basic item for leaders is to ensure that promises made are promises kept. If action is committed, it must be performed.

11. Personality: As a leader, does your personality influence and inspire your team?

12. Leadership CAN be learned. Focus on these areas to improve your leadership skills:

  • Initiative
  • Leverage your charisma to influence others
  • Lead purposefully and with commitment
  • Develop a result-oriented approach
  • Cultivate an attitude of optimism
  • Work on your self-confidence – especially for weakness areas (for instance, if you are particularly nervous around people with an intimidating body language, create a plan to tackle that, and come across as confident and in-control in their presence.)
  • Cultivate empathy so that you can encourage and nurture your team
  • Learn to identify winners – and nurture them
  • Learn to read between the lines to understand the underlying concern that prompted the dialogue
  • The ability to motivate people so that they stretch out of their “comfort zones”
  • Improve your decision-making abilities by learning from past decisions
  • Learn to see the big picture
  • Polish your Goal Setting skills
  • Develop Personal Goals and examine them at regular intervals
  • Effective Time Management

13. Flexibility: While it is a good thing to be firm and stand by your decisions, It is important that93952499_f88c638134 you are flexible enough to realize when plans need to change. View planning as an ongoing process. That way, you can change course midway without too much damage, if the original plan is not working. Are you open to continuous planning and updating of the plan?

Effective personnel management (Managing your team / family unit)

14. Stand up for your team. When your employees are in the right, have the guts to take up their case.

15. Don’t let team members intimidate you with technical mumbo-jumbo. Don’t feel stupid when you ask them to explain what they are saying in layperson’s language.

16. Match assignments with skill sets: Is every team member equipped to handle his part of the assignment? If not, then you are in deep trouble!

17. Creative Solutions: A Japanese story – when a little girl kept wearing the wrong shoe on the wrong foot, her parents found a solution. There was half a smiley face on either shoe. The smiley face was complete only when she wore her shoes the correct way. Problem solved. It can be as simple as that if we use our creativity.

18. When you pressure your team to deliver faster than is humanly possible, don’t be surprised to see a poor quality, bug-laden product.

19. Agree on rules: In project management, once the design has been completed, the design and production staff create a style guide for future reference. Make the rules of the game clear to all players involved, and to any players who join in later on.

20. Building Trust: Build trust within the team by demonstrating to each team member that everyone is important and creating a sense of personal value and contribution.

21. According to the book “Retaining Your Best People” (Harvard Business School Press), retention should become a core strategy. A very significant and important piece of advice from the book and something that all leaders should do on a regular basis is to “let your best people know you treasure them, count on them, and want to reward them in as many ways as possible.”

22. Look beyond money: There should be an effort by the manager, project manager, or business executive to determine what the non-monetary interests of the key players are. Translated to a family situation, don’t sit smug thinking that you are doing your bit by bringing in the bacon. Your family needs more than that from you – your attention and interest, for instance.

23. Say thanks, offer words of support, and show appreciation for good work.

24. Reward your key players as often as possible. People generally won’t work for people who just don’t care for them.

25. Provide Challenges – Encourage your team to stretch beyond their comfort zone. This will help them see just how far they can go.

Recognition

26. Rewarding works better than nagging: A reward can be something as simple as a coin or a note of appreciation – as long as your employees perceive it as a symbol of recognition, it works.

The relationship between Accountability, Empowerment, Ownership and Motivation

27. The buck stops here: You are accountable for your task / project. However, this does not mean that you do not delegate. Delegate work to your team members, let them know that they are accountable for their assignment/s, and ensure that they have the resources so that they can deliver successfully. Decide the plan of action beforehand, and decide how follow-ups will happen.

28. Ownership: Have an attitude of owning your work.

29. Minimize your supervision – Provide a sense of autonomy. Freedom is a major motivator and builds trust on both sides. (Tip: But don’t tune out completely.)

30. To motivate, you have to empower. Motivation involves not only being enthusiastic and pumped up about approaching the task, but also involves being equipped with the tools and the ability to complete the assignment. When you delegate an assignment, convey to the team member that it is now THEIR exclusive responsibility that the job gets done. If it doesn’t, they will be held accountable.

31. Accountability of Self: Take a couple of co-workers into confidence about your expectations from yourself. Besides making your goals clearer to yourself, this helps others keep track of your progress.

Communication

32. Clear, open communication is a prerequisite for a healthy, result-oriented work environment.

33. Keep them posted: A lack of information is a fertile ground for rumor, gossip and insecurity. Keep the team in the loop about information concerning and affecting them.

34. When in doubt, ask: Don’t refrain from asking “stupid” questions – they may save miscommunication and misunderstandings, resulting in saved time and money!

35. It is bad policy to wait till your team members find out important information concerning them from other sources. That information should come from you.

36. Ask questions and listen to suggestions.

37. Feedback: Provide it often and ask for it. Keep an open mind. (Tip: Don’t expect all feedback to be pleasant and positive.)

38. Listen: It’s always important to listen, but even more so in tough times. Listen for undertones.

39. Be Open: While you should not be a dumping ground for grievances, you SHOULD be accessible enough for team members to openly discuss concerns or delays. (Tip: If you are not open, you’ll find out about the concern or delay later in the game when there is less time to fix it.)

40. Touch Base: One-on-one and in meetings, meet up with your team members (or family members). (Sitting in front of the television with the family does not count as touching base!)

Morale

41. Pride: Have you read the Japanese story about the janitor who described his work as “Contributing to the progress of his country?” His logic – if the executives did not have clean toilets to use, they couldn’t be very productive, could they? That is the kind of pride you need to have in your work / project.

42. Keep your sense of humor: It helps – especially in situations where no one feels like laughing. (Like the time a short executive stood on a chair so that she was at eye-level with her colleague, and she quipped, “Maybe now we can see eye-to eye?” The laughter that followed this lightened up the tension that everyone in the room had been feeling up to that point.)

43. Have fun @ work: It’s true that all work and no play makes Jack a dull b217735177_bc8ec638dc ec638dcoy. And fun, on the other hand, recharges your batteries and lets you approach work with a fresh mind.

44. Celebrate achievements – even mini-achievements: Celebrating at every landmark gives your team something to look forward to, and lets them remember that they are making steady progress towards their goal – project completion!

45. Give praise: When a team member does something great, let them know it! Make sure your praise is sincere. Also, your praise will be valued only if it is given when it’s due.

46. Help Others Help Themselves: If a team member / family member has a mental block, you can guide this individual to tear it down. (Tip: Tackle such issues early on, because a negative frame of mind can be highly infectious.)

Self-Management

47. Use impatience to your advantage: Channel the energies generated by your impatience to propel the process faster.

48. Procrastinators don’t make good project managers. Find a way around your weakness (procrastination) if you want to achieve your targets.

49.

24X7 availability for the project is not the way to effective achievement of targets. It will only end up overwhelming you. “The key is to schedule and set boundaries so you don’t need to be accessible 24/7.” (webmonkey)

50. Do you like what you are doing? If not, why are you still doing it? Money is not compensation enough for being trapped in a role you do not like. Because for every hour you spend doing something you don’t enjoy, you are giving up doing something that you do.

51. Be Informed: Know not only what is happening in your organization, but also keep track of changes within other organizations that may impact your team members.

52. Analyze after the event: A postmortem offers valuable insights for future reference.

53. Ask yourself
    (1) Do I know what is expected of me?
    (2) Do I expect I can perform that which is expected of me?
    (3) Do I expect a reward of value to me personally?

Stress

54. Use stress as an ally: Let stress work as the red flag that tells you to take action.

55. One key element in dealing with stress is taking control. A feeling of helplessness increases stress. So take some action that reflects that you do retain some amount of control over the situation – even if that little control is only over your reaction to the stressor.

Personal organization

56. Nothing beats being organized. Keep an organized filing system, for instance, even something as simple as storing documents chronologically will go a long way in saving you time and stress when you need to locate information.

57. Keep a daily journal where you jot down the day’s highlights. Then, set aside an hour on Saturday night/evening to analyze your week. What did you do wrong? What did you do right? What will you do differently the next time in a similar situation? This practice will help you grow professionally and personally in the long run.

58. Make daily lists and cross things off. Keep a personal scorecard and grade yourself weekly.

59. Buy a Daily Planner; now actually use it.

Planning

60. Plan ahead: Before you plunge headlong into work, spend some time planning your project.

61. Break down work into tasks: Breaking down the project into smaller tasks (and mini-tasks if required) ensures that you have a systematic approach.

211548019_38fe86d33862. Keep it visible and visual: Plotting a chart or graph about work progress and tacking it in a prominent place on your soft board (or keeping the softcopy on your desktop) ensures that your progress is visible to you.

63. Infrastructure: A reliable server lays the foundation for efficient work. Good infrastructure and equipment translate to smooth functioning for any task.

64. A step-by-step plan is the best way to ensure you know where you are going.

65. In project management, the bulk of the work happens after the planning phase. How well this implementation of the plan happens depends on how thorough and specific the planning and documentation was. Bad planning translates to bad implementation.

66. Good planning alone does not ensure good implementation. Follow-through becomes vital here. As the leader, the project manager ensures that the team sticks to the plan.

67. As a project manager, you need to check that everyone is following the functional spec and style guide, that they are using the proper naming conventions and version controls, and that backup files are being saved on the server. Rules are useful only insofar as they are implemented and followed.

68. Be prepared: Know your stuff front-wards, back-wards, and every way in between. This does not mean that you need to say everything you know. Being prepared helps you to quickly answer questions and convey that you know what you are talking about.

69. Understanding the goals: A project is truly successful only when you are meeting the need for which it was created. Identifying the scope and requirements at the outset and also acknowledging that in the real world, these can change is a good starting point.

70. Getting it right from the outset: The most important part of a project’s life cycle is the identification of its requirements.

Conflicts

71. Manage conflict (especially within the team) at an early stage – before it reaches crisis proportions.225019223_5786ee95f2

72. The best way to side-step petty politics – nip conflicts in the bud.

73. Remember that no two people view the situation with the same pair of eyes – they actually see different things. This helps in understanding differences of viewpoints and eventually resolving conflict within your team.

74. Create the Team Charter; and keep it up-to-date: A team charter is a code of conduct developed by the project management team and later adopted or modified by the project team. It defines the mutual expectations of each team member of one another. As a project manager, hold yourself and others accountable to be consistent with this code.

Risk Management

75. There is no such thing as a zero-risk project: There is no such thing as a risk-free life.

76. If you want to understand a risk fully, identify its causes as well as its effects.

77. How do you respond to risks? There are four ways:
    a) Aggressive responses: You can achieve avoidance by removing or changing a cause, or by breaking the cause-risk link so that the threat is no longer possible.
    b) Third party: You involve a third party to manage the risk.
    c) Size: You can change the size of a risk, thus reducing a threat.
    d) Acceptance: You accept the possibility  of the risk, and create a fallback plan to recover from negative impacts.

78. When a project is desperately troubled, first take action to contain the damage then worry about recovery, just the way a first aid or rescue teams first “contain the damage” and consider other options after the victim’s condition stabilizes.

79. Checklists for risks: Trouble sometimes stems from omissions. It is easy to “forget” key components of a work package. A checklist reduces the potential of leaving out important considerations.

Work / Life Balance

Naps, Breaks and Vacations: The rejuvenation trio

80. Take a break: When you feel overwhelmed, take a break; get your mind off work for some time. Chances are, you will be able to handle the situation better after a break.66772254_cb5cc8c93d

81. Get enough sleep: There is no substitute for sleep. All else being equal, a well-rested person is better equipped to meet the challenges that the day presents, as compared to a person who has not had enough rest.

82. When you plan a vacation and want to really enjoy it, ensure that all the work-oriented nitty gritty is taken care of, and out of the way.

83. Manage your vacation as a project (a lot of planning) if you enjoy doing a lot of things rather than just lying around idly all day (which is also an excellent way to recharge your batteries, by the way).

What You Eat

84. Remember GIGO? Garbage in, Garbage out: Eat low-energy fast food and be prepared for irritability, mood swings, and blood sugar swings. Eat healthy, wholesome and nutritious meals to bring out the best in you.

Bonding and Loving

85. A healthy personal life translates to a well-balanced, healthy person. Make sure you are not succeeding at the workplace at the cost of your family and loved ones. Given enough time, they will learn to live without you around – without complaining about it. Tip: Pets are wonderful to shower you with (unconditional) love when nobody else will.

86. No job in the world is worth neglecting your kids for. Your kids will outgrow their strong dependence on you – the job will always be there (one or the other). If you are not there for them when they need you the most, don’t count on their unconditional acceptance and love for you later on.

Your clients and stakeholders

87. Keep the stakeholders updated: Keep the sponsors and stakeholders posted about the progress. This becomes more important when there are unforeseen problems or newer risks; like when there are delays.

88. Understand the need: When working on the project, it helps if you understand what need your project will fulfill. Sometimes (make that often) your client’s description the project will not match his need. Ensure that what you are doing will serve the purpose that it is meant to serve.

13600462_0f4efe369f89. When to give in and when to hold your ground: Once a project has started, the client will almost always want you to incorporate changes and add tasks. Sometimes requests are legitimate, and it is possible to incorporate them without throwing the project off track. But when the client’s demands require significant changes, you need to take a call. Michelangelo Buonarroti’s ceiling of the Sistine chapel project is a classic case in point. The original project involved creating twelve paintings. By the time the project was completed, over 300 paintings had been created, costing the artist his health and youth.

90. When stakeholders do not respond to information or do not respond in an expected manner; create alternative, proactive communication mechanisms to avert trouble.

91. Don’t forget to ask, “What does my client want to be able to do as a result of this project?” Translated to real life situations, every time you work on something, ask yourself what you (or someone else) hope to accomplish from that activity. The answer can be as simple as “feeling refreshed and rejuvenated” to something as complex as “moving towards my dream of contributing to a cleaner and healthier planet”.

Across Borders – It’s a global world!

92.

Whether working with offshore teams or just a diverse group at home, today’s project environment is multicultural. Be open to and aware of your project stakeholders’ cultures. Not only should we respect our colleagues’ cultures, but we should understand and EXPERIENCE them. Go out for Dim sum with the team or learn a new phrase in another language. (allpm.com)

93. Cross-cultural global relations: (courtesy Elizabeth Larson, PMP and Richard Larson, PMP)
    a) Plan extra time to model requirements when working cross-culturally.
While modeling is an excellent tool for overcoming some cross-cultural communication issues, multi-cultural project management may still take extra time to get the requirements and ensure that important facts are captured.
    b) It is important to plann more time for capturing requirements when working in multi-cultural environments.
    c) Meeting in Person to Develop Relationships Saves Time and Money in the Long Run. In some cultures tasks are completed based on established relationships and, ultimately, trust, rather than simply being driven by schedules. Attempting to forge ahead with tasks before spending social time with clients can well lead to incomplete requirements. While it may not be standard practice all over the world, when PMs are working in some other cultures taking the time to meet face-to-face can save time and money for your project and organization.

The Zen of Project Management – George Pitagorsky’s tips

94. Zen is a form of self-investigation that has its roots in China and Japan.  It is a merging of225020571_cb4e7b8b15 Indian Buddhism and Taoism.  The Zen approach is one that cuts through complexity to go straight to the heart of a matter.  Zen promotes knowing through inner experience.  It promotes discipline from within.  In the Zen way, the individual comes to fully know his or her own nature by cutting through intellectualism, cultural barriers, conditioned responses, rules and any other “extras” that get in the way of seeing the essence.  One who sees the essential nature of things has wisdom.  Wisdom leads naturally to compassion.  Wisdom and compassion are at the heart of our essential nature.

95. What is a wise approach? It is an approach that gives us the ability to see things clearly and minimize the probability that we will be reactive and ineffective in achieving our goals and objectives.  Wisdom is the synthesis of knowledge into active, practical use.  A wise person moves through life with equanimity, un-phased by the chaos surrounding her.  A wise person has choices.  He is not unconsciously driven and reactive.

96. “Only the person who learns to relax is able to create, and for them, ideas reach the mind like lightning.” Even in face of chaos, pressure and stress, relax! How? Relaxation is not the same as tuning out and turning off. It is not somnabulence. Learn to rest in the moment. Cultivate the ability to quickly focus on your breath and body just long enough to find your “center”. Then engage.

97. Serve someone. Serve everyone. That is the secret of wise leadership. There is a difference between a leader who serves and one who just leads. “The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served.” Such a leader asks if “those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?” When the motivation is to serve, posturing, politics and self-serving gains are replaced by useful effective action.

98. Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations … that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. ” They may be useful, or they may lead to habitual, reactive behavior. What paradigms condition your behavior? Do they help or hinder you? Do you have the courage to question them? Do they provide established basis for analyzing problems, or do they limit your ability to act in the way that is best for the current situation.

99. Desiring the impossible gives rise to suffering It is also the root of many failed projects. When undertaking a project, you have the duty to question authority, to push back. Ask questions, rather than voice objections. Why is this the deadline? What if it isn’t met? What do you really need, and by when? What assumptions are you making? What would you give up to get what what you really need? Will we have the right resources at the right time?

100. The Good, The Bad, The Continuous Improvement: We learn at least as much from bad experience as we do from good. Yet, blaming, fear of punishment and models like “I’m so smart, how can I make mistakes” lead us to avoid looking at and learning from our mistakes. Continuous improvement begins with the candid acceptance of the existing situation, particularly its flaws. If you don’t accept what is, you can’t change it.

101. How to Push Back when Negotiating: When pushing back to negotiate a rational schedule and budget you need solid footing. Come to the table with a well articulated plan, complete with assumptions. Use your communication, task definition, estimating, scheduling, and risk management skills and knowledge to offer realistic alternatives. Seek win-win solutions. What if you are forced to accept an irrational schedule or budget? Try to do your best to negotiate expectations that can be met given the project’s scope, resources, and risks. Do your best to work within the project’s real-world conditions.

The Top 10 Characteristics of a Successful Team

08 Thursday Oct 2009

Posted by Young Brain @ Work in Project Management

≈ Leave a comment

1. The Right Team Leader

  • A skillful leader helps the team maintain its focus on major issues.
  • He or she enhances communication in order to be sure that all the possible solutions are being heard.
  • A good leader is masterful with people and team-process skills.
  • He or she avoids giving advice, but rather, leads the team from problem identification to a plan of action.

2. The Right Team Goals

Team goals are derived from critical farm problems that influence whether the business will exist in ten or twenty years such as the following:

  • 30 percent increase in milk sales.
  • Change in management styles from stall barn to milking parlors.
  • Sale or transfer of the business.
  • Arranging a new partnership for the business.
  • Specialization in milk production only.
  • New ventures.
  • Managing non-family labor.
  • Addressing complex unresolved management problems.

Teams should avoid farm problems that don’t require the skills, experience, and judgment of off-farm advisers. This is a misuse of valuable resources and will eventually lead to dissatisfaction and dissolution of the advisory team.

3. The Right Team Members

Team members and team problems should be well matched. As the team sets new goals, the composition of the team should be re-evaluated. Having a crop consultant or veterinarian on an intergenerational farm transfer team is likely to underutilize the crop consultant or veterinarian’s abilities. An estate planner or attorney might be a better choice.

Outstanding team members should have unique skills, experiences, and judgment not resident on the farm staff. They should also be team players and believe in the team process. Team members that have cross-purposes or hidden agendas can destroy a team’s effectiveness and will have to be removed from the team.

4. The Right Meeting Location

A team meeting is not a committee meeting but a highly creative process that benefits from locations that foster thinking and orderly discussion. Teams should meet in an environment similar to a boardroom, comfortable and away from interruptions and distractions.

5. The Right Solution to Critical Problems and Measuring Outcomes of Actions

Complex problems rarely have simple solutions. Using processes for making decisions can clarify solutions, but solutions often need refinement over time. By frequently tracking progress toward goals and using measuring techniques, the team can monitor the degree of success and evaluate when to intercede. Also, the monitoring process helps advisers see progress and assess their time commitment. Without a measured benefit advisers cannot continue to justify their commitment as team members.

6. An effective monitoring system for Tracking progress

A well-designed monitoring method will help your team determine when its action plan needs to be improved.

For more information about monitoring and evaluation, see Team Tools.

7. The Right Plan of Action

Without a clear action plan the wishes of the team may never be completely implemented. Action plans can be simple but should be in writing so the staff implementing the plan can know what is expected, what is being measured, when results are expected, and refer back to it over time. The action plan becomes the beacon for the team.

8. Communication

Ongoing communication is important between meetings as well as during team meetings.

For more information about effective communication, see the coordinator section of Team Roles.

9. Regular Evalutation of the team’s Performance

Stepping back and asking, “Could we do our team work better?” is a good start toward evaluating your team’s performance.

For more information about this, see Reorganizing Your Team.

10. Celebration of Successes

It is important that you all step back from time to time and acknowledge your progress and celebrate your successes, both small and large.

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