How to become a credible Agile Project Leader

By Linky van der Merwe

When I first transitioned to Agile, coming from a traditional project management background, I quickly realised that one of the keystones to become successful in Agile, would be to change my mindset. The mindset that needs to be adopted, is the Agile mindset, based on a set of key values and principles designed to better enable collaborative work and deliver continuous value through a “people-first” orientation. This means a huge move away from being very process driven and a focus on output (PMI’s PMBOK has 10 knowledge areas and 49 processes after all); to becoming more people focused and outcome driven. What a shift to make for any experienced professional project manager! Many project professionals rightfully ask how do they become credible Agile Project Leaders? This article aims to answer that question.

Read this article on the challenges and what it takes to be successful as Agile Project Managers.

Shift to Organisational Agility

For the past few years many organisations have been on a mission to improve their Organizational Agility, meaning their capability to quickly sense and adapt to external and internal changes to deliver relevant results in a productive and cost-effective manner. The need to become more agile, has been fast-tracked by the world-wide COVID epidemic.

According to the PMI Report: Achieving greater agility, 2017, companies will be successful if they build a culture of Agility. Culture is a critical enabler. It needs to be a culture of readiness that supports flexible processes and employee training in support of agile practices. Those who succeed gain considerable efficiencies.

The Report goes further to state that 88% of organisations with high agility realise significant benefits including more efficient and effective processes and higher customer and employee satisfaction. These organisations are more likely to align their projects with strategic objectives which is critical to benefits realisation and success.

The Role of Project Leaders and the PMO

In addition to executives to advocate agility, project leaders could become evangelists for greater agility. In organisations with high agility, it is noted that 77% have an agile PMO or agile working group who are leading Agile Transformation. Successful transformation commonly requires new approaches in fundamental areas of business. Those include budget cycles, hiring practices, procurement practices, and role delineation.

An agile oriented PMO has a customer-collaboration mindset. In many cases, this means the PMO operates as an internal consultant, tailoring project delivery approaches to accommodate resources, timelines, and overall business needs, even as they change. Based on a documented case study in the PMI report, of TD Bank, the PMO can continue to perform similar functions than before, like:

Establishing standards
Serving as the Centre of Excellence
Educating the organization
Training and building talent

To achieve the above there are practical ways for a PMO to support and lead an organisation’s agile transformation. The PMO leaders need to become subject matter experts in agile. Develop and/or acquire the expertise to help guide agile practitioners, develop training, and establish a community of practice that provides coaching services. They need to define the value proposition of agile and the PMO’s role in agile delivery. Help the organization define the agile target state and a roadmap to get there. Drive the change beginning with successes in project delivery and extending it beyond projects to business agility. Build the capacity by acquiring and/or retooling the workforce with the necessary agile skills, build a culture of agile within the project delivery organization, apply agile concepts to all projects regardless of delivery method.

The Agile Project Manager

Where does the Project Manager fit in and continue delivering value in the agile context? Project Managers need more than technical skills. To sense change they need to be well informed about an organization’s strategic objectives and how their projects align. They need to forge strong relationships with business owners who request projects as well as with the functions that support them (e.g., finance, legal, risk management, and HR). Those with leadership skills and strong business acumen, can lead strategic initiatives and play a role to ensure projects stay aligned with strategic goals. Agile Project Managers will help to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of how work gets done, including identifying unnecessary steps in work processes, as well as to share essential information broadly with all stakeholders.

The PMI Report: What’s next? Identifying new ways of working, Dom Price, a Futurist and Head of R&D at Atlassian is of the opinion that Project Managers will take on a more strategic role by managing for complexity, ambiguity, agility, and communication. As knowledge workers they will continue to learn and grow their strategic value. Project, Program and Portfolio Management will drive innovation and change by playing their role to enable the organisation to navigate change every day.

In a case study from AstraZeneca, they have evolved their PMO and Project Management capabilities by demonstrating the value of project management to build trust across the organisation, by:

involving project managers to identify smart and efficient processes,
improve ways of working,
streamline key areas such as risk management, planning, and control.

Enterprise-wide agility really requires everyone to understand what agility means—that it’s the capability to quickly sense and adapt to external and internal changes to deliver relevant results in a productive and cost-effective manner. Everyone also needs to adopt agile practices. The PMI Report conclude how project leadership can facilitate and advocate organisational agility by supporting the following:

Understand technical project management activities
Remove impediments and streamline processes when working with other areas of the business, such as HR and finance
Expose and communicate bottlenecks
Align stakeholder needs
Advocate for training in agile practices

How to be a credible Agile Project Leader

How do Project Managers become credible experts in Agile? To answer this question, I’m going to use guidance shared by Jo Ann Sweeney, a transformational change consultant based in the UK.

“To be viewed as a credible expert, you need to know the subject inside out, but expertise is not just about our knowledge on the topic. Substance does come first; close behind comes sincerity and passion.”

She explains that you don’t need to know everything about a topic. You need to be honest about the gaps in your knowledge, respect expertise in others and have a passion for your topic aligned with a passion for sharing. Credibility comes from three things:

your confidence – how you view and present yourself
your character – the innate qualities that make us unique based on your trustworthiness, respectfulness, responsibility, fairness, caring and social responsibility
your capabilities – your knowledge, skills and aptitudes; the natural talents you’re born with and develop throughout your life when you interact with others as well as learning through academia, training, mentoring and coaching

What’s next

I would say that experienced project managers (often PMP’s) have confidence based on their past experiences and ability to lead projects. They are able to display character, based on upholding the ‘Code of Ethics’ and professional conduct expected of project professionals. And any gap in capability can be addressed by training and coaching. There are various good certifications to consider for Agile, see this article for more information.

In a Techrepublic.com article, Allen Barnard stated that tech-savvy project professionals with business skills are highly valued for their ability to understand and facilitate change. The trend is to solve problems by using a design-thinking perspective. This means you view challenges from different stakeholders’ point of view and generate ideas to address them with clients. To facilitate these types of problem-solving approaches, project managers will need to develop leadership and technical skills, as well as empathy to build the strong relationships that are required to support organizational change.

There is a massive contribution to be made while helping organisations to build their Agile culture. An Agile Project Leader can help with establishing standards, to educate, to train and to align stakeholder needs. Do use your strengths of improving processes and enabling teams towards high performance. In a world with so much change, Agile Project Leaders are ideally positioned to help executives to turn their ideas into reality.

Sources

PMI report: Pulse of the Profession 2021 Beyond Agility
What’s next? Identifying new ways of working, 2018
Forbes.com: Agility, not efficiency, is the key to business success In 2021, by Sherry Suski. December, 2020.
TechRepublic.com: Project managers playing larger role in organizational agility. February, 2020.
PMI Thought Leadership Report – Achieving greater agility, the critical need for cross-functional support, 2017

Leadership lessons from Angela Merkel's life

June 9, 2021February 14, 2022 Linky

Top Leadership Lessons from Angela Merkel

By Linky van der Merwe

Early in 2021 there was a political leader who received a standing ovation when retiring at the age of 67 years old after leading the Christian Democratic Union for 18 years. This leader was born in July 1954 and grew up in East Germany. The first political leader with a doctorate in quantum chemistry who worked as a research scientist. Then she became the first female chancellor of Germany. She is a Protestant Christian who stated that she keeps religion as her constant companion and that Christians should not be afraid of standing up for their beliefs.

The person described here is Angela Merkel, known to be called “Iron Chancellor”, in comparison to the former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, often called the “Iron Lady”.

This article will summarise the top leadership lessons that we can learn from the political career and achievements of Angela Merkel during her reign as the Leader of Europe’s biggest economy since 2005.

Leadership Lessons

What follows is an overview of her leadership qualities, the traits that distinguished her as a successful leader, her style as a leader from a strengths and weaknesses point of view and a powerful quote.

She can be well described using the letters of her country G-E-R-M-A-N-Y.

G – goodness, generosity

E – epitome of purpose-based leadership and she’s a master of leading from behind, which means viewing leadership as a collective activity. Explained by professor Linda Hill in her 2015 book: Collective Leadership, ”what makes people willing to do the hard tasks of innovation together and work through the inevitable conflict and tension.”

R – ruthless, took bold stands, rational thinker.

M – methodical, likes to work patiently through a problem, splitting it into its various parts, weighing up pros and cons, and crafting a solution step by step, bit by bit; known to be the best-prepared person in the room, always on top of her briefing material.

A – assertive, independent as part of her self-expression

N – named Time magazine’s Person of the Year in Dec. 2015, and she topped Forbes magazine’s list of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, as well as multiple other awards.

Y – youngest German Chancellor since the Second World War; first woman to be elected German Chancellor; the first to have grown up in the former East Germany, and the first born after 1945. She was also the first female leader of a German political party, and the first German Chancellor with a background in natural sciences.

Longest-serving leader

As a four-term Chancellor of Germany she was the longest-serving leader in the European Union. The leadership traits that distinguished her as a successful leader are:

High self-regard and self-actualization
Emotional self-awareness
Assertive, independent as part of her self-expression
Interpersonal strengths – empathy, social responsibility
Thinking – problem solving, impulse control
Stress management – flexibility, stress tolerance, optimism
Believes in gender equality

Leadership style

Her leadership style is described as both pragmatic and methodical; a person who stayed away from risky decisions and who sought the middle ground. She played her plans close to her chest and was not afraid to take bold stands. Her values – humanity, generosity, tolerance – helped her to provide steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply.

Perhaps her most admired qualities can be summarised as her determination, giving her extraordinary drive and staying power, an incredible inner strength that allowed her to stay at the table and push the negotiations over the line. This is evident in how she dealt with the Euro sovereign debt crisis. Also, her sense of duty, because she dealt with Europe as a “matter of the heart”, believing in a prosperous and peaceful Europe that is committed to diversity, freedom and tolerance.

Like most people, she has weaknesses which are described as her strategy, the fact that she’s so rational and that she tends to think only about Germany, with her low point being the ongoing refugee crisis.

Above all, much inspiration, wisdom and good learnings can be taken from the life and leadership style of a woman who earned the trust and respect of her colleagues, her country and the neighbouring countries through her tenacity, principles and purposeful leading from behind.

Angela Merkel has embodied this spirit of courage and leadership that opened up the possibilities of a better future for all. In her own words:

“Let us not ask what is wrong or what has always been. Let us first ask what is possible and look for something that has never been done before.”

Sources

The Leadership Qualities That Made Angela Merkel ‘Time’ Magazine’s Person of the Year | Inc.com

Angela Merkel—Striking the Right Note on Leadership (imf.org) By Christine Lagarde; HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, August 31, 2019

Angela Merkel Leadership traits (slideshare.net) by Western Kentucky University

April 13, 2021August 28, 2021 Linky

How to Deal with Stress when Working from Home

By Michael Morris

Working from home might sound like a less stressful option than braving the daily commute or dealing with face-to-face contact with coworkers, but it doesn’t eliminate those daily workday anxieties completely – and it can bring its own set of worries along with it. Since the coronavirus pandemic, stay-at-home orders have meant that more people than ever are working from home and facing the realities that homeworking can bring. Many people ask: “How do you deal with stress when working from home?”

5 Great Tips for Handling Stress when Working from Home

1. Differentiate between home life and work life

When you’re working from home, the lines between your home life and office life can easily become blurred. It brings a whole new meaning to “bringing work home with you”. Therefore, it’s essential to make sure that you create a space in your home that you only use for work purposes so that you don’t constantly immerse yourself in your work life or let work-related stresses bleed into your daily routine.

5 tips for handling stress when working from home

When you finish work, it’s imperative that you can switch off and enjoy your family time or just find time to relax. Put down your pens, turn off your computer and step away from your desk until it’s time to start work again. Don’t be tempted to check your inbox and find ways to distract yourself if you feel that niggling desire to write that email you just didn’t have time to complete earlier in the day.

2. Create a comfortable workspace

When creating your home-based office, try to find a quiet space that’s away from distractions such as the television, or your children. By immersing yourself in an environment that’s conducive to productive working, the transition from office to homeworking will be much easier.

Be sure to set up your home office in a way that will keep you relaxed and make you feel comfortable at your workstation. Most importantly, don’t skimp on breaks. When you’re in the office, it’s natural to get up from time to time to chat with a colleague or wander into the kitchen to get a coffee. In your home environment, it’s much easier to forget to take these breaks – but they’re essential for mental well-being and stress reduction.

3. Don’t let social isolation impact your mental health

For anyone who is used to working in the buzz of a busy office environment, the change to homeworking can be quite isolating. Whether you have a family or live alone, the lack of interaction with coworkers can create a deep void.

Scheduling regular calls with colleagues and your managers can really help, especially if you have weekly team sessions to check in with each other.

Outside of work time, video calling with friends and family members can ease your loneliness. Sharing your feelings with trusted friends will allow you to channel and ease your stress instead of repressing it.

4. Make time to do something you enjoy

Deal with stress by doing something you enjoy

One of the best stress-busters is doing something that you enjoy. Whether it’s a daily run in the park, spending time with your family, watching your favourite show, taking your beloved dog for a walk, or simply sitting back and listening to music, fun can be the best medicine for beating stress factors.

If you’re still struggling with stress or anxiety, try guided meditations to help you unwind, or breathing techniques for effective stress management.

5. Talk to someone who can help

If the stresses of homeworking are proving to be a significant burden, talk to your manager or call the Samaritans (UK) in a crisis situation. Sharing your worries can help to alleviate them and make you feel better. Remember that, although work is an important part of life, the most important thing is your mental health and well-being.

For an excellent Guide on Mental Health while working remotely, click here.

March 9, 2021June 9, 2021 Linky

Emotional Intelligence: A Quick Guide to Empathy

By Dr Eben van Blerk

Most of us from time to time say something (or do not say something) that we regret. Our intentions were good but our behaviour did not match up. Our good intentions were hijacked by our emotions. Often, this is stressful for us and for others. This is where our emotional intelligence (EI) and specifically empathy can assist us to manage our emotions in order to live our good intentions.

What is Empathy?

Empathy is the ability to see a situation from the perspective of others. It is understanding the feelings and thoughts of others as they experience the situation and putting yourself in their shoes.

Empathy means being there for someone, listening to them and having a sincere interest in their feelings and perspective. It is an honest and practical demonstration of their importance to you. Empathy is about connecting emotionally. In the process, we build bonds that often last a lifetime.

Lack of empathy

Why are we considering empathy? A lack of empathy affects the bottom line in companies. It leads to morale problems, disengaged employees, poor conflict handling and resulting loss of profit. Customers experiencing a lack of empathy leave. They tell everyone willing to listen about their bad experience and encourage them not to do business with you anymore. By not being empathetic, you may be seen as not caring, aloof, not respecting others and insensitive to their feelings. This may trigger feelings of anger and resentment leading to broken relationships on a business and social level. Sometimes, when your name is mentioned years later, these feelings are rekindled.

Benefits of having more empathy

Empathy helps to build long lasting trusting relationships. Seeing the world from the perspective of others helps you to act appropriately in any given situation. When you show empathy, the other person feels valued, respected and listened to. This will connect you to them emotionally. People will feel drawn to you and stay by your side. This will result in give-and-take behaviour where they will be more likely to care, listen, help and support you as well.

Empathy self-test

Consider the following statements:

Yes/No: I sometimes struggle to understand what someone else is feeling and what they might be thinking under their current circumstances.
Yes/No: I find it difficult to see things from the perspective of others or put myself in their shoes.
Yes/No: Sometimes, I am not able to feel with the other person.
Yes/No: I often fail to assure others that I am there for them and that they are not alone.
Yes/No: I am indifferent to people dealing with emotional anguish, loss and sadness.

If you answered yes to some of the above questions, you may benefit from further developing your empathy.

10 Tips to improve your empathy

Actively listen and pay attention to the other person in a conversation without being judgemental.
Focus on the non-verbal cues to understand the emotions behind what is being said.
Ensure that your body language show that you are interested in the other person’s point of view and that you want to listen (keep eye contact and do not look at your phone).
Try to understand the other person’s perspective and their reasoning behind it. Ask sincere questions for clarification.
Imagine yourself in their situation and how they might be feeling.
Watch a conversation from a distance. Try to identify what the participants are feeling
Think about friends or colleagues that in your opinion are empathetic. What do they do that makes you feel this way?
Make a list of what you can do to make people you have contact with on a daily basis feel more valued and respected.
Always be thankful and kind.
Show gratitude.

Empathy can be further developed. You must however be willing to consider the perspective of others, even if you do not agree with their view of the world. Empathy does not only benefit others. As we develop our empathy, we but broaden our perspective of the world.

This assists us in responding more appropriate in the situation when dealing with life on a daily basis. Especially in trying times and crisis, empathy will pull us through. It will help to bind us together as a team. As a responsible member of the larger community we live and work in, we will do our part and come out stronger in the end.

Prior articles in the Emotional Intelligence series:

About the Author

Eben holds a Doctor of Technology degree from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, as well as an MBA degree from Stellenbosch University. He is an experienced emotional intelligence author and speaker. In addition to presenting emotional intelligence talks and facilitating emotional intelligence workshops, Eben has published articles and book chapters on leadership and emotional intelligence in local and international publications.

Contact him on LinkedIn if you need a speaker or workshop facilitator on emotional intelligence for your next team engagement.

February 2, 2021February 2, 2021 Linky

Kindness – an evidence-based strategy for leadership

By Mandy Carlson

Why should leaders practice kindness as a leadership strategy? And can they – really? A bit like weight training, leaders can build their compassion muscle in the brain, and have a direct impact on their team’s wellbeing and effectiveness [overall performance]. This means we all show up feeling valued, as people, in addition to placing value on the process and outcome of our project and work goals.

“Acts of kindness activate the part of our brains that makes us feel pleasure and releases a hormone called oxytocin that helps modulate social interactions and emotion. Being kind is good for our own and our employees’ mental health. And that translates to improved morale and performance.”
Harvard Business School article

This quote is emphasising the need to expand managers’ toolkits by showing kindness as a leadership strategy, as well as offering some good simple tips for giving attention to being kind.

There are endless benefits of kindness in our interactions at work relating to wellbeing for effectiveness. More than ever, there is an evidence-based need for kindness as stress levels impact mental and physical health of leaders and teams. Think burnout and psychosocial stressors that are ongoing and unchecked when relationships at work are destructive, even if not overt, in addition to the current stresses during this time of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kindness is an ACT and not a STATE

My thoughts on kindness in this context immediately connect to the recent references to character in leadership in the acceptance speech by elected Vice President Kamala Harris where she quoted the late John Lewis as saying ‘democracy is an act and not a state’. Kindness is just that too, an act and not merely a state of being. Kindness needs to be demonstrated through our behaviour and relationships with others.

“The Human brain is set to detect threat signals in an automatic and unconscious way. Due to evolutionary reasons, these ‘automatic’ paths get priority. Therefore, growth and change do not happen by chance: it has to be carefully focused on to be triggered.”
Delphine Jumelle-Paulet

The BONUS for leaders positioned more on the continuum of task vs compassion is that kindness can be developed and learnt!

For the sceptics there is evidence-based research and scientific data that shows:

We can change our thoughts, our behaviours, and our ability to thrive in this world by adapting [learning] in ways that result in physiological changes in the brain known as neuroplasticity where new neural pathways are formed and hardwired. Coaching is a powerful way to integrate learning and change, helping to reinforce good practices through actions that support positive behaviours.

The good news is kindness can be taught and ingrained through practice by developing the compassion ‘muscle’ in the brain. When kindness is experienced, this reduces stress and raises the right neurochemicals in our body-brain system to inspire us to move forward to achieve goals and growth.

Developing hard skills that were previously referred to as ‘soft skills’, relate to the human factor such as empathy, compassion, collaboration, communication, a coaching-based leadership approach, etc. These hard skills touch on EQ [managing my emotions] and SQ [managing others’ emotions] and make a difference to all aspects of performance, organisational wellbeing and effectiveness – for people and teams.

Sustained change and growth can be achieved. Empirical research by Richard Boyatzis and associates shows how more powerful results for sustained change is accomplished through coaching for compassion [like positive coaching-style approaches and processes] vs coaching for compliance [ensuring people meet certain behavioural requirements]. What this means for leaders and teams is to focus on people development vs people management as a more effective leadership approach.

I conclude on developing and demonstrating a strategy of kindness with a connection to the bigger picture and aligning with our global collective sustainable development goals.

“In many ways, acting out of kindness is a way to protest the present trend of pursuing happiness by increasing personal consumption and trying to capture as much as one can for oneself. Kindness – the word that is missing from the 2030 Agenda – might be the only means by which we can achieve our goals!”
United Nations

I invite you to connect and commit to acts of kindness in leading yourself and your team to experience a healthier and more meaningful and fulfilling work life.

What can you do differently in this next week?

About the author

Mandy Carlson of ‘Carlson Coaching and Consulting‘ practices as coach, change consultant, and learning facilitator. She is a certified Results Coach through Neuroleadership Institute as well as an accredited coach through Neurozone, and recently studied through Coaches Rising. Mandy is constantly learning through studies and practice of contemporary neuroscience findings, systems thinking, positive psychology, and more. Mandy has an honours degree in organisational psychology and a background in organisational development (OD). She is passionate about empowering teams, leaders and individuals with simple tools to learn and bring about lasting change for wellbeing and effectiveness.

January 20, 2021January 20, 2021 Linky

Guide for Planning and Managing Organisational Change

By Joey McDonald

Guide for Planning and Management Organisational Change — With compliments: Maryville University

Whenever large-scale organizational change is planned and managed by executives, project managers are on the front lines of incorporating those changes. Most employees don’t enjoy the prospect of undergoing large-scale organizational change, especially if it will impact them in any way.

Organizational change is ultimately implemented to make things easier, more efficient, and to improve financial results to enhance the company’s future. Organisations implement changes for a number of reasons. This could include topics like cultural awareness and acceptance, where many companies are taking large-scale initiatives to make workplaces more inclusive. Other reasons for change would be a desire to break into a new field, an overall change in a company’s mission, or implementation of new technology with the goal of streamlining communication.

Many large-scale changes often mean many labour hours being spent on training and changing, rather than work and generating revenue. This could lead to differing opinions from members of the C-suite on why, how, and even if these changes should be occurring. With that in mind, the responsibility falls on the shoulders of project managers to determine what the actual final verdict was regarding the organizational change, and incorporate the same techniques utilized in workflow management into the organizational change management.

Just as some C-suite executives will scoff at certain organizational change requests, many employees will do the same, unfortunately making the organizational change management that much more difficult for project managers. Taking of the gloves might be needed, especially if the organizational change management has been clearly put on the Project/Program Management team (including a Change Manager). If you find yourself in a position of having to lead change, taking a look at this comprehensive guide on Organizational Change Management can prepare you for success in your difficult-but-achievable situation.

The Organisational Change Management Guide cover important aspects; like what Change Management is, why it is important, planning strategies for Change, who needs change and examples of successful and failed transformation cases. This Guide is an excellent read and reference.

January 12, 2021January 12, 2021 Linky

The Rise of Remote Work

During 2020 many people started working from home, remotely, as a result of Covid-19. It happened fairly quickly and quite seamlessly, thanks to the technology we have at our disposal.

Now, in 2021 when most people are returning to work after a Christmas holiday break, the remote working arrangement is continuing due to the fact that the Pandemic is far from over.

It will be interesting to see if the remote work arrangement will continue when things do return to normal one day, or whether it may become a permanent arrangement, perhaps following a hybrid approach where employees may continue working from home 2 or 3 days a week.

With this trend, it is very beneficial for employers and managers to ensure teams have home offices that enables high productivity.

Find below an Infographic covering the rise of remote work, the challenges people experience with that and details of office accessories to help with success.

12 must-have office accessories for working from homeInfographic by Quill

October 20, 2020August 25, 2022 Linky

The Remote Working Experiment

By Michael Morris

This year, the world has undergone a vast remote working experiment. Although some companies had already introduced this option for their workers, COVID-19 drastically accelerated the levels of remote working out of necessity.

So has the experiment been a success? What are the pros and cons of remote working?

The Advantages of Remote Working

Let’s start with the advantages of remote working.

For the employee, there are wide range of benefits that include:

Greater work-life balance. Rather than working rigid 9-5 office hours, with a potentially punishing commute further consuming the day, remote workers can work from a location of their choosing. With less time spent commuting, they can fill their day with more personally rewarding activities – whether that’s spending time with the family, going to the gym, or simply relaxing at home.
Saving money. Whether it’s a rail ticket or fuel for the car, commuting can also cost a lot of money.
Improved focus. For many workers, a noisy office is not the most conducive working environment. In one survey of UK workers, 68% felt they were more productive or equally productive at home.

remote working benefits — https://unsplash.com/photos/smgTvepind4

There are also benefits for employers, with some of the most significant being:

Greater productivity and a more engaged workforce. Happy and healthy workers are also more productive workers. It’s not surprising that remote workers’ enhanced levels of wellbeing can lead them to work more effectively too.
Lower costs. The cost of running an office for five days a week can be substantial. Whether businesses implement remote working full-time or part-time, they will end up saving some money.
New talent. A remote working setup allows businesses to seek talent from further afield.

The Disadvantages of Remote Working

Although remote working undoubtedly has many benefits, there are naturally some downsides that need to be considered too. Although video conferencing with colleagues is great for work purposes, it’s far from ideal for socialising. It’s difficult for more than one person to talk at the same time, and so group chats can descend into incoherent chaos. Face-to-face communication is important for the social culture and togetherness of a company, and remote communication is not quite able to fill the gap – yet. In future, of course, it could be that new virtual reality technology will improve matters here.

For the individual remote worker, too, this isolation can become depressing. It’s important to guard remote workers’ mental health, and ensure that they still feel involved as much as possible. Although remote working has some definite upsides for mental health, the potential downsides should not be ignored.

Has the experiment been a success?

Has remote working experiment been a success? — https://unsplash.com/photos/-2vD8lIhdnw

Many businesses have been historically wary of introducing remote working, but the experiment during the pandemic has dispelled some of the misconceptions they might have had. Remote workers do not slack off, but continue to work productively – and some studies even suggest those who work at home are actually more productive.

For the workers themselves, working from home can be something of a mixed blessing. Many have celebrated the improved work-life balance and wellbeing that remote working has brought them, but there are signs that remote working full-time can start to take its toll. Others have experienced increasing isolation – craving the social atmosphere of the office.

It may be, of course, that the right balance lies in the middle ground – remote working a few days a week to improve wellbeing, but also benefiting from office socialising. In general, however, it’s clear that the remote working experiment has been largely successful: opening up new horizons of possibility for employers and employees alike.

More great resources

Working from Home Guide

Please find below an in-depth guide on creating a healthy and productive workplace for people working from home. This is very useful since many are still under COVID-19 lockdowns. It will help you gain an understanding of the biggest challenges faced by remote workers dealing with stress, anxiety, and maintaining work-life balance at home.

Working from Home: A Guide to Creating a Healthy and Productive Workspace

Guide to Remote Working and Mental Health

This guide offers a lot of great information, such as:

Why remote working has become the new normal due to lockdowns – An estimated 30% of the workforce could be home-based by the end of 2021.
How remote working can significantly affect physical and mental health.
Different ways you can alleviate stress when working from home, such as creating a comfortable work environment and taking regular breaks.

How employers can help to make working from home healthier and less stressful for their employees. Click below for the full Guide.

Remote Working & Mental Health: A Young Professional’s Guide

Your home and your wellbeing: how to achieve a work-life balance while working from home

This guide offers helpful insights:

65% of people value a good work-life balance as the most important factor when looking for work.
As of April 2021, 31% of workers still worked remotely for the majority of the time.
The proportion of people working remotely varies hugely between sectors. In the Information and Communication industry, 81% of the workforce is remote. In contrast, just 8% of Accommodation and Food Service employees work remotely.
As of December 2020, there were 22% more people who worked from home in rural areas than in urban areas.

For more helpful information about:

Changing attitudes and behaviours to work-life balance
Tips on how to adjust and be more productive when working from home
Red flags that you’re not managing work-life balance well
How working from home affects your mortgage

How to achieve a work-life balance while working from home

June 25, 2020August 25, 2022 Linky

6 Global Trends – What they mean for Project Leaders

As the project management profession matured over the years, there has been a growing emphasis on developing leadership skills in order to become a better project leader.

In the words of the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) President and CEO, Sunil Prashara:

“Not only do today’s project leaders need a strong understanding of technology, the ability to determine the best project management methodology for projects, AND the new “power skills” like empathy, creativity and inspirational leadership, they must also have an understanding of the major business, technological, economic and geopolitical trends shaping the world.”
Sunil Prashara, President of PMI

To help prepare project professionals for this, the PMI has conducted research (interviews with project professionals; analyzed information extracted from political, economic, scientific and demographic databases) on the most pressing, long-term trends around the globe. The purpose is to gain a greater understanding of where these critical areas are heading and how industry project leaders can prepare.

With the speed of transformation and operating in a complex world, it will help to gain an understanding of these changes in order to thrive and make an impact where you are.

Signposts Report

The findings have been published in the PMI 2020 Signposts Report. In summary, the Report consist of the following Insights:

Insight 1: Africa and most of the developing world will be home to a new generation of talent ready to tackle a new generation of projects.

Insight 2: Climate change ranks as one of the biggest existential threats to civilization, but project professionals can play a pivotal role in avoiding the point of no return.

Insight 3: As artificial intelligence truly moves into the mainstream, it brings harsh realities—and immense opportunities for project leaders with the right blend of people and tech skills.

Insight 4: Rampant protectionism is forcing a rethink of the once unstoppable force of globalization. But for many project teams, it’s cross-border business as usual (with a few tweaks).

Insight 5: The global infrastructure gap between needs and investment is wide. To close it, project leaders are relying on data-driven innovation—and good old-fashioned people skills.

Insight 6: Keeping information safe requires a united front, backed by a cross-disciplinary, enterprise-wide cybersecurity culture.

The Report makes for a fascinating read about climate change, artificial intelligence, globalization, the infrastructure gap, cybersecurity and shifting demographics.

There are complex issues to be solved which require a new way of thinking and to reimagine the way work gets done. The PMI advocates that organisations need project leaders who bring holistic perspectives, a deep curiosity and broad skill sets to the work at hand who are capable of embracing new ways of working, leading diverse teams and exploring innovative solutions. We need to get ourselves ready.

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June 9, 2020June 9, 2020 Linky

How to Create a Perfect Remote Work Environment

With the spread of COVID-19 as a declared pandemic across the world, the transitioning to working remotely, or what is classically called ‘work from home’ (WFH) has equally spread fast. Many organisations have realised that their staff can continue working from home without interruption, therefore minimising the impact of the virus lockdowns.

However, working remotely has it’s own challenges that need to be overcome in order to stay productive.

Herewith an Infographic guide, with compliments from Wrike, that covers everything you need from room temperature to ergonomic chairs, from what you play on your headphones to what you put in your belly. We trust that this will help you to stay super productive!

How to Create Your Perfect Remote Work Environment (#Infographic)

Infographic brought to you by Wrike

June 1, 2020June 1, 2020 Linky

How Active Listening can help with Virtual Teams

By Linky van der Merwe

Many teams all over the world, have been forced into a ‘work-from-home’ situation due to the Coronavirus spread and countries’ response with different degrees of lockdown measures to curb the spread. Inevitably, virtual teams have many challenges. This article will position how the skill of ‘Active Listening’ can play a huge part when leading virtual teams.

What is active listening?

Active listening can be described as follows:

Clarifying
Feedback
Focus
Improve the communication
Repeating
Intent
Encouraging

What are communication challenges to overcome?

The challenges people are coming across, include the following:

How to listen when you are part of a virtual team
Technology is overloaded; organisations and schools are using the networks, which could cause connectivity or sound issues
When no video is used, you cannot read body language. Tone of voice becomes very important
Participants can talk over each another, or some don’t get a chance to speak

How to address communication challenges with listening skills?

You will find with remote work that virtual teams require new rules and new ways of collaboration. Different ground rules will apply, for example to time-box discussions and to ensure that every participant get a chance to speak. More 1-on-1 discussions are required and you need to have more empathy.

Communication with virtual teams can take a lot of energy. Therefore, beware of low energy levels, for example if a person hasn’t eaten, or it’s at the end of a long day, people may lose interest.

Stages of Listening

Reception during communication can be explained with:

Intake
Meaning
Significance
Response

3 Phases of active listing

The following image provides a nice breakdown of the three phases of active listening, namely comprehending, retaining and responding.

Levels of listening

There are also different levels of listening to be aware of.

Level 1: Internal listening

You ask a question. When a person answers, you think of your own life, interrupt them, or just keep thinking of your own things, and stop listening while they’re speaking. It’s all about ME.

Level 2: Focused listening

The person who listens, asks clarifying questions. Now it’s about voice, information, body language (if it can be seen), emotions that are being observed.

Level 3: Global listening

The person listening has a sense of curiosity. You listen with emphathy. You consider the environment and you take into account a person’s background.

Level 4: Listening for potential

You listen with intent and a positive attitude while thinking of future possibilities and potential.

How to become better with active listening

What will really help you is to have curiosity and to use keywords. If you’re not interested, or curious, you won’t listen, or spend energy there. While listening, look for keywords, ideas and concepts. If things are repeated, look for patterns, because repeated themes are more important.

Another way to become better with active listening, is thinking in a visual way. To do this, you can draw notes, or draw a picture. This gives context, meaning and focus.

You can also improve your active listening skills by being aware of yourself. Do this through reflection, mindfulness and self-awareness. Ask yourself questions like:

How do I listen?
What is good and what not?
Can I improve something?

Nonviolent communication

Nonviolent Communication is an approach to nonviolent living developed by Marshall Rosenberg beginning in the 1960s. NVC is based on the assumption that all human beings have capacity for compassion and empathy and is really about communicating honestly and receiving empathetically. It is an essential ingredient to active listening.

The steps involved with NVC are:

Observe – when I see, hear
Feelings – I feel
Needs – because I need
Requests – please could you now. The needs of the other person are important and always considered

Tips to improve

There are several ways to keep improving your active listening skills. They are:

Conscious practice
Write down keywords
Note your own ideas
Ask neutral clarifying questions
In your mind repeat what other persons says
Try to visualize what the other person is saying
Ask additional questions until you can form a mental image
Don’t talk; rather use non-verbal signals like sounds and expressions, grunts and body language
Reply with 1-2 syllables
Admit you are lost
Repeat back or paraphrasing to show understanding
Adjust your own posture
Mirror the other person
Apply mindfulness
Check the environment
Drawing of notes, or pictures

The skill of ‘Active Listening’ should not be underestimated; it becomes even more important with virtual teams. It is something that can be practiced and improved over time.

As a virtual team lead, it is your responsibility to hone this skill and to model the behavior of good active listening to your team members so that they can also practice it and improve their listening skills. You will find that it will greatly contribute to building trust within teams and to help overcome the challenges of working virtually.

Sources:

Webinar by Pascal Papathemelis from Agile 42
Corporatecoachgroup.com: “How to improve active listening skills”

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May 7, 2020February 14, 2022 Linky

How to Deal with COVID-19 as a Project Manager Part 2

By Linky van der Merwe

This article follows from the previous article: How to deal with COVID-19 as a Project Manager, published on 16 March 2020.

In light of this crisis, some of the best things a Project Leader can do, is to arm yourself with information and to be a pillar of strength for your project team(s).

By now we all know that the Coronavirus, known as the COVID-19 pandemic, has serious implications for economies all over the world and is causing a huge business impact in every country where it is spreading. Countries, organizations, and individuals are faced with extremely serious risks, uncertainties, challenges, questions, and decisions—in many cases existential in nature. It is important to arm yourself with accurate, comprehensive information to manage your organization and teams through this crisis by making informed, thoughtful decisions.

Let’s look with a broader lens before we try to understand the impact on project teams.

How to restart national economies

Recently McKinsey reported on the scenarios under which economies will need to restart, called: “How to Restart National Economies during the Coronavirus Crisis.“

Based on the rapid, exponential spread of COVID-19 across the world over the past month, McKinsey has revised its Scenario Analysis (as shared in the previous article) to include 9 potential scenarios. These scenarios capture outcomes related to GDP impact, public health response, and economic policies.

McKinsey Report - How to restart national economies

McKinsey Report - How to restart economies

Stages of Recovery

Different countries have had different levels of success in handling this crisis, therefore McKinsey is proposing 4 stages of recovery readiness.

Overview of the 4 Stages of Recovery

To understand what state of readiness a country is in, the 9 scenarios are mapped to the 4 stages of readiness. The best prepared areas are in the upper right box.

For every country and territory, there is a path to recovery—before parts of the economy can be restarted, you must first slow the spread of the virus. If you prematurely restart the economy prior to truly containing the spread, you risk re-starting the spread. Most countries expect to experience significant decline in GDP in Q2 of 2020, which would be the first time since WWII. In fact, GDP drops to its lowest point globally in Q2.

COVID-19 Scenarios Overview

Based on the COVID-19 scenarios, here are the proposed paths to recovery.

If you examine the Stage 2 scenario: A3-Virus is contained, which captures the situation where the virus is contained by mid-Q2, it is expected that public health containment and mitigation efforts, along with a seasonal decline, leads to a reduction in case load.

The result is that by the end of 2020, beginning of 2021, GDP will have recovered to the pre-pandemic levels for most countries.

Under the A1 scenario (medium virus spread), we endure a slow, global recovery—there is severe and large-scale human and economic impact. Most countries will take over 2+ years to recover to the pre-pandemic GDP levels. In this scenario, the GDP shows a gradual U-shape recovery stretching multiple years.

Implication for Companies and Projects

If the Stage 2 scenario (A3-virus is contained) materializes in your country, you have the possibility that the economy should return to normal within a year, with little impact on larger projects and programmes that were able to continue, despite wide-scale lock-down measures in many countries. Of course many small projects would have been put on hold, postponed, or cancelled altogether due to the economic downturn.

However, in the event of a possible A1 scenario in your country, the slow economic recovery, may cause many planned projects to be postponed and multiple cost-saving measures are expected to be implemented by stable companies who will try to survice over the 2+ years that it will take the economy to recover to pre-pandemic GDP levels.

Our response

There is no point in panicking about the situation we as project practitioners are finding ourselves in. Rather prepare for the eventuality that uncertainty, challenges and difficult decisions are lying ahead for most companies.

In another McKinsey article: “Saving our livelihoods from COVID-19: Toward an economic recovery“, they state:

The pandemic could give rise to a new era of human development
McKinsey, April 2020

Recognise the impact of COVID-19 on people’s livelihoods. There will be an increase in unemployment and poverty. This means that some of your team members are experiencing a decline in household income that could last months. This will have a demoralizing effect on families and on teams we lead. We need to raise our awareness and focus on providing emotional safety to our teams. When people feel safe (a basic need) and still secure in their jobs, they will stay committed and motivated to work productively.

It will be the government’s responsibility to help companies to safeguard employment. People will be allowed to return to work under strict health protocols. We need to support those protocols in order to contain the virus and still stay economically active.We can expect that companies will make structural changes during the economic recovery period like leaner operations, digital and industrial reconversions, the introduction of new channels, agile organizational structures, digital innovation and innovative learning techniques. These changes will certainly have an impact on how projects are prioritized and executed in future. As project professionals we need to position ourselves to have market related skills to fill the demands of the recovering economy.

We need to work on being more resilient in these difficult time and keep developing our leadership skills. This is why I’m reading a book called: “Prosper!: How to Prepare for the Future and Create a World Worth Inheriting” by Chris Martenson and Adam Taggart. It gives specific, attainable steps you can take today that can limit your vulnerability and help you to live your life with greater purpose.

Keep yourself informed, be realistic, but stay positive while leading your teams as best as you can through these uncertain times. As long as value is delivered by projects and the outcomes serve companies and their customers, you will stay in high demand.

Please comment and let us know how you are dealing with the pandemic crisis. How are you supporting your teams through this? Share anything that will help others who are in the same predicament.

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Sources:

How to Restart National Economies during the Coronavirus Crisis. McKinsey, April 2020
Saving our livelihoods from COVID-19: Toward an economic recovery McKinsey, April 2020