Project Communication Series: PM Communication Skills
Posted by Brad Egeland
I’ve long talked about the need for the project manager to be an effective communicator. I’ve professed that I believe it is the single most important characteristic of the project manager – their #1 skill. If a person is not an effective communicator, I simply don’t see how they could possibly hope to make it as a project manager.
As I read further in Mr. Heerkens’ book “Project Management,” I came across his list of the communication skills of the project manager. It’s an all-encompassing list. It’s his list for of the abilities – in terms of communication – that all of the successful project managers have possessed that he’s come across in his career.
As Mr. Heerkens states, developing the skills needed to effectively communicate takes time, practice, and feedback. Here is his list for those abilities he’s witnessed in successful project managers:
- Ability to express themselves effectively in conversations with organizational management
- Ability to express themselves effectively in conversations with peers and team members
- Ability to express themselves effectively in conversations with subordinates and support personnel
- Ability to speak naturally in front of a large group
- Ability to prepare and deliver formal presentations
- Ability to speak “off the cuff” effectively
- Ability to negotiate Read more »
Project Communication Series: Meaningful Meetings
Posted by Brad Egeland
On projects, meetings are usually one of the three primary methods of communication. The other two are emails and phone calls. Given that, conducting high-quality and efficient meetings is important not only to continued project success but also to team member productivity. No one likes to waste time – and often on highly visible, mission-critical projects the project manager can ill afford to waste anyone’s time, let alone their own.
Gary Heerkens book entitled “Project Management” covers the concept of high-quality, effective meeting communications. Though I don’t fully agree with all of it – specifically when he discusses how you should not have a meeting if you have nothing new to discuss, because I think it’s critical to stay on schedule and at least have a brief weekly status meeting with the team and customer even if there’s little to discuss – I still think the text is interesting and worth noting here. Please read on for Mr. Heerken’s views on this topic…
Conducting productive meetings
Meetings can be a very effective way to conduct business. They bring people together for a relatively short amount of time so that large amounts of information can be shared. As mentioned several times previously, you should conduct core team meetings regularly to promote a steady flow of information to and from team members. But you’ll find that there are many other times when you may need to call for a meeting. Meetings are a critical form of communication.
Best Practices for Mature Organizations
Posted by Brad Egeland
Eric Verzuh’s book “The Portable MBA in Project Management” discusses a study that was performed on 26 companies of varying sizes to determine whether implementing specific project management practices produced any actual project performance improvement.
Results from the study showed that companies with the best practice attributes I’ll describe next consistently scored better than their counterparts in four categories:
- Actual cost of projects as a percentage of budgeted cost was 6 percent better for best practice companies.
- Best practice companies had a 25 percent better rate of completing projects on budget.
- Best practice companies had a 29 percent better rate of completing projects on time.
- Actual hours as a percentage of budgeted hours was 15 percent lower for best practice companies.
The resulting data from the best practices study allows us to derive a profile of a mature project management organization. As we analyze the data, we find that the enablers and practices observed in the best practice companies can be isolated into a few core best practice attributes found in these companies.
These include:
1. Formal project management structure: Best practices companies have some type of project management structure, whether a program management office, project management office, project support office, or project knowledge center. Of the best practice companies surveyed, 50% had a program management office. What differentiates the program management office from other project management office structures is its responsibility for the delivery of programs, as opposed to strictly an administrative support role. In addition, the program management office is generally responsible to a vice president or director level with program managers directly assigned to this office. Data indicated that the program management office has a higher success rate than other project management structures in percentage of projects completed on time and on budget.
Virtual Teams: Key Success Factors – Part 1
Posted by Brad Egeland
The business justification for virtual teams is strong. They increase speed and agility and leverage expertise and vertical integration between organizations to make resources readily available. Virtual teams also lessen the disruption of people’s lives because the people do not have to travel to meet. And in today’s business world that’s big. That’s green. Team members can also broaden their careers and perspectives by working across organizations and cultures and on a variety of projects and tasks.
Although the effective use of electronic communication and collaboration technologies is fundamental to the success of a virtual team, virtual teams entail much more than technology and computers. When virtual teams and their leaders are asked about successes and failures, they rarely mention technology as a primary reason for either. While it’s important that software packages such as Seavus’ Project Planner or Project Viewer are used to keep virtual teams informed and in sync, it’s not all about technology.
Ten Characteristics of Successful Project Teams – Part 1
Posted by Brad Egeland
Have you ever been a member of a high-performing, smoothly running team? If you have been, it’s an experience that you are not likely to forget. On this type of team there is usually a strong trust bond, people work cooperatively together to reach the common project goals, and often the project is even more successful than the project manager and customer could have imagined. These types of teams generally have some key characteristics in common that help make them the effective, high-performing teams that they are. In this series, we’ll examine ten key characteristics of these types of teams.
These ten main characteristics of successful project teams are:
- Clearly defined goals
- Clearly defined roles
- Open and clear communication
- Effective decision making
- Balanced participation
- Valued diversity
- Managed conflict
- Positive atmosphere
- Cooperative relationships
- Participative leadership
For Part 1 of this series, we’ll examine the first two in more detail: clearly defined goals and clearly defined roles.