Most experienced project managers know the importance of Emotional Intelligence. Emotional Intelligence can be defined as:
“Awareness of one’s own emotions and moods and those of others, especially in managing people.” Source: Collins English Dictionary
Emotional intelligence is often what differentiates great leaders from the people they lead.
Four Pillars
There are generally four pillars associated with Emotional Intelligence, namely:
Self awareness – ability to recognize and monitor our thoughts and feelings.
Self management – ability to think before acting.
Social awareness – being aware of the emotional condition of others.
Social skill – ability to manage groups of people (project teams), building social networks, finding common ground with stakeholders, building rapport.
Don’t get me wrong – I also firmly believe Project Managers, as all people in life, should always be brutally honest!
But do we practice what we preach? Is it still possible and wise to act with integrity in today’s world?
Can you honestly say as a project manager that you always and under all circumstances conduct yourself with honesty and integrity? To me it seems that taking responsibility, respecting others, fairness, and honesty have become virtues that we only subscribe to when it suits us.
None is righteous, no, not one
Sometimes one wonders if even the people that are seen as beacons of honesty and integrity are always that honest. It is so easy to tell a white lie, of course only to save somebody else’s feelings – and most of the time that “somebody else” being ourselves.
Big sins and little sins
It is also so easy to state a half-truth or “forget” to mention the bad news while bluffing ourselves that it is for the best in the greater scheme of things. And what about our duty to understand the truth – when we realise that we acted honestly and in good faith, but that we were mistaken? Does the old saying: ”When an honest man discovers he is mistaken, he will either cease being mistaken, or cease being honest” then also apply to us?
No good deed goes unpunished
Then we also need to consider the practicality of being honest. What will happen to me if I do act with honesty and integrity? Will I be praised and possibly be rewarded by the powers to be in my company? Or will nothing be said publicly while my future prospects dwindle away? As Napoleon Bonaparte once said: “The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.”
PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
How are we supposed to conduct ourselves as Project Management Professionals? Of course we all know that we should abide by our code of ethics. But do we really take it serious? Do we live by it every day or do we only take it out and brush it off when we need to prove to others how just and honest we are?
Let’s take a short quiz to see how earnest we are about integrity:
No.
Have you (or will you) ALWAYS and under ALL circumstances:
Yes
No
1
When you discovered errors or omissions caused by others, communicate them to the appropriate body as soon they were discovered?
1
0
2
Confront others who engage in gossip and make negative remarks to undermine another person’s reputation?
1
0
3
Respect the property rights of others, including not making a photocopy (or any other means of reproduction) of any part of the PMBOK® Guide or any other copyrighted work (including songs and movies) without prior written permission of the publisher?
1
0
Score:
3 Marks – You are extremely honest and display high levels of integrity / You were not honest with yourself when you completed this quiz*
* delete whichever is not applicable
Less than 3 Marks – At least you were honest when taking this quiz, and that’s a good start!
How do you feel about this? Should we follow the world or let the world follow us?
********************************
About the Author: Dave Fourie is a dedicated, innovative and people oriented project management trainer with 25 years plus project management experience. For more information about his services, visit his blog, Project Management Training Africa.
Gantt charts are already very well-known among project managers around the world. They are de facto an industry standard, used by thousands of companies and institutions – if not far more! SoftwarePlant has looked at some of their clients to see whether Gantt charts can be used in a creative way, in industries very foreign to classic management and businesses themselves. The results are stunning!
Education
Everyone used to be a child at some point in time. This leads us to schools. Remember all these lesson plans, charts of teachers’ free days, duty hours, announcements, etc? Most likely your school was doing all of this using only a printer (or even pen and paper). Nowadays, some schools use project management software* in order to optimize workload and make everything run smoothly. In fact, universities and colleges also do.
Physical work
“Project management” is still too often perceived as something strictly related to cleanly shaven people in business suits. But our customers beg to differ – some of them construct buildings, roads, railways and many other things. Gantt charts and risk matrixes help them manage deadlines*** and serve the public in a timely manner.
Politics
When we follow political campaigns, we usually remember only a few key people from each party. This is precisely what the so-called spin doctors are for. But the truth is, political parties are as big as some corporations! In the US, the Democratic Party has 43.1 Million members, while the Republicans hover around 30 Million**. This is a massive number of people, all working on the same projects around the whole country – and good project management software does help them achieve the results they yield.
Events
We all love to go to a concert once in a while. But even professional project managers from other fields rarely stop to think about the sheer scale of some of the cultural events they attend. The scene/stadium, sound systems, lights, tickets, everything involves a lot of hard work, and the deadline is permanently set in stone – it is pretty much impossible to postpone a concert. In order to ensure proper start and finish dates, some of SoftwarePlant’s customers install JIRA with the plugins and look at the risk matrix like a hawk guarding its chicks.
Military
Logistics, engineer corps and administration amount to far more people than actual combat troops. Each soldier needs to be fed, dressed, transported and equipped on time, often abroad and in harsh conditions. The US started using Gantt charts around WW1****, and continues to do so until this very day. Even there the SoftwarePlant’s software has certain uses among military organizations, though details are (as expected) strictly classified.
Entrepreneurs
SoftwarePlant is a start-up company. The interesting thing is, their product is used by many other start-ups, sometimes even from the same industry. They are pleased that other young entrepreneurs like their solutions and wish them luck with their ventures. After all, Skype, a small Estonian company before acquisition by Microsoft, could not have been developed if not for Gantt charts.
These are the cases that were found the most interesting – but what about you? Do you have an unconventional use for Gantt charts, be it practical or hypothetical? If yes, we encourage you to contact us and share this wisdom. Who knows, there may be great rewards…
SoftwarePlant is a Polish-American start-up company that produces software for Project Portfolio Management. Its main products are developed for the JIRA platform, but custom development, training and implementations are also available.
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This project story from project manager, Anwar Rawoot, is about the migration from a legacy Point of Sales (POS) system to a new POS system at 265 retail stores nationally that took three years to complete.
The complexity was in the fact that the project team only had a 12-hour window from the time a store closed until the next morning it opened to do the replacement, which included network infrastructure, shop fitting, POS and testing. A shop’s data would be migrated overnight and once the new system is in, it was migrated back to the new system.
Challenges
The project’s biggest constraints were that when server problems were experienced, it would take 8 hours to rebuild and in the case of till problems, it would take 3 hours to rebuild.
The way it was executed, was to do one store each night. All work had to be done after hours and there was only one team per region to do the work. They had to sleep during the day and work at night which had a family impact.
Working after hours
The challenge was how to work a 5-day week back-to-back and then an additional 24 hours shift. People became overworked, and the quality of work dropped. Some people even became ill over time. It also took three months to train people to the right level of expertise.
Part of the Success Stories Shared initiative to collect Success Stories from experienced project/programme managers in order to share experiences and to promote learning across the project and programme management community. If you would like to share your project story and make a contribution to the bigger project management profession, contact me on linky@virtualprojectconsulting.com
It is good to be reminded of the importance of communicating appreciation to staff and team members. When employees/team members truly feel valued and appreciated, good things follow. This article will explain what the benefits are and why more people are not using words of appreciation.
The power of appreciation lies in the fact that people are more likely to show up for work (and on time), follow established policies and procedures, and get more work done. Their job satisfaction ratings go up, and their employee engagement increases. Also, when staff/team members feel appreciated, customer ratings tend to rise, and the managers who are giving appreciation, report enjoying their work more.
So if all these positive results occur, why isn’t appreciation communicated more? And what should we do about it?
1. Manager are too busy
Managers and employees report that they are too busy. Virtually everyone states they already have too much to do, and don’t have any time (or mental space) to think about another set of tasks. Busyness is, far and above all other reasons, the primary reason people cite for not communicating appreciation.
How to resolve
Don’t create another “to do” list – you don’t need more to do. Rather, make sure that the efforts and actions you take “hit the mark”. Realize that not everyone feels appreciated in the same ways; find out what is meaningful to your team members and communicate appreciation through these actions. Yes, this does take time, but it is a worthy investment.
2. Not compatible with work
To many, showing appreciation is not compatible with the nature of work and work-relationships. Work, by definition, is focused on getting tasks done. Companies either manufacture and sell goods, or they provide services. So this is focus of every employee’s day.
How to resolve
There has to be a balance of working together with others as people (employees are not just “production units” or machines) and getting the work done. Most companies have employee recognition programs but it has become evident that they aren’t working to make employees feel valued. Team members will feel valued when appreciation is communicated regularly, personally and in a manner that is perceived as genuine and authentic.
3. People don’t value you
Some people don’t think appreciation should be communicated, or they really don’t value those with whom they work. When leaders don’t really value recognizing or encouraging their employees (the “I show them I appreciate them by paying them” approach), there is not much to do except to let them experience the results of their choices. Typically, these leaders have the highest turnover rate and lowest job satisfaction ratings by their staff.
How to resolve
There are times when some colleagues are difficult to work with, or people just don’t get along very well. And it best not to try to “fake” communicating appreciation when it isn’t really there.
Most often, actually, it is not that appreciation isn’t communicated but that it isn’t communicated in the ways important to the recipient – which is practically the same as not being communicated at all.
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About the author: Paul White, Ph.D., is co-author of The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace and creator of the Motivating By Appreciation Inventory, which identifies individuals’ preferred ways of being shown appreciation. To learn more, visit www.appreciationatwork.com
This story from a project manager, Sakhile Malinga, is about a national roll-out of a support contract for contact centre technology in a massive tele-communications company. The objective was to build the support function for all the Call Centres. An outcome was the creation of a National Operational Centre (NOC).
The complexity lay in the fact that it was aligned with software renewals. It had to be completed in a limited time-frame with fixed dates, when support had to be taken over by a new company. The project team consisted of a large sub-contractor component who were responsible to provide resources in the Regional centres that were taken over. It was difficult to manage various stakeholders, different entities and people with different agendas.
Scaling Up
The company that had to take over the support contract, was a fairly small enterprise, therefore the project was quite transformational for them. At the same time they were trying to achieve operational efficiency for the customer.
Existing technical resources that were assigned to the project, needed to skill up. In addition more skilled resources, responsible for technical infrastructure, had to come on board and all had to work together as one team.
Good Management of Resources, Stakeholders and Time
Project resourcing worked out well, despite the difficulty to secure the right people. The stakeholder management was done professionally, especially with C-level stakeholders.
Although the timeline was fixed and deadlines were tight, the project launched on time. The budget that was quoted in the local currency, had to be fixed to compensate for possible loss due to fluctuations in the exchange rate.
The project also created opportunities for staff to grow. Read more ….
PMI has announced changes in the Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR) Program from 1 Dec 2015. This is to answer the demands of the Profession based on the latest research findings in Pulse of the Profession and Project Management Talent Gap.
Employers need project practitioners with leadership and business intelligence skills to support strategic objectives that contribute to the bottom line.
The ideal skill set — the PMI Talent Triangle — is a combination of technical, leadership, and strategic and business management expertise. Aligning with this will ensure that you can develop your career in a more consistent, actionable and meaningful way.
Effective 1 December 2015 the CCR program will be aligned with the employer-identified skills depicted in the PMI Talent Triangle to ensure Project Management Professionals (PMP’s) are equipped to remain relevant in a continually changing business environment and to keep certification holders focused on the needs of the profession.
Please have a look at the Infographic below for a complete break-down of how Professional Development Units (PDU’s) will be maintained as per the update.
Also visit the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for an explanation of the reasons the CCR program is being updated, what the updates are, when the updates will go into effect, for which activities you can claim PDU’s and how you are impacted.
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Another project success story from an experienced project manager about the development of a new Forecasting system for the international Shipping giant, Maersk.
The project goal was to provide an electronic system to forecast and plan Maersk’s shipping schedules and cargo loading. The development team needed to understand a myriad of information for the cube to be developed. This included international port laws, time-zones, currencies, and the algorithms required behind the scene to create system intelligence that would enable Logistics Managers to accurately forecast, plan and schedule.
The project achieved its objective within two years of reducing the time spent on forecasting and making it more accurate. A centralised system, called Forecast, could be accessed from different countries and ports to streamline all forecasting processes in a fairly complex world.
To read more about the project challenges the team faced, what worked well and the lessons learnt, click on Success Stories Shared.
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This year I had to switch between companies and was in the market to find the next ideal position. When you find yourself looking for another good job opportunity, you need to have a really good resume. Perhaps one that would help you to stand out from all the other applicants.
The purpose of this article is to share a new type of resume, called the One Page Resume or CV. Recruiters are overloaded with resumes on a daily basis and you want your CV to stand out for the right reason by following a different approach. It’s built around a timeline and you could use it as a cover to your existing CV.
Click on the sample below for more Project Manager career tips.
When looking at Project Planning, an important output of the planning process, is the Project Management Plan. This article will discuss what the Project Management Plan is, why fully understanding the Project Management Plan is essential to both project success and PMP Exam success, what subsidiary plans and documents are, and once approved how changes are made to the Project Management Plan.
What is the Project Management Plan?
According to the PMBOK® Guide, the Project Management Plan is “the document that describes how the project will be executed, monitored, and controlled.” Objectives of the Project Management Plan include documenting assumptions and decisions, communicating how the project will be executed, and documenting high level goals, costs, and milestones. The Project Management Plan is much more than a single document that is created and set aside. It integrates subsidiary plans and documents, it is created during the Planning Process Group and is expected to be updated as the project progresses. It is a living document.
Why the Project Management Plan is essential to both project success and PMP Exam success?
That is because it is the “go to” document used to answer questions during the project, and understanding what kinds of questions it may answer is vital to both project and PMP Exam success.
The Project Management Plan should be able to answer why a project was sponsored and what problem it is expected to resolve or what value the project is expected to add. It should describe the work to be performed and what the major deliverables or products are. It should identify who is involved in the project and what their responsibilities are and how they are organized. It should define how the work is to be executed in order to meet project objectives and how any changes will be monitored and controlled. If all of these are included in the Project Management Plan, then you will be able to answer the why, what, who, when, and how type questions that may arise during a project.
What are subsidiary plans and documents?
These are most often outputs of the other Planning Processes. For example, the Cost Management Plan is an output of the Plan Cost Management Process. It describes how project costs will be planned, structured, and controlled. It is considered a “subsidiary plan” to the overall Project Management Plan. Subsidiary plans are all of the “plan” outputs from the Planning Processes that include Scope Management, Requirements Management, Schedule Management, Quality Management, Process Improvement, Human Resource Management, Communications Management, Procurement Management, and Stakeholder Management. The subsidiary plans may be defined at a high or detailed level depending on the type of plan, the specific needs of the project and the requirements of the performing organization.
Subsidiary documents are the baselines developed as part of the Planning Processes. They include the schedule baseline, cost performance baseline, and scope baseline. Don’t forget that the scope baseline also includes the scope statement, WBS, and WBS dictionary.
How are changes made to the Project Management Plan?
Changes to the Project Management Plan are made through a Change Control System. This system consists of methods to request, review, and approve changes. When Requests are done, they are reviewed by the project manager, project sponsor, select set of stakeholders, or change control board. Once a change is approved the Project Management Plan is updated. Changes that are not requested through the Change Control System or approved should not be implemented. Including unapproved changes will let the project go out of control.
The Project Management Plan is a vast topic. There are many other facets such as the other inputs besides subsidiary plans and documents, how it is used to communicate how the project will be executed and controlled, the importance and usage of a Project Management Information System, and the formality of the Project Management Plan all of which are vital to know and understand for the PMP Exam.
A few additional aspects to keep in mind when studying the Project Management Plan are that it is typically a formal written document, that it guides project execution and control, that it is approved by the project stakeholders, and that the project cannot start until the Project Management Plan is approved.
In order to understand this topic completely read the Develop Project Management Plan section in the PMBOK® Guide. Then explain what a Project Management Plan is, how it is developed, and how it is changed to a friend who is not a project manager. Because if you can explain it clearly to them, then you fully understand it yourself; and use a Project Management Plan for your projects because practice makes perfect when it comes to the PMP Exam.
As Project Managers we all need to use Presentations as one of the channels we communicate with. As part of our daily job, some project managers become really good at it and know how to engage with their audience through powerful presentations.
For most people the ability to deliver great presentations starts with practice that comes from experience, but also from adequate planning and lots of preparation.
Below is an ebook consisting of advice from experts who share their secrets to giving powerful presentations that will get people to take action.
Enjoy the read!
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