Are you a project manager, a Project Management Office (PMO) leader or maybe an executive who is looking to establish a PMO in your business?

Do you want to know how to find the right balance between projects and business demands?

If you look for ways to benefit from a PMO within your organization or you want to know how to lead a successful PMO to deliver better projects, then you would love the new book from Peter Taylor:

“Leading Successful PMO’s”

Peter Taylor is the author of the number 1 bestselling project management book ‘The Lazy Project Manager’ and ‘The Project from Hell’.  He has recently launched his new book ‘Leading Successful PMO’s’.

Leading Successful PMO’s is a book to guide all would-be and current PMO leaders.  This is a book for all project based organizations and for all project managers who contribute to and benefit from a PMO (Project Management Office) within their organization.

It is also a book about successfully leading a PMO to deliver better projects, better business to all the customers of those projects and to best serve the contributing project managers from both a professional and a personal perspective.

This is not a book about managing PMO’s as the author does not believe that they are such a stable business unit at this point in time, but rather a book about leading PMO’s which is a much more complex challenge, especially with the association of PMO activity with business strategy.

This book brings together the experience and views of PMO leaders from around the world and the project managers that work within the PMO’s, as well as those who are now seeking leaders for their PMO’s.

Peter Taylor

In support of his new book, Peter Taylor (together with some great partners) has launched the PMO Leader of the Year Award, to celebrate the very best of PMO leaders around the world.

This award will be presented to the PMO Leader, nominated by their PMO team, who shows the most excellent leadership and understanding of what a PMO can deliver to a business.

A panel of independent judges will review all submissions to consider how each nominee has led their PMO over at least the last 12 months and how they plan to grow the PMO under their stewardship in the coming months.

The Judges will look as the key PMO leadership skills in the areas of:

• Flexibility
• Resilience
• Setting example
• Professionalism
• Support

Timescales: All entries should be received by Gower by 31st March 2012. The shortlist for the ‘PMO Leader of the Year (2012)’ will be announced on 31st May 2012. The winner of ‘PMO Leader of the Year (2012)’ will be announced on 29th June 2012.

Prizes: The winner will receive:

•  A library of Gower project and programme management books with a list price of over £600.00
• A written award from the judges underlining the reasons for the award
• A ‘PMO Leader of the Year 2012’ electronic icon to use on any of the winners electronic profiles, web pages and so on
• An interview with Mark Perry on The PMO Podcast
• Publication of the winning submission through the websites http://www.leadingsuccessfulpmos.com and http://www.gowerpublishing.com/projectmanagement

Click here to download a pdf document containing all information regarding the Criteria of PMO Leader of the Year Award.

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One quality a project manager needs to have to be really successful is Emotional Intelligence.

Your Emotional Intelligence can help make or break you. Emotional Intelligence or EQ is your ability to handle yourself and others. It is all about your ability to get along with others and build relationships. This also means that you can face conflict with the people around you and keep those relationships intact.

Think about it, your EQ is a conflict resolution tool! Here are 3 ways that your EQ helps you resolve conflict.

#1 EQ prevents unproductive conflict

When you are self-aware (one of the five components of EQ) you understand your moods. Who do you think is more likely to engage in unproductive conflict: A person in a good mood or a person in a bad mood? The person who is in a bad mood right? To build on that, imagine the person who walks around completely unaware of their emotions. Who knows what is going to set them off, they certainly don’t know.

Let’s take this even further, to really avoid unproductive conflict you want to recognize your moods and then exhibit self-control (another component of EQ). Yes the person in a bad mood is more likely to engage in useless conflict; but this person needs to be able to control their behaviours while in a bad mood. This is the person who gets that they are cranky and is careful with their words and actions because they know they are easily upset.

#2 EQ helps YOU navigate productive conflict

Sometimes disagreements are a good thing. When you lead your team through issue resolution, not every team member will suggest the same solution. From that productive conflict the best and most creative solution can be designed. Only if YOU and your team can draw upon your self-awareness, self-control, motivation, empathy and social skills (all components of EQ) to work together.

As you work through the conflict you are drawing upon your awareness of your feelings during the conflict and your self-control to behave professionally. You are motivated to work things out and care about seeing the issue through until the best solution is found. You don’t care if the solution selected is your solution, you care that it is the right solution. You employ active listening (part of empathy) to guide the team through the discussion and you draw upon your social skills to seek participation from all appropriate parties.

#3 EQ helps you repair relationships

Even with your best intentions and best behaviour, not all conflict is productive conflict. Sometimes feelings get hurt. Now what are you going to do about it?

You are going to use all of your EQ skills to repair those relationships. This might involve listening to the wounded parties as they share with you why they are upset and what you can do to help. If could mean that you invite them to lunch or for coffee to show that you have no hard feelings. Whatever approach you take, the fact is that if you were not emotionally intelligent it would not even occur to you that you should work to repair the relationship. If you ignore a damaged relationship, you are inviting additional and unnecessary conflict.

Want to know more about improving your EQ? Well, here is a great audio program: “What is EQ and Why You Care”.

When you finish this audio program you will understand the components of Emotional Intelligence AND walk away with tools to help you boost your own EQ. Existing project managers who are looking for PDUs, you will earn 2.5

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To be a successful project manager, it is important to develop your Leadership skills. You need to regocnize the behaviours that define you as a leader. One such leadership skill is to know and develop your communication style.

It means you have a natural style of communicating. This is the way that is the most comfortable for you to communicate, it includes whether you prefer written (email or other) or verbal (on the phone vs. in-person) communication and whether or not you are careful and deliberate in your communications or more comfortable thinking out loud.

This includes how you like to send communication and how you like to receive it. You might prefer to walk down the hall to see someone when you have something to say, but you might want people to email you things when they have things to say so that you have them in writing or so that you can refer back to them later or add them to your calendar.

You also have an adapted style of communication, this means how we communicate when we are upset or under pressure or during a conflict.

It is important to understand your natural approach/style and your adapted approach.

Then you can begin to understand the styles of others and how/when your styles work with others or not.

There is a lot to consider. And the most important question; is your communication style working for you?

Overall how do you know?

Well, to explore these questions; I invite you to attend a FREE Webinar entitled:

‘Mitigate Yourself! What to Do When the Risk is You’.

Margaret Meloni of Meloni Coaching Solutions will be hosting this live Webinar on 24 January 2012 from 12:00-13:00 PST.

Margaret delivers soft-skill, personal development products and coaching for Project Managers worldwide. Her coaching products help make successful Project Manager regardless of their industry. Learn more about her: margaretmeloni.com

Please Register, even if you cannot make it, you receive a free recording and can earn a Professional Development Unit (PDU).

In this Webinar you will learn:

• You have a natural and adapted style of communications (meaning; how you communicate normally and when you are upset or under pressure).
• Why it’s important to understand both.
• How you can begin to recognize and understand the styles of others and understand when your style works and when it does not.

Be there to learn more about your communication styles and how they affect your success in the workplace and the success of your team.

Register today as seating is limited and when you do register please be sure to tell Margaret I sent you by filling in the ‘Who Referred You’ information.

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Scope Management refers to all the processes which are followed to ensure that a project includes all the work required to complete it, while excluding all work which is not necessary to complete it. A Scope Management plan clearly defines who is responsible for managing the projects’ scope and how the scope will be controlled.

The project scope will act like the compass of the project that will give direction and will help the project manager to know where “true North” is.

The project scope will include the deliverables which needs to be described clearly so that everyone knows what needs to be produced.

Here are 5 recommended steps to scope your projects:

Step 1: Set the Direction
You set the direction for the project by having an agreed Project Vision, Objectives and Timeframes? Ensure that they are specified and that your customer and project team understand it and agree to it. Only by fixing the project direction can you truly fix the project scope.

Step 2: Scope Workshops
The best way to obtain buy-in to your project scope is to have a workshop with all of the relevant stakeholders to help you define the scope. What you want from them is an agreed set of major deliverables to be produced by the project. You also want to know “what’s out of scope”. Once you have the full list of deliverables, the stakeholders need to prioritize the list, so you know what has to be delivered first.

Step 3: Statement of Work
Now that you have an agreed list of deliverables, you need to define each deliverable in depth. Describe how each deliverable will look and feel, how it would operate and how it would be supported. Include assumptions and constraints. Your goal here is to make it so specific that your customer cannot state later in the project that “when they said this, they really meant that”.

Step 4: Assessing Feasibility
Now that you have a detailed list and description of every deliverable to be produced by your project, you need to determine if it’s feasible to achieve within the project time-frame? Work with your team to break down each deliverable into smaller components to have an indication of time and cost.

Step 5: Scope acceptance
Present the prioritized set of deliverables to your Project Sponsor as part of a document and ask them to approve your project scope. Ask them to agree to the priorities, the deliverable descriptions and the items out of scope. Obtain formal sign-off to put you in a position to be able to manage the project scope throughout.

In case more deliverables need to be added later on, you will follow a process of doing a Change Request against the agreed Scope whereby new deliverables can either be exchanged with other deliverables, or project time and cost need to be increased.  This will form part of Scope monitoring and the controlling function that you, as the project manager, need to perform.

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Most project managers know that communications is 90% of what they do every day. If you understand the importance of good communication practices, shouldn’t you incorporate it in your core skill set?

Here are five practical tips to help you enhance your communication skills and to implement consistently.  When possible, try to see the team members often for what I jokingly call “eyeball management”.

1. Reports: Generate project progress or status reports once a week to see if your project is on track. Then distribute those reports to your customer and management team. Explain any deviations from the plan and what you’re doing to correct them.
2. Team Meetings: Hold a weekly meeting with your project team, even if it’s only 30 minutes. Plan each meeting against an agenda and any key objectives in order to keep it focused.  Communicate the status of the project. Discuss with them the goals, deliverables and timeframes that need to be achieved. Obtain feedback about the progress made in the past week and agree on the planned activities for the next week or two. Obtain buy-in from each team member. It is important to align team members as this will help to keep them motivated, and committed to the project outcome.
3. Minutes: Always take minutes recording the decisions made and to keep track of actions due. Send the minutes to those people that will be affected by the decisions and actions and then store the minutes in your project folder. When projects involve external customers, minutes can/will be considered as a legal entity if a dispute may arise around certain decisions made.
4. Email: Use mail to make arrangements en only when something needs to be done or if it’s important.  Keep email to a minimum as too much mail makes communication less effective. Also try not to copy the whole team for every mail, but always think who is the message intended for and who else needs to know about it. As a project manager it’s usually a good arrangement to be copied in on team members emails to stay informed of what is going on.
5. Tools: Collaborate with your team online, using software tools that will allow you to have discussions, share files and send messages (instant messaging). It is also recommended to have a time capturing tool to track the time spent per team member as part of your cost management.

In general you want to be respectful of other people’s time. Agree the communications plan with the team and other stakeholders. Explain your expectations as a project manager so that the team members will understand why they need to attend the weekly meetings and why you want them to read the minutes, as they are used not only for communication, but also as a management tool.

By minimizing email, meetings and discussions and keeping them focused and short, you’re avoiding all of the usual “noise” that project teams usually generate. Find a weekly routine that works for your team and be consistent with your communication practices.

As an effective project manager, it is good to have an approach like: “always be communicating”.  This will greatly improve your chances of success.

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Source: The Project Manager, Author Louise Worsley

This article is about the important aspect of leadership and what type of leadership role the project manager should adopt.

In projects, the leadership role of the project manager must be focused on ‘action’ leadership while the sponsor must take the ‘visionary’ and political leadership positions for the project to have any chance of success.  This will be explained by looking at the Pentagon model of project leadership.

Pentagon model of project leadership

The pentagon model of project leadership suggests five distinct leadership roles.  These do not operate in isolation, but are necessary elements contributing to the leadership of change. Individuals may take on several of these leadership roles, or more than one person may contribute to one area. However, an absence or failure of leadership in any one of these key areas will put at risk the entire project or programme.

Ethics and the personal responsibilities of the project manager

The professional bodies in project management all have a code of ethics for project managers.  The PMI’s code of ethics is summed up as:

As practitioners of project management, we are committed to doing what is right and honorable. We set high standards for ourselves and we aspire to meet these standards in all aspects of our lives—at work, at home, and in service to our profession.

The Association for Project Management identify that project managers have personal responsibilities that go “beyond those immediately implied by their contract with employers or clients”.  This is expanded upon further and two statements are particularly relevant to this discussion.  The project manager should:

• act in the best interests of their employer and clients in all business and professional matters,  having regard to wider public interest concerns and those of any employer or colleague;
  

• declare and appropriately manage all matters which are, or could be construed as, a conflict of interests.

On complex projects, project managers are inevitably faced with conflicts of interest.  The most important personal attributes for successful project managers relate to having the integrity (and in some cases bravery) to expose these concerns, and the tenacity to engage as vigorously as required with all stakeholders to seek out the best possible solutions. Managing conflict, in the sense of identifying and finding negotiated solutions to often complex competing stakeholder agendas, is part of the day-job for project managers involved in politically sensitive projects.

Louise Worsley is Director of Projman cc and lectures on the UCT executive development programme.  You may contact her at: lworsley@projman.co.za

Please share your thoughts about Leadership and Project Managers in the comments section below.

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By Jeff Furman

How many times have you sat through a presentation, and thought:

• “He just lectured, and I don’t remember much of what he said” or
• “She raced through her slides without looking at the audience” or
• “He said he’d take questions during the Q&A at the end, he ran out of time, and never took our questions!” or
• “She had a live Twitter feed listing all kinds of comments, but she didn’t stop to take our comments, and we were right there in the room with her!”

All the above scenarios happen every day when Project Managers (and even some professional speakers) give presentations.  In each case, the presenter is working hard and trying to do their best to do what they set out to do.  But what they all have in common, is that the presenter didn’t succeed at making the presentation interactive.

That’s because they have succumbed to the #1 presenter’s pitfall –delivering “all lecture” (even though they may think that they’re not, because they’re employing other media like video or Twitter feeds).

There are many ways to make presentations interactive, from hands-on exercises… to high-tech games… to Second Life Simulations.

All these can be good, but they’re often NOT necessary, and in many cases can make the participants feel uncomfortable or pressured into “forced participation.”

What’s the answer to this common pitfall?

In my many years of training Presentation Skills classes, I have seen one simple technique always gets great results:

Coming up with good questions to ask your participants in the session, and then making good use of the Q&A.  

What Makes For A “Good” Question?

Any question is a good one if it helps the presenter get people thinking, and advances your theme, topic or agenda.

Here are 3 specific tips:

•  Your questions should be challenging enough to stimulate your participants, but NOT so challenging that no one can answer
• Should serve as a “bridge” or “connector” between the topic you just covered and the next one you’re about to cover
• Usually best to use what trainers call “open-ended” questions, as opposed to “closed-ended”, for example:

• “Who’s familiar with this kind of product?”     (One or two people might raise their hands, but everyone else will feel left out. It’s considered closed because it’s a “yes or no” question, which actually can shut down discussion)
• Open-ended example: “Has anyone used this product, or a similar product, and can you tell us what you liked about it, or how it helped you?” This is wide-open – everyone who answers will have a different story.  Plus, it’s inviting, and will make people eager to share their experience.

CONCLUSION

Coming up with a few good questions and building them into your presentation can make a world of difference.  You just have to want to hear from your participants, and be open to adjusting your presentation to their responses.

Also, for those who feel nervous about presenting (most people!) asking your participants questions can help make you more relaxed, because it helps you focus on them, not you!

About the Author: Jeff Furman, PMP Instructor, Presentation Skills Certification Trainer and author of

“The Project Management Answer Book” (Management Concepts, 2011), a contemporary PM book in Q&A format and compliant with PMBOK V4.

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By Guest Author: Jo Ann Sweeney

Are you frustrated you’re no longer getting the support from stakeholders that you need for your project to succeed? And you have difficulty in explaining your projects properly?

Perhaps you have hit resistance to the changes. Maybe you are working on a multi-site, multi-country or long-term project and, midway through, you’re struggling to keep key people interested and involved.

The fact is, keeping sponsors, senior executives and end users involved for the duration of our projects takes effort – experience also helps!

Over many years as a communications consultant working on complex and multi-site projects, no matter the size of your team or budget, I have learnt key lessons in winning stakeholder support.

Here are 5 essential practices for explaining projects:

1.      Simple and practical

When it comes to planning the communication aspects of any project, the simpler the plan, the more effective it is. It can be as simple as a bulleted list of things to do and key messages we wish to get across.

However, more useful is a communication framework that clarifies:

• The objectives for communications activities
• A prioritised list of key audiences
• Which communications channels to use
• A calendar of activities
• Monitoring mechanisms
• Who is responsible for delivery.

One of the biggest benefits of a simple structure is that we spend less time planning and have more time for managing each of the activities.

2.      Understand their perspectives

Project communication is about more than project updates. People want to be personally involved; they want content that relates to them and that they can relate to. This means tailoring content to their needs rather than presenting it from the project team’s perspective.

Here are some guidelines to tailor the content:

• Understand who they are –  the obvious plus what they think and feel
• Uncover what they are interested in – usually what their performance pay is based on
• Relate to their view of the world – are they thinkers, people-focused, or action-oriented
• Identify shadow issues – unacknowledged attitudes and behaviours that impact their support
• Balance their needs – sponsors, senior execs and end users have different needs.

3.      Clear aims

There are four over-arching reasons for telling people about your project:

• Knowledge – you want them to know more than they currently do
• Attitude – you want them to feel more positive than they do
• Support – you want them to say positive things about your project in public
• Involvement – you want them to get involved in some way.

These reasons form a spectrum with ‘knows nothing’ at one end and ‘fully involved’ at the other. If you want an individual or audience grouping to be fully involved then you will need to move them along the spectrum using communication activities that build on each other.

Using this spectrum we turn communications activities into a stepped process based on business objectives. It ensures activities are linked to business need and the project’s core aims.

4.      Flexible schedule of activities

When we use a flexible schedule to manage communication activities we are able to respond to unexpected issues and to changes we aren’t able to predict.

A schedule is just a framework to show clearly what is going to happen and when; it can be complex and difficult to update or flexible and easy to change.

Being flexible means we can change any of the components – deadlines, audiences, delivery channels, responsibilities, monitoring – as and when we want without causing extra work or problems in other work streams.

5.      Take audiences on a journey

Communicating projects is all about taking our audiences on a journey from where they are now to where we want them to be.

We plot where each of our audiences is now in terms of familiarity and favourability; and where we want them to be. Then we map a journey that will help them to get there.

By following these essentials on your projects, you will win stakeholder support that will help your project to succeed.

*********************************************

Jo Ann Sweeney is a communications consultant and mentor who helps project managers win the support of their sponsors, senior executives and end users.

She has launched the brand new Communicating Projects MasterClasses starting in September 2011 to help teams present their projects so audiences listen and understand. For full details, visit: http://www.sweeneycomms.com/communicating-projects

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The purpose of this post is to share with you a balanced approach to project planning. Recently I finished a big project in the Government sector which was awarded a gold rating for project excellence. It was successful above all expectations and I thought it worthwhile to share some valuable lessons learned around planning excellence and what has worked well to make the project so successful.

Above and beyond doing the standard project planning activities, there are three steps you can take towards planning excellence:

1. Continuous planning (always be planning)

After scope agreement and sign-off, the project schedule needs to be developed, or if it existed from a pre-sales phase, it needs to be refined.

What the team members need to know about the project plan, and more specifically about the project schedule, is: ‘what they are responsible for and by when’. In order to gain commitment, I normally expect the team lead to verify the activities, durations and dependencies and by doing this, to take ownership of the deliverables of the project.

Then as the project progresses, the project manager always needs to be looking one to two months ahead. Always be planning and continuously track against the plan or update where required based on Change Requests or risk mitigation activities.

2. Consistent communication practices (always be communicating)

Through experience I have found that weekly project meetings work best for any size project that is longer than 2 months in duration. The normal progress items need to be discussed, including:

• Progress made
• Actions outstanding
• What is due in the next week or two
• Risks, issues or dependencies
• Other matters relevant to the specific project

Regular team meetings, whether in person, or virtually, keep the project team informed and committed to the outcome of the project. It also enables the project manager to receive adequate feedback on a regular basis and to do proper progress reporting to stakeholders.

3. Team alignment is important (always build relationships)

Due to the fact that the project team was widely dispersed and from different companies (partners were sub-contracted in to assist with the work), a good on-boarding process is important. Every team member needs to be clear about the Goal and objectives of the project, as well as the expected outcome and business benefits. In addition to this they need to be clear on their roles and responsibilities, the project schedule and how every member fits into the team.

Team synergy, cooperation and trust is achieved through regular team builds at the project beginning, after major milestones and at closure with the key stakeholders (like the customer). A team working together as one team, no matter whether from different companies or in different locations, the project manager needs to maintain good relationships and manage the person and not only the task.

The gold nuggets to take away are:

• Continuous planning
• Consistent communication practices
• Team alignment
• Good relationships with all team members, because you manage the person, performing the task and not the task itself

For a balanced approach to project planning I recommend that you as the project manager should use your project management skills (technical skills), but at the same time be a leader who facilitates  team members to share your responsibility to ensure a successful project outcome (people skills).

On 9 August 2011, I will be a guest presenter on a Webinar from Roeder Consulting called:

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything”

Please click on the link to register for the free Webinar, and earn a PDU for attendance.

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