As the cost of living continues to bite, project managers are finding that their salaries aren’t going as far as they used to. A study by Rebel’s Guide to Project Management unveils how far your paycheck will go across the U.S., after cost of living adjustments.

The data reveals that where you live as a project manager can drastically impact your real earnings. In Hawaii, the high cost of living reduces the value of a typical PM salary by over $50,000, while in Oklahoma, lower expenses effectively boost take-home value by around $16,000. Across the U.S., the difference between the best- and worst-value states spans a staggering $66,000, proving that location isn’t just a lifestyle choice, it’s a financial one.

The top 5 states with the highest salaries once adjusted for cost of living are:

1. Oklahoma ($131,679)
2. Arkansas ($125,345)
3. Georgia ($124,861)
4. Kansas ($123,148)
5. Iowa ($121,960)

‌The 5 states with the biggest cost of living impact are:

1. Hawaii (-$50,605)
2. Massachusetts (-$34,659)
3. California (-$23,904)
4. New York (-$23,477)
5. New Jersey (-$23,412)

Rebel’s Guide to Project Management has created an interactive map showing the real value of a salary across the U.S.

Find the map here

“We all know that the cost of living affects salaries, but the difference it makes is significant,” says Elizabeth Harrin of Rebel’s Guide to Project Management. “The difference between the median salaries in top paying and least paying states is about $30k, but when you factor in the impact of cost of living, the result is double that.”

Harrin, who is the author of Managing Multiple Projects, offers the following tips on what job seekers can do to land the best salary:

1. Don’t just look at the number – Adjust for cost of living:

That $110k salary in California might sound tempting, but after rent, groceries, and taxes, you could end up with less take-home than someone earning $95k in Texas. Always adjust for local costs to understand your real earning power.

2. Target high-salary + low-cost states

States like Oklahoma, Kansas, and Indiana offer the best of both worlds: solid project manager salaries and a low cost of living. If you’re open to relocation or remote work, these are goldmines for better financial security.

3. Negotiate with relocation in mind

If you’re applying to a company in a high-COL state, use your knowledge to negotiate. Ask if they are open to discussing compensation that reflects the cost of living, or if they are prepared to offer other benefits or cover your relocation costs.

4. Use data to back up your ask

Citing reliable sources like the Bureau of Labor Statistics and industry reports in your salary negotiation shows you’ve done your homework, and that your expectations are grounded in market reality.

5. Don’t undervalue remote roles

Remote jobs allow you to earn big-city pay while living in a lower-cost state. If you’re based in Mississippi but working for a San Francisco company, you might pocket thousands more each year than your Bay Area colleagues.

The post New data reveals the best and worst US states for project managers appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

I mean, it says IT Project Manager on your business card, but … juggler would be more appropriate. Especially if you are managing multiple projects.

I’m not sure if this is reassuring or not, but a few years ago, American Project Manager friend Austin told me that it was “OK to suck (sic) at managing multiple projects cos humans are not designed to multitask”.

I, maybe like you, think I am brilliant at managing multiple projects (we’ll come on to this belief later).

There is, however, some scientific support for Austin’s remark.

According to Multicosts of Multitasking by Kevin P Madore and Anthony D Wagner: “We have a hard time multitasking because of the ways that our building blocks of attention and executive control inherently work. To this end, when we attempt to multitask, we are usually switching between one task and another. The human brain has evolved to single task.”

So, the object of this blog is to:
(a) if you’re managing more than one IT project, congratulate you for defying evolutionary odds
(b) if you’re struggling, share some ideas for how to excel at something you’re not designed to be able to do!

I remember hearing the late Clifford Nass, a psychology professor at Stanford University, talk with NPR about today’s incessant multitasking culture. He said there was evidence that multitasking not only kills concentration and creativity and that it actually wastes more time than it saves.
I was intrigued.
Ironically, I stopped what I was doing to listen.

KIDDING OURSELVES

If you’re thinking, like me, that you’re great at multitasking (93% think we’re better than average by the way), Nass had news for us, “The research is almost unanimous, which is very rare in social science, and it says that people who chronically multitask show an enormous range of deficits. They’re basically terrible at all sorts of cognitive tasks, including multitasking.”

Indeed, research elsewhere shows that multitasking impairs metacognition, our ability to monitor our own performance on a task!
So, not only are we humans not evolved to multitask … those of us who think we can multitask are kidding ourselves.

It gets worse, Nass and his team divided people into those who multitask all the time and people who rarely do, he said, “The differences are remarkable. People who multitask all the time can’t filter out irrelevancy. They’re chronically distracted.”

“Our brains have to be retrained to multitask … if we do it all the time … brains are remarkably plastic, remarkably adaptable. We train our brains to a new way of thinking. And then when we try to revert our brains back, our brains are plastic but they’re not elastic. They don’t just snap back into shape.”

NEEDS MUST

As IT Project Jugglers though, we have to multitask! How many of us have the luxury of managing a single project from green light to delivery into service and then sashay on to the next project?

No, realistically we’re managing more than one at a time – I did a quick straw poll of colleagues and contacts, the average is four! (Although one PM told me they had seventeen on the go – I’m feeling burned out just thinking about this!!!)

Do get in touch … How many projects are you managing? How many you do you think we can/should manage concurrently?

Personally, I don’t think there is a fixed number for how many projects we can manage at once, it depends on many things, but probably two main factors: the complexity of the projects (and that includes stakeholders’ expectations); and the capacity of the Project Manager/Team (and this includes our expectations that we put upon ourselves)

HOW TO BE A MULTI-PROJECT-MANAGEMENT MASTER

(aka how to excel at something we “suck at” evolutionary)

I checked in with three senior execs and asked for the secrets to their success. Here’s what they said:

1 – MORE MEANINGFUL MEETINGS

The co-founder of a Buckinghamshire based TCG Events company said, “Question the reason for every meeting”.

“Back in the day, a meeting took some organising! You had to book the room in advance, arrange a time when everyone could attend, even arrange refreshments. Now an invitation via Zoom or Teams can ping and within minutes you can find yourself in a meeting!”

“Meetings can, of course, be productive but can also be disruptive. At a thought level, I consider calling meetings like I’d consider setting off the fire alarm. Both take us away from our work. So, only when absolutely necessary.”

Just because it’s easier to meet up doesn’t mean that you should. How many meetings have you attended that could have been a quick call between two attendees or simply an email?

You’re not alone. A study of 100,000 Microsoft employees exposed the level of multitasking during remote meetings, by analysing employee diaries, email and cloud file activity logs. Researchers discovered that many employees engaged in work-related tasks during meetings, ironically, because the abundance of meetings left them with insufficient time to complete their actual work! That doesn’t make sense if we are striving for more productive teams.

2 – SHARPEN YOUR PMO

The PMO lead at a major Edinburgh-based professional services organisation thinks of the “PMO as a strategic partner of the multitasking project team, which should be regularly assessed to check for any weak links in how the PMO is working”.

“The PMO can help prioritise projects based on strategic objectives, ensuring that time, budget, and human resources are distributed effectively to improve communication across teams> Our PMO creates a collaborative work environment and minimises conflicts between overlapping projects. If any aspects of this are under-delivering, we can quickly be in trouble.”

Your Project Management Office (PMO) plays a vital role in managing multiple projects by establishing standardised processes, tools, and best practices that enhance efficiency and coordination. By providing a central framework for project governance, the PMO ensures consistency in project execution, reducing risks and improving resource allocation.

This structured approach and commitment to constant evaluation enables Chris to maintain control over multiple projects, ensuring they deliver business goals. The PMO provides valuable oversight by monitoring project performance through key performance indicators (KPIs) and regular reporting, offers support in risk management, ensuring potential issues are identified and addressed early – it’s wise to keep this machine well-oiled and serviced.

Also, by facilitating knowledge sharing and continuous improvement, the PMO enhances decision-making and helps teams avoid repeating past mistakes and your PMO can drive training and mentorship to project managers, strengthening their ability to handle complex projects (improving their multi-project delivery skills).

3 – ATTEND TO YOUR TEAMS, TOOLS AND TIME

If we’re kidding ourselves that we can multitask in the first place – we are utterly deluded to imagine we can do it with depleted teams.

“Know your competency gaps and fill them!” advises a Project Manager from an Environmental Consulting company in Birmingham.
“Think of your favourite sports team – the more competitions they aim to win, the greater the depth of squad they need. I’m a Villa fan, we just brought in Marcus Rashford on loan to bolster the team, projects should do this!”

“We are competing in the Champions League, the Premier League, and the FA Cup, I think we made four changes for the FA cup match at Cardiff, IT Project teams should also select their teams like this to spread responsibility across the portfolio.”

An under-resourced IT project, where the project lacks the necessary resources to succeed (especially people but budget and tools etc. too), is prone to potential delays, scope creep, and project failure. Happens a lot, right? Now, multiply this by four (or even seventeen) and you can almost hear the creaking of under pressure IT Project portfolios! Common causes include:

• Poor planning: Failure to accurately estimate resource needs at the project planning phase.
• Unrealistic timelines: Setting overly ambitious deadlines without considering resource availability.
• Scope creep: Adding new deliverables or requirements to the project without allocating additional resources.
• Unrealistic expectations: Not properly communicating project’s limitations to stakeholders.

In my experience, way too many IT Project teams are managing multiple projects without the necessary people or skills for multiple successful outcomes.

We owe it to our physical and mental health (and the health of our project portfolio) to ensure we have the squad depth to deliver across our commitments. This is not a once-and-done thing though, commit to continuous progress reviews (monitor project progress regularly and identify any resource issues early on) and be prepared to adjust as needed (reallocate resources, alter timelines) based on project progress and emerging issues.

GET IN TOUCH

Share your tips for managing multiple projects in the comments.

Who knows, maybe we’re not designed to multitask, or perhaps those of us managing multiple projects are the evolutionary exceptions that prove the rule!

Sources:

Large Scale Analysis of Multitasking Behavior During Remote Meetings
The Illusion of Multitasking and Its Positive Effect on Performance
Multitasking costs on metacognition in a triple-task paradigm
Multicosts of Multitasking

The post The IT project jugglers guide to achieving the evolutionarily impossible appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

STOCK TAKE
A couple of years ago, in January, there was a story about London Zoo carrying out a stock take of all its animals.
Turned out, it’s an annual thing, I feel sorry for the bloke who has to count the stick insects and beetles – give me something big and slow to count – elephants would do nicely! Most firms do stock-takes of physical stock, few have the added challenge of their stock not staying still long enough to be counted!

Hearing this story, Senior Project Manager Amanda made an “off the cuff” remark that changed how her project resourcing works:
“Why don’t we do an annual skills stock-take?”

It was the first week back in January 2024, a traditionally quiet time, so that’s exactly what Amanda and her team did. they carried out and documented an audit of the skills each team member possessed, identified any skills gaps that they currently had, and tried to predict what skills would be needed across the rest of the year.

Of course, this isn’t a new idea, some project teams do carry out skills audits and all Stoneseed Project Management as a Service (PMaaS) engagements begin by working with our client to measure the resources and skills they have against what they want to achieve.
The results for Amanda and her team were worth the effort, and they carried out their skills audit once more in January 2025 – “making it annual” – she says.

“Resourcing projects without regularly checking what strengths and skills you have, or will need, can be like doing a Supermarket shop without first looking in the fridge,” she told me.

EVOLVING SKILLS
It turns out that project skills are like rabbits in a zoo stock-take, they multiply many times across the year!

Amanda told me, “The most interesting thing is that colleagues now have more skills than they did 12 months ago, we always knew this, they pick things up organically when tackling new challenges and, when we have outside talent in, they are encouraged to soak up as much knowledge as they can. The skills audit means we can quantify it and factor it into future resource allocation.”

Conducting a skills-audit benefits both you and your employees. It helps you identify skill gaps, enabling you to make informed decisions about developing talent internally or hiring externally … and … employees gain opportunities to enhance their skills, grow professionally, and advance in their careers.

Amanda also lists better employee retention, increased engagement, and boosted productivity and motivation as side benefits within her workforce.

“There’s also real value in forecasting what skills we may occasionally need over the coming months, but not frequently enough to hire someone especially. Having a plan in place earlier allows us to upskill the team or book in PMaaS resources in good time!”

LEANER AND FASTER
Your projects demand a variety of skill sets!
As your project portfolio evolves and expands, so does the expertise that you need. To add more complexity, the necessary skills can vary from one project to the next so the sooner you identify what skills you need, and when, the better you’ll be placed to do something about it!

Amanda initiating a skills stock-take has made her team more agile and efficient and, because she has an up-to-date catalogue of what her colleagues have in their locker, more cost-effective too – “why hire in a contractor to do “X” if Jim on team has become an “X” master in the last year?!”

Amanda also discovered that expenditure decisions are made more quickly, “If I ask the CFO for budget for training, or to bring in an outside resource, he knows that I need it, I mean I can literally pull out a skills matrix and point to the gap!”

The question then arises: should you bring in external specialists to bridge any knowledge and skills gaps, or expand or upskill your in-house team?
Amanda’s three preferred options are:
i) Recruit a new project manager, etc.
ii) Upskill someone from elsewhere in the business (everyone wants to be a PM, we make it look so glamourous, right?)
iii) Hire in a PMaaS resource.

OUTSIDE IN?
Retaining in-house expertise for skills that are needed less frequently can result in under utilised talent and unnecessary hires. If a skill is not required regularly, it may be difficult to justify a full-time role. In such instances, engaging an external expert is often the most practical solution, allowing you to access their services as needed without incurring ongoing costs when they are not in use.

Additionally, if the skill is unlikely to be needed frequently in the future, it may not be worth investing time and resources in upskilling existing staff.

Stoneseed’s Project Management as a Service talent (and many contractors, to be fair) keep up with the latest trends and best practices, allowing them to offer a well-developed set of skills “off-the-peg”, and their experience across diverse client organisations exposes them to a range of different experiences giving them valuable insights that you can benefit from.

Naturally, I am biased, but here are:
5 REASONS TO FILL SKILLS GAPS WITH PMaaS TALENT

1 – Cost-Effective & Flexible
Hiring full-time staff comes with long-term costs such as salaries, benefits, training, and potential redundancy costs if their skills become obsolete. You’ve also got to super-focus your recruitment drive on someone who has the actual skills your team is lacking.
PMaaS provides a cost-efficient alternative by offering access to highly skilled professionals on an as-needed basis. This means you can scale your project management resources up or down depending on demand, avoiding unnecessary overhead costs.
PMaaS eliminates the financial and administrative burden of permanent contracts, making it a more agile solution. You only pay for the expertise you need, when you need it, allowing a higher return on investment and ensuring better resource allocation.

2 – Access Expertise Immediately
Recruiting and training a new employee can be time-consuming, often taking months before they are fully integrated and productive.
PMaaS allows organisations to bypass this learning curve by bringing in professionals who are already well-versed in project management methodologies, industry best practices, and the latest tools and technologies.
With PMaaS, you gain immediate access to seasoned experts who integrate into your team, minimising delays and keeping projects on schedule. Their ability to hit the ground running ensures that your organisation maintains momentum without sacrificing quality or efficiency.

3 – Broader Experience And Fresh Perspectives
Unlike in-house staff, whose experience is often limited to a single organisation, Stoneseed’s PMaaS professionals have worked with multiple clients across different industries. This exposure allows them to bring innovative approaches, best practices, and solutions that have been tested in various environments, helping your organisation stay competitive and adaptable.
Their external perspective also means they can identify inefficiencies and offer improvements that internal teams, who may be accustomed to existing processes, might overlook. This can mean better project outcomes, more streamlined workflows, and improved strategic decision-making.

4 – Faster Implementation And Reduced Risk
Project management mistakes, like scope creep, budget overruns, missed deadlines, etc, can be costly. In-house staff with limited experience of a project type or complexity, or newly upskilled employees, can expose your project to a greater risk of errors, potentially impacting your project success.
PMaaS professionals bring a wealth of experience in managing complex projects and mitigating risks before they escalate. Organisations can improve project governance, adhere to best practices, and ensure compliance, resulting in faster project execution, greater predictability, and a higher likelihood of delivering successful outcomes.

5 – Less Disruption to Core Operations
Upskilling internal employees for project management roles requires time and resources that could be better spent on their (and your) primary responsibilities. Training can also be disruptive, pulling project management colleagues away from their daily tasks and potentially affecting productivity across the project organisation.
PMaaS allows your in-house team to remain focused on their core competencies while experienced project managers handle the complexities of project execution. This division of labour ensures that business operations continue smoothly while projects progress efficiently, reducing strain on internal resources and enhancing overall performance.

LET’S TAKE STOCK
Most businesses ready their clipboards and calculators to carry out stock-takes on their physical stock, but few take time to regularly assess and document the skills that their talent has – and measure it against current and future needs – but it is really worthwhile!
There are plenty of skills matrix templates online, or Stoneseed can do this with you, as part of the PMaaS engagement process.
Once you have collected your skills data, resourcing projects becomes a much more informed endeavour!

More about Project Management as a Service from Stoneseed

The post Taking stock! How to identify and fill IT project talent skills gaps appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

Head to the nearest bar?
Do nothing and hope for the best?

Or … implement a cunning plan that saves the day (Editor’s Note: Then head to the nearest bar, right?)

This blog is about what to do if you choose the cunning plan route, inspired by real life response to those inevitable banana skins. It’s far from an exhaustive list and I would love to hear your “Plan Bs”.

1 – HAVE A FAILURE SOLID RECOVERY PLAN

Remember the movie Finding Nemo? You’ll recall the Tank Gang’s escape from the dental surgery fish tank back to the ocean, and having reached the sea, all in plastic bags, Bloat the pufferfish says, “Now what?”

Be sure to follow for more highbrow cultural references, by the way!

Simple truth: Most IT project fails that don’t recover also do not have a “Now What” strategy, and most that do have a well thought out contingency plan tend to reset and deliver successfully.

IT Project leader Andy from London has a plan. He calls it his HOW> WHY> WHAT> WHO> WHERE plan. These are the questions he asks when enacting his reboot plan:

HOW?
How did we get here? This is not a witch hunt, focus on aims not blames – as Andy says).
How can we quickly reset? Sometimes identifying what went wrong presents you with how to put things right, like missing the motorway slip road – you can take the next and replot your course.

WHY?
Why did we start the project in the first place? Checking in with the clear purpose you set out with can quickly put you back on course. It also ensures that everyone is on the same page at a critical time for your project! In fact, it’s a good idea to reaffirm your project’s “why” even when it isn’t failing (Andy says it’s like reminding yourself “why” you’re doing dry January when you’re not in the drinks aisle – you’re less likely to pick up a Sauvignon Blanc after a hard day!)

WHAT?
What’s the chances of success? Occasionally, the smartest choice is to kill a failing project. Few things hinder organisational success more than wasting time, money and human resources on efforts that no longer align with strategic goals, so, if the return on investment isn’t justified, it’s a key leadership duty to cut your losses and reallocate resources to more impactful initiatives.
If you do proceed …
What are you going to consciously do differently? It’s so easy to slip back into the habits that caused the problem in the first place.

WHO?
1 – Seek input from everyone involved in the project, not just the main stakeholders. Valuable insights can often come from those who offer a broader view or a fresh perspective.

2 – Involve all stakeholders responsible for the work when redefining timelines, scope, cost, etc. Many projects rail because they began with unrealistic expectations, often because key contributors were left out at the planning stage. Avoid repeating that mistake by ensuring inclusive and thorough collaboration from the beginning of the reboot.

3 – Create a framework for accountability where everyone actively recommits to their responsibilities, Malc says it’s like refreshing wedding vows. His team affirm their responsibilities verbally and handwrite them in a spiral notebook. Why pen them over typing? Andy says, “Handwriting them is a trick picked up from Sterling Mire’s book, The AOM System, when we handwrite things like goals or commitments, we digest them into our subconscious way better than if we type them.”

Accountability that is transparent and accessible to the whole enterprise leaves nowhere to hide.

WHERE?
Where do we go from here? Before you take one step forward you need to have this nailed. If the project team overlooked critical steps, now is the time to ensure they don’t do that again, or maybe you need to redefine and strengthen the project’s business case, refine requirements, or establish a more realistic timeline – having failed once, the blueprint for the next phase must be 100% perfect, your foundations solid before proceeding.

Where else could our findings be impactful? Beyond just this project, take this opportunity for introspection to evaluate other ongoing projects across the portfolio – could you copy/paste discoveries here to improve project elsewhere in your estate?

Proactively set all current and future projects up for success by internalising your learning and findings from this project to prevent the need for future rescue efforts!

2 – BE OPEN TO NEW WAYS TO DO THINGS

Often it can be a calamity that opens your eyes to new ways of managing and delivering your projects. For an industry that excels at change management, we do like our “that’s how we do things” mindset!

Recently, a new client discovered PMaaS (Project Management as a Service) when they were forced out of, what they referred to as their “contractor comfort zone”. Projects were backing up, putting pressure on their inhouse and outsourced talent pools but delaying the latest project was not an option. They Googled “talent for IT projects” and minutes later they were calling 01623 723910 with questions like “Can PMaaS supply a single Project Manager for a few days?”; “Can PMaaS provide a large team of project professionals?”; “Can Stoneseed flex to meet our demand schedules?” (Yes, yes and yes, by the way).

This route is more common than you’d think, when project leaders are forced into new ways of talent resourcing, like PMaaS, they often enjoy its flexibility and control so much that it becomes their go to resourcing model. They realise quite quickly that the model that helped them out of the mess can also be used to prevent them getting into similar messes in the future.

An urgent PMaaS engagement can inspire a client to calmly reassess their PMO (Project management Office) arrangements with us when things quieten down.

A project that begins to fail due to misaligned business case can lead to greater care when producing business cases in the future. Stoneseed’s BAaaS will provide Business Analysts for production of a business case for an IT Project, but also requirements gathering or data analysis to help with project implementation, BAaaS can be tailored to your specific requirement!

Check out Stoneseed’s range of “as a Service” opportunities here.

3 – BE AWAKE TO OPPORTUNISTIC DELIVERABLES

The Post-It note, the tea bag, ice cream cones, the microwave oven, saccharin, x-rays, penicillin, Play-Doh, Teflon, the pacemaker, corn flakes, super glue, dynamite, Viagra, anaesthesia, matches, Velcro, chocolate chip cookies, potato crisps … what do all these have in common?

No, they’re not things you’ll find in the middle aisle of Lidl this week!!

They were all invented or discovered by accident! All examples of when “Plan A” goes wrong – the resultant “Plan B” can be even better – BUT YOU HAVE TO BE AWAKE TO SPOT THE POTENTIAL DELIVERABLES.

Twitter, X now, started as a podcasting idea and look at it now! (Actually, best to look at it a few years ago, but you take my point!!)

There are lots of new opportunities that arise when projects go AWOL, take care not to be so focussed on the salvage mission that you miss out on the potential wider wins.

It’s more than just spotting side-hustle opportunities though, Toria is a Project Leader who swears by this approach and says that it helps “repair the damaged project” too. She told me, “Mindset is key when a project starts to disappear into an abyss. It’s too easy to concentrate on the negatives but that can send you into a downward spiral. Our team is used to looking for the potential positives that could come out it. This trains your brain to stay positive, always, and attract into your mind just happy conclusions.”
Lastly – and this may be my favourite…

4 – REVERSAL OF STRESSED

A client, that I visited recently, has a white wicker basket of chocolate bars and biscuits in the kitchen that are there specifically for when things go wrong.
I love the words that are written on the Post-It note (appropriately) that is sticky taped to the basket: “DESSERTS IS STRESSED REVERSED”.

The thinking is that, rather than leaping to instinctive crisis resolution, you make yourself a brew, p-p-p-pick up a Penguin (to dunk, right?!), and sit and have a proper think about your options.

Makes sense … cup of tea … a chocolate hit … call to Stoneseed. Makes everything better!
I’d love to hear the steps you take when things go wrong with IT Projects – do get in touch!

And if you need help with a wayward project, I’d especially love to take your call on 01623 723910 but remember, PMaaS isn’t just an emergency service or first responder. Stoneseed’s “as a Service” facilities can help you better plan and more efficiently deliver your projects too.

More about Project Management as a Service from Stoneseed

Source:
www.goethe.de/prj/mis/en/mit/tte.html
science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/inventions/15-of-the-coolest-accidental-inventions.htm

The post An IT project leader’s guide to rebooting a failing IT project: post-its, PMaaS, possibilities and p-p-p-enguins! appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

What is the gig economy?

Typically, the gig economy replaces the conventional 9 to 5 employment model, giving way to freelance work, independent contractors and short term contracts. Many believe it is fuelled from a combination of technological advancements and the desire for a better work life balance.

While this is achievable, it takes time and effort to ensure you can cope with the challenges within the gig economy.

Challenges for project managers in the gig economy

There are a variety of unique challenges to this type of work model, which include:

Communication challenges – Often, project managers working within the gig economy must handle teams that are based in different time zones. Knowing how to handle this properly will help avoid misunderstandings, miscommunications and delays.

Coordinating challenges – Being able to manage a team with diverse skills and array of different working times can be a logistical nightmare if not handled properly.

Team cohesion challenges- Fostering a culture of collaboration and teamwork can be difficult when freelancers have not met, and are not tied into a long-term commitment.

Quality and consistency challenges – if deliverables are not clearly defined, and freelancers are not effectively on-boarded, the output may not be up to standard.

Legal challenges – Working with freelancers across borders may come with legal and financial challenges, and understanding regulations in a variety of different countries can be tricky.

Skills to work on for project managers working in the gig economy

As well as completing PM courses, which will give you the foundation for success as a project manager, there are also some soft skills that you must draw upon to ensure that you are able to operate in this dynamic environment.

1. Flexibility- In an environment that is ever changing, project managers must be adaptable to cope with new technology, a diverse set of team members, and new situations.
2. Technological know-how- By mastering a variety of different types of project management software, as well as communication platforms you will be able to easily allocate tasks progress and streamline communication.
3. Communication skills – It is more vital than ever that you are able to communicate with a variety of people from all walks of life and across borders. it will be necessary for you to articulate expectations clearly and provide regular feedback to team members. Listening is also a big part of communication, and it is vital that you understand your team members and their unique skills and situations to enable you to work better with them.
4. Cultural intelligence- Some knowledge and understanding of different cultures will really help you to work better with team members from a variety of different countries. Respecting cultural differences even if you do not understand them is vital in building a cohesive team.
5. Conflict resolution – Not every project will run smoothly and you will need to be able to manage conflicts that you may not come across by working with teams in person.
6. Negotiation – With stakeholders and team members based elsewhere, face-to-face meetings may not always be possible, and you will need to use your negotiation skills in all correspondence as well as in virtual meetings.

Tips to help you succeed

There are various strategies and tools that you can draw upon to be a successful project manager in the gig economy. Some of these include:

Technology

Project management technology allows you to centralise your communication with team members and stakeholders alike. Choosing the right platform can mean the difference between well organised successful projects and a scattered project that is hard to keep track of. Trello, Monday and Asana are great choices, but there are also new disruptors such as Motion, Hive and Teamwork that gig economy project managers could explore.

Networking

Building a network with others in the gig economy such as freelancers, other project managers and creatives can give you a network to draw upon if you run into problems. Social media can be useful for this but there are also specific platforms through which you can find people working in the gig economy, such as Lunchclub and Indie Hackers.

Community building

There are plenty of platforms for you to help foster a sense of belonging with team members no matter where they are based. You can opt for virtual coffee mornings, team building activities online or you can share project software such as online whiteboards to help build collaboration between your team.

Up-to-date industry knowledge

It’s vital to keep up-to-date with any trends in project management in the gig economy so that you can draw upon new innovations to better manage your project team.

Is there a future for project management in the gig economy?

There is no doubt that the gig economy is transforming the way we work, and it looks very much like it is here to stay. Due to many businesses’ desire to embrace flexible working models, a project manager who can adapt to work in the gig economy will be in high demand. By using the tools and strategies above, collaboration, cohesion and organisation can be made easier, no matter where in the world your team and stakeholders are based.

The post How To Master Project Management in the Gig Economy appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

However, creating a cohesive team isn’t child’s play. It involves bringing together people with varied cultural backgrounds, different ambitions and career goals, sometimes contrasting personalities, competing skills and expertise, and varied productivity levels. If you have a multinational team, issues of religious differences, language barriers, and geopolitical tensions become prevalent.

With that in mind, how do you build a solid team? By understanding these common elements of successful teamwork:

Open communication

Colleagues at work communicate on multiple levels, both vertically and horizontally. But successful teamwork necessitates more than basic, regulated communication.

From a vertical perspective, i.e. when team members communicate with the leadership, they need to feel free, empowered, and appreciated enough to offer their views on different company strategies and goals. As a leader, you need to make the workplace a safe space for differing opinions, especially when some opinions contrast with your personal beliefs or your style of leadership.

For horizontal communication, i.e. when employees communicate amongst themselves, train your team members to offer constructive criticism when necessary and to refrain from shooting down other people’s ideas. Train them to listen and respect one another because listening is a critical part of any meaningful communication.

Besides internal communication, team members also communicate externally with clients, business partners, and other teams within the organization. Team leaders must ensure that all members are on the same page before making any external communication. Two contrasting messages from the same team show discord and divisions in the team, and competitors can easily capitalise on those cracks.

Open communication in the workplace allows team members to build respectful relationships with their managers and peers. They are, therefore, more committed to their work due to the better working relationships they experience with the persons they work and interact with at the workplace. They’ll have peace of mind at work from understanding that their colleagues and supervisors are trustworthy and reliable.

In short, open communication in a team can help nurture strong working relationships among teammates, which can fast-track the accomplishment of the company’s goals. It’s for these reasons, among others, that communication skills is a key area of study in formal project management certifications.

Pro tip: If team members need to share large files, synchronise documents across multiple tech devices, or store files in the cloud for easier team collaboration, it is advisable to first convert the documents into zip files. Compressed zip files can be shared with ease via email, plus they are safe from data spies.

Diversity as a competence

Diversity can make or break a team depending on what you make of it. Be keen on leveraging the diverse competencies in your team by using the strengths of one team member to cover for the weaknesses of another member. Avoid pitting members against each other and never allow the wide range of capabilities within your team to drive a wedge between team members. Successful teams also value and celebrate members’ sexual, political, religious, racial, and cultural diversities as opposed to looking down on the minority groups.

Team members from varied backgrounds can provide a wide collection of different abilities, skills, and experiences, which may not only benefit their work performance but also the company. A wide range of abilities and experiences within the team allows teammates to draw valuable lessons from each other. It also promotes the development and implementation of innovative ideas, especially when there is collaboration within the team. While one individual may be good at coming up with great ideas, another person may have the required skills to implement it.

A diverse team can help you navigate the cultural differences, religious differences, and language barriers associated with expanding your business abroad. Having team members who understand different cultures and speak different languages can help your business operate at a global level and manage a broader customer base. A team that consists of multiple nationalities also makes your company more relatable. What’s more, it enhances employee retention because professionals prefer to work and associate with a company that accommodates all backgrounds and encourages equality.

In a nutshell, diversity is a great strategy for anyone in any business. The best way to build a diverse team is to make inclusivity a fundamental part of your decision-making and actions. This involves planning inclusive events and creating welcoming environments. Prioritizing inclusivity allows businesses to leverage diverse talents and perspectives.

Clarity in role definition and allocation

Roles in successful teams are assigned as per the skill set, productivity, commitment, and thinking style of an individual employee. The roles are never rigid; they can shift as employees grow and skill sets evolve, but they are always clearly defined. If a role involves measurements and metrics, for example, it has to go to the team member with the best numbers game. If a role is methodical and detail-specific, then it has to go to the member with the best organizational skills. There are no favors in staffing. Everyone is stationed where they thrive best.

A 2000 study of 25,000 managers and supervisors by Ferdinand Fournies concluded that the main reason for team members not doing what’s expected of them is that they aren’t aware of what’s expected of them in the first place. This is definitely a sign of poorly defined roles and responsibilities.

…the main reason for team members not doing what’s expected of them is that they aren’t aware of what’s expected of them in the first place.

If clear goals are the cornerstone of all team activity, then clarity in role definition is what defines expectations, allows seamless performance management, and ensures accountability among team members. As a leader, role clarity enables you to map priorities and understand training needs. It enables everyone in the team to maximise their abilities. 

Trust

Trust breeds a unique inter-member reliance, transparency, honesty, and chemistry. Everyone knows that his/her colleagues have their back. Colleagues who trust one another do not second guess each other, but they are quick to point out, admit, and rectify errors when and as they happen. They always know that the decisions and actions taken by one team member are for the benefit of the whole team. Most importantly, trust makes it easy for members to share their joys, struggles, and insecurities with colleagues, and that makes them more of a family than just workmates.

But when there’s no trust in a team, the outcome will be suspicion of hidden motives, miscommunication, micro-management, and inability to meet the company’s overall goals. In fact, a 2016 meta-analysis study concluded that levels of trust in a team significantly impact its overall performance. The findings of the study revealed that people perform impressively in a high-trust working environment where they feel they are critical members of a tight-knit team. 

…people perform impressively in a high-trust working environment where they feel they are critical members of a tight-knit team.

When teammates know exactly what’s expected of them and are confident in not just their capabilities but also the capabilities of others, they are highly likely to be innovative by trying new things and bringing new ideas to life. Team members will be willing to take risks and make mistakes when they’re confident they’ve got the undivided support of their peers. This builds a culture of collaboration within the team and enables each member to share ideas as well as make the most out of each other’s capabilities.  

Mutually beneficial conflict resolution mechanisms

Successful teams are founded on the understanding that each person is accountable for the success or failure of the group. All team members see the broader picture and accept that the overall team goal is bigger than their ambitions. With that understanding, it becomes very easy for team members to remain calm and professional amid conflicts. They can follow the right mechanisms to manage and resolve conflicting ideas. This enables them to minimise friction that damages their working relationships.

By dealing with their conflicts professionally and respectfully, they can work better with their colleagues, nurturing strong work relationships. Having solid conflict resolution mechanisms in place also reduces disruptions, resulting in increased employee morale and a healthy working environment.

Great conflict resolution mechanisms are extremely crucial, as it’s always sensible to keep a disagreement from happening instead of dealing with its negative consequences. Due to excellent conflict management mechanisms, stress automatically goes away, team members feel motivated and cheerful, and the job becomes enjoyable and satisfying.

Conclusion

Teamwork is undeniably critical for any successful business. It won’t be easy, but it definitely will be worth every effort. If not for anything else, it will help you retain employees, build your employer brand, and grow your profits.

About the Author

Ruby Whites is a business analyst with 6 years of experience. She enjoys using what she has learned from 6 years of different challenges in her business to help different starters achieve business growth and also help them establish clear goals that take their business from where it is to where the business owner wants it to be.

The post The Five Elements of Successful Teamwork appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

Any project manager will be more than happy to tell you that all too often, managing a project can be an incredibly challenging and frustrating experience. There are the unexpected setbacks that can occur and of course the team members who are less cooperative than they might be. Then there are just the annoying pet peeves that occur again and again. These are just some of the factors that can mean that even the most well planned project becomes a challenge.

Whilst you may not learn much about project managers pet peeves during an APM PPQ qualification – or indeed any other professional project management certification – it can be a good idea to know about them. Perhaps more importantly, you’ll want to know how to over come them and that is what this article is all about.

Lack of communication

Probably the biggest pet peeve amongst project managers is a lack of communication. This might be from members of their team failing to let them know about updates to the project or from stakeholders who are not offering feedback. Either way, a lack of effective communication can really derail a project and quickly.

In order to avoid this issue and overcome it you need to make sure you have clear communication lines from the beginning of the project. Set the expectations that you have and make sure everyone knows and understands them. Invest in good project management tools that will help you to do this.

Scope creep

Another huge pet peeve for any project manager is of course, scope creep, which is the scope of the project expanding beyond anything that was originally agreed to. It can cause delays in the timescale of the project, result in budget overruns and increase stress within the project team.

This can be avoided if you set clear boundaries for the project from the very beginning. Define the scope of the project and get stakeholder buy-in. Ensure the consequences of scope creep are understood by everyone.

Team members who are unresponsive

There is nothing quite as frustrating as members of the team who are slow or unresponsive when it comes to the completion of tasks. This can cause delays to your entire project.

Establish clear expectations from the outset and define all of your deadlines, and make sure that team members are held accountable for meeting these. Using good project management software will also help.

Micromanagement

Nothing is quite as likely to cause those involved in project management to issue a collective Arggh than the mention of micromanagement. There is a fine line between being a hands-on project manager and micromanaging your team. The latter can cause reduced morale and stress within the team.

To avoid micromanaging your team you need to establish trust, and allow your team to take ownership of their tasks by delegating. Give clear guidance, help them develop the right skills but allow for freedom as well that will let your team members find their own approaches and solutions.

Lack of recognition

And finally there is nothing worse than the lack of recognition that is given for a job well done. Being a project manager can be a somewhat thankless task, but you should still acknowledge the hard work of your team.

Make time to recognise the contributions others have made to the project, celebrate the successes and the milestones and ensure that hard work is appreciated.

The post Pet peeves in project management and how to overcome them appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

My inspiration was John Brant, producer of touring musical “Come From Away” who was sharing backstage secrets with Matinee, the musical theatre radio station. Now, it’s obvious when you watch a play that what happens on stage is choreographed to the max, but it didn’t occur to me how much attention to detail goes into what happens off stage too – to make sure props are where they need to be, actors have the right clothing on for the scene and are positioned in the right spot to make their entrance.

“Everything is choreographed, everything that’s going on behind the scenes is choreographed as well,” Brant explained, “It’s 100 minutes of basically beautifully choreographed theatre … we see half of that … you know the audience facing that … but there is so much going on behind the scenes with our crew and with our cast. There’s no fat on it, it’s all so precise because it has to be … you’ve got to put that chair down and, maybe, walk over to a person who’s going to hand you a jacket or go over to someone and give them a phone.”

“THERE’S NO FAT ON I.T.”

In IT Project Management we put so much effort into choreographing our deliverables and outcomes, the part of the process that our “audience” sees, but how much thought goes into what happens out of sight, behind the curtain?

Are there “unseen” aspects of our IT Project delivery processes that don’t get the love and attention afforded to the more visible areas, and could that be costing us in terms of returned value? What if there were no fat on our I.T. projects?

Choreographing these areas felt like an obvious and easy win, so I asked a handful of colleagues and project leaders for their thoughts.

Three clear themes emerged – three opportunities where we could all channel our inner Arlene Phillips.

1 – TALENT RESOURCING

A more mindful approach to project talent resourcing came top of the list, with many confessing to having adopted a “just in time” approach, citing either post-Covid or post-Brexit talent supply issues, and more frequent staff absence as the key reasons.

BUT … What if talent gaps and shortages, rather than providing an excuse for becoming more reactive, were to inspire a fresh, proactive, more choreographed approach? How might our backstage operation become more organised?

Stakeholders don’t know when you’ve got a Project Manager burning the candle at both ends to be across a handful of projects, they don’t know that you had to call in external talent resources to make up the numbers and get a project over the line, often they don’t care either, until the cost is counted in terms of staff burn out or the bill from the temp agency needs paying!

Stoneseed’s Project Management as a Service (PMaaS) can help.

Our PMaaS team is a large resource pool of Stoneseed employees, all Programme and Project Management specialists, all experienced practitioners from across the complete portfolio of IT change. This experience, gained from multiple sectors, means you benefit from a practical, hands-on approach to programme and project delivery that works.

PMaaS can be adapted to address the different challenges that you and your projects and portfolio face. Our services range from simple resource provision, to a fully managed service, providing access to a wide portfolio of project skills. PMaaS gives you access to quality people, when you need them.

With some reasonable planning (ideally, we aim to work to a 6-week forward forecasting timescale), PMaaS provides access to a wide portfolio of project skills, made available against your demand schedule, from a single Business Analyst or Project Manager for a few days, right through to a large team of fully utilised project professionals, with peace of mind guaranteed thanks to our memberships and accreditations that include PRINCE2, Project Management Institute, P3M3, Agile Project Management Certification, and MSP.

The 6-week timeframe model allows advance planning for resources to meet your portfolio needs but, for some, this can present a challenge … sometimes you can plan ahead, and sometimes you can’t and need very quick resourcing response times. This is where the flexibility of Stoneseed’s PMaaS model delivers great results. To achieve optimal resourcing, we work closely with you, and we get to know your portfolio so that we can mobilise talent more quickly – we are specialists in providing remote Project Management resources, for instance.

Stoneseed’s PMaaS model is an evolution from conventional contractor models, thanks to targeted planning and forecasting, you only pay for resources as you need and use them and thanks to our simple and predictable pricing structure (with a rate card) you can remove any uncertainty around variable costs.

Programme Management, Project Management, IT Advisory, Business Analysis, PMO resources, all these “backstage” functions can be better choreographed via PMaaS.

2 – PMO SERVICES

The Project Management Office is probably the team in your organisation who most people look at and wonder “what do you actually do?”

The truth is that they pretty much do everything, but so much of it is unseen.

Your PMO team is busy safeguarding your most precious assets, your resources, and ensuring they are allocated efficiently. They are providing the all-important governance and making sure that the agreed top-priority work is done in a timely manner, they are processing work requests, understanding and clearly communicating scope to your project’s architects and builders, and they are constantly monitoring your projects in motion, and reporting progress to stakeholders.

Writing on LinkedIn last year, Robert Burns, a PMO Lead, coined this rather wonderful phrase: “They are the eyes and ears of leadership on the ground.”

Sadly, because much this PMO magic is unseen, it can also be neglected. PMO teams are often the unsung heroes of an organisation. When you’re brilliant at choreographing projects, organising and monitoring everything, often no one checks in to make sure you’re OK!

Is anyone choreographing your PMO? As one CIO once put it to me – “it’s like, who’s policing the police?”

Taking time to refocus your PMO functions can pay big dividends, the resulting efficiencies spread like ripples across a pond, quickly touching all aspects of the portfolio. Your PMO links your business strategy to the projects initiated to deliver it, introducing economies of repeatability and best practice to delivery of these projects. Stoneseed’s resources and team are managed and supported by our own Project Management Office and toolset (which are available to our clients) and we constantly review our PMO protocols and processes to ensure best practice.

Efficient Project Delivery needs an effective PMO. It’s the ultimate in backstage choreography!

In our experience, clients’ needs vary when it comes to PMO. Some come to us for provision of a complete PMO, others need a lighter touch approach, perhaps with a remote or virtual PMO service, and many organisations come seeking assistance maximising their own existing PMO – all of this is available via the PMaaS model.

3 – POST-MORTEM OR LESSONS LEARNED

As projects become more complex and data-rich, and portfolio management approaches (like Stoneseed’s P3MO platform) become more transparent and intuitive to use, we are now in an age where feedback from our projects is more abundant and accessible than ever. This means that lessons can be learned and put into action faster, more thoroughly and more efficiently but some organisations don’t have a choreographed process for post project introspection.

This is just conjecture on my part, but I think it might be partly down to the negative connotation of the term “post-mortem”.

The thing is, if I’ve delivered a project on time, in budget, that met specific business goals – that project is alive and kicking! I sort of resent being asked to attend an autopsy! Invite me to a retrospective where we celebrate the successes and shine a light of what could have gone better – and I’m all over that!

The trouble is that many organisations are doing neither, and crucial lessons are going unlearned, or they’re doing something ad-hoc, like having a cosy chat over a brew, and aren’t realising the true potential value of a more formal approach.

“Lessons Learned”, a “retrospective”, an “introspection”, or (yuck) “post-mortem” needs to be as transparently a part of your project process as creating the scope, allocating resources or choosing a methodology.

The scope of the meeting or session should be clear, for example, to establish what went well, what not so well, what we learned, and what are some action items for improvement to bring to the next project or phase. The event should be a collaborative, objective review for stakeholders and participants and, to maintain objectivity and openness, blame should be explicitly prohibited from the agenda, the communications process, and all documented findings.

That’s three areas my little panel of project leaders came up with, if you have any to add – I’d love to hear from you.

Henry Ford once said, “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” I think he was on to something. Going the extra mile on the parts of your project process that no-one sees can feel a little pointless at first though, whereas deliverables feel like they happen in a blaze of glory. I mean, who’ll be there to tell you “well done” when you do a thing that no-one knows you do … but better?!

You’ll know though!

Furthermore, doing things like resourcing, PMO and “lessons learned” just 1%, 2% or 5% more efficiently has an impact across the rest of your project estate, allowing those deliverables to reach new heights of glory! So, improving the things no one sees improves the things that everyone sees – aka the things that you get judged on. So … More glory!

But don’t just take my word for it.

“Come From Away” producer John Brant went on to say, “Kelly Devine and Chris Ashley (director and choreographer) rightly won the Tony and the Olivier award for a beautiful piece of art.”

A Tony and an Olivier … for choreographing the backstage.

I wonder what doing that could win for IT Project Leaders!

Find out more about Project Management as a Service from Stoneseed

Sources

Matineeradio.com

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unseen-force-behind-success-give-thanks-invaluable-your-robert-burns-ybdyc/

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LESSONS FROM A LEGEND

The passing of the legendary footballer Sir Bobby Charlton, which is fairly fresh news as I write, reminded me of this timely leadership lesson.

Sir Bobby had a remarkable career, as a player with Manchester United, he would be part of Sir Matt Busby’s team that regrouped after the unimaginable horror of the Munich air disaster to win the European Cup and with Sir Alf Ramsey’s England he would win the World Cup. I remember an interview with Sir Bobby in which he compared the two leaders and explained the secret of their success. I am paraphrasing but the secret was that they knew their players “as men” and not just players. In other words, they knew what made their players tick as human beings, how to inspire and lead them as individuals – not like they were “off the shelf clones” that came with an instruction manual.

I’ve always tried to apply this to Project Management. As a leader, knowing your team as individuals can be hugely impactful, here are just ten benefits off the top of my head:

1. Better Communication – Understanding each team member’s communication style, preferences, and unique needs enables more effective and clear communication. Knowing how talent hears communications will help you better target your message.
2. Greater Motivation – Tailoring your leadership approach to each individual’s motivations and setting personal goals that fit within team goals can boost team morale and increase productivity.
3. Team Building – Recognising individual strengths and weaknesses can help in building a more cohesive and balanced team.
4. Personalised Development – Identifying each team member’s skills and areas for improvement allows for tailored training and development plans. (This feels like a really obvious thing to include but a PM told me recently that she never has a one-to-one development meeting with her superior).
5. Conflict Resolution – Understanding personal differences and triggers can, naturally, help resolve conflicts and even prevent unnecessary disputes. When levels of trust are high, there is a greater desire to find a solution. When a team is tight knit, tensions can even foster a greater connection!
6. Increased Engagement – Creating personal connections with team members can lead to higher levels of engagement, and commitment to one another (and the team).
7. Optimised Resource Allocation – Knowing individual capabilities and interests helps when assigning tasks that align with an individual’s skills and competencies, improving overall performance.
8. Reduce Talent Churn – Greater team trust can aid in recognising and addressing individual concerns or dissatisfaction and can help retain valuable team members. According to the Corporate Leadership Council, employees who are committed and engaged at work are 87% less likely to leave their current company.
9. Boosted Innovation and Creativity – Embracing individualities allows and encourages diverse perspectives and ideas to bubble up but also, by really getting to know your talent, you are afforded an insight as to whose individual creative minds to tap into.
10. Emotional Intelligence – Leaders who understand their team on an individual level are constantly working on what a CIO friend calls their “emotional intelligence muscles”, this leads to better, more informed decision-making, especially with talent and resourcing.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Of course, if knowing your team as individuals has a positive impact, can we then assume that not doing so can impair success?

In a recent Forbes article, “Want Good IT Projects? Tackle That Elephant in The Room”, Bhopi Dhall and Saurajit Kanungo believe that it can – and that it is something that comes from the top!

They write, “Show me a corporate IT project that’s having difficulties and I will bet I can show you that the problem isn’t the technology. Usually, a basic human issue has not been addressed … to the point where it becomes the elephant in the room — squashing the chances to do top-notch IT implementation from day one.”

Bhopi and Saurajit maintain that the problem often lies with the company’s executive team. “The C-level officers and key department heads may think of themselves as “team players.” But in most midsized companies, and even a lot of large ones, they haven’t built the relationships needed to work together on a high level in high-stakes situations.”

ALIGNED LIONS

To return to football for a second, I saw this in Gareth Southgate’s England team recently. They conceded a goal to Italy a quarter of an hour into the match, but it was noticeable how this seemed to raise their game. They showed spirit and togetherness and went onto win the game 3-1. The jubilant scenes after the final whistle and the character that oozed from the players in post-match interviews was infectious and joyful. They had each other’s backs!

It’s worth remembering that before his appointment to the senior team, Southgate had already worked with a number of the players in his role as England’s Under 21s head coach. His Young Lions squads featured Harry Kane, John Stones and Jordan Pickford, who were part of the starting eleven against Italy. The following day I heard pundits on the radio put the team spirit in the squad down to the longevity of those relationships – Southgate and his players knew and trusted one another.

“Very few executive teams have this degree of synergy,” write Bhopi and Saurajit in their Forbes article, “The CMO, CFO, head of sales and other top leaders all try to be nice to each other. They have their own domains and budgets, so they stay in their lanes and avoid interfering with their neighbors (sic). They can run the company day-to-day pretty smoothly this way. But when it comes to doing something new that affects many of them — like a significant IT project — they’re not grounded in sufficient relationships.”

Stoneseed has been the IT resource solutions provider on many IT projects. It’s noticeable how often this lack of synergy manifests unfavourable results. When the C-suite aren’t aligned, it often trickles down to the “lower ranks” and for IT projects to integrate the whole squad must be aligned behind the project’s intentioned outcomes.

“Sometimes this is very difficult, but it’s necessary. If the personal and emotional relations between team members are weak — or worse, adversarial — they won’t be on the same page at the start, nor will they pull together through the tough parts.”

And so, it is with members of the IT Project team.

FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE – TEAM SPIRIT TRIUMPHS

All too often, IT Project teams face the prospect of needing to rally together and respond positively to the equivalent of conceding a goal to Italy, 15 minutes in!

As Bhopi and Saurajit say, “That is when a poorly aligned team breaks down. Instead of collaborating under pressure, instead of the players knowing how they must interact to get it done, they throw rocks at each other over what’s gone wrong. You’ve seen it happen in sports on TV, with a receiver and quarterback screaming at one another on the sidelines while scuffles break out around them. That’s what executive team breakdown looks like. Everybody is getting trampled by the elephant that everybody ignored. The company has essentially drafted a bunch of players and expected them to blend in, without the relational foundations they need.”

At Stoneseed, we are in the business of providing talent for IT Projects via our innovative Project Management as a Service (PMaaS) model. This can mean short- or long-term integration, a single PM to a whole team, even an end-to-end Project Management Office (PMO). Surely, we can’t apply any what we’ve discussed to such a flexible, on-demand resourcing model, can we?

Actually, I think it’s even more important that we DO!

That’s why we first spend time getting to know your business, your culture and your team, before we recommend talent to integrate into it! I suppose the point is, if we can do it to facilitate a rather more flexible PMaaS arrangement, there’s no excuse in more permanent teams! And yes, it also means that we must really know our talent – to understand where they will best fit!

CONCLUSION

How you foster great relationships is up to you, but it is important! Busby and Ramsey won football’s greatest honours knowing their players “as men”, Southgate worked with many of his players since they were under 21s, Bhopi Dhall and Saurajit Kanungo recommend a “Hey, let’s do lunch or go out together” approach where your team can “get closer, have some fun, and in the process, talk some business”, my friend’s business just arranged a four week mental-health-first-aider course which laid bare many of the more human aspects of colleagues’ characters fostering a new level of care and understanding … find what works best for you … maybe it is just knowing your PM’s favourite rom-com and BA’s dog’s name … I’d love to hear what turned your squad into a team of champions!

And … explore how our team of champions can help yours.

Let’s start a relationship – Find out more about Stoneseed’s Project Management as a Service

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbooksauthors/2023/04/12/want-good-it-projects-tackle-that-elephant-in-the-room/

https://www.stcloudstate.edu/humanresources/_files/documents/supv-brown-bag/employee-engagement.pdf

The post How Knowing Your PM’s Favourite Rom-Com and BA’s Dog’s Name Could Help Optimise IT Project Success! appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

Now in its sixth year, The Business Book Awards celebrate the quality and variety of business books and offer industry-wide recognition to new and established authors writing on a range of subjects for a diverse readership. Following another year of personal and professional challenges for business people, the 2023 awards cover 14 different categories to reflect the wide range of knowledge and experience required for business success in 2023.

This year 300 books from business leaders and entrepreneurs across the globe were entered into the awards, and Elizabeth Harrin is delighted to have been shortlisted for her book, Managing Multiple Projects: How Project Managers Can Balance Priorities, Manage Expectations and Increase Productivity. Aimed at people in all kinds of roles who work in projects as part of their job, Managing Multiple Projects will help you develop the skills and knowledge to juggle your workload while avoiding burnout.

Elizabeth said, “This is the book I wish I had read when I started taking on more projects. Combined with the templates that come with the book, readers tell me it has changed the way they work.”

So much of project management training is focused on leading one project successfully, and Elizabeth says she wrote the book to deal with the reality of what modern work is all about: most people involved in projects have to juggle the expectations and deadlines of more than one.

“Project management processes don’t scale up to allow us to streamline and work smarter,” Elizabeth adds. “When you work differently, you can save time and also avoid burning out your team, stakeholders and yourself.”

Managing Multiple Projects is one of eight finalist books within the Specialist Business Book category, with winners of The Business Book Awards 2023 being announced in London on Tuesday 16^th May 2023.

To find out more, visit https://www.businessbookawards.co.uk/.

Elizabeth Harrin is available for interview. Please contact her via her project management blog or LinkedIn.

The post Managing Multiple Projects Shortlisted for Business Book Awards 2023 appeared first on Project Accelerator News.