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.

Are Project Managers' Soft Skills Evolving?

Below is a post from Project World & World Congress for Business Analysts Keynote speaker, Mary Gerush of Forrester. Join Mary and other esteemed guest at the premier event for Project Management and Business Analyst professionals while earning 36 PDUs/CDUs.

PW&WCBA
November 8-10, 2010
Walt Disney World Swan
Orlando, FL

Download the Brochure


Once upon a time, there was a project manager. This project manager was strong, motivated, and driven to succeed. She was certified, the PMBOK was her friend, and she could create the most amazing Gantt charts ever seen.

One day, she took on a new project.

This project was large and complex. It involved new technologies and many stakeholders. And the project team was — let’s just say — “challenging.”

But this didn’t scare our heroine. She created a fabulous Gantt chart, established milestones, and documented roles and responsibilities. She set up her cost management, time management, and quality management plans. And she doled out assignments to the project team with a confident smile.

The project went off track quickly.

Team members argued, stakeholders failed to participate, and serious roadblocks emerged. The project manager requested status updates, set up meetings, and reported to the steering team — all things that “good” project managers do. But eventually, she lost the gig.

Why? She either didn’t have — or didn’t use — critical soft skills that today’s strong, next-generation project manager absolutely must not only have — but also exercise.

Like this project manager (any resemblance to actual events or characters is purely coincidental), I come from a very “traditional” project management background. I’m a PMI member and a certified project management professional. The PMBOK is my friend too. Managing the triple constraints of time, cost, and scope motivated me for years. And while my traditional project management skills helped me lead most (but not all) of my projects to successful outcomes, they would have meant nothing without the ability to serve and enable the team, adapt to complexity, and flex appropriately.

I’ve blogged about this in the past, sharing my findings on today’s strong project manager as well as tips to help project managers evolve. But now the topic is once again top of mind, because I’m preparing to speak about the next-generation project manager at the November ProjectWorld & World Congress For Business Analysts. And while I feel that the discipline of project management has evolved to embrace new ideals, many project managers are still overly focused on methodology and neglecting the development of critical soft skills. It’s not about checklists, schedules, and status reports — it’s about people.

Are you seeing traditional project managers evolve to become more people-oriented and flexible? How are they being successful? How can we help people like our heroine enhance their traditional project management abilities while developing and using next-generation soft skills? Share your thoughts and come join me in Orlando.

Thanks!

Mary

Web Seminar: Managing Risk Using Better Requirements

Web Seminar: Managing Risk Using Better Requirements

Join us for a Complimentary Web Seminar Plus Earn 1 PDU for Attending
Wednesday, December 9th from 2:00 PM -3:00PM EST

Please mention priority code: MWS0027BLOG

Space is limited.
Reserve your Web Seminar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/613727752

Incomplete or inaccurate requirements are often cited as one of the main causes of project failure. Whether you are 10 feet away from the user or an ocean away, it is imperative that you accurately elicit and document requirements in order to mitigate your project risk. Presenting a complete requirements picture early on and staying on course throughout the project life cycle is crucial to success. Managing your project risk through the use of business analysis best practices is a best practice in itself.

During this presentation, we will discuss the vital link between business analysis best practices and improvements in risk management and will present a tool to assess your project risks and opportunities early in the project life cycle.
This presentation provides a framework to discuss five best practices in business analysis.
Key Learning Points:
• Key components of managing risk on projects
• Proven techniques to define better user requirements
• How to leverage business analysis best practices to mitigate project risk

Featured Speaker
Glenn R. Brûlé, CSM, Executive Director of Client Solutions, ESI International brings more than two decades of focused business analysis experience to every ESI client engagement. As one of ESI’s subject matter experts, Glenn works directly with clients to build and mature their business analysis capabilities by drawing from the broad range of learning resources ESI offers.

A recognized expert in the creation and maturity of Business Analysis Centers or Excellence, Glenn has helped almost a dozen clients in the energy, financial services, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, insurance and automotive industries, as well as government agencies across the world. His approach to maturing requirements management and development capabilities focuses on short-term reductions in costs, resources and time to market while charting a path to long-term change that drives organizations competitively forward.

As a founding board member of IIBA® and Vice President, Chapters, Glenn drives the advancement of the BA profession globally. His personal commitment and involvement has resulted in the founding of chapters in more than a dozen countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

More Scientists Treat Experiments as a Team Sport

The Wall Street Journal reports that around the world, scientists are cutting across boundaries of place, organization and technical specialty to conduct ever more ambitious experiments. Inspired by such cooperative enterprises as Linux and Wikipedia, they are encouraging creative collaborations through networks of blogs, wikis, shared databases and crowd-sourcing...To gauge the rise of team science, management experts at Northwestern University recently analyzed 2.1 million U.S. patents filed since 1975 and all of the 19.9 million research papers archived in the Institute for Scientific Information database. "We looked at the recorded universe of all published papers across all fields, and we found that all fields were moving heavily toward teamwork," says Northwestern business sociologist Brian Uzzi.

What do you think of this new collaborative environment?

Live from ProjectWorld 2009!

The ProjectWorld event team had a chance to take some pictures Live from the conference. Take a look through as we will be adding more photos from the event. Enjoy!

Free Web Seminar: Managing Risk Using Better Requirements

Date/Time: Wed, Dec 9, 2009 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/613727752
Mention priority code MWS0027BLOG

Incomplete or inaccurate requirements are often cited as one of the main causes of project failure. Whether you are 10 feet away from the user or an ocean away, it is imperative that you accurately elicit and document requirements in order to mitigate your project risk. Presenting a complete requirements picture early on and staying on course throughout the project life cycle is crucial to success. Managing your project risk through the use of business analysis best practices is a best practice in itself.

During this presentation, we will discuss the vital link between business analysis best practices and improvements in risk management and will present a tool to assess your project risks and opportunities early in the project life cycle.
This presentation provides a framework to discuss five best practices in business analysis.

Key Learning Points:
• Key components of managing risk on projects
• Proven techniques to define better user requirements
• How to leverage business analysis best practices to mitigate project risk

Featured Speaker
Glenn R. Brûlé, CSM, Executive Director of Client Solutions, ESI International

How do you make project management work at your company?

Brad Egeland of Project Management Tips recently outlined several things that can help you make project management work for your company.

A few are:

- Get top management involved in the process and the projects. They should be asking questions about how projects are doing. In other words, show an interest in the subject.
- Build into performance appraisals items that evaluate a project manager’s use of the tools of effective project management. Reward people for practicing the methods. But be careful. Be sure upper management is not keeping managers from practicing good methodology.
- It helps to have the entire team trained in project management basics.
- Senior management need to understand the company’s PM process and methodology to effectively set their expectations. One of the ten most common causes of project failures is unrealistic expectations on the part of senior managers.

Read the full list here. What would you add?

Tips on Project Definition Documents

Dimitri Ivanenko recently posted on the PMI blog that even though document management holds a small chunk or the project management process, it is still necessary and important. The process detailed by Dimitri starts off with the project definition documents which are created in the planning phase.

A project definition document should include the following:

Basic project data: Goals, objectives and any business issues to be resolved

Project execution parameters: Definitions of project boundaries, key policies and procedures that are specific to the organization and that must be followed to integrate the project work and its result into the organization during and after the product delivery

Required project management methodology: Governs how the project is planned, how each phase is executed and what's required to move from one phase to another

What are some other tips that are not on this list on putting together project definition documents.

Less than 2 Weeks Away: ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts

PW & WCBA is right around the corner, November 16-18 in Anaheim, CA, and we’d like for you to take a look at the keynotes speaking at our upcoming West Coast Conference. Our featured keynotes include Vincent Cirel, SVP / CIO of Norwegian Cruise Line, David King, CIO of WellDyne, Inc., James A. DiMarzio, CIO of Mazda North American Operations, and Richard Baily, VP of Go To Market for Xerox just to name a few – over 40+ industry experts will be presenting. Make sure to check out the rest of the keynotes.

Also, take some time to view our complete lineup of speakers below, as well as a special priority code we’ve set up for our blog readers for 20% off the registration rate: PWWLINKEDIN. Hope to see you in Anaheim in less than 2 weeks!

Visit the ProjectWorld Homepage

View the ProjectWorld Brochure

View the ProjectWorld 2009 Speaker Roster

Register
Save 20% off the registration rate when you mention code PWWLINKEDIN

Key tips on managing change requests from PW&WCBA Guest Contributor

This week PW & WCBA would like to introduce to you speaker and guest blogger Gurpreet Singh Kanwar, PMP Manager, Custom Applications, NAV Canada. Take a look below at Gurpreet’s post on the PW blog “Project Change Request” in which he details a specific process to manage change requests in order to ensure that projects will be completed on time, within budget and with the expected feature set. We also have several posts below that the rest of the PW community has taken interest in:

Project Change Request
http://bit.ly/3psfCB

Preparing for the PMP exam
http://bit.ly/3dqWNU

CIO is critical to project management process
http://bit.ly/1EE2ud

The Annual PW&WCBA event is only 3 weeks away - Make sure not to miss Gurpreet’s session “Leveraging the Strengths of a PMO to Add Value in Your Organization” on Monday November 16. If you’re planning to attend make sure to mention PWWLINKEDIN when to receive a discount of 20% off the registration rate.

Event Details

Visit the ProjectWorld Homepage
http://bit.ly/3zhFpD

View the ProjectWorld Brochure
http://bit.ly/13YT9V

View the ProjectWorld 2009 Speaker Roster
http://bit.ly/Ba2VA

Register
Save 20% off the registration rate when you mention code PWWLINKEDIN
http://bit.ly/VDHTx

Zoho and Google Apps join forces

According to PC World, Zoho is joining forces with Google to provide project management tools to both audiences. By using their Google login and password, users will have access to features like:
-Assigning tasks to people
-Setting milestones and meetings
-Sharing documents and running forum discussions and wikis
-Online group chat sessions.

Read more about the collaboration here.

Companies Registered to Date for ProjectWorld

The companies registered to date page is now up on the ProjectWorld website! So far there's over 80 companies represented with the likes of Aramark Corporation, Trader Joe's Companies, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Shell International, Mazda of North America Inc, Merck & Company Inc, and Coca Cola just to name a few. Take a quick second to view these companies below.

http://bit.ly/NykoK

Project Change Request

Hi Everybody,


Recently I went through implementing Project Change Management Process. I think it is a must for every project. I think every change requests must be managed to ensure projects will be completed on time, within budget and with the expected feature set.

To guard against the risk of failure, organizations specially PMO need to define the project change management process that enables proper decision making.

The cost of changes introduced in a project increases as the project matures.
Ensuring solid requirements and managing changes will have the greatest impact on project success

Let us start this Post and enlighten ourself with this sweet feature which help PM more then anybody

Archived Web Seminar: Navigation Tips for Exploring the IIBA BABOK 2.0

You're now invited to watch the archived web seminar Navigation Tips for Exploring the IIBA BABOK 2.0 presented by Mary Gorman.

You can access it here, and mention priority code M2120W3BLOG
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/974065696.

Preparing for the PMP exam

The PM PrepCast has recently uploaded a video with tips to help you prepare for your PMP exam.