When you are asked to work on a project you may already have an idea of who needs to be involved. Your project sponsor (the person who is championing the project and who is generally the one who benefits from whatever it is that you are delivering) may also have had some thoughts about who would be the best people to work on it. However your project can also have stakeholders who are not quite so obvious. Here are 5 ways to identify project stakeholders.

1. Start with the Easy Project Stakeholders

Why make life difficult for yourself? Get a head start on identifying your project management stakeholders by picking off the easy ones. These are the people who immediately come to mind when you think about your project. They include:

• Your project sponsor (of course he or she is your major stakeholder)
• Your project team members
• The customer who will use the deliverable from the project (for example this could be a group or individual within your company a client of your company or the general public).

These can be the first people that you list on your project stakeholder register and they are also the people you can draw on to work out the other stakeholders.

2. Work Out Other Internal Stakeholders

Your project will also have an impact on other departments and areas within your company. Say for example that you are delivering a new product. Each product ships with a customer satisfaction survey in the box. Customers can fill in the survey and post it back to you at no charge to themselves. You would need to let your post room staff know to expect more post and what to do with the surveys when they start coming in. You'd also want to let the person doing the project budget know that your product cost includes reply-paid coupons so these could be factored in to the benefit calculations.

Other internal stakeholders include the press office (so they can issue a nice press release about your work) the communications team (so they can put a great photo of you and the project team in the company newsletter when the project is complete) and the IT team (so they can support you with whatever technology you need). You will be able to figure out other departments who will also be affected by your project.

3. Add in External Stakeholders

Projects don't just affect people in your company. External people have a role to play too. These could include:

• Contractors
• Suppliers
• Auditors.

The external stakeholders relevant to your project will depend on what you are working on. Some projects will not have any external stakeholders but others will have large numbers of external people who are touched in some way by the project deliverables. If these people are heavily involved in the delivery of the project you will want to use project management software tools that allows people outside your company to have access to your project information and files.

4. Consider Groups

Stakeholders don't have to be individuals. You can also have groups of stakeholders. For example a regulatory body could be a stakeholder. You may not know the named individual who is your main point of contact but you can make sure that your stakeholder management plan includes efforts to work with the correct regulatory body the name of your contact there can be added in later.

Government bodies agencies the media the Project Management Office focus groups or customer lobby groups the public all of these are groups that may be affected by your project and you should add them to your stakeholder register. You don't have to manage groups any differently to managing individual stakeholders so you can use all the same communication and stakeholder management techniques with groups as well as in reality you will probably only be dealing with one or two individuals who will represent the group.

5. Don't Forget Yourself

You are also a project stakeholder! A lot of project managers forget that they have a massive role to play in the successful outcome of the project and are therefore a stakeholder too. You are an important stakeholder in terms of being able to manage the project but also in terms of your own career. Stakeholders are typically people who have something to gain or lose from the project. As the project manager you have a lot to gain (or lose) by completing the project successfully. It can be a great career boost to work on a high profile project or a career roadblock if you are stuck with the project from hell. Don't forget to add yourself to the project stakeholder register and work out how you can best influence the outcome of the project to benefit yourself and the company.

If all this sounds like a lot of work don't panic! The best way to identify stakeholders is to do it with other people. Get your immediate project team together and brainstorm who is likely to be affected by your project. Ask your project sponsor for his or her ideas too. They will likely have a different perspective to you and between you all you will be sure to come up with the majority of stakeholders.

Do try to identify them all at the beginning of the project as it makes it easier to manage the communication and engagement activity as the project goes on. But don't worry if you find that you have forgotten someone when you are halfway through the project this happens to everyone! Simply add them to the stakeholder register as soon as you can and then start working with them to bring them up to speed on the project.

Project stakeholders are critical to the success of a project so it really is worth spending the time to identify all the different individuals and groups who have a vested interest in the outcome. It's the best way to make sure that everyone who needs to be involved can support you as the project progresses.

Using ProjectManager.com makes it simple to work with all these different stakeholders. External stakeholders can access all the relevant project files with just a few clicks and they can get started straight away and it's free if they only need to review information! It makes it really easy to get it right.

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However far from being considered an honor many project managers find it daunting to be asked to review someone else's project. A project review is like a mini audit but more informal. What if you miss something and get blamed for it later? What if they don't like what you have to say and it's difficult to work with them in the future? Yes project reviews can be challenging but if you are professional and friendly backing up your comments with evidence you can be a real help and support to your colleagues. And one day they will return the favor for you.

7 Steps for Preparing for Your First Project Review.

1. Establish what to look for: What you are looking for on your colleague's project will very much depend on the size of it. If they are running a small project that will be finished in a few months you don't want to spend six weeks investigating every area. If it's a huge project spanning several years a one-off meeting with the project manager won't be enough to uncover any problems.

You could choose a couple of areas to focus on as long as the project manager agrees. Risk management and the project schedule would be good areas to investigate in detail if you don't have time to look at everything.

While reviews typically aim to uncover problem areas so that you can help your colleague get his or her project back on track you will also want to spend some time looking at things they are doing well. This is valuable feedback for them so that they keep on doing those things and these can be shared with other project managers in the company. That way you all benefit from good practice.

Look out as well for what is not being done. On complex and busy projects it is often the case that certain project management tasks get dropped temporarily while the team catches up. There is the risk that they never get reinstated. This is your opportunity to remind the project manager that they really should go back to doing that activity or start doing it if they never have in the first place.

2. Get some templates (or make them); Your Program or Portfolio Office may have some standard project management templates that you can use for your project review. The document will include questions to ask and a space to record the answers. Or ask around and find out what other project managers have used in the past. You can also search the internet or talk to your mentor all these options would be faster than designing a document from scratch.

If you really can't find anything talk to a colleague who has done a project review before. They will know the kinds of things to include in the report and therefore what needs to go in your assessment template. If you have to write your own document think about what you would like to know if someone was reviewing your project and write down those questions.

3. Forget about learning the detail: It's unlikely that your colleague's project will be about the same thing as your current project. They could be managing something with the Marketing team while you are working with IT. They may be working with a local team while you are managing an international project. Each project is different and you can't be expected to know the technical detail about the project you are reviewing. Luckily you don't need to.

Look at the generic techniques that are used on all projects this is where you can add real value but only if you provide your feedback in a supportive way. Aim for constructive criticism rather than pointing out mistakes and apportioning blame.

4. Meet the project manager: The next step is to meet the project manager. Share your review template with them so that they know what you will be asking. You can ask them if they have any particular areas that they want you to investigate and then together check that your review template includes these.

Check if they want you to mainly review the contents of the online project management tool such as the schedule and risk log or whether they would prefer you to interview the project team members. Or both.

You should also agree how long the review will take how long you'll need to spend with any project team members (so that the project manager can reorganize their work as required) and what format the feedback will take. Some project managers will prefer a formal report others may be happy with a short summary document or even an informal chat. Agree how you'll produce your feedback as this will save you a lot of time at the end. There's no point producing a 20-page detailed report if they are only going to read the summary!

5. Review the project: Next you have to of course review the project. Work with the relevant team members and review the documents and online materials available. Go through your list of review questions and be sure to cover off the areas that the project manager specifically wanted your feedback on. How long this step takes depends on the amount of material you have to look through and what you are looking for.

6. Prepare your report: Prepare your findings in the format that you agreed with the project manager. You could split the report into sections for risk management the schedule the budget team communications or anything else that you have been asked to look at.

Remember to keep your assessment constructive and provide solutions where you have them. For example if you find that the project schedule isn't being kept up to date you could recommend that they make better use of the online project management software or that the project manager adds a diary note to remind the team members to update their tasks on a more regular basis.

It won't help the project manager if you report back that they are doing a truly amazing job. Everyone can improve something and you've been asked to carry out the review to help the project manager run the project more effectively. If you tell them that they are doing just fine then they will rightly wonder what the point was of spending all that time on the review process. Be balanced with your feedback though; it is not much help pointing out errors in the past that the team can now do nothing about.

7. Share the findings: Set up a meeting with the project manager to share the findings. Ideally you should send them a copy of your report in advance so that they have time to review the documentand can come to the meeting with comments. Discuss it openly and then you may choose to issue a revised version of your report incorporating their feedback.

Project reviews are designed to help peers work together to identify areas where they could do better on their projects. A review should pick up areas for improvement without being overly critical or unbalanced. The feedback should be actionable so that the project manager can do something with it. Don't be scared of project reviews whether you are receiving them or carrying them out. A good review will show you areas where you can improve and potentially pick up problems before they become too difficult to manage which helps everyone in the long run.

Share your project review templates with the online document storage functionality of ProjectManager.com. This software makes it easy to review other people's project schedules and documentation as they can grant you access with just a couple of clicks.

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I had lunch a few weeks ago with a former coworker. We'll call him John. John and I haven't worked together for over 10 years but have kept in touch through email the occasional phone call and meet for lunch once a year. To say this guy is a character is an understatement. He had worked as a QA professional for years where he fit the bill perfectly. He was extremely attentive to detail and relentless in his pursuit of finding bugs. He took great delight in running over to Engineering whenever they doubted his QA prowess and said "they can't reproduce the error." He loved proving them wrong with the click of a mouse or a couple of keystrokes.

John was a bit of a sarcastic guy. Let me rephrase that...you couldn't contain his sarcasm; it literally dripped from him. He was fun to be around but always seemed to look on the darker side of things. Plus he had no problem vocalizing his sardonic view of life.

We spent some time reminiscing about one particularly tumultuous time we shared. Here's what happened.

John and I along with dozens of others joined a company under the premise that it was a highly aspirational environment. Company leadership and management painted a promising vision of future success to potential employees. As a matter of fact most of us had left relatively stable positions from other companies to throw our hats in the ring and come on board. It was an exciting time.

A little time passed and the excitement began to fade especially for John. He wasn't a patient man. Things were not panning out the way he expected and in many cases promises made by the company were outright broken. Problems with the technology and bad decision-making by management started to take a toll on the staff.

For John the straw that broke the camel's back was a round of company layoffs. Ten talented hardworking and dedicated people who could no longer be supported by the company were let go. John stealthily walked by their offices and cubes and collected their name plates promptly returned to his cube and mounted them next to his nameplate...in memorial of his fallen colleagues.

It made a statement.

60 days later a second round of layoffs grew John's collection of nameplates to 25. They were all displayed in a very orderly and precise manner and took up a substantial amount of space on the outside wall of his cube. Management had failed to keep their promises to these people and he wanted everyone to remember that every time they walked by.

HR freaked out!

Finally HR picked up on what he was doing and decided to make a visit to see this shrine for themselves. They flipped! He was immediately asked (told) to take the nameplates down. They wanted to know what the heck he was thinking! He tried to reason with them and defend his right to free speech (or something like that). What was so wrong about telling everyone how he felt about broken promises?

Well HR had a statement to make as well: Take these down or your nameplate will be joining the shrine along with the others! He reluctantly complied. Eventually it was all water under the bridge anyways. The company folded and our nameplates joined those of our fallen colleagues.

That incident made me think about the kinds of statements I make as a project manager. Some statements are deliberate (like John's) and some may be accidental. Some may be negative (like John's) and some may be positive. All statements we make typically take on some form of action and reflect what is important to us.

For example it's important to make the following positive statements as a project manager:

• There are No Shortcuts You will always be tempted in your project management career to take shortcuts or circumvent processes or systems even you have put in place. Do you give into these temptations? Do you reason that nobody will find out and that it needs to be done to move the project forward?
  
  Maybe it's just skipping getting an approval before you move into the next phase or not telling the client about a feature that may have been left out of the project.Think about the statement it makes to your team to take shortcuts. Believe me the longest distance between two points is a shortcut. Something will go wrong someone will find out and you will have set a terrible example for your team.
• We Respect the Client I have unfortunately heard my fair share of "That guy is an idiot" "She doesn't know what she's talking about" and "They don't have a clue" during my years as a project manager.
  
  Are they talking about 3rd grade kids? Nope they're talking about clients. People often forget how companies get paid...from their clients and customers. Certain people go down that path of bad mouthing and talking trash about clients like it's going out of style.
  
  What kind of statement do you make as a project manager if you get caught up in these types of conversations? One it says you have no control over your tongue. Two it spells disrespect. Not only that that type of attitude is infectious and bound to spill over into conversations with the client.
  
  Talk about needing damage control. That's a blatant example of how disrespecting a client can backfire. However you are setting yourself up for a similar type of experience if you make similar statements in front of your team.
• We Rise Above the Chaos and Politics Your project management speech and actions either create turmoil and chaos or make it go away.
  
  Now there are plenty of disruptive moments in a company's life-cycle where chaos and turmoil are vital for growth. Chaos can surround the birth to a start-up company. Introducing a disruptive innovation for the purpose of gaining additional market share also produces a good amount of positive but chaotic energy.
  
  As project managers we typically come into these types of environments as agents to bring order and structure to the turbulence.Once order has been restored do you find yourself getting pulled back down into the morass? It could be that we get tied up in company politics and find ourselves sabotaging either our own efforts or those of someone else just to prove a point. That's the wrong statement to make and certainly one that can backfire in the end.

John and I finished up lunch and had a good laugh about the nameplates. Enough time had passed that everyone whose careers had been disrupted by that company had landed on their feet and done pretty well. I asked him about the statement he was trying to make with all those nameplates outside his cube. His expression turned into a wry grin and he said "truth be told I was just trying to be a bit of a wiseacre."

Check please.

Your choice of project management software also makes a statement. Try ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days and you'll be saying "I use the best project management software on the market!" Use our world class project management software to generate high quality status reports at the click of a button. Report on your project resources or portfolio and then export your reports to PDF Word or Excel or email them to a colleague. They'll be impressed with the results you can obtain using our software!

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Brett was a cool guy. His office was a treasure trove of electronic knick-knacks. Partially assembled hard drives were stacked on top of each other in the corner. Countless smooth metal objects identifiable only to the technology savvy lay all over his desk and spilled on to the credenza behind it. When you'd poke your head in the door he would always invite you to sit down. It would take a moment to clear the chair of cables and wires in order to take your seat but when you did you were rewarded with a direct view of colorful blinking gadgets and stacks of glossy technology magazines.

Brett was an early adopter. He was the guy that would get the latest and greatest of anything. He loved doing alpha and beta tests on software that had not been released yet so he could provide his input and feedback. He was on the bleeding edge of technology and as the company's VP of IT he would make sure the rest of the organization was just one step behind.

Some considered him disorganized disheveled and a bit too much of a risk taker. I thought he was brilliant and always looked for types like him to be a part of my project team. Why? Because early adopters of new technology or software bring a lot of value to you as a project manager. This is especially important if you are involved in projects that are revamping updating or revising existing processes or systems that people are already familiar with.

How Do You Work with Early Adopters on Your Projects?

Early adopters will take your new technology through its paces probably in a testing process that most software development projects go through involving pre-alpha alpha and beta testing. This testing ends up as a release candidate which eventually winds its way into a production or live release of the software.

You want people like Brett involved in early testing stages. They'll kick the tires check under the hood push the limits and test the fringes of what the new software can accomplish. The best way to accomplish this is to release the beta version of the application to a small group of people like Brett letting them know that everything is not perfect and it's just a test drive. Challenge them to find what's wrong with the application or doesn't make sense from an end user perspective. Early adopters LOVE to find things that are wrong and will gladly report their findings to you.

Provide them with a mechanism that makes reporting their findings extremely easy. The best approach is to create an online form where they can record their findings. At a minimum the form should capture what they were doing what they expected to happen and what actually occurred. This will give you and the project team enough information to fix any issues that surface.

Something else to remember is that it's not just about uncovering things that are broken; it's also about identifying processes or workflows that don't make sense in the application. The last thing you want is to release something as new and improved when it's actually old and worse.

The Benefits of Working with Early Adopters

Beyond great feedback the following are some additional benefits of working with early adopters.

• You Can Uncover Costly Mistakes It's better to discover something that is not working with a small group than it is to discover it later with a large production release.
  
  Case in point: a number of years ago I worked at a company that deployed software for use with handheld devices. Now this was a number of years ago when PDAs were all the rage and smart phones were just making their way onto the scene. The application allowed PDAs to make a 10-second or less long distance phone call each night to sync data (yes it was a while ago).
  
  There was a rush to get this particular release out to the field. There was no time for early adopters to kick the tires and check under the hood.
  
  The software was released and everything went fine until a couple of weeks later. Suddenly the thousands of users were getting hit with ridiculously large phone bills in the hundreds and sometimes in the thousands of dollars! What was going on here?
  
  It didn't take long to figure out that the software was not hanging up the phone automatically as it had done previously. People would connect right before they went to bed and then walk away. The previous release of the software would dial transmit data and then disconnect. But not this release. It would dial transmit data and then hold the line!
  
  This technical faux pas cost the company tens of thousands of dollars to reimburse everyone for their bloated phone bills. This would have been very easy to spot if someone like Brett had a chance to get his hands on the Beta release!
• You Can Get Them to Tell Others about the Application Early adopters can also be early advocates of your software.Anytime you change the way people do something you are faced with an uphill battle. People frequently cry out "Why do we need to do anything different the old way is working just fine!" The small group of people you engaged during the alpha and beta testing process can help you overcome this objection.
  
  Here's an example: I worked for a company that introduced a new invoicing application toindependent franchise owners in the field. Up to this point everyone invoiced manually. They would write the invoice out and then tear off a copy for the client keep one themselves and then send one into the corporate office. This process was antiquated and full of errors.
  
  The new way of invoicing would require owners to purchase a laptop and small printer (about a 500 – 600 investment) and receive some training. You could imagine the cries of anguish when we floated that idea! "Are you kidding me? You want me to spend that much money to replace something that is working perfectly now?" they protested.
  
  We strategically chose who would comprise our small group of early adopters: the unofficial leaders in the community of small business owners. The other independent business owners looked to them for the head nod that something made sense (or did not make sense) to implement in their own businesses.We then made it a great experience for the early adopters by incorporating their feedback into new releases showering them with cool gifts (like beta tester t-shirts) showing a substantial ROI and giving them recognition in the company newsletter.
  
  The result? They spoke highly of the new application and encouraged the rest of the system to follow in their footsteps.
• You Only Get One Chance at a Great First Impression Once you release your product or application into the wild it's next to impossible to bring it back. People will instantly form an opinion about your application...instantly.
  
  Think about how little patience you have for an app you download on your phone. If it doesn't resonate with you immediately you delete it even faster. You don't want it taking up unnecessary space.To prevent a bad first impression to an untold number of users of your software or application do a small release in an environment that still has a fence around it. This will allow you to see how it fares in the wild but still maintain some control if things don't go as planned.

Do you have early adopters and advocates on your software or application development projects? They are an absolute must if you want to ensure project success and have your next product release not turn into a product escape!

Try ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days and you'll see we practice what we preach! We take feedback from our users to constantly improve our product so that it helps you manage projects better. You'll see how easy it is to organize your work share project plans and track progress daily. We earn and value the trust of teams in over 100 countries; they are who have helped us make our software the best in the market!

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I have a confession to make. I'm a recovering control-aholic. There I finally said it. Now everybody knows! For years I hid this terrible addiction to control and I was pretty good at it too. I would blend in with everyone else in the office and smile and laugh right along with them. But deep down inside I wanted to control the conversation the jokes and who was laughing and who wasn't. I wanted to control who did what on my projects exactly how they did it and exactly when they would get their job done. Creativity and flexibility were two words that weren't in my vocabulary.

It wasn't healthy especially in my role as a project manager. One day I just bottomed out. I knew I had hit an all-time low when I asked our QA manager for the test scripts they were running on the new software code. She asked why I would possibly need the test scripts. I came up with some lame excuse that I was putting a project documentation repository together and this was all part of the final deliverable.

Truth be told I wanted to go through the test scripts myself later that evening. There I was...all alone in a building that was still quiet and dark except for the splinter of light that shone through my office door. I was feverishly going through each and every test script to verify that QA had done their job. I trusted no one and felt as if I had to follow up on each and every detail to the nth degree.

Most people remember when their addiction began. I do and recall it was innocent enough. Many years earlier someone in my company made an honest mistake on a calculation on a spreadsheet they submitted to upper management. I didn't get a chance to look at the spreadsheet before it was submitted and the wrong number reflected poorly on me. I subconsciously started to develop the need to control what others around me did in order to prevent that from happening again.

Alone bleary-eyed and head in hands

Here I was a decade later all alone and bleary-eyed in an office with my test scripts software application and can of Red Bull beside me to get me through the night. My head was in my hands as I reflected back on the pain I had inflicted in others over the years by being so controlling. Oh how I wish I could turn back the hands of time and let the size 12 point bullets on the presentation slip through rather than demanding they be 16 point. Or that it would have been okay to start the meeting at 8:30 (like they wanted) instead of 8:00 (like I wanted). But no it was too late. I had to have absolute control over those around me and now I'm suffering the consequences of my own actions.

I made a decision that night in my Red Bull induced stupor. I needed to change my ways. I needed to trust in other people again. I needed to... I needed to... I needed to relinquish some control! Yes. that was the breakthrough I made on that sullen night. But how was I to accomplish it?

Fortunately for me and others around me I came up with a program that would help me give up that control I so desperately thought I needed. The following suggestions may work for you as well if you are a recovering control-aholic

6 Steps to Overcoming a Project Management Control Addiction

1. Reach Your Breaking Point Nothing is going to change until you are alone in the office at 2 AM in the morning running through test scripts and asking yourself "What the heck am I doing?" In order for you to make changes in your freakishly controlling life you need to reach rock bottom. You may be so far gone that you need your colleagues to perform an intervention on your behalf. Perhaps they've already tried. Have they told you to leave your phone home and not check your email when you're on vacation? Have they told you that "they've got this" interpreted as "leave me alone I know what I'm doing"? Have you lost good people because they can't take your stifling management style?Only when you've admitted to yourself that you have a problem can you begin to make a change.
2. Realize People are Just as Capable as You Are There are a lot of smart and capable people in this world and you are just one of them. That means others around you are going to make spectacularly good decisions and pull off amazing things...just like you do. It also means that people are going to make some horrifically bad decisions or fall short of the goal from time to time...just like you do. Get your head around the fact that things can go on without you and surprisingly well.I always had the delusion that whenever I left a company they would go down in flames because I was no longer there. I figured I would have to put "no longer in business" on my resume next to each of the companies I had left. Guess what? They're all still around and doing just fine without me. Why? Because they have capable people that know what they're doing and that make things work.
3. Give People an Entire Task Now that you understand that people are talented and skilled give them a whole task to do. Don't divvy it up into a bunch of small chunks and have them check back with you ever 15 minutes for more direction. This may be appropriate if you are working with an entry level person but most projects are staffed with professionals. Have enough faith in people that they can take sizable portions of responsibility off your plate and run with it. Let them know you are available for any questions or issues that may arise. Other than that let them go.
4. Provide Enough Direction (in Writing) This is more for you than it is for them. Once you've given them the entire task to complete you can chronicle your direction by putting it in an email. This will help make sure you didn't miss anything. It also gives you a level of comfort that they have all the information they could possibly need to make their task a success.
5. Let Them Go You've now set someone up for success. Let them go and succeed. Chances are they'll come back with a 95 success rate and the 5 that may have gotten a bit off track (just like it would have happened with you) really doesn't matter that much anyway.
6. Check in With Them Infrequently You read that right check in with them IN-frequently. This will help cure your control issues. When that desire to pop around every 4-8 hours just to see how things are going comes resist that urge. You've given them direction you've provided it in writing and you've opened the door for them to get back to you with any issues. Move forward with the assumption that everything is running smooth unless you hear otherwise. Feel free to check in every now and then but do so in a manner that doesn't make them think you don't trust them. "Do you need any help from me?" is always a good question to ask.Checking in with them infrequently will also allow you to check in on your other obligations frequently. Go home early to be with your family or spend time with your friends. Control freaks can easily set themselves up for burn-out and in the long run nobody benefits.

A final word of advice for those who are starting out on their less controlling journey...give yourself a day or two of wiggle room at the end of the task. Again this provides you with a higher level of comfort than anything else. If things don't go exactly as you planned you have a bit of time to get the results closer to what you would like to see. You'll quickly find that there's nothing you would change and the need for this buffer will disappear.

Are you a control-aholic? The first to recovery is to admit you have a problem. Follow the steps above and you'll free yourself from the bondage of this terrible addiction!

Try ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days and start breaking your addiction to control today! Our software will give you confidence that you can complete your projects successfully and with the lowest possible amount of time spent on administration and follow up. You can easily get started in under 10 minutes grant secure access to colleagues and track progress with a few clicks.

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Does your audience just hear blah blah blah when you are standing in front of them and delivering your presentation? Hopefully that's not the case. You're audience should be engaged intrigued and walk away with an emotional reaction and desire to act upon what they've just heard. Nowhere is this reaction more desirable than when you are meeting with a client's executive team. This meeting could be in the form of an Executive Review of your project or a presentation to their Steering Committee. Their reaction to your presentation could make or break the chances of your project's success.

That's why it's so important to be able to put together a great client presentation. Recently we posted The Anatomy of a Perfect Client Meeting in which we shared that for a great client meeting it's important to collaborate on the presentation. But what are the steps in working jointly on a presentation? Below are some suggestions on how you can make your presentation both interesting...and collaborative.

Think of the Presentation as a Conversation

Way before you open up PowerPoint and start throwing some bullets and cutesy animation on a slide you need to start with a blank piece of paper and pencil. Sit down and record your thoughts about the meeting as a conversation. Who is going to be there? What's on their mind? What's on your mind? What type of information do you need from them? What questions are they looking to have answered by you?

Thinking about your presentation in such a way will prevent a show-up and throw-up type of presentation. This is the type of presentation where you show up and spew forth every possible detail contingency nuance and horror story associated with the project up to this point. The presentation bounces off the walls with no rhyme or reason. Worse yet it leaves the audience dizzy and a bit nauseous! Think of the meeting as a story and sketch out the narrative of what needs to be covered in the precious few minutes you'll have together.

Be sure to leave speaking parts for your client's team as well. Part of the beauty of a collaborative presentation is that you don't need to do everything yourself.

Get the Client Involved Early On

Once you have the conversation fleshed out run it past your client as early as possible. This gives them time to react to what you've put together and offer input that will help make the presentation a success. I've worked in environments where the presentation was held back from the client until the last possible second to prevent them from providing any feedback or requesting that adjustments be made. This type of mentality never works. Send them the preliminary agenda and how you think the meeting should flow.

Remember the client wants this meeting to succeed as much as you do. Client stakeholders have their reputation on the line as well. They may have convinced management about the necessity of undertaking such an initiative and received approval to move forward. Make sure they have an opportunity early on to express what they feel will make this presentation a success.

Send the Client Early Drafts of the Presentation

Another line of reasoning is that you never want to show a client a presentation that's a work in progress. I don't agree with this approach. As soon as possible I send a straw man of the presentation that may include a number of blank slides or slides with just an idea of what is going to be on there (i.e. a graphic chart or screenshot). Most importantly it includes who is responsible for each slide. This will give the client enough time to make sure their piece of the presentation is just as good as what you will be presenting.

It also allows the client time to let you know if you have slides that cross the line or push buttons unnecessarily. Your client knows the politics and inner workings of their organization better than you do. You may include a slide or a statement that they know will introduce pointless and disruptive conversation during the meeting. Do yourself a favor and don't push these buttons!

For example I recently assembled a presentation that included the revenue growth and increase in gross profit margins of a large company we were doing business with. The numbers were publically accessible for anyone to see. The inference on the slide was that our relationship with the client was a small part of this growth. Arguably we were. However my counterpart at the client requested we pull those numbers out. First she had never seen these numbers before (that was just because she didn't know where to look) and second she felt as if it would create an unnecessary debate around the conference room table of how much we attributed to this growth. I heeded her advice pulled out the numbers reswizzled the slide a bit and the desired effect still came across.

Review the Presentation with Your Team

Once you've received feedback from your client about the draft presentation go ahead and finish it. Then review it carefully with YOUR team. What part of a great client presentation does reviewing it with your team play? It's not so much the presentation itself but rather the follow-through that you are interested in here. You are making sure with your team that everyone can cash the check that your mouth is about to write.

You stand in front of a high-powered executive team and make commitments to what your company can and can't do. Everyone is excited and optimistic about the future. Handshakes business cards and accolades are exchanged at the end of the presentation. You bring the good news back to your team only to hear..."we can't do that." What do you mean "you can't do that??" They may come up with a whole host of reasons why it's not possible: not enough resources not on the roadmap other clients have preempted them they just don't want to etc. You can be guaranteed that as good as this meeting was you just had it will now be remembered as a failure.

Get commitment from your team that your company can deliver on your promises. You need to remove the excuse that your team didn't know what you were presenting and would have never agreed to such a thing.

Send the Final Presentation Back to the Client

Once you've gone through all the steps above you now send the FINAL version back to the client. Outside of proofreading and cleaning up nits here and there this is the version that will be presented to the executive team. Go in a day before and work out all the logistics as far as who is presenting what on each slide to make sure the handoff between your company and their company is seamless and that the equipment works. Your goal at this point is to eliminate any surprises so that you can focus on the message and have a great presentation.

The principles of quality public presentation apply as well. Don't use slide after slide of incessant bullet points and then read them word for word. Have the presentation complement and augment what you are saying. Leave everyone with an emotional reaction and a visceral feeling of progress. Your audience may not remember all the details but they will remember that they felt good about what they saw!

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What are some ways you can tell if you're doing a good job as a project manager? A company's large network of independent operators came together annually for a national convention where they learned new ways of drumming up more business sat through vendor presentations and were able hang out and unwind a bit.

The highlight of the convention however was an awards ceremony held after dinner on Friday night. The president of the company would stand up in front of everyone and give a pithy speech praising and recognizing individual accomplishments throughout the year.

Most of the awards went to sales people. Some of the awards rewarded behavior such as when one independent business owner pitched in and sacrificially helped out one of their colleagues. Other awards went to support staff that kept things running behind the scenes.

Each story sung the praises of and honored the person to whom the award was being bestowed. It was a very public pat on the back. In addition recipients routinely received a plaque a commemorative set of drinking glasses and a small trophy.

One year it got very strange. The president of the company coordinated the awards program from deciding what the awards would be to handing them out. He thought about the behaviors being rewarded and wrote the speeches. The founder on the other hand sat in the audience year after year having little say in who got awards and certainly not being recognized himself.

As the years went by he became increasingly uncomfortable with the thought that all his hard work might never be appreciated publicly. The president just never seemed to get around to him.

Well one year the founder had had enough. He felt as if he too deserved a pat on the back for all he had done to start the company and more importantly for coming up with the technologies that helped small businesses in the field.

He took matters into his own hands and one month before the convention he ordered an award for himself and had it inscribed "Year's Best Inventor." He wrote a little speech about his accomplishments and the profound impact his efforts had on the lives of all in the room. He handed it to the president and told him to read it at the awards ceremony that year.

So that's what the president did. The awards ceremony rolled around and the president wrapped the evening up by announcing a very special award to someone that has touched all of us. The founder feigned surprise as his name was called out. It was all very touching and quite pathetic. This guy really needed someone to tell him he did a good job.

How about you as a project manager? Do you need someone to tell you that you did a good job? Does someone always have to be giving you a pat on the back? Tough. You won't get it.

I fell into that mindset once. I sat in front of my boss and told him all the things I was doing as project manager. I told him I did this and that and then I did this and then I got this other thing done and finally did this one last thing.

I sat there like a schoolchild looking for praise to cascade over me from my teacher. He looked at me and said "OK. So you did your job." Those words stuck with me for the rest of my career. He was right. All those things I had laid out in the hope of extracting praise from him were just part of doing my job.

There are a number of reasons why you won't get a pat on the back for doing your job as a project manager. First we're all adults. You have a job to do just like your colleagues in marketing finance or sales. You expect them to do their job as much as they expect you to do yours.

Next people are busy doing a good job themselves. They are focused on their goals objectives and careers and not yours. Finally they may not even know what you do as a project manager. They might think you just walk around with a notebook and scowl on your face all day long and probably wonder how hard that could be! The sooner you realize you won't get recognition for doing your job the better.

Ways to Know that You've Done a Good Job

• You Get Paid Yep sounds kind of banal but if you are still getting paid as a project manager then it means you are doing a good job.

  Now you could be on a downhill slope and getting paid for a lackluster job that you will soon be walking away from. We're not talking about those temporary situations. What we are talking about is the historical record of receiving payment for your services as a project manager for years or even decades.

  Do you know why you've been paid for doing your job for so long? Because you're good at it! Give yourself a pat on the back.

• You Know When You've Done a Good Job A second way to tell if you've done a good job is to be honest with yourself. Be very objective at the end of a project and ask yourself if you did the best possible job you could have done. Did you pull out all the stops or were you just phoning it in?

  You know when you are just going through the motions of project management. There's no fire inside no zeal and certainly no passion. If you can honestly give yourself a thumb's up then you know you've done a good job.

• You Know When You Haven't Done a Good Job The opposite of the above is true as well. The results of the project you just managed were positive. You brought it on time within budget and in scope. Good for you. It looks good to someone looking in from the outside. But you know that you could have done better.

  Maybe you could have finished the project a little earlier or for a little less money. Only you know the answer to those questions. Ultimately that's where the answer to whether or not you did a good job as a project manager liesin your own conscience.

Love and attention are exactly what friends and family are for. They'll be glad to gush over your accomplishments and tell you what a great job you did. Don't believe me? Call your mom and see what happens.

Just know that in the workplace it's up to you to look yourself in the mirror each day and tell yourself you did a good job. While you're at it tell the guy from marketing he's doing a good job as well. He probably hasn't heard that in a while!

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However you also need the ability to pull yourself up out of the detail and take an overall view of what is going on. It can be difficult to switch between the detailed view and the big picture view and this is where dashboards can be a huge help. A dashboard is a graphical way of displaying information about the project. It's normally made up of a number of graphs that show you different aspects of the project but at a summary level. Dashboards are a great asset for a project manager and here are some of the reasons why.

Dashboards Give you an Overall View

As it can be tricky to switch between supervising the overall project and helping team members with the detail a project dashboard provides a visual way of helping you make that mental jump. They give you a high level view of project progress. In many cases this high level view is all that your project sponsor or other senior stakeholders will want to know so you can use the dashboard as a communication tool with your project team manager and executives. Look for software that allows you to print out or export dashboard information in a number of formats so that they can see the overall project status even if they don't have full access to your software.

Dashboards Update Automatically

Dashboards form part of your online project management software so as your team members update their project status by completing timesheet information or providing details about tasks the dashboard updates automatically. You can always be sure that you are looking at something that is really up-to-date and if something looks like it isn't you can chase up the correct member of the project team and ask them why!

Dashboards Allow you to Drill Down

Good dashboarding software allows you to drill down to the detail underneath. For example say that you have noticed that a particular group of tasks looks like it is running behind schedule. The dashboard will give you this information but it won't be able to tell you why. Click on the graph that holds that information and drill down into the next level of data down.

You'll always need to set any data in context and that means talking to the project team member concerned. Graphs will rarely tell the whole story but at least drilling down will give you a lot more information before you go to that team member and ask for an explanation of why their part of the project is running late. Instead of spending time investigating you can spend time with them working out what you will jointly do to put the problem right.

Dashboards are Customizable

A lot of project management software comes with standard dashboards out of the box which allow you to quickly get started. After a while though it's likely that you will want some bespoke information displayed on your dashboard particular graphs or data that mean something to you and your project. Perhaps for example your project sponsor has asked you to keep a special eye on a type of expenditure. You can set up a graph just for that. You can also normally drag and drop charts around on the screen until you have a set up that works for you. Put the graphs that you use the most at the top and hide any that you don't use so that the dashboard is completely personalized.

Dashboards Work Across Projects

If you are managing multiple projects at the same time (and many project managers find themselves in this situation) you can use a dashboard to give you a view across all your projects. This can be particularly useful if you are using the same resources on each project. You will be able to see how much work they have on at any one time not just on one project but holistically across all the projects.

If you don't want to lump all your projects together you can set up different dashboards for a group of projects. Say for example that you are working on a couple of marketing projects and a couple of IT projects. You could build a dashboard to show you all the top level detail for your marketing projects combined and another one for the IT projects.

Dashboards Look Good

The final reason why dashboards are so helpful on projects is that they look good. That might seem a bit unnecessary. After all if they give you all the data that you need what does it matter what they look like? But project sponsors like to see things presented in a clear and concise way and that's where beautiful dashboards can help.

As the data is structured it displays accurately and graphically which can make communicating project status that bit easier. Anything that makes it easier to get your message across such as 2D or 3D charts and colors has to be good. And the great thing about dashboards is that normally all that is set up for you when you start to use them. You may have to tweak the layout and choose what format to use to display the data but generally you won't have to build the graphs and charts from scratch. All you have to do is print out or email the right data for your project sponsor. Or show it to them on screen.

When you start putting together project reports dashboards are not the kind of thing that project managers immediately think of using. However if your project management software does include dashboarding functionality why not use it? It will save you time and effort with your data analysis and they can be a great tool for communication.

Create beautiful dashboards using ProjectManager.com which you can try free for 30 days. Customize your dashboards and reports to give you a complete overview of your project and then you can drill down into the detail as and when you need to.

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Generally people are flattered that you think highly enough of them to ask them to come to work with you on delivering a project. If you don't know the names of the people you would like talk to the team managers of the areas concerned about the types of skills and experience that the individual should have and let them suggest the best person for the project team. If you don't know where to start here are some roles you should consider for your project.

1. Project Sponsor

Every project should have a project sponsor. The sponsor is the person who will benefit the most for the project or his or her department will benefit the most. The sponsor is also usually the person who is paying for the project! They control the resources and should be able to make people money and equipment available for you. It is unlikely that you will choose the sponsor so you'll have to work with whoever is in this role.

The sponsor should be the person you can turn to when you hit a problem so ideally they should be someone who can remove any roadblocks that you encounter on the project. They are also the person who has the power to make the final decision so if you have a number of different options for tackling an issue you can present them with the choices and a recommendation but the final decision is theirs.

2. Project Manager

That's you! The project manager is the person who runs the project on a day-to-day basis. Many project managers lead multiple projects at the same time so you may find your time split across a number of projects. While the sponsor will be hands on when needed the project manager is normally a full-time role on major projects.

The project manager's job is to monitor progress help the team do what they need to do keep on top of risks issues and changes plan the work allocate the right people to the right tasks at the right time and generally do whatever is needed to get the project to completion successfully. Project management is a great job but it can involve a lot of admin and paperwork so don't underestimate the amount of time that this critical element of the role can take up.

3. Supplier

A supplier can be an internal department or an external contractor. If you are building a new piece of software for example you could be using internal web designers from your IT department or a third party with specialist expertise. Either way someone is supplying the solution for your project and on large projects you could have several suppliers.

Co-ordinating the work of suppliers is the role of the project manager. You will also want to include the supplier in your team meetings. Ideally they should be fully embedded in the project team and work alongside your own internal staff even if they are from another company. You can expect the supplier to prepare their own plans and budgets and then you as project manager can incorporate these into your own project documentation.

4. Business Analyst

Not all project teams will have a business analyst but if you have the opportunity to work with one take it. A business analyst will provide the link between the business stakeholders and the project team and can be invaluable in translating' business needs and requirements into items for the project schedule and project tasks. A business analyst also has a deep understanding of how processes in the company work and how information flows between different departments. This can be really helpful when it comes to testing your product and checking back that the solution you have built will actually be of value when you hand it over to your end customers.

5. Business Representative

A business representative can be a part-time role on the project team and ideally you should second someone from the business department that will get the most benefit from the project. In essence this person represents your customer. For example if you are implementing new accounts processing software you would want someone from the Finance department who currently does accounts processing as part of their day job. They would be able to tell you if the solution being proposed by the project is fit for purpose.

They can also act as a link between the project and their colleagues making sure that everyone back at base' is kept informed. This person will also be critical when it comes to testing as they can get involved with trying out your new product and making sure that it really will do what they need it to do. The most important criteria for selecting someone for this role is that they are empowered to make decisions on behalf of their department. It can be really awkward if they have to keep going back to ask their colleagues for a decision and this can slow the project down considerably.

6. Finance Analyst

Not every project will need a dedicated finance analyst. It is not a full-time role except on the largest of programs. However if your project has a budget to spend you could find that working with someone from the Finance team is very beneficial. This person can help you put together a budget help you track it remind you about the key corporate financial milestones like when to reforecast or send in your budget changes and things like that. Even if you don't draw on them very often it is comforting to know that someone in the company could help you with the financial elements of running a project so if you think this role would be useful on your team ask for it!

Of course there are many more people involved in making a project successful. You can probably think of different roles that you have seen yourself on projects such as a quality analyst testers a communications expert a business change manager and others. This list isn't exhaustive and you'll have to work out who you really need on your project team to make it a success. If in doubt the best approach is to invite them to join the team on a part-time basis. If it then turns out that you don't need that role or the role is not as involved as you first though they can scale back their involvement and you can simply draw on them when you need to. Finally remember that one person can hold several roles so you can combine jobs together if you are short on people!

Manage all your project resources online using ProjectManager.com. Set up new team members on the system in minutes and then you can start allocating them project tasks. They can log in and keep their status up to date at all times and record the work they are doing in the integrated timesheet tool. There's no easier way to monitor progress on your project.

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On the other hand you may be handed a vague brief and asked to finalize the project scope yourself. In that case you will have to work with all the key stakeholders to identify the important elements of project scope and prepare the project requirements. You can do this with your team members as they will probably have their own ideas of what needs to be included in the scope of the project. However you go about it you need some techniques in order to be able to capture everything so here’s 5 ways to gather project requirements.

1. Interviews

One of the easiest ways to gather project requirements is to arrange one-to-one interviews with the major stakeholders. You can take as much time as you need to sit with them and work out exactly what it is that they are after from the project. Have a list of standard questions but be prepared to be flexible as you may find that the discussion strays away from your list and on to other related subjects. This is good as it shows that the stakeholder has a clear idea of what they want. However it is worth setting expectations in interviews like these as if you don't you could leave your interviewee thinking that they will get everything they asked for which is unlikely to be the case!

The downside of interviews is that they can be quite time consuming. They also have the disadvantage of more admin work for you as you will need to collate all the interview output into one single document once you have completed all your interviews. You may also find that you uncover competing or conflicting priorities which can be difficult to manage. The consolidation exercise at the end of a round of interviews can be as absorbing as the interviews themselves.

2. Focus Groups

A focus group is where you get a core group of stakeholders together. Focus groups are traditionally used with customers so you could invite the end users of your product to a session to discuss how they see themselves using it. This works well when you have a tangible product such as a piece of software or an item especially if you can show them a mock up during the session.

Despite the name focus groups can be a bit unfocused so think carefully about what you want to get out of the session. If you can come up with a list of structured questions and you facilitate the group well the focus group format can be very beneficial in working out how customers want to interact with your product and therefore in getting some decent requirements out of the time.

3. Workshops

A workshop is similar to a focus group although they typically have more people and are internally-focused. You might invite a customer representative such as someone from Customer Service or Sales but generally you wouldn't have end users present. Workshops are highly interactive so you can use all your facilitation techniques to help people think about what they want from your project. This could include brainstorming working in small groups and reporting back thinking about what if?' and any other techniques you can think of to make sure that you use the time to get the most comprehensive list of requirements possible.

As this is an internal group and hopefully you have invited people with decision making authority you can also use the time to prioritize the requirements that have been identified. If you can get the group to a point of consensus on what should be in scope and what is just a nice to have then you will have made excellent progress on defining the project requirements.

4. Over the Phone

It is possible to talk to your key project stakeholders over the phone either individually or on a conference call. This is one more way to gather requirements but frankly it is better for checking understanding and getting final agreement than it is for brainstorming. It is much better to talk about requirements when you are all in the same room as this aids understanding. Conference calls can be a very frustrating place for discussing new things and without the ability to jump up and draw something on a flip chart it can be difficult to get your point across. It can also be tricky to facilitate the call effectively so that everyone has equal time to speak and that is easier to do in a face-to-face setting.

Avoid conference calls if you can but if you need to use them to check understanding later try to use them sparingly.

5. Using Collaboration Software

Collaboration software is a lot better than conference calls

Collaboration software

for eliciting requirements but not quite as good as meeting up face-to-face. The good thing about collaboration software is that you can capture the output electronically as you go. You could even record the whole meeting and make it available for others to playback later.

An alternative way to use the collaboration features of software is to have your software open in the meeting and use it to capture the discussion in real time. This will save you an admin overhead later as you don't have to prepare minutes and it means that everyone will be able to log in and see the output directly after the meeting. When you have a finalized requirements document you can also upload that to your collaboration software and everyone will be able to comment on it until final agreement on the project scope is reached.

Capturing requirements can be a challenge and the most practical way to go about it is to use a combination of these methods. Then write up all the requirements that have been identified as a list and work with your stakeholders again to prioritize them. Most of the time you will find that you have been asked to consider far more requirements than is practical to include so something will have to be dropped out. Getting consensus on what to leave out is probably the hardest thing of all so ask your sponsor to help arbitrate if discussions get difficult! You can also suggest running a Phase 2 of your project if there are enough sensible requirements to warrant it.

Take your project requirements and turn them into a structured task list using ProjectManager.com. Simply upload your list add any additional tasks as necessary and start allocating the work to your project team members. It makes it really easy to get started building your project schedule and Gantt chart.

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Sound familiar? I hope not! Scope creep is what happens when changes are made to the scope of a project without any control. Of course changes happen to projects all the time and it is very rare for a project to end up delivering exactly what was asked for on Day 1. However changes without control mean that the project manager has very little chance of being able to keep on top of the project work and manage the project effectively.

Scope creep generally takes the form of new requirements being added once the project has started. Typically these are not properly reviewed and the project team are expected to deliver them with the same resources and in the same time as the original scope. On the other hand you could end up with a project with lots of approved considered changes that never ends because every time you think you have finished a new requirement arrives in your inbox and you have to make more changes.

Here are 5 ways to stop scope creep from crippling your project.

1. Document the Requirements

The single most important thing to do on your project when it comes to scope creep is to document your requirements. Talk to all the project stakeholders and work out exactly what it is that they want the project to achieve. Write their requirements down. You may have to manage some conflicts if one stakeholder wants their new website to be blue and another stakeholder wants it to be green you will need someone to arbitrate and make a final decision. Equally you may have to prioritize some of the requirements as it may not be possible to do them all.

It can be quite time-consuming to get round all the stakeholders and record everything they say. Once you have done so capture all the requirements in a document. Then you can share this in your online file storage so that everyone can see it easily.

2. Set up Change Control Processes

Your requirements document is the starting point but what happens when someone wants to change something? It is unrealistic to think that nothing will change. What you are aiming for is managed controlled change on your project and for that you need a change control process.

A change control process is very straightforward. Your project management software may have change management functionality so you can always use that. Essentially someone suggests a change it is reviewed approved or rejected and if it is approved then incorporated into the project plan.

Setting up the process for your project really means thinking about who is going to review and approve changes. You could discuss them with your project sponsor or at a team meeting. You don't need to arrange a formal change meeting unless you think you will have a lot of changes and that it will be easier to sit with your colleagues to review them all at the same time.

3. Create a Clear Project Schedule

Use your requirements to create a detailed task list. The project schedule is the result of knowing what your project will deliver so it should show all the requirements and how they will be achieved in the form of tasks and activities.

You can cross-reference your schedule against your requirements document just to be sure that you have not forgotten to include anything.

4. Verify the Scope with the Stakeholders

It's also important to check that you have properly understood the requirements. What you think the project sponsor means might not actually be what he or she means. Often people talk at cross purposes without realizing it so take the time to go back to your sponsor and share the requirements documentation with them. You can also show them your project schedule and ensure that all the elements they expected to see are represented in the task list.

You can do this with all the other stakeholders too. Schedule some time with each stakeholder and talk them through exactly what the project is going to deliver. Show them the plan and give them the chance to comment. You may find that they change their mind even at this stage but it is better to know now than to carry on with your project and find that they bring you different requirements in a couple of months.

You can also use these discussions to talk to your sponsor and stakeholders about the change control process. Explain how you will manage changes on the project and what approval you will need from them in order to proceed. This is a useful moment to remind them that they can have pretty much whatever they want if they are prepared to pay for it and for the project to take longer if they include new requirements!

5. Talk to the Project Team

When your project stakeholders are happy you should also make sure that your project team is as well. They need to know about the change control process and how it will affect them. Sometimes project team members will want to be really helpful and they will agree to changing something without using the formal process. Use your conversation with them to explain that they cannot say yes to changes without the change being approved. If they want to help a stakeholder the best thing that they can do is to explain the process and offer to help with documenting the change.

Scope creep can be a real problem on projects especially when the team and the stakeholders don't understand the impact that changes can have on the resources the budget and the schedule. Fortunately it doesn't have to be a major issue if you are clear about the initial project scope and you carefully manage changes during the lifecycle of your project.

Manage changes on your project with ProjectManager.com. Use the change management features to add new change requests and review each change as it is raised. You can rank the priority of changes and assign the work to your team members so that when a change is approved someone can get to work on it immediately. It takes the headache out of managing change and helps you avoid scope creep.

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I've been in bad client meetings; I mean real bad client meetings. The first one that comes to mind was a number of years ago at the time a new VP took over the business unit that engaged our company for project work. It all started innocently enough with a few questions here and there about the projects we were working on. The innocuous questions gradually led to more lengthy interrogations. Those interrogations then shifted to accusations. Those accusations resulted in a near tragic meltdown between the two companies.

It came to a head at a 7:30 AM meeting in the client's conference room with the VP and his team. The founder of our company along with the CEO and the rest of our team were also present. It was reminiscent of a gunfight at the O.K. Corral with one faction lined up on one side of the conference room table opposite the other faction.

After a (very) few pleasantries the meeting started with "You'll never do business here again!"

"Fine but we'll still get paid" our side countered.

"Not one more dollar will leave this company" protested the client.

"We have a bona fide legal agreement in place and you are contractually obligated for the next 12 months!" shot back our attorney. (By the way you immediately know it's not going to be a good meeting when your attorney must be present.)

It went back and forth like this for hours. By mid morning everyone was exhausted. A voice of reason finally spoke up and asked what the real problem was. After two more hours of peeling back the layers it came down to nothing more than a colossal misunderstanding between the two companies. The path was set straight and everyone was able to get back to working together (although the relationship was somewhat strained) for the duration of the agreement.

You'll sit in on meetings like that in your project management career every now and then. They're not fun sometimes they are necessary and the outcome is always uncertain. On the other hand you will probably participate in some very good meetings in your project management career. Hopefully the cumulative occurrence of okay good very good and excellent meetings far outweighs the number of times you'll wind up in a horrible meeting.

8 Steps for a Successful Client Meeting

The principles apply to any meeting but for this discussion we'll use the example of a quarterly steering committee meeting with your client and their team.

1. Start Preparing Well in Advance Excellence starts with preparation. For a successful meeting begin planning well in advance. How far in advance? Right after everyone is done giving each other high fives from the last meeting. That's right. The conversation you should have as soon as your last meeting ends is "What should we be discussing at our next meeting?"

Why so soon? Because there is much to work on over the next couple of months. Decisions were made and initiatives adopted at the meeting you just had. The next time you get together you will need to discuss how far along each initiative has progressed. Some projects need to be completed by then some should be nearing completion and others will just be starting. If everyone is focused on getting these things done over the next couple of months the next meeting can be just as good as the last one.

1. Pull the Agenda Together 4-6 Weeks in Advance Based upon what future discussions are agreed upon you can pull a rough agenda together as far out as 4-6 weeks in advance. The agenda won't be set in stone but it everyone will now be able to start thinking about what else will need to be covered and what input they will provide. Gather input from both your team and the client's team. The agenda puts the big building blocks of the meeting in place and serves as a strong foundation.
2. Collaborate on the Presentation Now that the agenda is in place you can collaborate on a straw man presentation. This is a presentation that doesn't have all the details but lays out the flow of the meeting at a high level. I like owning this part of meeting preparation as a project manager. Include placeholder slides that show what will be included on each slide. Also show who will be responsible (your company or the client) for providing that information and presenting that slide during the meeting. It's important for the meeting to come across as a joint collaboration between the two companies and is a great way to get a point across.
3. Ask What's on the Executive's Mind It may be hard to know what's on the executive's mind if you are not onsite at the client's. You aren't running into them in the hallway or getting a cup of coffee together. However it is critically important to understand their thoughts about the project and the relationship with your company prior to the meeting. Ask your primary contact at the company for this type of input. Find out what's important to them what they like about the relationship with your company what they don't like and what can be done to help them reach their business objectives. You can then incorporate comments answers slides and other information that will address the client's points of concern even before they bring them up.
4. Bring Your Team Up To Speed You will go into these meetings making certain commitments on behalf of your company. It is a HUGE MISTAKE if you do not vet these out with your team first. Show them the presentation. Let them know what you are committing to complete. Make sure they feel comfortable about supporting your commitments. They'll also be able to provide additional feedback on what you may need from the client to help keep their projects successful.
5. Go In a Day Early If you're meeting is on Wednesday arrive on Tuesday. Spend the day at the client site with your counterpart. Work face to face putting finishing touches on the presentation and do a dry run. Make sure everyone knows their speaking part can handle any questions that come up and knows what to ask for to keep the projects moving forward. Make sure the audio/video is set up and working properly. Don't take any of this for granted. It takes careful preparation and orchestration to ensure the logistics of your meeting go without a hitch.
6. Take the Client out to Lunch / Dinner Before the Meeting You've spent a lot of time with your colleagues up to this point. Expand yourself / your reach by taking any of the executives that can attend out to lunch or dinner before the meeting. This will allow you to build relationships provide a preview of the meeting and set the tone of things to come. You'll discover they have other ideas and directions they want to go beyond where you are now. "Great this can serve as a foundation for discussion topics at the next meeting."
7. Have an Excellent Meeting You've been preparing for this meeting for months. You and the client have done a tremendous amount of legwork and preparation to make it a success. You know every detail about the project but can present it at a level an executive will appreciate. What's next? Sit back and enjoy the conversation. You've done all you can up to this point and what's next can only unfold through the dialogue you are about to have with your client.

Very few meetings start with "You'll never do business here again" but there are also very few meetings that you could truly consider excellent. You'll find that most meetings fall into the category of Okay Good or Very Good. Implement the suggestions above to raise the bar and start producing meetings that everyone agrees are Excellent!

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I was recently heading back from a business trip and was waiting to board the plane. We were all standing in the jetway the line slowly inching forward as everyone boarded the plane stowed their luggage and found their seat. It's always interesting to me how loud people talk in that moment. Maybe their voice echoes a little in the enclosed chamber of the jetway but you can clearly hear people making dinner plans talking about how abysmal their meeting was and a host of other topics that the rest of us really aren't that interested in.

Two sales guys were about six feet ahead of me. They fit the classic stereotype of the glad-handing happy-go-lucky I'm-your-best-friend type of sales person. They were also very loud since it didn't take much effort to eavesdrop on their conversation from six feet away.

"Yeah I missed my quota this month last year" said one of the sales guys "but this year I blew it out of the water! I'm on track for bringing in 29000 this month. My boss doesn't know it but I'm going to add another 10000 to that number. I'm 150 over where I was last year at this same time" he gushed.

"Good for you" said the second salesperson. "I'm not quite where you're at but I'm going to have a decent month as well. Plus I've got a lot of deals in the works that will come in next month."

As I'm standing there along with about 30 other people I couldn't help but think how easy it was to determine the value of a salesperson. It's just a numbers game. Nowhere else in business is the score kept so easily. These guys either bring in the dollars or they don't. It's as simple as that. There's nowhere to hide. Every day week month and year they start over from zero and need to make their number again and again.

It got me to thinking about how the value of project managers is measured. Fortunately most of us don't have sales quotas to meet. However this is changing in some enlightened organizations that understand everyone contributes to the top and bottom lines.

Are there objective measurements that project managers can use to communicate their value to others? I believe the following four suggestions are tangible ways to establish your value as a project manager.

1. Track Your Revenue

Each project you are assigned has revenue associated with it. The easiest number to track is the one that comes in from a client. It may be a 250000 project to build and implement a custom software solution for their company. Put a simple spreadsheet together for the purpose of tracking this revenue. You may not have been directly involved in the sale of the project but you are directly involved in the delivery and execution of it. Your company will most likely not get paid in its entirety until this project is complete and you are an enabler of this cash flowing from the client to your organization's coffers. Is there value in this as a project manager? You better believe it!

The key is to get your hands on objective metrics even if the project is internal. Find out how much money this project will save or how much less time it could take people to complete their work. All of these numbers add up and will you have had your fair share in making each project a success.

Think how different your employee review would be at the beginning of each year if you had tangible metrics. It would transform your annual ritual response from "I managed nine projects this year and brought them in on time on scope and under budget" to "I managed projects that delivered 3M in value to the company and reduced work effort by 25." Now that's something your reviewer can get excited about!

2. Track Your CSI

We're not talking about detective work or collecting DNA samples (although sometimes that's the way we may feel about some of the projects we're managing). Rather we are talking about tracking your Client Satisfaction Index an intangible and unofficial way of determining how well you are getting along with your clients.

Here's how you calculate your CSI: determine how many clients (internal or external) you work with. Write their names down on a sheet of paper and for each person ask yourself these questions Do I cringe whenever I see their name show up on caller ID? Do they cringe whenever they see my name show up on their caller ID? Or do I really enjoy working with this client? Are our meetings productive? Do I have a good relationship with their management? Does my management have a good relationship with their management?

You'll quickly see a pattern develop as you go down the list. If you find that you cringe every time you see their name on caller ID you need to do something about that. If you really enjoy working with them it means that you are creating value as a project manager. People enjoy working with people they like. This means there is potential for future work additional opportunities and it just makes your day that much better. Those relationships are another measurement that speaks to your value as a project manager.

3. Track Your Influence

Influence is another intangible aspect of being a valuable project manager but it's critically important. Most managers work in matrixed organizations. This means they have the blessing and the curse of not having anyone report to them directly. It's a blessing to not have to worry about employee reviews scheduling time off and other drama associated with managing people directly. It's a curse because you don't have direct influence over what and how somebody will do something.

That's where your influence as a project manager comes into play. Is it painful when you ask somebody to do something for you? Actually not even for you...but rather for the project? They may be assigned to your team but you dread asking them to do something. You know they are going to whine hem & haw about all the reasons they can't get something done. This is indicative of a low level of influence and may marginalize your value as a project manager. On the other hand if you ask people to do something and they get it done before they even agreed to...then you've got some real value as a project manager!

4. Track Your Demand Level

A final way to measure your value as a project manager is to determine if you are in high demand. Do you specialize in bringing certain types of projects to completion in no time flat? Good. Every time that type of project comes into your company's doors you are going to be the first one they call. "We've got to have insert your name run this project. There's nobody else that can do a better job. She knows all the ins and outs and nuances of getting this done right the first time." Is there value in this type of reputation? Absolutely!

The opposite of this is true as well. If you are overlooked or end up sitting on the sidelines while everyone else is playing the game you may want to reevaluate what you need to do bring more value to your company.

The above four ideas may not translate quite as black and white as the numbers a sales person has to hit but they are a good start to establishing your value as a project manager. Who knows we might even meet in a jetway someday and be able to vociferously talk about our CSI Influence and Demand levels on the multi-million dollars projects we managed last year!

Another way to measure your project management value is to try ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days. You'll find yourself invaluable as you use ProjectManager.com to help you create Project Plans run Reports and use Timesheets. You'll know if you're on time and under budget and how much of your project is left to go.

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I recently went on a business trip to visit one of my favorite clients. The flight landed about 4:30 in the afternoon and I arrived to the hotel an hour later. Having gone through this drill a million times before I went through the motions of paying the cab driver registering at the hotel and heading to the elevator without a second thought. The elevator doors opened and I walked in. I turned my back against the rear wall and looked down at my phone to check my email on the ride up.

My room was on the 19th floor but something felt very different when we stopped at about the 5th floor. The elevator felt bigger for some reason but I kept my head down focused on deleting email after email. After the doors closed and we began moving again something really didn't feel right and it caused me to look up. I then realized I was in a glass elevator going up the outside of the hotel with amazing views all around! Cars were scurrying back and forth in the twilight below and the sun was just beginning to set over the Mississippi River in the distance.

Had I not lifted my head up I would have missed one of the nicest moments of that trip! The same thing can happen to us as project managers. We become so preoccupied with adminis-trivia that we seldom look at the beauty around us. We get so heads down in our work running from meeting to meeting that we forget to lift our heads up and look at the beauty around us. If you haven't taken the time to see what is beautiful about project management here are a few things for your consideration:

• Alignment Do you know what it feels like when the tires on your car are not aligned? The ride is either rough as the wheels work against each other or the car may pull in one direction. You would certainly end up in a ditch if you weren't constantly correcting the path of your car. Once the tires are aligned its back to smooth sailing and you appreciate your tire guy all the more.
  
  Do you know what it feels like to work at a company that is not aligned? It's a bumpy ride as different departments work against each other. Or one department may be so strong that it causes the company to veer off in the wrong direction and fall into calamity. Only when everyone's goals and expectations are properly aligned can you appreciate the beauty of organizational unity!
  
  That's where you come into play as a project manager. You can bring alignment to your organization regardless of your level of influence. You may be managing just one project or dozens of projects through your PMO. There's beauty in knowing that these projects are aligned with company strategy billing goals and departmental agendas.
• Synchronization A university recently studied the value of the orchestral conductor the argument being that highly proficient musicians with the score in front of them don't need a guy in a tux standing in front waving his arms.
  
  In the experiment small red laser lights were attached to the tips of the player's bows as well as the baton of the conduct. Special cameras were then used to record the timing and direction of where these lights were pointing. Then one piece of music was played with an expert conductor leading the orchestra. The same piece of music was played with an amateur conductor. The analysis of the path of the lights that resulted from the musicians moving their bows indicated that they do indeed follow the conductor. What's more experts who listened to just the music (not knowing whether it was an expert or amateur conductor) always picked the expert conductor.
  
  NOTE: here's a link to the study if you want to include it: http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/11/27/165677915/do-orchestras-really-need-conductors
  
  That's the beauty of your job as a project manager. You keep everyone synchronized and making beautiful music together. Your team members look to you for direction and follow your lead. You may work with a group of highly skilled educated and self-sufficient resources that could do the job themselves. But it's your leadership that keeps everyone on the same page...literally.
• Improvement Someone who is skilled at their craft always makes it look easy. But it wasn't always easy. It took years of trial and error making mistakes and learning from them before they reached a high level of accomplishment.
  
  Take a moment and reflect on when you first started out as a project manager. You tried to do the best you could but you had a lot to learn. You made tons of mistakes along the way picked yourself up and kept moving forward. Years passed and you now make project management look easy!
  
  Don't take all that experience for granted. What may have started as a jumbled mess when you took over is now a smooth running machine as a result of your ongoing quest for improvement and lessons learned. Your team members will appreciate your constant improvement even though they may not vocalize their sentiments. Taking something that is complicated and making it look easy is a beautiful thing because of what it represents!
• Cohesion Team cohesion is something that takes time but is probably one of the most beautiful aspects of project management. This is when a group of people have been through hell and high water together and stick together. They have pulled the all-nighters to meet a looming deadline. They have been stuck waiting in airports together having missed their flight because of a problem that popped up while they were visiting a client. They have done scores of presentations together and are to the point that they can just about finish each other's sentences.
  
  Each person knows what is expected of them and they know each other's strengths. More importantly they have come to learn each other's weaknesses and compensate for them accordingly. You have a big part to play in this as a project manager as you orchestrate how well the team works and sticks together.

To see the beauty of project management just look up! We can become so bogged down in meetings drama issues emails reports and disappointment that we never lift up our heads and look around. Think about this the next time you step into an elevator. You may not have the same view that a glass elevator affords but you can look up mentally. Take a few moments and reflect on what you've done as a project manager. The view will be awesome!

There's no place like the view from outer space. Just ask NASA. NASA is one of ProjectManager.com's 30000 clients who loves the program. Our web-based project management software allows everyone on their team to collaborate and know the status of the project as changes occur. By using ProjectManager.com they have the right information at the right time. Try ProjectManager.com for thirty days for FREE project management software and you can have the same view!

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Besides being a great band in the 90s nirvana is a profoundly peaceful state of mind that one is able to achieve after the fires of desire aversion and delusion have been extinguished. It typically takes a life time of pursuit and although it may be a worthwhile achievement many of us might agree it is an impossible goal for the project manager!

Why Peace of Mind is Elusive for Project Managers

Peace of mind is something that many project managers roles never achieve in today's workplace. Why? Below are some reasons why this is the case:

• Pressures on the Job – We've just been through one of the toughest recessions in decades. During that time untold millions of jobs disappeared an almost incomprehensible thought if we all didn't have first hand experience working at these companies.
  
  For example a software company had over 350 employees spread across multiple locations and even countries in 2005. As the recession dragged on for years it forced the company to keep making cuts until it had devolved into less than 90 positions and two offices. Job cuts put everyone under pressure; those who lose their position as well as those who are left behind.
  
  Project manager duties make one accustomed to managing a handful of projects may now be required to manage 8 12 or more projects. Resources devoted to one or two projects are now spread across four or five. Everyone is expected to do more with less and maintain the same level of quality and proficiency as when people were doing less...with more. This introduces untold pressure and disruption to peace of mind into the workplace.
• May not be 100 Right with Others Another cause of distress for some project managers is the area of interpersonal relationships. It is critical for a project manager to have above-the-board and level relationships with everyone. Sometimes these relationships get skewed as a result of misunderstandings missed expectations disappointments or just outright personality conflicts.
  
  If a simple misunderstanding or problem is not handled immediately it festers. One person tells another person about the problem. Facts are embellished and the next thing you know you are at odds with a person because of inaccurate information. The working relationship is strained as angst becomes part of your thought process when you communicate with that person.
• You KNOW what you DON'T KNOW It is unsettling to know what you don't know. A project manager may be very proficient in most areas of project management but knows they are terribly weak in a certain area.
  
  For example they may know all about the people side of managing projects but fall apart if you put them in front of Microsoft Project and tell them to put a plan together from scratch. It gnaws at their conscience to wait for someone to task them with doing something that is not within their well refined set of existing project management skills
• Uncertainty of Employment The perpetual uncertainty of employment is still a very real concern in today's economy and therefore an enemy to peace of mind. People become skittish over the slightest indication that their company may not be doing well and rightfully so.
  
  It's hard to find the kind of long-term job security or comfort that lends itself to peace of mind. I have an acquaintance who says he can bank on the fact that he's going to work the next day. Beyond that he isn't deluding himself into thinking there's much more.

The things that introduce uncertainty into our profession are just a part of the project manager job description. They are unavoidable in most circumstances. But there are certain things that you can do as a project manager to take the edge off the uncertainty and take a few steps closer toward nirvana.

How to Achieve Peace of Mind as a Project Manager

If you see a calm project manager they invariably have implemented many of the following plans. Some of the planning is relative to the day-to-day job of being a project manager; other planning looks outside the organization and focuses on career development. Achieving a proper balance of internal as well as external plans will help you achieve peace of mind.

• Processes are in Place Processes ensure things run smoothly even when the project manager is not around. There is clear direction for team members to follow relative to reporting and tracking time generating reports approving new projects changing existing projects and escalations. Processes with checks and balances in place allow a savvy project manager to not stress about the routine aspects of project management.
• Contingency Plans are in Place Throw a crisis into the mix if you want to see what a project manager is really made of. Having peace of mind stems from understanding that things are going to go wrong on projects sometimes terribly wrong.
  
  Rather than run around screaming that it's the end of the world the calm project manager will simply execute the contingency plans that have been put in place.
• Status is Accurate Peace of mind is achievable if project managers adopt a trust but verify philosophy. They know which resources shoot 100 straight with them when it comes to status and which resources may stretch the truth a bit.
  
  They have learned to dig into the details of some of the more questionable status updates and not to worry about those who provide accurate updates each time. Verifying information ensures they are not blindsided by the rest of the story at inopportune times like in front of a client.
• Next Steps are Known Project managers that have reached nirvana always know what needs to happen next. They know exactly where a deliverable needs to go who is responsible for finishing something and when it needs to be done. Knowing next steps removes the feeling of cluelessness and helps to keep the project manager calm and focused when things get chaotic.
• Big Issues Have Been Socialized The absolute worst time to deliver bad news about your project to clients stakeholders or executives is during a status meeting.
  
  But isn't that what status meetings are all about?
  
  Yes and no. If the issue is big enough (like missing a date by weeks or even months) a calm project manager will have informed the key players well in advance of the meeting. There will have been many one-off conversations where the situation has been explained options explored and questions answered. Hence the status of the solution to the problem is discussed at a meeting instead calmly and rationally. Socializing the issue eliminates the potential bombshell that could cause a meltdown.
• Minimal Riffs Exist A project manager at peace has the confidence to know they can go to anyone at anytime with nearly any request and not be rebuffed. Their professional relationships are intact. Beyond that they nurture these relationships to make sure there is enough goodwill equity to get them through turbulent times.
• Has a Plan to Fill in the Gaps A project manager with peace of mind knows they don't know everything. However they have a plan in place to fill in those most critical gaps that could be considered a chink in their armor. They are always working on improving their skills earning certifications and keeping themselves current with project management as well as the field in which they are working.

If you strive for project management Nirvana I leave you with this advice (and tribute for fans of the band): put your concerns in a Heart Shaped Box put All Apologies aside and Come As You Are!

Try ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days and get one step closer toward project management nirvana. Our web based application allows you to view project status online report on progress get up-to-date status 24 hours a day and even allows suppliers and customers to login. Plus our affordable pricing plans means you won't have to be like The Man Who Sold the World to afford this great software!

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The company started small. As a matter of fact it couldn't have started any smaller. It was one guy in one truck travelling to local new and used car dealerships to fix minor scratches scrapes dents and other blemishes on cars. He toiled day and night perfecting his craft. He tried different paints clear coats spray guns and other techniques to make blemishes disappear. The car dealerships loved him! It meant they didn't have to send cars to expensive body shops to perform minor repairs. It also meant that vehicles could be repaired in a fraction of the time it used to take.

Demand for his services started to grow and before long his route of five dealerships doubled to ten. He put another truck on the road and trained someone to take care of the additional work. Well the demand doubled again. He was asked to service 20 dealerships so he hired and trained even more people.

He found himself spending less time in the field and more time focusing on sales billing and research and development. The routes continued to grow. He hired people to run the front office. He brought people on board in the warehouse to build out more trucks and distribute products to the technicians.

All of this growth happened in just the one medium-sized town in which he lived but it didn't take long for word of his success to travel to neighboring towns and even states. Friends told friends of the success and business really took off with his decision to franchise the concept. The next thing he knew he had hundreds of franchisees spread throughout 35 states all performing mobile automotive paint repair. He caught the attention of large paint manufacturers who developed custom paint and chemical blends for his brand. Franchise owners gathered for local regional and even national meetings throughout the year. The energy was high the pace was frenetic and the money was flowing.

And it all started with one guy and one truck! In just a handful of years his meager beginnings had blossomed into a full-blown franchise company generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue each year.

Why was this operation successful? Because one of the questions on the table at all times was "What do we do if we succeed?" This may sound like a strange question but it really isn't that strange if you think about it.

Project Managers are Wired to Think about What Can Go Wrong

Project managers are wired to think about what they'll do if something goes wrong. Don't believe me? Look at the whole practice area within the discipline of project management that centers on risk management. It is focused on identifying and describing risk the impact and probability it will have on the project and what can be done about it in the event the risk becomes a reality.

A project's risk register is quickly filled up with entries like "not enough resources" "potential for supply chain disruption" or "untested technology." These all focus on what will happen to a project in the event that it fails which in and of itself is a negative mindset.

The potential for your project succeeding also belongs in the risk register. Are you prepared for the chance that your project may succeed beyond people's expectations? Can you support the demands that will be put upon the project or company if it rapidly takes off?

Success Happens all the Time

You need to expand your thinking beyond what can go wrong by preparing for what can go right. I knew a web development company during the heyday of website creation that quickly became overwhelmed with the demand for their services. People were knocking down the company's front door throwing money at them left and right to create websites. The company wasn't adequately prepared for the demand and unfortunately lost some revenue.

In another example a software firm deployed teams with handheld devices into large retail chains for the purpose of keeping shelves stocked neat and orderly. Demand went through the roof! What started in a couple hundred locations quickly ballooned out into thousands of locations with as many users each and every day. This company was prepared for the possibility of success and had all the mechanisms in place to scale a very large operation.

What Needs to Be in Place to Succeed?

Prepare for success with a focus on bolstering three main areas. These are:

• People Do you have enough people in place to support the demand? A classic example is the Help Desk if you deploy software. The Help Desk is one of the first areas overrun with calls questions and issues.

  If one and a half people are responsible for fielding all support calls and the plan is to deploy to thousands of locations you may need to increase your support team substantially! You don't want to wait until AFTER the software is deployed to realize that you don't have enough people.

  Count on the software rolling out successfully to thousands of locations and raise its success as a risk; discuss how you can successfully support such an endeavor.

  The people side of business can quickly explode. You may be the newest hire in a rapidly growing company. In no time at all you find yourself at the top of the seniority chain with hundreds of people hired below you. Although Human Resources are not your direct responsibility as a project manager it's important for you to come up to speed and know how to prioritize communicate and lead in such a fast growing environment.

• Process The way to keep a handle on rapidly expanding projects and company resources is by putting processes in place to moderate and ideally eliminate the chaos. Your projects need checks and balances that allow them to unfold elegantly rather than just show up and throw up. By the way that expression was a favorite of one of my sales people counterparts that liked to highlight the fact that he wasn't a normal salesperson.

  Similarly there's no need to have a normal project that careens from one non-existent approval to the next. Put processes in place for change control gatekeeper and expense approvals and other critical aspects on a project as a way to prepare for success.

• Technology The same franchise company mentioned at the outset did struggle in the area of technology. It had developed a proprietary invoicing and estimating application before digital file transfer of financial information was common place.

  The application was a success and the franchisees loved using it in the field. Only one problem...it was built on a specific platform and there was no thought given to what would happen if that application was a success.

  The platform unfortunately went away and a short-staffed engineering department had to scramble to come up with a viable alternative. This led to a fair amount of confusion and disgruntled franchisees that were unable to create estimates for clients until a solution was in place. Make sure your technology is scalable and adapts to your business.

Expand your view of your projects from one of what can go wrong to what can go right? Planning for both risks and successes on your next project risk assessment will ensure you are covered for any contingency!

Try ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days and you'll always be prepared for success! You'll be able to quickly build detailed plans for your project assign multiple resources and dependencies to tasks and view the actual progress against planned progress.

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Every Thursday morning the executive staff meets for a debriefing. Each department is given a seat at the table including the Project Management Office (PMO). The executives provide an ever so brief rundown of what was accomplished the prior week what's coming up and what help they need from other departments. The meeting is moderated by the COO who keeps everyone on task.

As far as meetings are concerned it's pretty informative. It allows the PMO to get an idea of what is coming down the pipe and to request help from other departments. And while this meeting is a great opportunity to clarify status it's also where wild misunderstandings are uncovered.

A Hotbed of Misunderstanding

Do you remember playing the game Telephone as a kid? This is where one kid at the end of the table whispers a sentence to a kid sitting at their side. That kid would whisper what he thought he heard to the kid next to them. The message would be whispered around the entire table until it got to the next-to-last kid who had to say it out loud to the one who started the game.

"It never makes sense why chickens don't drive cars" he would proudly blurt out.

"Not even close" said the kid who started it all. "I said I don't understand why kittens don't like stars" and then the whole table would break out in laughter and giggles.

"Do it again do it again!" everyone would say.

Well here we are many years later in our professional lives and we're still playing Telephone. The only problem is that it's not a game it's really not that fun and it's not something you want to play again. But we all pass along the same garbled messages over and over again.

Here's how it plays out in meetings such as the one described at the outset. There's a file that the client sends every day promptly at 5:00 PM. It's configured to automatically happen behind the scenes without anyone touching the file or having to push any buttons. As soon as that file comes in another program is configured to process it with the rest of the files for that evening.

It's been working fine ever since it was set up a few months earlier. For some reason the file failed to be delivered for two days in a row a week prior to one of the debriefings. The client that sends the file each day is under the purview of the PMO so at the debriefing the COO looks at you and asks "Why is this particular client contemplating leaving?"

"What?!" you respond somewhat bewildered.

"I heard that the client is unhappy and has stopped providing us the daily file we need" the COO continues.

"Where did you hear that from?" you ask.

"I heard it from our Account Executive" the COO says.

You look at the account executive and ask "Where did you hear that from?"

"Well I didn't quite hear they were leaving. I just heard that they were unhappy. Bob in IT told me they refused to send the file" the account executive says.

"Bob?" you say quizzically.

"Actually what I heard was that we just weren't getting the file..." says Bob.

You follow my point of where this will end or for that matter where it started? What really happened is that the client hired a new person who inadvertently left one letter off the file name so the automation process didn't pick it up. The client was neither upset nor were they leaving. It was just that someone fat fingered the file name! The misunderstanding was quickly corrected as that was the purpose of this meeting and everyone was back on the same page.

3 Ways to Mitigate Misunderstandings

A major facet of your job as a project manager is to be an outstanding communicator. Everyone on your team and all stakeholders need to be aware of the current status of your project at any given moment in time. Now it's not your job to personally tell everyone but you do need to have mechanisms in place that give people access to reliable information.

Notice we didn't say 3 ways to PREVENT misunderstandings. That's next to impossible given the hectic pace in which everyone works. Misunderstandings are going to arise. Your job is to reduce their numbers and bring clarity to the confusion quickly. The following are some suggestions on how to make this happen:

1. Set Up Formal Channels of Communication

A solid Communications Plan should be a part of your overall project plan as it is the document that describes how you are going to communicate the right message to the right people at the right time. It could be a one-page document or a small book depending upon the complexity of the project you are managing. A communications plan sets forth communications goals stakeholders and strategies as well as communications activities and timeframes.

Not only is a clear communications plan key to handling misunderstandings is vital to the success of an organization. It ensures that all of the staff managers suppliers and customers are kept properly informed of the progress of a project. And for those who read the communication plan they'll understand where they need to go to get the information they need.

2. Quick Authoritative E-Mails

In the previous paragraph I stated for those who read the communication plan. Getting people to read any of the project documents you create is a challenge. It's not that your documents aren't good it's just that people don't have time to read them. When things get out of control on a project and you are hearing about misunderstandings left and right the best thing to do is insert yourself between the two kids who are passing the wrong message and say "What did you say? No that's not right. You misheard what was said earlier. The real message is..." and then provide them with the facts.

You can stand up and do this in front of everyone sitting at the table or via email. Acknowledge that there has been some misinformation surrounding the project. Then lay out what the real story is using only a handful of bullet points so there's no additional confusion. Conclude by directing people to contact you if further information is needed. End of story.

3. Keep Your Ear to the Ground

You have to realize that people aren't going to come to you with every bit of misinformation they hear. They probably won't even realize it's misinformation before they pass it on to someone else. You need to always keep your ear to the ground and head these things off at the pass. Listen intently to what people are saying ask lots of questions and read between the lines if necessary. You'll most likely see a pattern develop over time and figure able to pinpoint where bad information originates. This will help you zero in on the source and prevent not just mitigate bad information from spreading.

You should play Telephone if you haven't played for a while. You'll have a great time. Just make sure you play with your kids nieces or nephews and not the people at your job!

There's no miscommunication when it comes to trying ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days. You heard that message right; you can try ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days and see why project managers and teams all over the world depend on our software to get their projects done!

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When a space shuttle reenters the Earth's atmosphere the friction exerted on its bottom surface creates heat up to 3000 degrees Fahrenheit . To protect shuttles from these ridiculously high temperatures NASA scientists developed heat resistant tiles. These ingenious tiles are made from compressed amorphous silica fiber (sand melted into glass fibers) which absorb deflect and sufficiently diffuse the heat of re-entry. On average each shuttle has 24000 tiles protecting the vehicle and its crew and each one is important.

On February 1 2003 the Columbia space shuttle broke up on reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. The cause of the disaster was traced back to a briefcase-sized chunk of foam insulation falling from the main propellant tank hitting the leading edge of the left wing and damaging some of the tiles that protected the shuttle. Upon reentry hot gases penetrated the damaged area and destroyed the internal wing structure. This resulted in the demise of the shuttle and all seven astronauts on board.

Foregoing this disastrous flight the heat shields protected well over 100 shuttle reentries into the atmosphere without incident. It only took damage to the tiniest fraction of tiles for all 24000 to be compromised.

What Can Cause Heat in Our Project Management Jobs

Heat is caused by friction. Friction is the resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another.

There are plenty of opportunities for heat to be generated in our jobs as project managers. Most newly formed companies create heat right out of the gate as the nature of business is to create the most value out of limited resources. This means that there's never enough time people or resources to get the job done. People always want more for less or want everything faster which sets the stage for emotions to escalate in times of stress or conflict.

When other elements that create even more friction are introduced in the workplace temperatures will quickly rise. For example:

• Personality Conflicts There are people that you absolutely LOVE working with each day. You share common interests enjoy each other's company and genuinely look forward to working with them on your projects. On the other hand there are some people that you absolutely DO NOT LOVE working with each day. Just seeing them walk into the conference room makes your blood pressure rise. Maybe their personality rubs you the wrong way they are too loud or lack tact or have a tendency to not follow through on what they say they are going to do.Guess what? You might not be their favorite person either.Every person in your company has certain feelings about everyone else which can create a hotbed of personality conflict.
• Hard to Please Clients A large cause of friction on many projects are clients that are hard to please. These are the clients that start the relationship with "I'm not sure what I like but come up with some options and I'll tell you what I don't like."There are clients that don't honor their own commitments but expect you to honor yours even if your commitments are dependent on them following through with theirs. You will have interesting and heated conversations with your team as you work through unreasonable client demands or timelines.
• Changing Direction If your company constantly changes direction that instability can be a very real source of friction.You're scared to go in each Monday and hear what game-changing silver bullet the executive team conjured up over the weekend that will take the company to the next level...for this week at least. You can just hear the gears grinding against each other as you bring your project team to a full stop and make a 180 degree U-turn. Priorities must be shuffled around gears changed and you now must ramp up new teams on new projects.
• Plain Ol' Mistakes Yes plain ol' mistakes can introduce great friction and heat in a company.For example a project may have been sold to a client but was terribly underestimated and now there is some confusion about what is to be delivered. The contract was written so nebulously that it could be interpreted either way.You and your team are now stuck working on a dog of a project that is doing nothing but costing the company money.

How to Work Together to Diffuse Some of the Heat

There are plenty of opportunities for heat to be generated on our projects. But like the tiles on the space shuttle it's important for everyone to work to dissipate the heat. The following are some opportunities where you can make this happen:

• United Front to Management Let's say you and some of the functional managers on your team are responsible for a mistake that caused some heat. Want to make the heat even more intense? Start pointing fingers at each other and try to blame someone else. That will be sure to create more friction.Rather when a sizable mistake is made it's best to come together and take ownership of the problem. Meet with management as a team and explain the situation. Let them know what occurred but more importantly what solution has been developed to deal with the problem.The solution may not fix the problem 100; however it will definitely reduce the complications caused by the problem. Management will appreciate your upfront dealings and your time won't be wasted on blame-storming sessions.

  By the way in order to pull this off you need to have cultivated outstanding trusting relationships with the key members of your project and extended teams (like functional managers).

• Hold a Reset Meeting Are your clients out of control and not pleased with what you've done? Is nothing good enough for them? It may be time for a reset meeting to dispel some of the heat. This is a time when your company should work together as a team with the client to hit the reset button. Present a candid and united front to your clients. Let them know that you are aware of some shortcomings on the part of your company and what you are going to do to improve in these areas. Also point out areas that your client can improve that will make the relationship work better. It's always a two-way street and you should never go in saying that everything is your fault.I worked with a company that unofficially included a reset meeting as part of the project plan! It was given a different name like "3-Month Regroup" but the purpose of the meeting was to work together and reset expectations. It would take the heat off for three or four months until it was time for the next regroup.
• United Front to Stakeholders The reverse of a united front to management is for management to present a united front to all those who are all involved in a project. There may be a couple of executives who don't fully support an initiative in progress and are lobbying for the company to move in different directions. It's important for them to keep these discussions amongst their executive peers and not with the rank and file of the project team. Otherwise their disunity will divide loyalties and create more heat.

Just as 24000 tiles must work together on the space shuttle to protect the ship and crew from heat it's important for the dozens of people working on projects in your company to work together. Unity will keep everyone cool and protect against heat generated from both internal and external sources.

Do you want to instantly take some heat off of you and your project team? Try ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days and bring the temperature down to a balmy 72 degree spring day! Use our Project Reporting features to view the status of your projects in a flash. You can check on the health of your project the schedule or level of risk. It's exactly what you'll need for your next reset meeting with your client!

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Credibility.

That's right. I'll just come right out and say it rather than have you wait until the end to hear it: the single greatest quality every project manager must possess is credibility. Now it's up to you if you want to read on to find out why it's important and how you can gain (or destroy) your credibility.

Credibility is defined as the quality of being trusted convincing or believable. Trust me when I say there is a lot of trust me in project management. Maybe the following will sound familiar:

"Trust me the client will do what they say they're going to do" or

"Trust me we'll get through this rough patch of the project" or

"Trust me I've done this a million times before."

How many times have you found yourself asking your team to trust you? Probably too many times to remember. If you are requesting someone's trust are you quite certain you have proven yourself to be trustworthy?

For people to trust they need to see a track record of reliability. Think about the first time you went for a small loan at a bank. They required all kinds of paperwork and a co-signer before they would loan you the money. Why? Because they didn't trust you. That's right; you didn't have a track record of borrowing money and paying it back in a timely fashion. Once your credibility was established the bank offered to loan you all kinds of money with just your signature because they now trust you will pay your loans back.

The same thing happens in our relationships with project team members. There is a certain level of positional credibility that comes with the job but it still takes time to establish personal credibility within the dynamics of a team. People have to judge for themselves whether to take you at your word or not.

How Do You Gain Credibility?

There are a number of things you can do as a project manager to gain credibility with your team. The following are a few suggestions:

• Do What You Say You Are Going to Do Following through is easier said than done. If you've ever been a parent you probably are guilty of making an empty promise in return for obedience. If you've ever been invited to a social event you didn't want to go to maybe you are guilty of promising to go just to get the hostess off your back.
  
  It requires thoughtfulness to back up your words with actions...all the time. Your team is always watching how you behave. If you say you're coming in early the next morning to knock out a tough part of the project plan then make sure you show up early. If you say you're going to talk to the client about them bypassing the change control process make sure you talk to them.
  
  Credibility starts with following through on your smallest commitments and migrates all the way up to your major promises. Not quite sure you can follow through? Then don't commit to it just yet. There's nothing wrong with keeping your mouth shut and doing a bit more research before committing and then following through on your promise.
• Don't Talk Too Much Picture a bell curve. Your credibility is the horizontal x-axis. The amount that you talk is the vertical y-axis. At the zenith of the bell curve is the optimal amount of talk to credibility ratio: the more incessantly you talk the less credibility you will have.Case in point.
  
  I worked with a fellow that by all accounts should have been 458 years old. Why? Because his stories didn't add up. He could not have accomplished what he said he did in 50 years. He told stories of being a concert violinist best-selling author renowned chef and of paintings of his that were on display in museums. He claimed to have quelled oppressive governments in foreign countries (seriously) turned around hundreds of companies that were on their last leg and that he was the ideal husband and family man.
  
  At first he inched along the upward slope of the bell curve establishing moderate credibility. When he didn't stop talking and you realized most of what he said wasn't true his credibility quickly slid down the downward slope of the bell-curve.
  
  Project managers need to talk. You need to talk a lot. The key is to find that optimal point at which you become and stay credible by moderating how much you say and what you talk about.
• Listen to Your Own Conversation A very helpful practice is to listen to your own conversation. Do you find yourself saying "Yeah but this time it's going to be different" a lot? It might mean that your credibility is waning but you haven't admitted it to yourself.
  
  Reflect on your dialogue with project team members. They'll remember everything you say so you should too! Remember what you say and to whom and make adjustments if you find yourself back-pedaling on a regular basis. This will help enormously to gain credibility.

3 Sure Fire Ways to Destroy Your Credibility

It takes years to build up a storehouse of credibility. When you have arrived at that zenith however it is a great asset to have. If and when you do make an honest mistake that storehouse of credibility will bring you through the storm. However there are certain things that will destroy your credibility within a matter of moments. You can destroy your credibility:

• By Accident Certain things are out of the project manager's control. You must rely on others to do what they say they are going to do. You can follow up cajole and persuade as much as possible but ultimately it is the responsibility of the resource to get the job done.
  
  Your superiors will understand for a little while if you are unable to deliver on a project because of other people's shortcomings. However these little accidents will ultimately undermine your credibility if they continue to occur.
• By Covering Up You are sure to ruin your own credibility if you deliberately conceal information. Let's say something goes wrong on a project. A key deliverable is missed which sets the project back two months behind schedule and even though you know about the delay you fail to alert anyone or make plans to complete the missed deliverable.
  
  That's bad enough but if six weeks later you say you don't know anything about it or don't remember talking about it or receiving any emails in regards to the delay your credibility vanishes instantly.
• By Being Manipulative Another way to instantly lose credibility is to be manipulative. One technique of manipulation is convincing someone else that it's in their best interest they get something done when the reality is it's in your best interest.
  
  Best case scenario if someone has been manipulated is that no harm has been done to them. It's more likely however that they were prevented from doing something else that really needed to be done and now it reflects poorly on them. Congratulations you got your way but you also just flushed your credibility down the toilet.

I hope you are convinced that credibility is the single most important quality of a project manager. You can be the best project planner risk mitigator or cost controller. But all of these things mean nothing unless your team trusts you. Build a solid base of credibility and your project management career will flourish.

Gain instant credibility by trying ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days. Your team's reaction will be that you must know what you are doing as a project manager to use such outstanding project management software. You can build project plans from scratch or import them from Microsoft Project. Share these plans with your team and view actual vs. planned progress as it happens!

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I was furious! Jim drove me crazy every time I had to deal with him but today was over the top. Not only did he run the IT department and have control over a sizable part of the company he was responsible for managing client projects and keeping them happy. I was a project manager on the services side of the company and once again he stuck it to me!

The deadline for project completion was tomorrow. Everything was a go up to this point. The application was complete testing had been conducted documentation and training was up to speed and we even had release notes for the upgrades to the application. I really couldn't have asked for a smoother project.

The final piece was to move the application into the production environment but before that was to happen the client lined up a cadre of people to give it one final review. They were going to run it through its paces to make sure nothing was broken before it was released to the masses tomorrow.

Well not only did Jim have control and influence in the company he also had a couple of major character flaws. He was a control freak coupled with a love for making arbitrary last-minute illogical decisions. The day the client's team was to arrive for their final review word got back to me from his resources that Jim vetoed moving the application into production! This was not good.

I hung up the phone and stormed down the hallway to his office.

"What do you mean you're not moving this into production today?" I asked.

"That's right" he said. "I can't free up my resources today to make that happen. They're finishing up another project and it's running behind. We'll get around to yours tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? Did you say tomorrow? You've known about the importance of making this date for weeks Jim. As recent as YESTERDAY you said you'd be able to make this happen. Now you've changed your mind and it's not possible? Don't you know they have a team of people that are coming in to test out the new application?"

"Yep" he said. "I guess they'll just have to wait until tomorrow."

That's when I lost it. I could feel the blood rush to my head my heart was pounding out of my chest and adrenaline was flowing. I jumped out of the chair and waved my finger in his face. Needless to say I wasn't using my inside voice as I told him what I thought about him and the way he ran his operation.

Here's the problem. That's not who I am as a person. I'm usually very calm collected and composed. People typically come to me whenever they need to be talked down from jumping off the ledge. I crossed the line when it came to Jim because this guy pushed my buttons! Everything he stood for was everything I stood against.

Why Did I Allow Others to Push My Buttons?

I didn't like who I became that day and did some pretty serious introspection on why I allowed Jim to push my buttons. Below are some of my observations:

• I was on a deadline Project managers are the people in the company who take deadlines seriously. Meeting deadlines is an integral part of their job. What's more project managers don't commit to deadlines in a vacuum. I know I don't. It only took me a couple of times early in my career to commit to a deadline without consulting with the appropriate resources. We all know how those projects ended up.It was the same with this project. I had carefully planned the project out made sure everyone was in agreement and felt as if it was achievable. This included Jim. Things do come up at the last minute but I felt Jim was exerting control arbitrarily.
• It reflected poorly on me This was probably what pushed me over the edge the most. I take great pride in stewarding a project from beginning to end and navigating troubled times. I'm constantly going to seminars and learning new ways of doing things so that I keep up with the latest trends and tools in project management. When I can't meet an important deadline I take that seriously.
• It made my life complicated In the heat of the moment all the phone calls I had to make once I left his office flashed through my mind. I would need to break the bad new to the client. I'd have to let my company's account manager know of the delay who would undoubtedly escalate it to his boss who would promptly call me to say how dissatisfied they both were. I would certainly have to let the VP of the Service department know so that he didn't hear it from someone else. Rather than spending my afternoon as planned and working on the presentation for my next kickoff meeting I had to do damage control.

It was the perfect storm of emotion frustration aggravation and disappointment when Jim broke his news. He had pushed all my buttons.

How I Prevent Others From Pushing My Buttons Now

I vowed to myself that I would never allow my emotions or anger to get out of control again. Below are five things I've done since then when faced with similar situations...even with Jim!

1. Take a Deep Breath There's much wisdom in counting to 10. When you feel your blood begin to boil take it down to a simmer by taking a deep breath and thinking through the situation. I'm not in control of what Jim does to me; however I am in control of how I react to Jim. There's a split second between the stimulus that Jim puts out and when I would start to react. I lengthen that time considerably by taking a deep breath and thinking through the ramifications of blowing my top.
2. Remove the Emotion I felt as if Jim was doing this to me personally that he had something against me and was on a mission to make my life miserable. The more I watched Jim operate the more I realized that wasn't the case. He treated everyone the same way. He would over-commit back himself into a corner and then flip-flop on his word. Once I realized that I was able to take the personal affront out of the equation. I could objectively look at the situation and ask myself "What's the worst thing that could happen?" I would then reason through alternatives with a clear head.
3. Have Jim' More Involved in the Relationship with the Client Something else that worked well to keep Jim to his commitments was to personalize his relationships with clients. Up to this point each was known to him only as The Client. Now I refer to the client as Ron Stephanie Beth Ben or Denise. As a result Jim did become more consistent about honoring his commitments. A word of caution however...you can't turn Jim loose on the client by himself. You need to be involved in any and all of these conversations to make sure reasonable expectations are being set.
4. Plan for the Worst to Happen Project Management 101 is all about contingency plans. I expected Jim to pull a stunt like this each time. I planned future projects to have additional time to get through this drama.
5. Escalate This is a last resort but you can certainly escalate as necessary. Actually this was my first resort in the confrontation described at the outset. I pulled the team and executives responsible for the account (and Jim) together and let them know of the decision Jim had made. Thankfully this was unacceptable to them and Jim was encouraged to change his mind. Testing went on as planned the next day.

We all have a Jim' or two in our professional lives. Ask yourself why you allow them to get to you and then follow these five suggestions to get their fingers off your buttons!

One button you must push today is the button to sign up and get a 30-day FREE trial of ProjectManager.com! You'll have all the features of this powerful project management application at your fingertips and our affordable pricing plans will let you manage people like Jim for the rest of your career.

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Do you remember the old movies with Dr. Frankenstein's monster? He was the cobbled-together experiment that went terribly wrong. Things went so wrong that the whole town felt as if they needed to get involved. So they assembled themselves and stormed Dr. Frankenstein's abode!

Put yourself in Dr. Frankenstein's shoes. Things didn't go quite the way you planned but you are working on getting things straightened out. You just need a bit more time. . You take a break from your errant creation to have dinner. Out the window you see a light flickering in the distance but can't quite make out where it's coming from.

Later while doing the dishes a dull roar pulls your attention back to the window. The distant light has materialized into a mob of people coming your way holding torches and pitchforks. They are angrily yelling "Kill the Monster! Burn down the House! Leave Nothing Standing!" Hmm. Looks like there's no dessert tonight.

When they arrive at your doorstep you warily open the peephole and inquire if you can help them. Their numbers and vocal dissent overwhelm you and your only recourse is to get out of their way and give in to their demands.

This same capacity for crazed mob mentality exists in many companies today. Sure people may not use pitchforks and fire but they are just as angry and their demands are just as vociferous.

The Frankenstein Email

Let's say you are the project manager assigned to work with a long-term client. You and your company have enjoyed an equitable and profitable relationship with this client for many years. Every now and then the client makes a request that is above and beyond what your company normally does for other clients. You work so well together that you don't see an issue with accommodating these requests.

The client has requested that another column be added to a report. It's innocuous enough and will help to improve their business. You put together an email that outlines the client's request. No big deal. You send it out and head to a meeting.

After your meeting you return to your desk to check your email. Your screen flickers to life and your inbox is filled with replies. In less than a minute you realize a mob is raising their fists and slamming them against the inside of your monitor!

"These people are idiots" the first reply from the development manager states.

The developer chimes in "They just asked us to pull that field out two months ago now they want it back in????" The four question marks puzzle you. Was the intent to make the request sound questionable?

The frustration seems to grow with every reply. "We have zero time to test that" pipes up the QA Manager. "They should have known what they wanted when the made the initial request."

"Yeah that's right" agrees the development manager. "Why can't they make up their mind? We have other clients too!"

"Yeah" says the QA Manager.

"NOW WE HAVE TO UPDATE THE USER DOCUMENTATION TO REFLECT THE CHANGES" yells the technical writer.

Your inbox is flooded with dozens and dozens of emails. Your one request has spun out of control and your desk credenza and bookshelf are about to be burned down to the ground!

It was just one simple email!

Why Does This Happen?

Clearly these behaviors are unprofessional. I'll hazard a couple of guesses why they occur:

• It Makes People Feel Good People talk trash about other people all the time in our personal lives. They like to call out stupidity poor decisions or just point out that someone is clueless. Why do people do this? Because it makes them feel better about themselves. Character assassinations are intended to alter someone's standing in a community so that they themselves are elevated. The same thing happens within the corporate environment.
• There's a Disconnect between Sales and Production Sales is typically notorious for selling things that don't exist or overpromising on commitments. This leaves the production side of the company scrambling to cash the check that Sales just wrote. The relationship turns into an open festering wound so that when any request is made no matter how small or inconsequential it is met with immediate opposition and resistance. For example even if Sales wanted to give everyone on the team 100 the team would raise their pitchforks in the air and scream "Get away from us you monster!"
• People are Overwhelmed Joining in on a mob email thread could be someone's way of just coping. They have so much going that one more thing will bury them alive. This is their way of saying enough is enough.

Why the Mob Mentality is Dangerous

The mob mentality is dangerous for a number of reasons:

• It's Contagious There may be people on the thread that have no opinion one way or the other about the client. Or they think the client is great. Now that the mob is beginning to chime in their opinion may start to be swayed toward an unsubstantiated negative opinion of the client.
• The Client May Get Wind of the Mob's Feelings For the sake of argument let's say this particular client's name is Frankenstein. Don't you think that Frankenstein was aware of the fact that there was an angry mob outside the door of his home? You know he was! The same thing can occur with your client. They'll get wind of a dismissive or negative attitude by members of the team. It's your job to run interference but sometimes this vibe will come across loud and clear. As the project manager you may be responsible for stewarding the relationship with the client.
• It Can Backfire on You Granted this last scenario is extreme but I've seen it happen a number of times in my career where people editorialize and pontificate their feelings about a client in an email. They call a client stupid dumb or wish they had never done business with them. The relationship takes a turn for the worse and unfortunately ends up in court over some dispute that could not be settled amicably. Guess what comes out in court? You got it pictures of the mob carrying pitchforks with someone on your team front and center leading the charge.

3 Ways to Not Succumb to the Corporate Mob Mentality

As a project manager do your company a favor by disbanding this mob as quickly. Here are four suggestions to get them off of your doorstep:

1. Put Yourself in Their Shoes Ask everyone to put themselves in the client's shoes. Is what they are asking for really that unreasonable? If you were the client wouldn't you be asking for the exact same thing they are asking for? It's amazing how people will have a strong opinion about what a client should be doing with their own business when they themselves don't have a clue about how the client operates or what they really need.
2. Keep a Tight Grip on the Facts One of the first things to go out the window when the mob forms are the facts. People start spewing out propaganda that sounds factual. For example someone may point out that we just did this for them last month when the reality is that it was done over a year ago. Or they may say the company never got paid for the last change and we're doing all this work for free when the company was paid a premium for getting the last change done in such a quick time frame.It's your job as a project manager to make sure everyone has a clear grasp on fact vs. fiction.
3. Take It Offline The best way to disband the mob is to kill the thread. Send out an email to everyone involved and say you are no longer going to discuss this through email. You will pull a meeting together with the parties directly involved and work through the issue together. Get everyone away from your doorstep and send them home with their pitchforks and flame.

Frankenstein may be an entertaining movie to watch but it's terrifying when it occurs in your office. Take the steps above to disband this crazy mob and get back to taking care of your client!

There's no cobbling together a monster at ProjectManager.com! Try ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days and see how seamlessly integrated our project management software solution is. You can create your projects online build project plans and assign tasks as well as control time cost and quality. Plus you can do this from your desktop or on the road with our mobile application!

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There's an old saying that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. I don't know if that's true or not. As a matter of fact after spending way too much time Googling this aphorism it seems people are split 50/50 about what works. The one thing that is guaranteed to lure flies however is a bug zapper.

We've all seen their unearthly blue glow emanating from a small box hung precariously from the side of a house or ledge. Within moments of being plugged in the contraption's reassuring hum beckons insects of the night and the airspace is soon filled with winged creepy-crawlies who come in closer closer closer...until... ZAP...CRACKLE! Another wing bites the dust.

Similarly there are project managers who appeal to unsuspecting resources with a false sense of confidence and then shut them down with a million volts of sarcasm. Their disdain is as deadly. Or they ply their craft with a side of honey. Which side is better to err on? It's not as black and white as you would think. Is there a place for the bug-zapping manager in project management?

Condemnation vs. Commendation

Keith has a force field of negative energy around him. He always has to be right. He takes great delight in backing people into a corner. Furthermore his line of reasoning often makes others look like idiots as his conversation below demonstrates.

Keith: "Is it true IT Guy" he says "that on the aforementioned night you made the decision to change the name of a database field?"

IT Guy: "Yes sir. That is true."

Keith: "How long have you been around databases and development work?"

IT Guy: "About 15 years."

Keith: "Then you are quite knowledgeable about what you do. Dare we say almost an expert?"

IT Guy: "Well I wouldn't quite say that but yes I do know my way around."

Keith: "Then why didn't you know that one little change to the production environment brought the WHOLE system down for 20 minutes until someone more expert than you traced it back to a _' being replaced with a -....huh?"

And just like that IT Guy has been verbally taken out. Zapped.

To make matters worse Keith's style is to watch as people careen toward precarious professional cliffs and go right over the edge. He could save them and even has the power to prevent a disaster from happening in the first place but he has no problem sitting back and watching.

Keith is a real project manager in a real company. Question is why is he still around? Because...he knows his stuff and is able to get things done; he just has ZERO tolerance for people that don't know what they are doing and it comes across as caustic and vitriolic.

At the other end of style extremes is Roger who works for the same company as Keith. Roger is sweet as honey. His goal isn't to prove that he is always right. He welcomes team members into in his office to talk about what's on their mind. He is frank when they need direction or correction but everyone knows he has their best interests at heart.

Roger tries to avert disasters if and when he sees them coming. Sometimes he allows a resource to go over the cliff but his reason is different than Keith's. He doesn't do it to prove that he was right; he allows it to teach a valuable lesson.

The Pros and Cons of Vinegar vs. Honey

It seems logical that you would want to deal with the people on your team like Roger did. But there are pros and cons to both Keith and Roger's style. Let's look at both.

Vinegar

• PRO It's Faster Telling people when they did something wrong or what they could have done better is far more efficient than waiting until somebody does something right. It takes time for people to go above and beyond their jobs to do something worthy of praise and commendation. You can generally find something that needs fixing almost immediately.
• PRO There's no Guesswork When you zap someone with negative feedback it leaves no room for that person to wonder what you meant. All guesswork is removed and the person will be very clear on what they did wrong and what not to do next time.
• CON Results are Short Lived and Non Sustainable A fly can only be hit by a zapper so many times; once is usually enough. High performers who are not used to getting zapped may look for employment elsewhere. Plus you end up with a team that is motivated by fear (a short-term motivator) and not pride loyalty and a sense of accomplishment.
• CON It's Bad for Your Reputation If the only light you bring into the room is an iridescent bulb of high voltage negativity your reputation will nosedive and people will stop having you around.

Honey

• PRO It's Longer Lasting A gentler approach with resources produces longer lasting results. They'll appreciate the fact that you have their best interest at heart and will respond favorably time and time again.
• PRO It Creates Loyalty Commendation breeds loyalty. People are drawn toward those who want them to do well and express it. You'll find that people will follow you from project to project department to department and many times even company to company.
• PRO You Gain a Good Reputation Your reputation precedes your professional progress. A good reputation will be a reason why your career even advances. You'll be known for your ability to build solid functioning and positive teams.
• CON It Takes Longer Results are not as apparent as quickly when you manage your team with positivity and recognition of accomplishment. It takes time to catch someone doing something right be specific about what you like and explain how their contribution helped not only them but the organization.

Is There a Place for a Bug Zapper?

I'm not saying that you should never give negative feedback to team members. It depends upon the project and the circumstances. For example you may have a very short-lived project with brand new resources. New employees will make a ton of mistakes. There's not enough time to wait until the team gets the hang of it nurture everyone and then put them on a career path of fulfillment and opportunity. It may be a team of temporary workers hired for one specific task in which case it would be better to fire up your bug zapper than catch your flies with honey.

However you should never be accused of being outright mean as was Keith. Don't delight in watching people squirm. You can be firm and fair at the same time.

Have we got a honey of a deal for you! Try ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days and see what a difference it makes for your team. You can store all of your project files documents and spreadsheets in a central place and your team can access them from anywhere in the world anytime. Simply login to Project Manager.com and upload and download files as you wish. Our exciting File Storage features allow you to share files with your team effortlessly. And it’s simple and intuitive to use!

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In a recent article I asked the question "Are you Present as a Project Manager Even When You're Gone?" The gist of it was that a project manager's presence and influence need to be felt by the team even if they are not physically present. That awareness is primarily based on what you do when you are present. But what if you are rarely if ever with the team in a physical location? Can you still exert control and influence over the team? In other words can you be a remote control project manager?

A colleague of mine worked as a project manager for a number of years. He woke before the sun rose to make the hour-long trek into the office and returned home well after sunset. Day after day year after year he was on the road travelling to and from the office no less than ten hours per week. Each month he spent the equivalent of a full work week in his car!

He received some bad news one day. His office was closing down and sadly many of his friends were going to be out of work. However the silver lining was that the company decided to keep him on as a remote project manager. He got those forty hours back but another wave of despair came over him. All of his resources were moved to another location a few states away! Remote workers had a certain reputation in his experience. Two women at a former company worked at home for a couple of days and at the office for the remainder of the week. The only problem? They brought their remote casualness into the office literally walking around in their pink fuzzy slippers and pajama-ish garb to keep that homey feel at all times.

His experience dealing with people who worked remotely wasn't much better. He could be on a conference call with them and the front door bell would ring. They'd walk away from the call to answer the door stop by the bathroom make themselves a snack in the kitchen and sit down at their desk just in time enough to say "Uh-huh that sounds good to me. Talk to you next week."

He didn't want to be the ineffective fuzzy slipper-wearing conference call-skipping remote project manager. He was going to have remote control. The following are four things you can do to make your presence known as a project manager even if you're not onsite with the team:

1. Be Overly-Accessible

Your availability needs to overcompensate for not being there in person. Sure you have more flexibility while working remotely but be mindful to not take advantage of this flexibility. Someone from your team calling? Answer it immediately. Make sure you have the instant messaging app for the system your company uses and answer texts and email promptly. Even if you're not in front of your screen or sitting at your desk you need to be plugged in and responsive 110 of the time.

The reality is that you may be more digitally tethered to your team than you were at the office. You may have to take a call in the wee hours of the morning or late at night. That's OK. Flexibility is a benefit of being a remote project manager that far outweighs these minor inconveniences.

2. Be Very Present During Online Meetings

Remember the example of the remote worker who answers the door and stops in other rooms on the way back to the call? Don't do that! You need to be even more focused and diligent about listening and engaging than ever before. Treat a conference call just as if you were attending in person. Noeven better if when you were there in person you checked your phone for emails texts and were otherwise distracted. Don't even do that. You need to ask questions answer questions and be an active participant.

I can't tell you the number of times I've been on remote calls with people who forget to hit the mute button on the phone. They blabber away about a dispute on a bill talk to their spouse or the kids are screaming in the background. You can't disconnect them fast enough! It's extremely unprofessional and something you can't afford to do as a remote control project manager.

3. Make Sure Out of Sight is Not Out of Mind

Let's face it there is some truth to the saying that out of sight is out of mind. When you are a remote project manager you aren't going to bump into the president of the company in the hallway and have a quick chat. You can't just drop by your boss's office and see if she's up for lunch. You need to make and take opportunities to let others know what you're working on.

Strategically include the right people on pivotal or milestone email threads and don't inundate the president or your boss with a lot of unnecessary email. But they will appreciate knowing when key deliverables have been accomplished. This also prepares them to answer "What is he working on again?" whenever it comes up.

Be sure to have an agenda and plan for what you would like to accomplish when you arrive to maximize your time on site. Help team members troubleshoot any issues they may have or clear obstacles out of their way. Take the team out for lunch if possible. Everyone will appreciate the extra time you spend with them while you are there.

Here's what you DON'T do when you visit. Don't hole yourself up in an office check email make phone calls or do all the other stuff normally done remotely. Save this precious office time for face-to-face meetings and working directly with the team.

4. Make Trips to the Home Office

A fourth way you can be effective as a remote project manager is to make regular trips to wherever the team is located. It could be weekly monthly quarterly or whatever your company's budget and circumstances allow for. At that time reconnect with the team and infuse into them the fact that you are just as committed to this project as ever. Your passion and excitement will go along way during those times that you are not present.

Remote managers are becoming more commonplace as our work force is changing. Oh yeah one more thing. Please don't wear your pink fuzzy slippers and pajama-ish garb when you do make it into the office. Any credibility you may have had up to this point will vanish instantly!

If you decide to not listen to our advice and still wear slippers into the office you can gain your credibility back by using ProjectManager.com FREE for 30 days. Spend some time with your team showing how easy it is to schedule tasks manage work keep projects on track and share plans with others... remotely!

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