Applying Marketing Wisdom to Project Management

Project Coach, Your Clear Next Step I had the chance to listen to marketing guru Drew McClellan speak at a BIZ event in Des Moines this past week, and although his message was targeted towards marketing for businesses, one of the comments he shared applies to project managers in a fundamental way. He made a statement that was something like "the time is now". His point, as I understood it, was that when something happens - and he was specifically talking about something bad...a crisis even...in today's world, there is really no time to delay before reacting. Businesses need to... Read More»

Negotiating with My Sponsor

Upper management support is crucial for project success. Their support in sponsoring projects, however, often falls short of what is necessary to ensure project success. Why? Is it ignorance, lack of knowledge about what's required, distaste for the role, too busy, unwilling...? Well, maybe so, but a key ingredient is the ability of project managers to manage upwards and effectively negotiate with their sponsors. Pretend you are eavesdropping with a coach on a conversation between a sponsor and project manager. Observe the good, the bad, and the ugly about what happens - or should happen - during negotiations. Appreciate how... Read More»

Honest, Fair, & Ethical

On The Straight and Narrow As I mentioned in a previous article, you have to treat every project as if it will end up in court. If you are unfortunate enough to be there, then you want to be on the winning side. You need a reputation that can not be called into question. In your project management career you will come across all kinds of issues and it is important that you be honest, fair, and ethical in all your dealings with your team members, vendors, contractors and any other people you come into contact with. Will People Work... Read More»

Using Insights from Storm Season to Drive a Smoother Project.

By Sinikka Waugh, Project Coach, Your Clear Next Step In 2010, summer in Iowa started out with a bang...and a crash, and a crack, and a thundering boom. Summer greeted us with night after night of storms...echoing with house-shaking rumbles, bright with brilliant lightning displays, and soggy with steady downpours. And farmers across the state wondered when it would dry out enough to get into their fields, while light sleepers (and parents of storm-sensitive kids) wondered when it would quiet down enough to allow everyone to sleep through the night. Aren't our projects like that sometimes? Our business partners wonder... Read More»

The Amazing World of E-Mails

Isn't technology wonderful? I have a friend who works in Papua New Guinea and through the wonders of e-mail we have instant communication. I just type out a few words and hit send and within seconds he receives my musings. That is truly amazing. However, as you are well aware, there is a good side and a bad side to everything and e-mail is no different. We have all had times when 2 seconds after hitting the send button we have second thoughts about what we have sent and at the speed of light there is no getting it back.... Read More»

Challenging the Way We Work and Manage

As I work on writing my next book, my research is increasingly supporting the premise that we are working under a very outdated model of management. In this post, I will challenge the current model and hopefully cause you to pause and consider your own experiences. I will begin by posing a few questions. Are the projects you lead very straightforward? Can they be completed by your team employing checklists and a predetermined set of steps? Are the problems you and your team are addressing easily solved? If the answers to the questions above are no, as I suspect, then... Read More»

Getting Prepared to Negotiate

As I'm in Milan, Italy presenting a paper on "Negotiating for Success: Are You Prepared?" for the PMI Global Congress EMEA 2010, I'm reminded that in a previous blog about "Negotiating for Results," I referred to ten rules of negotiating. In this blog I present examples of applying those rules. First some background.... It is important to embrace a mindset that everything about a project is negotiable and that a project leader needs to be a skilled negotiator. Right up front is the necessity to define project success and establish desired outcomes. With an intention to negotiate in mind, review... Read More»

Assumptions: Your Get Out of Jail Free Card?

"The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal." -David Brin "What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts." -George Bernard Shaw You must stick to your conviction, but be ready to abandon your assumptions. -Denis Waitley I really enjoy quotes if you haven't already ascertained that fact. Above are three quotes about assumptions that I really enjoy and hit the mark-especially from the project management perspective.... Read More»

A Bit of a PM Pep Talk

I've recently been thinking about time Project schedules, budgeting and goals. I recently got into an interesting argument with another Project professional about being "on time", and some very interesting thoughts came out in the debate. If you think back to what we were once taught about goals, they were supposed to be "SMART" - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time sensitive. When you think about it, that's what our project plans and schedules are supposed to be - "SMART". Of course, we all want to be "on-time" and "on-budget", so we are under a fair amount of pressure to... Read More»

Getting Others to Accept "No"

Talking with a volunteer at my recent presentation on "Negotiating for Project Success" at the PMI Silicon Valley Chapter, I mentioned Getting to Yes and Getting Past No as valuable reference books. She said, "What I need is 'Getting Them to Accept No.'" I went "Wow!" because she hit the nail on the head. A common challenge for many project managers, especially in IT where so many people make demands on project work, is both to say "No" to people as well as getting them to accept it. Having the ability to apply this option in conversations would go a... Read More»