As many of you know, our CEO Curt Finch is the author of All Your Money Won’t Another Minute Buy: Valuing Time as a Business Resource. ÊWhat you may not know is that he’s picked up the pen again and is currently working on a second book on how to execute projects on time and on budget.
To that end, he’s looking for project management war stories – the good, the bad and the ugly – and wants to hear from you if you’ve got one. Please e-mail Curt with the following information:
- Number of employees at your company
- Number of employees who work on projects
- Company industry
We look forward to hearing from you!
- In Timesheet, how can I give my users special instructions for logging their time this period?
- In ProjectXecute, how do I give Project Managers access to an entire project plan?
Get the answers to these and other questions in the Journyx Tip Archive.
A recent PM World Today article begs the question, is project management a core skill and no longer a niche capability? The writer, Peter Taylor, had recently set up a poll in LinkedIn that asked this question, and 42% of respondents said that it is a core skill while 36% said that it is both a core skill and a niche capability. Only 19% believed that it is a niche capability alone.
What does this mean? Taylor writes,
Project management methodology is a ‘core skill’ that all managers need to be aware of but, the actual project management activity is still a ‘niche capability’ that requires additional training and experience in order to be successful. Managing a small, simple project is no big deal and most people can do it. Managing a large, complex project with substantial risk, diverse stakeholders, a geographically distributed team, multiple constraints and high stakes is best reserved for real experts. The successful business of the 21st century recognizes the value of ‘niche’ project managers working under a supportive executive that has a foundation of project ‘core skills’.
CIO published the findings of a Forrester Report in a new article, “The 10 Key Capabilities of Next-Generation Project Managers.” Forrester interviewed IT and project management professionals in order to learn what the future of project management will look like. Here are the top 10 capabilities they found:
1. Emotional Intelligence
2. Adaptive Communication
3. People Skills
4. Management Skills
5. Flexibility
6. Business Savvy
7. Analytical Skills
8. Customer Focus
9. Results-Orientation
10. Character
Another important finding is that project managers must be willing to embrace agile methods in the future in order to keep up with IT and software development trends. According to Forrester Analyst Mary Gerush,
In an Agile software delivery environment, the traditional command-and-control approach of project managers is counter-productive. [...] Instead of defining roles and making sure team members are following project management processes and procedures to a T, next generation project managers need to focus on improving collaboration and removing obstacles and distractions so that project team members can get their work done on time and on budget.
For more information on how to integrate agile and project management, check out the newest article by our CEO, Curt Finch, entitled “How to Create an Agile PMO.”
PM World Today has published a new article by Melvyn Lee about why critical thinking is a necessary skill for project management. He argues that critical thinking can weed out “enemies of project management” such as risk, complacency and an excessive reliance on prior assumptions and dependencies.
Lee also lists the benefits that critical thinking provides for PM:
- Integrating thought processes to develop integrated solutions
- Removing “taking things for granted” attitude and pervasive culture of complacency
- Modifying old patterns of thoughts
- Exposing Blind Spot
- Evaluating paths that are less traveled
- Away from the crowd instinct
You can download the PDF of this article to read more.
Paul Slater at Project Smart offers advice on how to deal with project risk in his article, “Project Risk: Is It All Bad?” He recommends that project managers ensure that the risk management strategy that is employed is appropriate and specific to the project at hand. No large RM programs applied to small projects, no applying the same risks to a number of projects in a program where they might not be applicable.
So, are all risks bad? Of course not. Make sure you are managing the risks that are appropriate to the project and make related programmes and projects aware of them and you are most of the way there. Opportunities can be anywhere within a project space, but just remember to think about them as you go through the risks; it starts to make that risk review meeting far more meaningful.
Are there any situations where project risk is not “bad”? Perhaps where it can even be positive?
Carl Pritchard at ProjectConnections wrote a new article, “Falling in Love with GREAT Communications,” that addresses our everyday methods of communication and offers suggestions on how to improve them. E-mail, voicemail, conference calls and face-to-face meetings all have certain types of protocol that we would all do well to remember. Here are some of Pritchard’s suggestions for each.
E-mail:
Be consistent about the use of the To:, CC:, and BCC: lines. To: people are those who have to take direct action related to the e-mail. CC: folks? They’re the ones who are being informed, but we want others to know who they are and that they have visibility on the information. Still, if you’re on the CC:, there’s no need to make a direct response. And BCC: folks should be those who have a need to be informed, but should not be included on the inevitable parade of responses that may follow.
Voicemail:
As the person leaving the message, keep it succinct. If you hit voicemail and don’t know what you’re going to say, hang up. Think it through. Come back. Then leave the message.
Conference calls:
If there are any handouts or materials that were sent out in advance, have them on a website as well, so that latecomers can pick them up
Face-to-face:
Schedule interactions. Give the person you just bumped into the opportunity to walk away. If they don’t have the time to spend with you, they won’t be focused on your message. Give them an “out” in case they aren’t ready for the face-to-face experience.
A Project Times article notes that “the difference between decent project management and excellent project management can be measured in delays, cost overruns, lost customers, employee misery, and business jeopardy.” The writer goes on to list 8 ’secrets’ that separate the excellent PMs from the decent, including:
- Always looking ahead and anticipating and preventing potential problems
- Ensuring that team members have complete and clear assignments regarding who needs to do what by when
- Knowing when to push, when to be patient, and when to intervene
- Shifting easily between the nitty-gritty details of execution and the high-level options and opportunities that impact project scope and quality
(You can read the entire list of secrets over at Project Times.)
Judging by this list, it seems that what makes a project manager truly excellent is years of experience that teach him/her how to read situations. They know what certain team members need from them, as well as what needs to be tracked and heeded in order to avoid major problems. They don’t waste time on the things that do not matter, but they do keep an eye on the things that do.
What would you consider a key trait for project managers?
The International Community for Project Managers is a repository of articles, links and other useful pieces of information for project managers. (In fact, our CEO is one of their contributing writers.) One of their recent articles, “Implications of Diversity on Project Management,” raises an issue that most of us might not always consider – the fact that diversity in project teams is not only beneficial and desirable, but is also something that must be accounted for and managed in order to maximize value. The writer says, “Of the many factors that are used in global management work, the most important – and most impulsive – are employees. While capital, land and technology can be planned and hazards predicted and managed, employees are most difficult to manage globally.” She goes on to suggest not only fostering team diversity, but also addressing it by encouraging team members to talk through their feelings about diversity and to communicate their way to a better understanding of each other.
How large a factor do you think one’s cultural and professional background plays in their interaction with other team members and with you, the project manager?
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