The article explores the use of social media for project managers including tools such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. The reviewers concluded some tools were more useful than others.

“Our overall conclusion is that social media tools do have a place to support project managers. However certain tools may be of less use than others, and individual users will have their own preferences.”

Read the article in full here.

Over the last few weeks we have been exploring some of the technical competencies required for successful project management. This is only part of the equation however, equally important in getting the job done are soft skills, or behavioural competencies. Different organisations place value on different behaviours leading to continued debate on this topic and no definitive list exists on what the required behaviours for Project Managers should be.

Here we have explored the behavioural competencies and soft skills that we believe make for a successful Project Manager:

Communication & Consultation: The purpose of communicating is to consult and interact with people about ideas, thoughts, facts, emotions, challenges, successes, etc. alongside hard facts such as project progress. Skills include: having the ability to convey complex ideas easily; clearly articulate what must be accomplished; keep the team moving toward a common goal; and to foster an environment that allows team members to communicate openly and honestly. Communications are not line items on project plans but continuous activities that need to take place supporting everything that is being delivered.

Conflict & Crisis Management: This competency is needed where differences arise within a team which must be addressed to ensure they do not escalate into potentially destructive issues. Listening and responding to the needs and views of all team members increases the project manager’s awareness and ability to anticipate the potential areas of conflict, while the ability to diffuse situations where conflict has risen maintains a healthy project environment.

Flexibility & Creativity: No two projects are the same. Thinking in original and imaginative ways widens the scope of problem solving when issues arise and encourages project teams to find the best solution and outcomes without slavishly following generic delivery methods or solutions. The project manager must adapt to the needs of the project. Each project may require different components, templates, tools, and techniques. Using the “project manager toolbox” effectively will assist in delivering a successful project.

Leadership: Frequently project managers, sometimes in a similar manner to employees, do not have direct authority, yet they do have direct responsibility for delivery. Authority must be built through appropriate leadership. Leading is about understanding the vision and direction of the project and aligning the team to work towards it. Skills include delegating, coaching, motivating and leading by example.

Learning and Development: Continual improvement of both your own skills and those of your team improves the organisation’s capability in delivering projects now and into the future.  This is done through assessment of skills and capabilities, encouraging participation in learning activities and evaluating how the learning is applied in the project environment.

Negotiation: A breadth of skills are needed from analysis of information to decision making in establishing the desired outcome from the negotiation. Developing a strategy for the negotiation alongside understanding the optimal outcome from several options, should lead to agreement through consensus of positions from both parties.

Organisational Effectiveness: Within any organisation there are people management processes t0 be followed. Understanding these and applying them fairly and consistency in a way that is understood by the team members are needed. Understanding the corporate culture, the organisational dynamics, and the individuals that work within it lead to getting the best from your team. Resources may be obtained more effectively, support gained, and a stronger foundation for the effort may be built.

Problem Solving and Decision-Making: Resolving issues and solving problems is important at each phase of a project, particularly as each usually has its own unique set of problems. Without strong problem-solving skills, the sheer volume of issues that are a normal part of every project will soon become overwhelming.

Professionalism and ethics: This is demonstrated through knowledge, skills and behaviour alongside appropriate conduct and moral principles for both the organisation’s and project’s environments. Working with morally accepted conduct and applying fairness builds trust and respect across the project team.

Trustworthiness: Do what you say you’re going to do is key to building trust and is underpinned by a project manager’s reliability and their actions. The project manager must build the trust of all of the stakeholders involved in the project. Meeting deadlines is just one facet of this; a project manager must also be able to convey that he can be trusted day-to-day to do what is right at the right time to keep the project successful and the Sponsor satisfied.

Self-control: Self-control and self-management are needed to ensure day to day stresses are addressed and a work / life balance maintained. Knowing the importance of looking after yourself and encouraging others to do the same, even in stressful project environments, is beneficial for both the individuals and the overall project success.

Teamwork: Working as part of a team is key to successful project management perhaps more so than in other professions. Building a team in organisations is a challenge. Co-location is not easy and does not always occurs. More frequently a project team is made up of borrowed resources from other functional areas within the organisation and usually also has vendors and suppliers. Creating a team atmosphere where the team believes that “we are all in this together” is a critical component to project success.

Resources by Professional Bodies to assist with building your soft skills and behavioural competencies can be found here.

Are there any behavioural competencies from your experience and perspective that should be added to the list? Which are the most important to a project manager’s development or do they all carry the same importance?

The results were mixed, with some tools found to be more useful than others. In my opinion finding the right tools for your project management needs is key to making social media work for you as there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Social media at its heart is about engagement and the best way to work out what works for you in supporting your role as a project manager, is to get stuck in and start engaging. The article will provides some pointers and places to start and in this day and age of information overload, having the right tools in your toolkit could make all the difference.

Read the article in full:

If social media is of interest to you, check out Elizabeth Harrin’s book Social Media for Project Managers. Elizabeth, also a contributor to the February Project article, blogs at www.pm4girls.com and while I am yet to read her book, I have heard her speak on this topic at APM Conferences in the past.

What are your experiences in using social media to support your role as a project manager? What have you found useful and not so useful?

Planning for project managers is a technical competency that describes the process used to determine the overall project duration and when activities and events are planned to happen.

To work, project planning must include:

• Activities and their logical dependencies
• Activity durations
• Resource requirements and availability

To be competent in this area a project manager will need to:

1. Define the plan and key timelines, including milestones from the beginning to the closure of the project.
2. Identify the project’s critical path.
3. Work with the project team and stakeholders ensuring the plan answers any what, how, who and where questions.
4. Ensure deliverables are produced in accordance with project plan and project Controls Standards.
5. Ensure impacts of any deviations from plan are considered against the business case and are escalated to the responsible stakeholder where necessary.
6. Regular updates to the project plan with actuals and estimates to complete.
7. Determine if targets, dates and costs remain viable if change made including the critical path.

Getting project planning right is a complex activity and on larger projects it is not unusual to have a planning officer on the team with detailed knowledge and understanding of the planning process. A project manager must not lose sight of how a project plan reflects the overall picture and vision for the project. Getting lost in the detail of a plan can lead to time spent on activities that no longer contribute to the project benefits and direction can become time wasted.

Ensuring the right balance between detail and direction of the plan is a key project management task. However, as the saying goes, those who fail to plan, plan to fail.

What is your experience with planning, do you find your projects are over or under planned? Tell us what you think.

Resources for planning:

Links and downloads:

• Project Planning: A step by step guide on projectsmart.co.uk
• APM’s Planning Factsheet has a good summary of the benefits of planning

Books:

• Advanced Project Management: Best Practices on Implementation by Harold Kerzner
• Project Planning and Control by Albert Lester
• Introduction to Project Planning published by the Association for Project Management

Requirements management for project managers is a technical competency that describes the process of capturing, analysing and confirming the stakeholder and user’s wants and needs.

To work, requirements must be:

• documented
• a statement of the need that a project has to satisfy
• comprehensive
• clear and well structured
• traceable
• testable

To be competent in this area a project manager will need to:

1. Gather, document and get agreement on project requirements and related acceptance criteria.
2. Analyse and prioritise requirements, taking into consideration costs, business benefits and priorities.
3. Facilitate discussions to agree the requirements (design) and the preferred solution with the key stakeholders usually including the sponsor.
4. Develop detailed plans to deliver the requirements.
5. Establish a common understanding of the requirements across the project team and all stakeholders.

Requirements management is akin to scope management. Getting this right up front in a project usually saves considerable time down the line. That said, a project manager skilled in this area knows that requirements change over the life of a project and there will be unavoidable changes that will need to be incorporated and the impacts of this understood.

Resources for Requirements Definition:

Links and downloads:

• OGC’s Requirements Management overview
• OGC’s IT Practitioner overview for requirements definition with a link to a downloadable Requirements Workbook pdf

Books:

• Writing Better Requirements by Ian Alexander and Richard Stevens
• Mastering the Requirements Process by Suzanne Robertson and James C. Robertson

Project Manager competence is an area where the individual and the organisation both need to accept responsibilities. Helping project managers build the skills they need to do a great job is as important as the individual taking responsibility for developing their skills and behaviours in a supported environment. Both will result in strong project management practices and project successes.

There are three areas of competencies that have been established:

• Technical
• Behavioural
• Contextural

For project managers these are important. Get to know them and regularly check your own progress against them. It is well worth spending a few minutes to understand what each competency requires of you and having an honest conversation with yourself. For organisations, these competencies deliver great projects.

Resources from Professional bodies worldwide

PDFs available for free download:

• International Project Management Association (IPMA) Competence Baseline, downloadable pdf, requires registration to download for free. Comprehensive document, 212 pages.
• Complex Project Managers Standards, downloadable pdf developed by College of Complex Project Managers, and Defence Materiel Organisation – Commonwealth of Australia. No registration necessary, 135 pages.
• Engineering Construction Industry Training Board Project Management Competence Framework, downloadable self assessment pdf. No registration necesary. Comprehensive summary, 12 pages.

Books available for purchase:

• Project Manager Competency Development Framework published by the Project Management Institute (PMI) (US)
• APM Competence Framework published by the Association for Project Management (APM) (UK)

Which competence areas are you particularly interested in? Do you have any competency tools or resources that work for you? Please let us know.

Leaders be warned – an organisation’s culture is not what you say it is, but the actions and behaviours of the people working within it. This single truth makes it harder for organisations to accept and embrace change where their culture resists implementing it.

I recently read Tony Hsieh’s book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose where he describes the Zappos company culture as central to its success. While much of the book is biographical and explores Hsieh’s entrepreneurial history, it also describes how the Zappos values evolved and grew into what they are today. Zappos grew quickly, experienced a lot of change in a short period of time and it turns out change is an integral part of their culture.

Zappos has 10 core values, the second of which is:

“Embrace and drive change”

This value talks about dealing with constant change and encourages employees to embrace, not fear, change. The dangers of accepting the status quo and not being able to respond quickly to change are described and how evolving fast keeps Zappos ahead of its competitors. Being part of a growing company means change has been a necessity but this value also positions the organisation for the future.

Delivering change and transformation in organisations today is difficult, many organisations are suffering change fatigue and the pressure to change as a result of our current economic climate is not slowing. Where the culture of the organisation unpins the acceptance of change it will adapt more successfully and robustly than most.

Hsieh writes “our employees know that our number one priority at Zappos is our company culture.” This places change at the very heart of their actions and behaviours and ensures they will continue to innovate, respond to market pressures, grow and be around for a very long time to come. We should all aspire to that!

For more information on Zappos visit about.zappos.com or for an overview of the Zappos values:

A highlight of the event was Stephen Calver’s presentation using a particularly stomach churning scene from Gladiator to explore the different elements of project management and how they could be applied. Both arresting and thought provoking.

Tweeting on Twitter @MaciverProjects, our thoughts and feedback on the goings on throughout the day were provided for anyone how could not make it but with an interest in current trends and thinking.

We enjoyed meeting up with both clients and colleagues throughout the day.

With the Public Sector representing 51% of the Scottish economy, cuts, of any kind, will have ramifications for Scottish workers across both the public and private sectors. Many individuals will be wondering if and how they will be impacted with many experiencing worry and concern about potential changes to their personal circumstances.

Many employees have not had to deal with the level of change currently being experienced in their working lives until recently, this is creating additional challenges both for individuals and our Leaders and Managers. There are however areas that will always remain within direct control of the individual as they work through the implications of change and begin to anticipate what this means for them and their future.

So what can the individual do?

Manage your career

No matter what is happening around you, you always have control over your career management process. Build your networks and keep active, do not wait until you need to use these networks, keep them up to date and relevant now – it may reduce future stress if you have been in touch with people you know across your industry and know what is going on outside your own workplace. This is an important part of coping with workplace change and one that you can start at any time.

Be mindful of mental health

Be mindful of your emotional reactions to what is happening around you. Try to focus on what is really important such as your day to day responsibilities in your work and personal life. If the day to day activities are starting to suffer it may be a sign that you are not coping. If needed seek help.

Take care of your physical health

Sleep, get what you need and remember quality counts. Regular exercise is well established as a means of reducing stress, if you are not a regular exerciser, start slowly and take advice on how to best incorporate exercise into your daily routine.

Be proactive

Being proactive now may help prepare you should change happen that is beyond your control. Talk to people, use the tools that are readily available such as LinkedIn as part of participating in your network, use Twitter to follow industry leaders who provide timely and relevant information about your field or industry. Plan ahead to think about how you can incorporate these tips into your daily routine and in the process you may feel less like you are at the mercy of an uncertain economy and just a little more in control in times of uncertainty.

Additional reading about preparing for and coping with change:
Who Moved My Cheese: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life
The One Minute Manager – One Minute For Yourself: A Simple Strategy for a Better Life

We would like to hear your stories on what has worked and where taking care of things ahead of time helped when change came knocking on your door.