New Frontiers in PM: Creating High Performing Team

We'll be publishing insights from attendees of this year's PW&WCBA event over the next several weeks. Would you like to share your thoughts? Email them to Michelle LeBlanc at mleblanc@iirusa.com.

Silvanus David provided a South African view on how to create a high performing team. The video shown of the cheetah, gazelle and the project manager is a unique way to indicate how important a project manager needs to be prepared for everyday challenges and possible risks.

As a professional in his field, to create a high performing team the following are a few items that are needed:
- Know your teams strength and weakness
- Team building
- develop as a single unit by knowledge sharing
- Treat team members as people and not as a resource object

Silvanus David discussed that demonstrating leadership within a team shows character. Being proactive not reactive are traits of a true leader. Leadership is earned and not bestowed. Believe in the capabilities of the team and increase their weakness. A high performing team creates value which leads to innovation. Give praise to the team by taking time out to acknowledge their effort and support.

As a follow up to this conference session, I went back to the office with a renewed vigor to sit with my team members, re-enforce team sharing as well as develop new ways to continue the development of my team with some of the ideas that Silvanus and I discussed. Thanks Silvanus for your professionalism and ideas.

Demetrios Plessias is a project manager for WSP Flack + Kurtz which is a consulting Engineering firm in NYC. He can be reached at demetrios.plessias@wspfk.com

What's The Project Plan For Your Career?

Yesterday I had the pleasure of moderating yet another of our PW&WCBA webinar series. This session focused on career development - both for the manager that wants to bring out the best in their team, as well as the "rock star" on the team that wishes to drive their career forward. It got me thinking about project management and business analysis career paths, (which is always one of the hottest topics at PW&WCBA.)

Browsing PMI’s 2012 Pulse of the Profession I was interested to read the following:

"2011 PMI Project Management Salary Survey found that nearly 70% of organizations now have a career path for those engaged in project or program management. However, the majority of these are still informal and not clearly defined and in writing."

Anecdotal evidence from speaking with various PW&WCBA attendees agrees. One particular example from yesterday's webinar stood out to me as well: While the "rock star" on a team may need to be encouraged and developed to keep them within the team and the company - not everyone is suited to moving to a people management role, and in fact it may not even be something they're interested in. Whether that "rock star" is you, or you are the one in the management position, it is important to establish communication and evaluate what those career goals are.

If this is something you struggle with, several of our sessions at this year's PW&WCBA focus directly on next career moves, employee development and team leadership including:
What is a Business Architect and How Might YOU Get There? with Cecilie Hoffman, Business Architect, Railinc Corporation
Developing Project Managers into Project Leaders with Mark Schlosser, Director, Enterprise Project Change Management & Analytics, U.S. Cellular Corporation & Jackie Staley, Director, Enterprise Project Management, U.S. Cellular Corporation
How to Create and Sustain a Culture of Innovation in Your Organization with Srini Penchikala, Security Architecture Program Manager, Texas Guaranteed and
New Frontiers in PM: Creating High Performing Teams with Silvanus David, Program Manager, South African State Information Technology Agency

Plus, simply attending the conference can help you gain the skills and knowledge needed to take that next step - be it a people management role or more technical.  Download the brochure to learn more about these and all of our other sessions.

In your experience, is it difficult to define a project management or business analyst career path? Once you've reached a certain point, do you find yourself asking "what's next?" Share your experience with us in the comments.

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA and the voice behind the @Project_World twitter. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com

PM Insights: Managing stakeholder expectations

Over the next few weeks here on the Project World blog we're going to be featuring some of the insights shared at the 2011 Your Space session at the ProjectWorld® & World Congress for Business Analysts® event.

A repeat favorite, Your Space offers PW&WCBA attendees a chance to debrief on topics covered, come up actionable plans for their return to the office and share in the collective knowledge and expertise of other PW&WCBA attendees and speakers  

This week's topic comes from Table 5: Managing stakeholder expectations

This is obviously a huge topic for PW&WCBA attendees. The main problem that we saw emerging was that stakeholders get missed or overlooked or are otherwise not engaged or participating in the project, and this leads to overruns on time or budget or conflicts that derail progress.

The group at table five identified some strategies for preventing this and managing expectations more effectively:
• Using methodology or diagrams to identify all stakeholders
• Keeping stakeholders informed and engaged  with regular status updates on milestones & deliverables
• Define scope, define the project upfront, including risks and end date and educate the stakeholders on cost, time and materials.
• A lot of and clear communication
 • A documented approval process
• Prioritizing what is included in each release and understanding what a stakeholder is wanting a certain feature
• Stakeholders coming together in agreement on prioritizing issues as an outcome of testing or what is not in release
• Staying proactive to prevent reactive
• Be brief in your presentations, 3 min elevator speech
• Present stakeholder with all information about project steps
• Spend time to understand requirements, include end steps

What would you add to this list? Have you found a particular tactic effective for managing stakeholder expectations?

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA and the voice behind the @Project_World twitter. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com

Taking a Project Team Through the Four Stages of Team Development

Brad Egeland of PMTips.net has a clear outline of what managers must do when they've been assigned a new project management team.

The forming stage

A newly formed team needs considerable structure, or it will not be able to get started. A leader who fails to provide such structure may be rejected by the group, which will then look for leadership from someone else. A directive style of leadership is called for in the forming stage.

During the forming stage, members also want to get to know each other and want to understand the role each member will play in the team. The leader must therefore help team members get to know each other and to understand clearly the team’s goals, roles, and responsibilities. One error that may be made by very task-oriented leaders is to tell the team to “get to work,” without helping members get to know each other; such leaders tend to view purely “social” activities as a waste of time. It should be obvious, however, that it is hard to see yourself as a team when you don’t know some of the “players.”

Getting the team started with a kick-off party or dinner is one way to let members get to know one another in a purely social way, with no pressure to perform actual task work. If this is not feasible, you must find some mechanism for letting people get to know one another.

We encourage you to read the rest of Lewis' post by clicking here.

Training Tip Tuesdays: Training and Orientation for the PM New Hire

Join us at ProjectWorld on November 17th at 2:30 for a special presentation by Randal Clark, PMP, LSSBB, Sr. Project Manager for Clinical Systems, Memorial Health Systems. During this presentation you will gain real world insight into what the cost of poor attention to the first 90 days can cause, including a brief overview of four years of watching the results of non-compliance to Best-Practice. Also from a unique angle of one PMs View for the ideal first 90 days of
Orientation. You will gain:

• Practical Templates for PM Orientation/Training
• Practical Appreciation for investing in the Human interface
• Team Building Exercises, Veterans vs. New Grads

Don't miss the chance to see this presentation at ProjectWorld this November 16th- 18th at Anaheim, CA. Hope to see you all there!

Build relationships in side your project management team

In a recent article at ProjectSmart, they discuss how it's just as vital to build solid relationships within your project management team as it is to develop the relationships with those you're working with outside your team. Read the article for an in-depth look.