What Effective Collaboration Is Not…

Within a good project management system and process, you and your business should have outlined a team collaboration plan and seen collaboration tools and features to bring you closer together. These collaboration features can include anything from wikis for internal collaborative work development to online discussions and forums to hold and save on-going conversations around a specific topic.

But there are practices that are either confused with good team collaboration or reverted back to when collaboration proves “too difficult”. These just aren’t effective at bringing a team together to produce a quality outcome. Read more »

Accept Project Management and Collaboration Into Your Corporate Culture

Personal story alert: I used to work in a company that vehemently objected to implementing an online project management and collaboration system in their business. Their excuses were the same that we hear from many other businesses: It takes too long to implement. We would waste time. We don’t know how to research a solution. We don’t think anyone would use the solution we choose.

And eventually, the decision was made to overcome all those objections and just move forward with a project management solution, come hell or high water. And the results are were the same that we hear from many other businesses: Projects were managed better. Team members communicated more. Collaboration took place around business plans and documents. Supervisors were able to oversee all projects easily.

By now, we all know the benefits that effective project management and team collaboration can offer the modern business. But there are still the objections, the wariness, the suspicions of moving forward with accepting project management and collaboration practices into the business. And perhaps it’s because business owners just don’t know how to takes those first few steps toward improved business organization and communication.

So, here are tips for accepting project management and team collaboration into your corporate culture.

Test Solutions Together

Your team may resent a mandated change in which they have no say. Allow them the opportunity to test out project management and collaboration solutions before you select the final product for your business. They will be the ones using it most often, and their opinions will shape the way the projects are managed in the future.

Start With One Project At A Time

Don’t dive in head first with this new process. Pick and choose one or a couple projects to start out with to get everyone used to the new system. This way, your team will learn the new processes, iron out the wrinkles in the system and discover more efficient ways of managing their work before all the projects are there.

Create A Timeline

Even though you are starting out slow, you need to have an end in sight. Set a timeline indicating when all projects, work and communications will need to be 100% inside your new system. This will give everyone a goal to shoot for, and will ensure you don’t fall back into your old habits.

Offer Encouragement

Everyone likes a little encouragement, right? When you see a teammate fully accepting and adapting to the new project management and collaboration system, let them know they are doing a good job! Encourage them to continue with their new productivity skills, and to help others if needed as well.

Make It Fun!

When first encouraging your team to get involved in their new project management system, make sure they have fun when they are there. Don’t just work on and collaborate around business stuff – play games and hold exciting discussions to keep people coming back. Offer a prize for the most creative project title. Collaborate together on editing photos of your teammates. Discuss what the mother-to-be should name her new baby. All of these fun little games can encourage people to enjoy using the new project management and team collaboration solution while also learning more about it in the process.

Once you’ve taken the first big step to deciding to move forward with a project management and team collaboration solution, you need to encourage the rest of the team to step along with you. By following the steps above, you’ll be working more efficiently and effectively in no time, and collaborating on improved outcomes together.

June PM Survey: Managing the Project – Part 2

Part 2 of the June PM survey is now available.  This 2^nd part of the monthly survey again deals with concepts associated with the ongoing management of the project.

The survey is now active and ready for your participation at:

http://www.bradegeland.com/june-survey-part-2.html

In this 2^nd part of the survey, we’ll be looking at the following topics:

Definition of project success

For this question, I’m looking for how either you or your organization primarily defines project success.  Is it on time project delivery, on budget project delivery, or customer satisfaction?  And for those of you who feel it’s something other than those three options, there is a write-in ‘other’ response area available.

Percentage of successful projects delivered

This one will definitely a best-guess scenario because I doubt that anyone has compiled hard numbers on this plus it’s somewhat subjective as to what one would call a ‘successful’ project.  I’m trying to get an idea of where our readership stands in regards to successful vs. failed projects.  Recent studies – as I’ve reported here in recent articles – place the percentage of failed projects between 62% and 75%.  It will be interesting to see where PM Tips readers fall in that spectrum.

Percentage of project revenue from change orders

Change orders are always a love – hate thing.  For the PM and team, they are a great way to increase project revenue and executive management loves them.  However, it’s often difficult and even uncomfortable for the project manager to present the customer with change orders – unless they are the result of direct customer requests.  Also, change orders are a necessary tool to bridge the gap between the originally defined requirements and what reality fleshes out over the course of the engagement.

Read more »

How Does The Holy Trinity Affect Project Management?

Early in May, Dan Pontefract of TrainingWreck wrote the post “The Holy Trinity: Leadership Framework, Learning 2.0 & Enterprise 2.0.” In this post, he discussed how different teams within organizations are thinking and acting in completely different ways when it comes to social media, social networking and utilizing these techniques within the enterprise. He suggests that when all business teams come together and agree on learning the best social tools to network internally, as well as take leadership in their organization, they will create a successful culture of collaboration.

The culture of collaboration is the result of the Holy Culture Trinity (updated leadership framework, learning 2.0 and enterprise 2.0) which is a more thoughtful way of ensuring organizational success.

For me, effective collaboration is going to be a huge factor in determining the success of the business and the business team. And team collaboration fits in so well with project management practices that they can be thought of as one overall effective approach for improving the team as a whole. Read more »

When Collaboration Isn’t Enough

With all the communication about business team collaboration lately, we are hearing a lot about the benefits. By integrating collaboration processes, practices and solutions in your business, you’ll be able to work better together to produce a quality product.

But sometimes collaboration isn’t enough. It isn’t good enough to just talk about what you’re going to do, nor is it good enough to plan on working together in one area and then do the work in a vacuum somewhere else.

Here are a few common instances when utilizing a collaboration solution just isn’t enough, and how to integrate the collaboration solution as needed. Read more »