Defining Stakeholders and Their Influence

To grasp the significance of clear communication, it is essential first to understand what stakeholders are and how they impact a project. Stakeholders can be defined as individuals or groups who have an interest in the outcome of a project. This may include clients, team members, executives, suppliers, investors, and the community. Each stakeholder has interests, expectations, and potential influence over the project’s direction.

Recognising these diverse perspectives is vital. For instance, clients may focus on outcomes and budget adherence, while team members might be concerned with their roles. Executives often prioritise strategic alignment and return on investment. Understanding these varying interests allows project managers to tailor their communication strategies effectively.

Importance of Stakeholder Engagement

Stakeholder engagement is essential for project success. By fostering robust relationships, project managers can better understand the needs and expectations of key individuals, leading to informed decisions that align with broader objectives. Engaging stakeholders ensures their concerns are addressed proactively, preventing larger issues.

Clear communication plays a pivotal role in engagement. When kept informed, stakeholders feel involved and valued, fostering trust and encouraging collaboration. To keep stakeholders informed, leaders should establish regular communication channels through meetings, updates, or reports.

Utilising stakeholder mapping can provide insights into the dynamics of these relationships, allowing for tailored communication strategies. By identifying key stakeholders and their specific interests, project managers can prioritise outreach efforts, ensuring that critical voices are heard. Participation in an assertiveness skills course can equip professionals with the confidence to engage stakeholders and communicate project needs effectively.

Key Communication Strategies

Several communication strategies can be employed to enhance stakeholder management. One of the first steps is understanding each stakeholder group’s specific needs and preferences. This understanding helps in customising communication methods—whether through emails, presentations, or discussions—to improve engagement.

Active Listening

Active listening is an essential component of effective communication. It requires fully engaging with the speaker to understand their perspective. Project managers can adjust their strategies by genuinely considering stakeholder feedback and demonstrating that their opinions matter.

This practice builds rapport and strengthens relationships. When stakeholders feel heard, they are more likely to share their insights and collaborate on solutions. Effective leaders often summarise discussions to confirm understanding, further solidifying trust.

Transparency

Establishing a transparent communication framework is vital for stakeholder management. Clearly defined processes for sharing information, such as progress reports or updates, help ensure stakeholders are informed of critical developments. Transparency builds credibility and fosters a culture of openness.

Regular meetings can serve as checkpoints for discussing progress and addressing concerns. Keeping stakeholders informed about changes ensures they feel like they are part of the process, likely increasing their support for decisions made.

Adaptability in Communication

Flexibility in communication style is crucial. Different stakeholders may have varying preferences for how they receive information. Some might prefer detailed reports, while others might favour concise summaries. Being adaptable to these preferences can improve the effectiveness of communication efforts.

Visual aids can significantly enhance understanding, especially for complex information. Using charts or infographics can make it easier for stakeholders to grasp key points quickly. Adaptation ensures that messages are received as intended.

Overcoming Communication Barriers

Communication barriers can arise in various forms, from cultural differences to varying levels of understanding among stakeholders. Recognising and addressing these barriers is crucial for maintaining effective stakeholder management.

Cultural Sensitivity

Cultural differences can significantly impact communication styles. What may be considered direct in one culture might be perceived as rude in another. Understanding these nuances is essential when engaging with stakeholders from diverse backgrounds.

Project managers should educate themselves about the cultural contexts of their stakeholders. This awareness can lead to more effective interactions and help avoid misunderstandings. Approaching communication with respect and a genuine interest in diverse perspectives enhances rapport.

Avoiding Jargon

Jargon or technical language may not resonate with all stakeholders. Simplifying language and using clear terms can bridge gaps in understanding. It’s beneficial to consider your audience’s familiarity with industry-specific terminology. By avoiding overly technical language, project managers can ensure that all stakeholders comprehend the information presented.

Additionally, providing context when discussing complex concepts can help stakeholders understand the rationale behind decisions. This aids comprehension and encourages informed discussions about the project’s direction.

Fostering Open Communication

Fostering an environment that encourages open communication can mitigate misunderstandings. Creating spaces for feedback, whether through surveys or discussions, allows stakeholders to voice their thoughts and concerns. This proactive approach builds trust and facilitates continuous improvement in communication strategies.

Encouraging stakeholders to share their opinions without fear of judgement creates a culture of transparency. Facilitating discussions that invite different perspectives can lead to innovative solutions.

Continuous Improvement in Communication

Effective communication is not a static process; it requires ongoing evaluation and improvement. After significant meetings or milestones, soliciting feedback from stakeholders about the clarity and effectiveness of communication can provide valuable insights.

Learning from Feedback

Learning from feedback allows project managers to refine their communication strategies continually. By analysing what worked and what didn’t, they can adapt their approaches for future interactions. This iterative process fosters a culture of continuous improvement.

Documenting lessons learned can serve as a resource for future projects, guiding team members on best practices in stakeholder communication. This commitment to learning demonstrates a dedication to enhancing stakeholder relationships and project outcomes.

Training and Development

Investing in training focused on communication skills can further enhance stakeholder management. Workshops that emphasise active listening, conflict resolution, and negotiation can equip team members with the skills to engage effectively.

Encouraging team members to participate in professional development opportunities reinforces the importance of communication in stakeholder management. This investment contributes to individual growth and strengthens overall team capabilities.

Measuring Communication Effectiveness

Establishing metrics for measuring effectiveness is crucial to ensure that communication strategies achieve desired outcomes. This can involve evaluating the quality of stakeholder interactions and overall satisfaction with the communication process.

Setting Goals

Setting clear communication goals at the outset of a project can help guide efforts. These goals should align with the project’s objectives and stakeholder expectations. By tracking progress against these goals, project managers can identify areas where communication may need adjustment.

For instance, if a goal is to improve stakeholder response times to updates, analysing response trends can provide insights into whether the communication methods are effective or need adjustments.

Conducting Surveys

Surveys or feedback sessions with stakeholders can provide valuable feedback regarding communication effectiveness. This approach allows stakeholders to share their perspectives on what they appreciate and what might need improvement.

Incorporating this feedback into future communication efforts shows stakeholders that their input is valued and taken seriously, further strengthening relationships.

By embracing these practices and maintaining a commitment to clear communication, professionals can ensure that stakeholder management is effective and enhances collaboration and project success. Clear communication is the foundation for fostering strong relationships, addressing concerns, and achieving project objectives.

The post The Role of Clear Communication in Stakeholder Management appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

I told her that the normal approach project managers follow is to tailor communication to the needs of the stakeholders, explaining how for some of my stakeholders I’ll create a formal report while others just get a text message.

When I tell people this, I often get the same response. But that’s so much work!

Yes. Yes, it is.

Creating bespoke communications for individual stakeholders, based on how they want to communicate is a ton of extra work for you, the project manager.

And it’s not just communication. The whole pattern of doing the work seems to fall apart because of the diversity of preferences and styles between colleagues.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for diversity. Studies show that diverse teams make better decisions. There are many known benefits from creating diverse workplaces, not least improved financial results for your business. (Don’t believe me? Read Why Women Mean Business by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland, and you’ll soon see.)

But the more work preferences there are in the team, the more busy work a project manager has to do to ensure everyone’s needs are met.

Meeting the needs of cross-generational teams

Boomers. Gen X. Millennials. Gen Z. Xennials. I didn’t even know that generation existed until last week when someone told me on Twitter they were part of the Xennial generation – the group sandwiched between Gen X and Millennials!

No one seems to know how to work together anymore. Not in a way that feels effortless and easy. My life is one constant round of tailoring to help my team do their best work.

It shouldn’t be like that. We should be able to find ways to work together, across generational and departmental divisions. We’re all in it for the same reason, after all. To deliver whatever projects help get our organizations that next step forward. Everyone can buy into that, so we need tools to help support the way we all want to work.

Work has fundamentally changed

The challenge is that the work itself has fundamentally changed. Our digital revolution has pushed more and more work online, and our organization’s customers and clients are online too. Response times are shorter than ever. Delivery dates for projects are constantly brought forward to meet competitive pressure and consumer demand.

Honestly, working like this is fun. I love blending online and offline tools to work with colleagues to deliver our strategy. It’s fast-paced. It’s interesting. But my goodness, I don’t want to be on track for burnout in a few years. We’re crying out for systems that help us do projects in a faster, slicker, more collaborative way, and juggle all the BAU stuff too.

The switch to Work Operating Systems

One of the biggest challenges I have is that I run projects, but also have non-project work. All my project team colleagues have the same issue. They act as subject matter experts and team members for other projects. They also have day job responsibilities.

It’s tough to track your personal To Do list when you’ve got three different project managers and your boss asking you for status updates.

My notebook has a To Do list page for each category of work I do, and what tends to happen is whatever page I open it at in the morning is where I spend most of that day. It doesn’t help me prioritize my workload, interact with the people who are important today or stay on top of the important tasks that I really should be doing.

But there is another way. Work operating systems like monday.com work across generations, and across the BAU/project divide. Regardless of your approach to work, tools can close the generation gap because they bring people together. A work OS lets you work the way you want to and get to know the work preferences of your colleagues. Oversight into everyone’s work provides the immediate feedback some team mates will crave, and yet provides autonomy for the team to make their own decisions. The more different generations understand each other, the more we can break down preconceptions of what it means to be a boomer or a millennial.

They help manage workflows, keep your boss in the loop, and liberate teams from mundane tasks.

They work on mobile devices, and have a virtually non-existent learning curve that means even the most tech-phobic person in the team can use them.

Work operating systems plan, run, and track everyday work as well as the things we think of as projects. So they suit teams that have hybrid responsibilities. All your stuff is in one place.

Automate routine work

Built in workflows make it easy for task handoffs, and by standardizing the way work moves through the project team, we can create repeatable processes.

I love the idea of reliable repeatability because it means I don’t have to think about the next step: the process guides me through it, every time.

If the out-of-the-box workflows don’t do it for you, a good work operating system will let you create your own. The more you can automate, the more time you can spend on the tasks where you really add value, like the face-to-face interaction with key stakeholders or customers.

Built-in tailoring

Work operating systems are different from project management tools in that they do more than simply help you plan project tasks. This is great, because even as a project manager, I have stuff to do that isn’t on my project plan, like process reviews for the PMO, ad hoc reports for my manager, mentoring other project managers and then following up, even organizing the occasional team social event.

The flexibility of a work operating system means you can tailor how you use it to the work you do. It also means that any data in the system can become part of a report. Result! We all know how much project executives love to have tailored dashboards. The more you can make it easy for everyone to see their own metrics – the things that matter to them – the fewer ad hoc requests you’ll get for project reporting.

Transparency by default

The other thing I love about the idea of work operating systems is that the transparency is there. When your team use it for everything, there is nowhere to hide. When your colleague tells you they haven’t done a project task because BAU work took precedent, you can ask them to show you… and find out what they’ve really been working on! (Note: only do this if the trust levels in your team leave something to be desired, otherwise you’ll jeopardise the working relationship you have with your colleagues by coming across as an annoying micromanager – there are quite a few generations who won’t appreciate that.)

You can easily see the outcomes of the project team’s work – and so can everyone else (within their designated security permissions, of course). This approach takes away a lot of the nervousness I sometimes see in project teams, when they think they aren’t being give the whole picture. I’m a big fan of transparency, and in a work operating system, it’s all laid out for you. Whatever metrics you track can be played back, so you get a single version of the truth at all times.

It is possible to work smarter, provide tailored solutions to the people who want them and meet the needs of a diverse project team. You just need tools that support the complexities of the modern, virtual, cross-generational workplace. Try a work operating system and put your tools to work for you.

This is a guest post by Elizabeth Harrin from RebelsGuideToPM.com.

The post Why We Need Cross-Generational Tools appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

In one example, a major engineering company settled a claim from shareholders a couple of years back for an undisclosed sum (probably in the region of $100 million) because they failed to keep the market properly informed about issues occurring on a major transport project. The fact that in the 6 years since the issues surfaced the project has recovered and is now seen as a success, and the company has implemented rigorous reporting systems to avoid similar occurrences in the future did not help!

In a different case, a very senior director was found to be in breach of his duties by the Federal Court because he did not make appropriate enquiries when alerted to the possibility of illegal actions within his organisation. These two examples are far from unique – the people governing your organisation are coming under increasing pressure to know what is occurring and to take appropriate actions.

What this means for you!

What does this mean to the average person in a PMO or a project team?  Because projects and programs are becoming increasingly important in the development and growth of organisations, information on the performance of project and programs is becoming increasingly important in the governance of the organisation. Which means you are responsible in your part of the organisation for ensuring the information needed by the executives is accurate. Achieving this needs a team effort!

The overall process of ensuring the right information reaches the right levels of the origination involves creating the right systems and structures, CPOs, PMOs, etc. These systems operate best in a culture of openness and accountability.  The concept of ‘governmentality’ encompasses these aspects and requires leadership from the highest levels of the organisation. We can support this aspect but cannot do a lot to create the necessary culture[1].

Making your information ACCURATE

Where project professionals can have a major influence is in creating and disseminating the information used in the governance system. The key aspects are interlinked and interdependent, and are summed up in the acronym ACCURATE:

Available: the project information has to be accessible in various appropriate formats to all levels of management.

Complete: the ‘picture’ conveyed by the project information needs to provide a full picture of the current and forecast situation.

Concise: executives are busy people – excessive detail does not help! They need to understand the ‘bottom line’.

Understandable: project management is full of technical jargon, we may understand the difference between EAC and VAC the executives will not! Communicate in business language.

Relevant: just because it is important to the project team does not mean it is important to the overall organisation, communication information in a way that is relevant to the achievement of business objectives.

Auditable: if asked you need to be able to demonstrate the source of the information and the processing steps taken to consolidate and communicate the information.

Timely:  the ‘markets’ operate in a 24-hour news cycle – important information needs to be communicated immediately (you cannot wait for the monthly report).

Explainable: project professionals need to be available to explain the information and help executives understand the consequences (typically this is a key role of an effective PMO).

Just as witnesses in court promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, project professionals have an ethical responsibility to make sure the information that are communicating meets this standard and is also ACCURATE.

______________________

[1] For more on governance and governmentality see: http://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/WhitePapers/WP1096_Six_Functions_Governance.pdf

The post Not knowing is no longer an option appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

Office politics!

Working in IT Project Management, given the profession’s prominent role in the facilitation of business strategy and driving business change, you’d think we’d be above it! Project managers and leaders are among the most intelligent individuals you could hope to work with and yet many IT Projects are still scuppered by workplace politics.

In recent times I’ve seen something of a resurgence of this scourge of project success … so …

Here, I share my…

7 Silver Bullets to Stop Office Politics Killing Your IT Projects

1 – PMaaS Is THE Office Politics Silver Bullet

Projects hampered by workplace politics often benefit from sourcing some or all of their Project Management capability from the Project Management as a Service market.

Project Management as a Service (PMaaS) offers you a complete range of Project Management services, including full Programme Management Office (PMO) and not just assessments, governance and tools – also people to improve your delivery capability and performance.

AND The best thing … those people brought in via PMaaS have no company baggage with them. They just don’t care about office politics. They want to get in, get the job done and move on.

2 – Be The Change You Wish to See

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” I find inspiration in Mahatma Gandhi’s words when tackling office politics in IT Projects.

As a Project Leader, you have to lead by example and frankly if you’re the type of manager who likes a moan when a stakeholder throws a spanner in the works that will be the way your team will talk about you. If, however, you take the twists and turns of project management on the chin and face each challenge with a smile and a can-do attitude then you’ll find that’s just as infectious!

3 – Don’t Be Part of the Problem, Be Part of the Solution

I remember many, many years ago sitting down with a Project Manager who had a reputation for being a bit of a negative character. He was the guy who would flag up problems and explain why the great new idea that the board had come up with couldn’t be done. He was actually great at spotting potential pitfalls, almost had a sixth sense for it but never came up with workarounds or solutions.

He was frustrated by his lack of career advancement and when I pointed out that he was seen as a ‘mood Hoover’ he was mortified. He went to work on this aspect of his performance. He still tells the board that they’re barking up the wrong tree and is always the first to spot when a project is about to hit a snag but now he follows up such observations with a well thought through solution. He’s doing rather well for himself.

4 – “Don’t Show Favouritism to The Office Mirror”

In any office, there will be people who always agree with you. It could be because you’re always right but sometimes it’s because you could advance a particular individual’s career – beware the “career yes-man”. I call them the office mirror because whatever you say they parrot or blindly follow.

It’s important to have the presence of mind to know the difference. It can be hard. We all can be guilty of gravitating to people who share our outlook. In a Project environment, it can be tempting to favour individuals who offer least resistance but that team member who pipes up with a problem might be about to save your project from a potential disaster.

Encourage your team to constructively disagree and suggest alternative solutions and give equal prominence to those with doubts and those with unwavering faith.

5 – “Credit Where Credit’s Due”

I consulted on a toxic project once where it seemed a creative bunch of seasoned project professionals had run dry of ideas! They hadn’t but they had grown sick of not getting the credit they deserved for their input.

The Project Leader wasn’t claiming their ideas as her own but she also wasn’t making it clear that they weren’t and so got all the glory when an initiative paid off. Some Project Leaders are even worse and do pass off the ideas of their team as their own.

Either way, it’s counterproductive whereas flagging up team members for praise for good work encourages more good work and a more cooperative working environment.

6 – Clear Lines of Accountability

One of my Project Manager friends has a “buck stops with me” approach another allocates very clearly defined tasks and hands responsibility and accountability to individual team members with them. Both suffer ZERO problems with finger pointing and incorrect apportioning of blame when things don’t go to plan.

The blame game can be a major source of office discontent and wounds caused when someone is singled out can take a long time to heal. When everyone knows where the buck stops workplace politics have less space to grow.

7 – Unpack Conflicts

Disagreements happen.

Often the secret of staying clear of office politics is to ignore the “he said, she said” heat and drill down to the Project related issue that is at the heart of the conflict. When you depersonalise conflicts they tend to become more black and white and easy to resolve for the good of the project.

Conflicts fester, good leaders, spot them and sort them before they flare up.

If your IT Projects are falling foul of office politics I hope that these suggestions help. If you have any top tips or experience of eradicating workplace politics, I’d love to hear from you.

The post 7 Silver bullets to stop office politics killing your IT projects appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

“You’re so passionate about Project Management, you should write a blog about it,” one of my colleagues said a couple of years back.

That’s how it started.

I wrote one blog and then, having found it quite enjoyable, I wrote a second and then a third. I got some nice feedback, got shared, had a client mention that they’d read and enjoyed it and by this time I was hooked.

Now colleagues say that I am as passionate about my blogs as I am Project Management. In fact, that same colleague just joked that I should now write a blog … about writing a blog. And that’s how we come to be here!

Actually, the disciplines and skills used for Project Management are the same ones that I use when writing my blogs. Blogs which are published by the likes of CIO.com, shared and republished around the world and now turned into this amazing ebook. So really, when I research, plan and write a blog I’m really just exercising some of my Project Management muscles, at least that’s what I tell my colleagues.

IT Project Managers are were born to be natural bloggers!

Among those PM muscles, I’m working out when I write a blog are …

End User Focus – Who is it aimed at?

In IT Projects you focus on stakeholders and end users, what deliverables will be accessed, by who and how.

If I am writing a blog aimed at CIOs I try to imagine that I am writing directly to one of my CIO friends, sometimes going as far as having their LinkedIn profile open so that I can tab across to see their photo to and imagine what I think they’d make of the words I have written.

This knowledge of who you’re aiming your IT Project or blog at helps you stay true to your target audience.

What’s the point?

Central to any blog or any IT Project is “the point”. In the case of a blog, it’s the main message that I want the reader to take away, in an IT Project it’s the specific business outcomes. Scope is key for both, wandering off message in an IT Project can bust budgets and delay delivery, doing the same in a blog post might have your eyes wandering.

In the same way that I ensure that I have fully scoped a project before starting, I always have a blog skeleton in place before I get too deep into the creative writing part. Creating a completely detailed project scope or mapping out the beginning middle and end of a blog is a necessity not a luxury.

As well as typing the “one line point” at the top of the page, I hand write it onto a small Post-it note that I stick to the corner of my screen and in a notepad that I use for jotting down thoughts. This act of physically writing the message by hand commits it to my mind and leaves me in no doubt what I am writing about.

Attention grabbing

An IT Project has to catch the imagination of those you are pitching it to, similarly, I have been working lately on eye-catching headlines for blogs. Often summing up a bundle of thoughts into a short sentence takes longer than writing the blog itself – but it is rewarded with higher readership.

I have seen many perfectly rational and business case evidenced IT Projects fail to get a green light because of the way that they have been presented and proposed.

Writing a blog is more of a hobby but I treat each one with the approach I would an IT Project!

Reward

You keep team members motivated by rewarding them when milestones are reached, likewise, I make sure that I have treats to encourage me to write a blog. Obviously, blog writing isn’t my top priority but I do find it a very cathartic exercise, I get really nice feedback and of course, it is a great marketing vehicle.

I set milestones when writing blogs to make sure they stay on track, in much the same way that I would a project and I make sure that I celebrate, with a little glass of something, to keep me motivated.

Managing Time Well – Prioritise!

Over time the blogs started to get published in some exciting places and attract interest from industry publications. Many of these had deadlines and publishing agendas and when you throw “the regular workload” into the mix it quickly became clear that I would have to apply PM time management disciplines to blog writing.

Prioritising subjects around these deadlines has helped keep the whole process fun meanwhile prioritising with regards to topicality and lifespan of issues has hopefully given them a sense of the day and kept the blogs fresh.

Accept Praise and Receive Criticism Well

In the same way that the ability to accept praise and receive criticism and use it positively is important for project managers, I have found it useful to adopt this approach to writing the blogs. Sometimes a kernel of an idea for a post can be found in feedback from a CIO or Project Manager, in fact, a handful of blogs are thanks entirely to this type of communication.

I love receiving nice reviews for my blogs but the (very) occasional message disagreeing with the point I am making is a chance to see things from a different perspective – and take this back into my day to day work – making me better!

Delegate And Co-operate!

Before you read this, my fabulous colleagues Helen and Olivia will have gone through it with a fine toothcomb checking for any typos! It is they who will suggest the publication that best fits my narrative. I casually share thoughts, ideas and topics with fellow directors, clients and friends and listen to what they say.

Cohesive teams are vital to the success of IT Projects and although it’s my name above the door, I am grateful for the input of all of those who contribute to my blogs – even if they don’t know that’s what they are doing!

Finally, and by way of conclusion, it’s important to enjoy doing this. IT Projects aren’t always easy but it’s crucial that you still enjoy sorting out the problems and challenges with which you are faced otherwise what’s the point? It is exactly the same with a blog post.

I really enjoy writing about what I still consider to be the best job in the world.

I hope that you enjoy reading them – be sure to let me know!

P.s. Why not download a copy of my new eBook today – Straight Talk on Project Management

The post 7 Reasons why IT Project Managers were born to blog appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

“If you get the gig, where would you want to work after here?”

As a recruitment specialist, my ears pricked up.

I heard this conversation in a coffee bar this week. Actually, I was already pretty fascinated because the conversation was a job interview between a radio presenter and a radio station boss and it’s not every day that you get to eavesdrop upon such a chat.

The presenter was coy, saying the kind of things that she probably thought the boss wanted to hear about long term commitment but the boss pressed on and eventually she revealed a dream to work for Radio 1.

“Great,” said the boss, “if you come to work with us we’ll work every day honing your act so that you’re good enough to work for Radio 1.”

Coaching talent to be more able to get their next job … what an interesting approach to recruitment. As the manager gathered his coat afterwards I asked him about it.

“It gives me a sense that I’m hiring someone who is on their way up the career ladder,” he told me, adding, “and it gives us a working quality benchmark that is aspirational and not naggy. You get more out of your talent if they believe that you’re on their side beyond this job and not just coaching them to deliver what the station needs.”

It’s a thought, isn’t it? A talent partnership.

Could you start a recruitment interview in this way? Would it even work for IT Recruitment?

It reminded me of the book ‘The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age’ by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman in which he explores how the employer/employee relationship has changed. Managers can’t offer lifetime employment but still need to build something that will last. The challenge is doing that when you are actively encouraging talent to behave like free agents.

The solution that Hoffman and his co-authors Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh came up with was to embrace the reality. Stop trying to create a family atmosphere for employees where if your face fits you’re locked in forever but don’t think of them as free agents either. Start thinking of talent as allies on a ‘tour of duty’ with your mission.

It’s an alliance that is held together by mutual benefits. As an employer you invest in your talent with a monthly deposit in their bank account, you maybe give them future opportunities with your organisation (without a promise of a ‘job for life’) but more than that you mentor them (you make them ‘next job ready’) – you invest in their market value!

In return, they invest in your organisation’s success by providing their talent, creativity, energy and experience for the duration of the alliance. Then, at the end of the ‘tour of duty,’ you meet up to re-evaluate the relationship and agree upon what happens next.

The radio manager in the coffee shop seemed to feel liberated by embracing the reality that his talent will eventually leave. Indeed, in the book ‘The Alliance’ it is encouraged that you actually have conversations with your employees about what their dream job would be and then explore how to align day to day activities so that both you and they are sticking to a chosen path.

If you think about it from the talent’s point of view it makes sense.

A career is more than a job, especially these days where contracts can last just a day. They want success and the feeling that they are advancing on a daily basis and if you can’t give them a guarantee of long term work then you’ll have to come up with something else to keep them engaged and get a maximum return on your investment.

There is a tangible pressure on IT staff to be ready for their next job but the last thing that your IT Project portfolio needs is talent working for you but with half their attention diverted by this unknown future. A Gallup poll in the US found that 70% of workers were not engaged in their work, if this is true of IT teams it is perhaps not a surprise that so many projects struggle.

However, when you have the conversation when you agree to align their time with you with their career hopes and dreams you’ll find that they relax and engage. They seek out ways to gather career-advancing skills whilst on the job and that benefits them in the long term and you right now. It’s transformational – your talent grows their portfolio of skills and experience and your business is transformed by the accomplishment of specific missions.

In many ways, it’s like taking the agile project management methodology, where you adapt on a continual basis to achieve a specific well-defined goal, and applying it to IT recruitment. The important thing from your point of view as the hirer is how ready you are to adapt. You need to have a continuous rolling recruitment strategy or get a recruitment partner who will get to know your culture, missions and ambitions and keep a constant eye on the talent market so you’re ready should your best talent find something new.

Embracing the fact that talent moves on doesn’t make it happen any quicker, though.

Paradoxically, Reid Hoffman says on his website, “Acknowledging that your employees might leave, is how you build the relationship that convinces great people to stay.” The tour of duty approach or entering into a partnership with your talent builds trust incrementally as you commit to shorter steps which are based on deliverable, specific promises.

The radio station manager committed to making his presenter good enough for a major national station. In return, he gets a major national station mindset working on his brand. By helping your talent improve to the level of their greatest aspirations you’ll end up with world class talent working on yours.

SOURCE

The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age – Reid Hoffman 

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Imagine your server not arriving because there is a man standing on a gantry on the M1, shutting it for 28 hours. Imagine your kit arrives with American plugs. Imagine your lead architect getting stuck in Iceland because of a volcano erupting.

Sometimes I wonder how I still have any hair left!

All projects have an element of things that go wrong or are undetermined and occasionally you do get (what I call) ‘a cursed project’.

How you successfully deliver when all about you is collapsing like a house of cards is down to five key pillars.

1 – Your Reaction and Response to Whatever Calamity Has Presented Itself

2 – Your Processes

3 – Your Mastery of Project Management Basics

4 – Your Previous Experience and Qualifications

5 – Luck

The first four can be learned or gained over time – but what about luck?

A wise philosopher once said, “Good luck happens to people who work hard for it. Sometimes people just fall into the honey pot, but I’ve consistently strived to create whatever good fortune I can get in my life – and consistently strive just as hard not to screw it up once I have it!” OK, it was actually Patrick Duffy, Bobby Ewing in Dallas, who said this – but the point stands!

In IT Project management, you can work to create your own luck.

Here Are Three Ways IT Project Managers Can Make Their Own Luck.

Never Miss The ‘Obvious’, ‘Lucky’ Fix

When the kit turned up with the wrong plugs or when the lead that powers up your server for a large migration starting on a Friday night suddenly stops working – what do you do? If you relied on the process you would probably send it back and get another one – but the supplier is only available during office hours Monday to Friday.

Do you throw your hands up in the air and declare “job stopped” and go off and enjoy your weekend?

Or, do you figure that the cable is standard and probably stocked by the local RM component shop, make the call, get the lead and get back on track?

Of course, the second option is more likely to lead to project success – I have heard of kettles giving up their power cables to keep a project on track out of hours. The Project Team pulled an over-nighter with no coffee! Now that’s sacrifice – but you gotta do what you gotta do!

Develop A Helicopter View

Having a holistic view of your entire project is a key part of creating your own luck. Forewarned is forearmed!

My colleague David Cotgreave wrote about the value of the helicopter view to your IT Project, in his blog “How to stop your project going off-piste – lessons in project management from the ski slopes”. He writes, “I love the helicopter view. On IT Projects, I hover at my helicopter at ten thousand feet – from where I can survey the entire terrain. My project dashboard is like a radar and when a disturbance is detected or someone on the ground signals for help I can zoom into a thousand feet, assess the problem and give advice and direction or, if necessary, land and roll my sleeves up!”

I love David’s analogy and recommend his blog.

For me, the helicopter view does even more.

It gives me the gift of luck!

To borrow David’s skiing analogy, if I’m totally 100% focused on an issue on the slalom course then I may not know about the avalanche that’s been triggered half way up the hill. However, by having a helicopter view, by really knowing the terrain and conditions you have an early warning of challenges and arrive better prepared.

In an IT Project, with a greater knowledge of the terrain, your mind subconsciously solves problems that haven’t even occurred yet. By taking a regular walk around your IT estate, you develop a sixth sense for the ‘what if’.

Be A Creator Not a Victim Of Circumstances

You are not a victim.

The world is FULL of victims. You hear it all the time … someone blaming the events of their life, their parents who did not give them enough love, their school that did not have good enough teachers or their Uni that didn’t have good enough facilities. Every government is the victim of the last or the global economy, football managers blame the referee, tennis players complain about the surface … victims, victims, victims. Blah! Blah! Blah!

In the Project Management World have you ever been a victim?

A victim of stakeholder interference, an unrealistic deadline or budget or a victim of scope creep.

Great Project Managers are never victims they are creators. They create it all, the stakeholder relationships, they agree realistic deadlines and budgets. And because they create it all they have more control over it all!

So, this week … Reclaim Your Power!

When we do this, when we take control, when we stop passing responsibility for our IT Projects to others … good things happen. When you’re not putting all your energy into blaming someone else you spot the opportunities, sometimes they’re small – like the £5 kettle plug lead and sometimes they’re huge like a chance to be the hero that delivers significant strategic business value through IT.

Thing is, you and I are responsible. You chose to be an IT Project Manager. You chose where to be one! You chose your IT Project mission, you chose those magnificent, audacious goals that would make a business difference. So why then choose to be a victim, to abdicate responsibility to someone else? The more you choose to derogate yourself, the more you ignore your responsibility, the more you play the victim – the more you’ll be one. Conversely, the more you act like the creator of your circumstances – the more you’ll be one too. And everyone will notice.

Hey, none of this is rocket science but if you want that little bit of luck you can work to create it.

Good LUCK!

The post When IT Project Management processes alone won’t deliver, you need luck – three ways you can create your own luck! appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

If not more so.

Think about it yourself.

Your monthly salary is what you’ve earned in return for your services – that’s what’s owed to you! Nice to get a little bit more but you’re still just getting paid your dues! Your bonus only goes so far, a promotion looks good on your business card but actually just means more work and responsibility, HOWEVER…

When you sit before the board, upon successful delivery of an IT project and you bask in the glorious praise of the C-suite suits… feels good, doesn’t it? It inspires and lifts you onto the next project.

Similarly, when your team members win ‘Employee of the Month’ or get given a bottle of their favourite tipple the warm glow inspires them to try harder.

Personally, I think that it’s even more important to give praise in IT Project Management where failure statistics are routinely published and shared with little thought on their effect on morale. For the record, a Google search for “project management success” returns more than twice as many results as “project management failure” (37.5m vs 18.3m 24/07/16). The reason is simple…

YOU are doing an incredible job!

A bit of praise… hope you have the warm glow!

Like most warm glows though, it fades. Praise and recognition, therefore, have to be repeated leadership habits not just once in a while pleasantries.

The value gained from other motivational techniques fade too and this one of the reasons why praise is such a potent and useful tool to have in your leadership skillset – it’s repeatable.

A promotion is a great way to motivate but if you had to keep repeating that both you and your CIO would soon be out of a job! A bonus is nice to take home for Christmas but if you had to repeat that when it had been spent your firm would be bankrupt by the summer.

Praise and recognition are repeatable and cost nothing!

A word of warning here though.

I consulted once on an IT project that was floundering. The team had low morale and yet the Project Manager was enthusiastic and at first blush seemed generous with his praise. Upon further investigation, it turned the team members did not think their leader’s praise was genuine. “Gushy” and “full of it” were words used to describe him – “he praises everything!”

The praise had become so diluted that it was no longer cutting through and having the desired motivational effect.

Make the phrase “praise where praise is due” your mantra.

Indeed, when Gallup surveyed on the subject they concluded that ‘unearned praise can do more harm to an individual and a workgroup than none at all’.

What Should You Praise – and How?

There has been a lot of research on the subject. As a benchmark I’d say that to be effective praise should be;

i) Specific – make sure team members are clear what they’ve done well.

ii) Public – sharing praise among co-workers amplifies the effect on the individual but also raises the game of others who want a piece of the action!

iii) Timely – praise should be as close to execution as possible. The more immediate the better!

iv) Regular – (but not where it’s not due!)

For further reading, I would recommend “The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. It demonstrates how when managers effectively recognise the work of their employees, they have lower staff turnover rates than other managers and achieve better strategic results.

What is more, managers effective at giving this kind of feedback are perceived as being much stronger in areas such as goal-setting, communication, trust and accountability. So it’s win/win.

Praising and recognising the efforts of your team can reap highly positive gains in an IT Project management environment. It makes the recipient feel good in a world where much talked about and well published ‘failure’ rates can have a very negative effect on morale.

From an organisational point of view, praise can bolster a team member’s commitment to both the firm and you, their manager. However, it needs to be delivered effectively – so get good at it!

Get in the habit of praising genuine achievements in a timely, constructive and specific manner and you will reap the benefits!

The post A promotion is nice, a bonus is quickly squandered, in IT Project Management, it’s praise that pays appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

The defining role in Cole’s long career was playing ‘Arfur Daley’, the devious ‘spiv’ in the long running TV series Minder.  ‘Arfur’ always had a deal on offer that was too good to refuse – the deals were rarely outright crooked, but the buyer rarely ended up in front and ‘Arfur’ regularly needed the help of his ‘minder’ to get out of trouble. As with many good situation comedies, the ‘Arfur’ character was only a slight exaggeration of many of the ‘sharp operators’ living and working in and around the South and East of London in the 1960s and 70s.

The recent ‘real world’ conversation with the HR clerk, not to mention watching many of the TV shopping channels suggests the ‘Arfur Daley’ approach to creating a deal that is too good to refuse is still very much part of modern business.  The reason for this post is to help project team members tasked with purchasing goods for their project directly, or recommending the ‘preferred supplier’, to cut through the communication hype to see the real value in a proposition.  There really is no such thing as a ‘free’ set of steak knives!

The basic starting point for making the best buying decision is remembering there are only two elements that really matter, acquiring the goods or services you need and the price you pay.

To make the best ‘buying decision’ the first thing is to be really clear about what you need. Defining the appropriate quality and quantity for tangible goods is quite easy; it’s much more difficult to work out what represents a good training option or the best value consultancy service.

Then there’s the price!  What’s the best deal a $600 product with a special discount for you of 25% provided you order today, or its $500 competitor with a ‘trade discount’ of only 10%?

Then one of your colleagues suggests talking to a local business, their ‘rack price’ is $440, but they do not offer discounts – is this a better option??  What matters (assuming all of the other factors are equal) is the final price you will pay, not the discount; it’s fairly easy to work out once you learn to ignore the spin.

$600 less 25% = $450

$500 less 10% = $450

$440 less 00% = $440 talk to your local business.

Moving beyond price, the inducements on offer to make you buy from a particular business are many and varied; the challenge is applying discipline to your decision making process.  The problem with most of the ‘fantastic free offers’ and ‘no-cost extras’ is that they are only valuable if you actually need them and can make use them.

The thing to remember is all of the ‘free’ offers are priced into the cost of the goods or services you are buying. We run training courses and advertise every trainee receives a ‘free copy of the PMBOK® Guide’.  We know ‘free’ is a very powerful selling word and the trainees get their ‘free book’ – there’s no additional costs charged, but when we are working out the price of the course the $60 we pay to land a copy of the PMBOK in Australia is included, along with the ‘free coffee’ and all of the other expenses we have to cover before we can start making a profit. The course price includes all of our costs plus a profit margin – if it didn’t we would be bankrupt in a very short timeframe.

The challenge with the free extras and ‘other inclusions’ is deciding if they are of any value to you; you will be paying for them anyway. For example, you are comparing two PMP courses, one costs $2000 and offers PMP training, the other option costs $3000 but in addition to the PMP course includes 1 years free access to on-line training in Microsoft Excel, Powerpoint, Word and publisher (the ‘Office suite’).   Each course is ‘valued at $500’.  Superficially there is $2000 in free extras making the more expensive course seem better value.  But is it?? The questions you need to ask are:

1. Who can make use of the training – just the PMP candidate or anyone?
2. Do the people who can access the ‘free training’ modules actually need them? – If the training was really needed why have we not already organised it?
3. What is the real value of the extra ‘free courses’ offered? Assess this by looking at the market, you will typically find a set of trainings are offered at a significant discount to the cost of individual courses. If you can buy a full set of ‘Office training courses’ for $800 that’s the value, not the 4 x $500 = $2000 advertised by the seller.
4. What discount will the vendor offer if you opt out of the ‘free courses’ – this is usually much less than the nominal values.

The reason this type of ‘free offer’ is so common is partly the marginal costs of delivering another on-line module of training is very low (the costs are in course development not delivery), typically $10 to $20 per student.  Partly the fact that most people never make use of the ‘free offer’ anyway – their good intentions rarely translate into action. If 80% of the people who sign up for the more expensive offering never use the ‘free training’ the seller’s profits are magnified.

You also need to be aware of the ‘anchoring effect’ – if at the start of your investigation, you were told the typical cost of a PMP course was $4000 to $5000, this price ‘anchors’ your expectations and the $3000 price will seem like great value and the $2000 price ‘too cheap to be viable’. The ‘anchoring effect’ is an innate bias that changes our perceptions of value, and the ‘Arfurs’ of this world know how to use it to their advantage!

All of these sales tactics can be used legitimately.  From the seller’s perspective, the art of offering ‘free extras’ is to offer things that are of genuine value to the buyer but cost you very little to deliver. From the buyers perspective, learn to ignore the ‘headline price’ of the ‘free extras’ and consider what the final package is really worth to you – if you don’t need something, its real value to you is always $0.00!

The factors that make a real difference to most service deliveries are much harder to compare, you will generally pay more for a more experienced consultant or a ‘better quality’ trainer; buying this type of service on price alone is rarely the best approach – a basic rule of business is you tend to get what you pay for. This is not always true, other factors affect sellers pricing decisions, but it is a reasonable starting point. The challenge then is to set up a decision matrix that looks at the elements that really matter in your buying decisions and then make an informed decision. Some of the factors in the matrix may be measureable other such as ‘cultural fit’ (do we feel we can work with this person), are critically important, but entirely subjective. Different types of matrix deal with different decision making processes; see Ranking Requirements and Selecting Projects.

The message in this post is that before you can get to the serious decision making discussed in the last paragraph, you need to clear away the confusion of the ‘special offers’, ‘calls to action’, and ‘discounts’ discussed in the rest of the post.

The key steps in this process are:

1. Decide what you really need, quantity, quality and other features – write this down.
2. See what the ‘market’ has to offer that fulfils your requirements. Sort out the actual net price for the goods or services you have defined in point 1. Discount any special offers to their real value to you.
3. Use a selection matrix where necessary to compare the offers.
4. Negotiate the purchase.

Be disciplined and remember the ‘Arfurs’ of this world are always looking to make you an unbeatable offer you cannot refuse (but its only available today, AND if you order in the next hour we will include that set of ‘free steak knives’ you always wanted…)……

How do you approach your buying decisions??

The post There are no free steak knives appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

With studies showing how the visualization of information can counterbalance cognitive overload, more and more project managers are turning to the use of a 60 year old Japanese method called Kanban  to help bring clarity to today’s projects and help team members achieve their goals.

Thanks to the cloud and its ever-present mobile connectivity, Kanban has been updated and is making a digital comeback in digital form.

Visual cards

The Japanese term “Kanban” means visual card. A Kanban system includes a board which has been divided into several columns, one for each project workflow. The most basic boards have three columns – ‘To Do’, ‘In Progress’ and ‘Done’. Cards are placed under each category to represent project workflows, moving through the columns as tasks progress.

This provides immediate clarity regarding any project, no matter how complex, as it allows team members to easily absorb large amounts of information and visualise what everyone is working on. In other words, Kanban boards enable smooth team collaboration, boosting team productivity.

Simple yet efficient

Studies carried out in the fields of group psychology and behavioural science show the brain processes images far more easily than it does text. By visualising information, people can counterbalance cognitive overload, which occurs when they receive too much information or too many tasks simultaneously, not being able to process information properly.

Interestingly, while it is now that the Kanban approach is gaining popularity in businesses across the world, it was first developed by Toyota in post-war Japan, when the country sought to revive its industry by improving production levels. Following Toyota’s positive results, Kanban started being recognized as a tool for eliminating uncertainty and promoting sensible and appropriate follow-through actions.

21^st Century Kanban

As today’s workforce tends to be mobile and geographically dispersed, the traditional office Kanban board is no longer functional as a central hub. Instead, digital Kanban boards have the potential to be key project management tools.

Based on the cloud, the updated Kanban board can bring together team members located in different parts of the world, offering real time overviews of the projects they’re working on, which they can access from laptops, tablets or mobile phones.

Digital Kanban boards facilitate the transfer of knowledge, joint problem solving and coordinating individual commitments. When each team member enjoys such benefits a ripple effect takes place, ultimately improving individual performances and the management of projects by bringing clarity and simplicity to processes.

The best Kanban tools also enable transparency and communication among team members, reinforcing their good behaviour and sense of personal responsibility. Underpinned by social features such as conversation chains, feedback features and activity streams, social tools offer full insight into who is in possession of what information, who is doing what and when – even showing who has or hasn’t completed their tasks on time.

By quickly obtaining information and being able to make swift decisions, team members can then connect effectively with others within the organization who can contribute to their work. This facilitates an open work culture with full transparency, self-organization and engagement as the main ingredients, eliminating the need for managers to attend endless touch-base meetings.

Key to efficient project management

We live and work in an increasingly connected and complex environment. To operate more efficiently, project managers are adopting new ways of working. They are starting to use the latest cloud collaboration and project management platforms in order to build collaborative communities within their organisations and increase their efficiency and competitiveness.

Digital boards are therefore key to enabling flatter organisational structures where managers can prioritize tasks and where team members can become more involved in the decision-making process.

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