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| May 2007, Issue 91, Judy Umlas and Frank P. Saladis, Co-Publishers |
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In this Issue:
*allPM Co-publisher's Letter, Judy Umlas
*From the Co-publisher's Desk, Frank Saladis, PMP
*allPM March/April Poll Results and New Poll Question
*Theme of the Month Article: Leadership Development for Project Managers:
A “Real World” Approach to Training, Coaching, Mentoring, and Consulting
By Barbara A. Trautlein, Ph.D.
*The “I.Q.” of Communication
By Mamoru Itoh
*What is this thing called “Mentoring”..?
By Paul Bosakowski, PMP
*Project Mentoring and Coaching: Will they produce Project Leaders?
By Ralf Friedrich, PMP
*Stress Management for Project Managers
By Irene Gutmann, LMSW
*Next Generation PM Column: Introduction
A Positive Workplace as the Next Step in PM Evolution
By Jocelyn Davis
*Excel 2007 Feature
By Bob Umlas, Microsoft® Excel MVP
*Communications Toolbox™: Finding the Answer in a Maze of Confusion
By Laura B. Moore, PMP
*New Column! "Ask Harry" Practical Advice on Project Management & Six Sigma
By Harry Rever, Certified Six Sigma Black Belt
*PM Crossword Connections™: PUT ME IN COACH! Mentoring and Coaching Teams and Individuals
By Frank Saladis, PMP
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From the Co-publisher's Desk— Judy Umlas
Well, hi everyone, wherever you are! I love getting emails from you telling me about yourselves and where you live, work, hang out. It is very exciting to me. Recently I led a free web seminar, or webinar, for 91 people on The Power of Acknowledgment, and we had 11 people from India, others from Mexico, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Denmark, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Trinidad, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates as well as from all over North America.
Given that at the latest count, allPM.com members come from 90 different countries, this is a part of the job that means a great deal to me – doing things on a global basis. That is one reason that I am so pleased to tell you that Dr. Harold Kerzner, guru and ”father of project management,” will be leading three of his world renowned 7 hour events on Achieving Project Management Excellence Using Best Practices in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong this August. And allPM.com members are entitled to a 10% discount by using discount code WEBKC7. So we hope you will tell your colleagues in Asia about the event, or else come yourself if you will be “in the neighborhood.” Here’s a link to the event: http://www.iil.com/kerzner/china.asp.
Speaking of global events, I am also inviting you to the next webinar that I am leading on June 14, a day that just happens to be (forgive me for telling you this). …my birthday, which this year is a double digit number with a zero on the end of it! Now we can actually only accommodate about 150 of you, so if that one fills up I will invite you to another one, not on my birthday!. Here’s the link: (Power of Acknowledgment) We also have a webinar led by George Pitagorsky, PMP on the Zen of Project Management. IIL Publishing, New York is publishing his book The Zen Approach™ to Project Management: Working from your Center to Balance Expectations and Performance. So please join us! If you like these free webinars, there is a long list of them if you go to www.iil.com. And you get 1 PDU (Professional Development Unit) for each one if you qualify.
This month we have a really great edition of allPM Today. The theme of the month is Coaching and Mentoring and I am so proud to have articles on this subject from 5 experts in three countries: the United States, Japan and Germany. Isn’t that super? Whew! This was a lot of work and I want to thank our Contributing Editor Greta Blash, PMP for helping me to round these up, as well as to nurture and develop both the articles and their authors. It’s a really interesting process, and we invite all of you to participate by submitting ideas for articles on your Particular PM Passion. Send them to judy.umlas@allpm.com and I will share them with our editorial team. Anyone whose article is published in our newsletter gets a free copy of any one book by IIL Publishing, New York. In addition to The Power of Acknowledgment and The Zen Approach™ to Project Management, here’s a reminder about Project Portfolio Management Tools & Techniques by Drs. Ginger Levin and Parviz Rad, available in the IIL Bookstore (iil.com/bookstore) and keep an eye out for the forthcoming second edition of This Isn’t Excel, it’s Magic! By Bob Umlas, based on the 2007 software.
In his co-publisher’s letter below, Frank Saladis, PMP does a great job of letting you know the differences in, and value of, the various Coaching and Mentoring articles we have. Frank makes the critical point that we as project managers can add value to an organization by becoming a mentor or a coach to the next generation of project leaders. You can find out how best to achieve this goal by carefully reading the articles.
We are also fortunate to have a Communications Toolbox™ article by Laura B. Moore, PMP on how to achieve G.R.E.A.T. communications (read it to find out what this stands for), the Ask Harry! column by Harry Rever, Six Sigma Black Belt, a hot tip by Excel guru and Microsoft® MVP Bob Umlas on an exciting feature of the new Excel 2007, as a “tease” for the second edition of This Isn’t Excel, It’s Magic! Fall, 2007. We also have an introduction to her Positive Workplace column, The Next Generation PM by Jocelyn Davis and a piece on Stress Management for Project Managers by Coach Irene Gutmann. In fact, to best prepare for this particular theme of the month, I joined a coaching group (Ready, Set, Goal) that Irene co-leads with Coach Lizanne Fiorantino, and the results have been pretty dramatic.
So you will LOVE this edition of allPM Today (or else!). Next month we will have as our theme Change Management, and the following month is Emotional Intelligence. So get those pencils or keyboards sharpened, those of you who have something to contribute, and start writing your article ideas down and send them to me.
Now I need your help. We are nearing not just MY number with a zero in it, but a much bigger one (thank heavens, on both sides) for allPM.com members: 40,000. As of this writing, we have 39,551 members. When we hit that magic number, we just have to do something special. But what? Please write your ideas to me, and make it quick. We are very close.
So as we near the wonderful number of 40,000 PM community members, let me acknowledge every single one of you for being part of our global PM village – for contributing, for taking in the information we painstakingly provide you with, for enjoying, for questioning, for challenging, for constructively criticizing and for just being part of our “family.”.
Until the next time…
Judy Umlas (judy.umlas@allpm.com)
From the Co-publisher's Desk - Frank P. Saladis, PMP
 The role of the project manager continues to evolve as technology changes and the project environment focuses more and more on the global community. Project managers are expected to accomplish much more than completing projects to meet customer expectations. Today’s project managers are required to organize and develop diverse teams, manage difficult clients and, in many cases, find a way to manage disruptive team members or create high performing teams.
In this edition of allPM Today Barbara A. Trautlein, Ph.D, points out very early in her article “Leadership Development for Project Managers: A Real World Approach to Training, Coaching, Mentoring, and Consulting,” that project managers seem to focus their personal development more on the technical side rather than the “soft skill” or behavioral side. To manage the difficult client or the disruptive team, or to assist a team member or employee along a career path, the project manager must develop his or her interpersonal skills and ability to effectively coach and mentor when called upon to do so. It is also important for project managers to recognize and understand that there are many differences between coaching and mentoring.
The mentor role – Focus on the individual, facilitate without a specific personal agenda, based on perceived value, self selecting (the mentor is usually chosen by the individual) associated with affirmations and learning, view of big picture and life
The coach – Focus on performance, very specific agenda, assigned role, team oriented performance, task related
The project manager position is perceived by many as basically a set of tools and techniques and a method to get from beginning to an end. Dr. Trautlein identifies and addresses the more complex elements of the job of the project manager and provides an explanation of each of the key “soft leadership skills: Training, Coaching, Mentoring, and Consulting” and then describes how these skills often overlap during the interaction with project team members. It is extremely important for the project manager to understand these differences and how these skills overlap to ensure the appropriate blend of technical and behavioral management.
Ralf Friedrich, PMP, directs his attention to the development of a project leader through coaching and mentoring and explains how a combination of coaching and mentoring can enable new and growing project managers to reach their full potential. According to Friedrich, coaching involves the application of “tools” through a person “certified” in a particular area and who has a specific set of objectives to accomplish. (This sounds very much like a project manager position). Mentoring, as Friedrich suggests, involves knowledge transfer not through directing and telling, but more through inquiring and suggesting other points of view. The mentor uses his or her past experience and established networks to assist the team or the individual in the development of solutions and courses of action. Mentors basically don’t tell the team or the individuals what to do and how to do it; they offer suggestions intended to broaden thinking and look at a bigger picture and alternatives. Another key consideration is that the mentor should not be forced upon an individual. The individual should (preferably) select his or her mentor. To achieve the desired effects of a mentoring relationship there should be a “natural connection” in terms of personality, interest, respect, and willingness to listen and share.
Communication is also an essential component of the mentor / coaching role. Mamoru Itoh suggests that more emphasis in the area of communications skills development is needed not only in the project environment but to further enhance the relationships between coach / mentor and their audience (whether that audience is an individual or a team of people). A potentially great coach or mentor, one with superior skills and knowledge in a certain field, can fail to improve skills or influence behavior if they can not effectively communicate.
I think Paul Bosakowski, PMP, hit on something that really touches on the essence of mentoring. He calls it “knowledge transfusion.” That is a very good description of what actually happens when a coach and / or mentor engages with a team or an individual. The desire of the coach is to transfer a specific skill, the desire of a mentor is to transfer knowledge. Both have their place in the project environment. In either case today’s project manager should consider the role of coach and mentor as an “inherent” part of the project manager job. New project managers will benefit greatly from a coach and mentor and the organization will also benefit from this “knowledge transfusion” if it is done effectively, skillfully, and continuously.
If all of this gets too stressful, we can turn to the practical and easy to read article on “Stress Management for Project Managers” by Irene Gutmann, LMSW of Eagle Life Coaching. Her quick and useful tips will help us all.
This month’s issue of allPM provides our readers with an excellent set of resources by fine authors who address the subject of Mentoring and Coaching from several different perspectives. The combined knowledge is a great addition to the project manager’s tool box and should generate some creative thought about how to add additional value to an organization by becoming a mentor or a coach to the next generation of project leaders.
One last bit of advice: many coaches often ignore the less talented members of a team. It is these players who need the coaching and the mentoring the most. Don’t leave them out or just sitting on the bench. If they are on the team, they hopefully have a desire to learn, so make sure they receive the coaching they need (and deserve).
Frank P. Saladis, PMP
Frank.Saladis@allpm.com
March/April's Poll Results
Does your organization use business analysts and project managers on the same projects?
a) All of the time - 27.21 % (40)
b) Depends on the size of the project - 40.82 % (60)
c) Both roles are performed by a single person - 27.89 % (41)
d) The projects are technical and no BA is needed - 4.08 % (6)
Total votes: 147
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The May poll question is:
Does your organization have a coaching and/or mentoring program that is:
a) Informal but effective
b) Informal and not effective
c) Formalized and well-utilized
d) Formalized but less effective than it could be
e) No such program at all
If you have not already done so, please stop by allPM.com and add your opinion today.
Theme of the Month: Leadership Development for Project Managers:
A “Real World” Approach to Training, Coaching, Mentoring, and Consulting
By Barbara A. Trautlein, Ph.D.
What makes you a successful Project Manager? Take a moment and conduct a self-assessment I often do with clients. List out the top ten skills that make you successful at leading/facilitating/managing projects. Don’t be modest! Now, look at your list, and determine which are technical skills, and which are behaviors.
What I typically find when I do this exercise is that 80% of project management success – and indeed success at most professional jobs – is due to behaviors. Yet, so often we focus on honing our technical skills – the mechanics of conducting a needs analysis, evaluating project selection criteria, learning how to manipulate spreadsheets, etc.
In my consulting and coaching practice, I work with clients to develop their “leadership behaviors” – what some call the “soft skills.” Indeed, I believe the old adage “the hard stuff is easy, and the soft stuff is hard” is absolutely true – it can take months or years to become a certified PMP and learn the “hard” tools and technology of the trade – but to successfully deploy the “soft skills” that are truly fundamental to success – that can be a career long endeavor.
What are those unique “leadership development” needs of project managers? Many and varied, from responsibility for team and project, to change management, to facilitation skills, to overcoming resistance, to influencing others, to capturing lessons learned, to fostering replications, to identifying best practices – the list goes on and on.
An Integrated, Comprehensive, Approach to Leadership Development
How do we build “soft” leadership skills? I advocate an approach that develops long-term relationships with clients and utilizes a blended learning approach – blending training, coaching, mentoring, and consulting methodologies. Now, let’s define each.
Training:
Training refers to a planned activity to impart knowledge and skill, usually for immediate use on the job. In the world of a project manager, this typically takes the form of PMP certification and advanced training, covering topics such as ROI analyses.
Coaching:
Coaching refers to a planned activity to encourage an individual’s professional growth by transferring knowledge, skill and experience to the coachee through a discrete process led by a qualified coach according to the needs of both the organization and the coachee. For example, a project manager may work with a professional coach to explore their personal opportunities and challenges in facilitating difficult project deliberations, helping project teams overcome conflict and reach consensus, etc.
Mentoring:
Mentoring focuses on a person’s long-term career development, including providing understanding of how to navigate through the unique culture and structure of a given organization. For example, a seasoned project manager may guide the development of a less seasoned one in managing projects according to an organization’s unique expectations, helping them understand how to gain sponsorship and obtain critical resources.
Consulting:
Consulting refers to the process of identifying proposed valuable business changes and developing and executing change management methods/processes/plans in such a way that the organization grows in specified, targeted ways to attain/realize its business goals. Often, of course, project managers take on the lead role in critical consulting initiatives.
© 2007 allPM.com
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Barbara Trautlein has a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from the University of Michigan, and 20 years experience as a coach and consultant in a variety of industries, specializing in change management, organizational design/development, high performance teams, and leadership development. She can be reached at btrautlein@compelconsulting.com and (847) 549-6950.
The “I.Q.” of Communication
By Mamoru Itoh
Coaching is a process to inventory and install knowledge and tools that is required for the person to achieve his/her unique goal. Coaches coach to make the client achieve higher goals at a faster pace. Goals can be achieved by acquiring required competencies in a fast and certain way. For example, just like a CEO of a soft drink manufacturer can become a CEO of a computer manufacturer, a person who has the competency can become a CEO regardless of the difference in industry. The most important competency of executives and managers is the ability to communicate.
However, many leaders tend to underestimate the value of communication. What we usually hear are comments like this: “Communication is important, of course, but issues such as productivity improvement, technology improvement, product development and design, and development of internal infrastructure are much higher in priority.” Many also tend to think that the effect of communication is accidental and that it can even be an obstacle when speed is required. Communication is thought to be difficult to be linked to tangible outcomes.
Communication is often not perceived as something that “creates value.” Rather, it is misunderstood and thought to be something natural and obvious, just like air. However, improvement of communication skills of leaders does affect productivity directly and indirectly. According to The Institute of Work Psychology of the University of Sheffield in England, improving communication skills is a certain way for individuals and organizations to approach goals. In a nutshell, communication skills are “the ways of talking and hearing which are designed to quickly create value.” Therefore, having high communication skills means being highly capable in creating value.
In coaching, whatever issue is dealt with within the session, the coach always focuses attention on the client’s communication intelligence, and does not make communication an accident. Coaches, with the client, communicate about the value created from the communication itself, and how to design such communication.
Does Communication Create Value?
As stated previously, in the corporate world, communication can be misunderstood as “something natural and obvious, just like air” rather than something that “creates value.” However, some companies have concentrated on and improved internal communication and as a result, achieved significant results such as business performance improvement and risk reduction. For example, one organization which was experiencing high turnover rate, had all their middle managers receive coaching on “hearing skills.” As a result, they were able to reduce turnover rate by 80%. In an automotive dealership, an executive who talked for 1 hour and 55 minutes during a 2 hour board meeting, received coaching and reduced his speech time to 30 minutes and started to encourage other executives to speak. As a result, this dealership saw tangible business performance improvement.
© 2007 allPM.com
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Mamoru Itoh is the founder and Chairman of coach A., co. ltd, and coach 21 Co. ltd., the first and the largest coach training organization in Japan (founded in 1997, 80 employees in total). He has contributed greatly to the expansion of the coaching business in Japan. As a successful trainer and facilitator in communications with over 20 years experience in the field, he has given communications training to more than 15,000 people since 1980, and has provided coach training programs to 4,000 people in Japan.
Mr. Itoh is also a well-known author of books on communications, and has published more than 50 books and numerous articles. In addition to the two coaching companies, he also owns an internet services company, a publishing company and an anti-aging clinic. Mamoru Itoh is an International Coach FederationMaster Certified Coach (MCC), He has a B.A. in Business and M.A. in International Politics and Economy from Nihon University.
What is this thing called “Mentoring”?
By Paul Bosakowski, PMP
One of the most challenging things for any individual to do is to change jobs. It doesn’t matter whether the job is manual, clerical or professional; in which industry the job resides; or even how old you are when you change jobs. It could be your first job. It could even be a job change within your own organization—perhaps in a different geographical location.
Regardless of the type of change, it takes you a good three to six months to become known (and to establish trust in both directions); to find out “how work really gets done here”; who you can rely on; where you go to get answers to questions, etc. If your new job is with an international company in a new location it probably takes longer—because you are also adjusting to a new culture.
But how do you become productive when subjected to such a magnitude of change? Where do you go to get credible information: to build a network; to get things done; to accumulate knowledge?
If we can accept the hypothesis that a PM is interchangeable—whether he/she can function in any industry, if he/she understands the concepts of PM—then there are three ways to accumulate knowledge in any new job: personal skill building; knowledge transfer; and an infusion of selected wisdom.
Personal skill building? Isn’t that the purpose of training? Of course. Formal training courses can introduce and sharpen basic PM skills like scope and risk management, communication skills and the other PM knowledge areas. On-the-job training—OJT—sharpens skills and augments training even more. Training has its place in the accumulation of knowledge, but it has some limits. For example, training courses do not address these issues:
© 2007 allPM.com
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Paul Bosakowski, PMP, is president of Sigma Associates International. Heconsults with Fortune 500 and other customers on six continents.
Project Mentoring and Coaching: Will they produce Project Leaders?
By Ralf Friedrich, PMP
Developing project leaders is a challenge for every human resource manager. Mentoring and Coaching offer new ways to accelerate the development of project managers into project leaders. This article introduces the concepts of mentoring and coaching and provides some easy to follow tips on how to implement these concepts in an organization.
Coaching is a growing profession. Every day there are success stories on coaching. With the success stories, there are also as many myths around coaching. Sometimes, it is not coaching, but mentoring which was used.
This article describes how mentoring and coaching work in practice and how they can be implemented within an organization.
- What are the differences between Mentoring and Coaching?
Coaching is a process which gets is power from the relationship between the “coachee” and the coach. Both coachee and coach are on the same level. During a coaching process, the coach applies "tools". The tools are covering the following areas (Whitworth et al, 1998):
1. Fulfillment. Working on the values and personal objectives of the coachee to live a satisfied life.
2. Balance. Working on different perspectives (or views) on a situation so that the coachee can make choices consciously.
3. Process. Discovering what is going on within the coachee in a given situation
© 2007 allPM.com
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Ralf Friedrich, PMP, ACC, MSc was the Program of the first release of OPM3®. He is now a fulltime Senior Trainer, Coach and Consultant for IIL – International Institute of Learning, a New York based Training and Consultancy Company. Friedrich’s focus areas are competency and maturity models and project management staff development. He works with organizations to establish project management career paths, developing assessment centers for project teams, individual coaching of project leaders and senior executives and intercultural competency development.
Stress Management for Project Managers
By Irene Gutmann, LMSW
Project managers – Stress management ….it almost seems like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? How are people who have such tremendous responsibilities, supposed to manage their stress as well? When the primary concerns are schedule, budget, safety, and high standards, it’s easy to see how high tension is accepted as just part of the deal and the thought of reducing stress levels can seem ridiculous.
It’s well documented that people in high pressure jobs suffer higher rates of heart attack, diabetes, sleep disorders, depression, drug and alcohol dependence, anxiety, and stomach problems. When project managers do learn how to reduce stress, they can enjoy the benefits of better health, improved relationships, enhanced communications with colleagues, and a superior quality of life all around.
To understand the basics of how stress affects our bodies, we need to look at our ancestors who needed to be ready to hunt or retreat at a moment’s notice. The chemicals that flooded their bodies, such as cortisol, heightened their awareness, fueled their muscles and were worked off in the chase. Now, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t hunted buffalo in a while! Nowadays, when the work is more mental than physical, those chemicals stay in our bodies for a long time and do damage. We need to reduce tension and let these chemicals subside. This won’t make projects come in early and under budget, but it will help you handle the tensions in a better way.
So how does one begin to lower stress when there just isn’t time for one more thing? The answer is to start small – very small, incorporating one tiny habit per month. As the months go by, you will have several tools for reducing stress and because you incorporated them very gradually, these habits are likely to stick.
© 2007 allpm.com
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Irene Gutmann, of Eagle Life Coaching, coaches clients bytelephone on personal and professional goals.She can be reached at (845)357-4191 or throughwww.eaglelifecoaching.com. She is alsohost ofThe Coaching Corner onRadio Rockland and www.wrcr.com.
Next Generation PM Column: Introduction
A Positive Workplace as the Next Step in PM Evolution
By Jocelyn Davis
Project Management is growing by leaps and bounds to become one of the fastest growing professions and likely one right at the cutting edge of many strategic change initiatives. A recent paper by Aaron J. Shenhar and Dov Dvir reviews the history of project management and its evolution as a profession. They identify five decades of project management development.
Decade General Concept
- Scheduling
- Teamwork
- Uncertainty Reduction
- Simultaneity
- Adaptation, Strategic Alignment, Globalization
We’d like to propose that this decade and likely the ones which follow it will necessarily include a sharp focus within Project Management, and indeed in management generally, on the human capital element of project management.
This will be driven by increasing global competition, declining workforce size in the developed nations as the Boomer Generation retires, labor cost pressures brought to the market by the emergence of highly educated, technologically competent employees in emergent developing countries, among other key trends.
And, it’s fair to say that we do a pretty good job as PM’s in managing people, right?
Well, yes and no! Research coming from the Standish Group (focusing on IT projects primarily) suggests that project failure is often the result not of failures in understanding how to do project management technically or the technology of the project itself, but failures arising from communications and teamwork. Other researchers find similar concerns.
© 2007 allPM.com
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Jocelyn Davis is the president of Nelson Hart LLC and cofounder with Amanda C E Levy of the Positive Workplace Alliance. Jocelyn’s professional background includes finance; she was the chief financial officer for AARP. She is also trained as an executive coach and trained with and worked for Martin E P Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania through the Authentic Happiness Program. She has served on several boards and currently serves as a director and chairman of the executive committee for the GAVI Fund, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations Fund. Jocelyn is an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, in the Clark School of Engineering, Project Management Program where she teaches Managing Project Teams. Jocelyn’s work focuses on how to create workplaces where individuals flourish. Flourishing individuals yield flourishing teams and organizations.
JocelynSDavis@NelsonHartLLC.com
Excel 2007 Feature
By Bob Umlas, Microsoft® Excel MVP
Excel 2007. So much has already been written on it – about the Ribbon replacing the current menus; about there being over a million rows and over 16,000 columns; about the new charting, tables, pivot tables. But I haven’t seen very much written up on some of the new functions and a few other items, so I thought I’d give a brief introduction here.
There are 5 new builtin functions: IFERROR, SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, AVERAGEIF, and AVERAGEIFS. In previous versions of Excel, some functions would return an error, like if a VLOOKUP didn’t find a value. A sample would be: =IFERROR(VLOOKUP(…),0). If there’s an error, it returns 0, otherwise it returns the result of the lookup.
SUMIFS is a function which expands on Excel’s SUMIF function. The SUMIF function’s syntax is:
-- If the items in the range match the criteria, then add the values in the sum_range. For example, =SUMIF(A1:A100,“Bob”,B1:B100) would add up all the items in B1:B100 where the corresponding values in A1:A100 is equal to “Bob.” The limitation to this function is that you can’t calculate all the items where one range is “Bob” and another range is the year 2007. Enter SUMIFS. The syntax is:
-- an example would be =SUMIFS(B1:B100,A1:A100,”Bob”,C1:C100,2007) which would add the values in B where A is Bob and C is 2007.
The other new functions mentioned above work similarly.
© 2007 allPM.com
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Bob Umlas has been a Microsoft Excel MVP since 1995. He has been a beta tester for new versions of Microsoft Excel since version 1.5 (on the Macintosh)! He has led several sessions at Microsoft's Tech-Ed: Maximizing Excel development using Array Formulas, and Excel Tips and Tricks. He is also the author of “This isn’t Excel, it’s Magic!”
Communications Toolbox™: Finding the Answer in a Maze of Confusion
By Laura B. Moore, PMP
Lately I have really been into word-find puzzles. You know, those puzzles with lots of letters in columns and rows, in which words are hidden vertically, horizontally, backwards and diagonally. Many of my friends and family find this to be quite ironic, since I am dyslexic. What they don’t necessarily understand though, is that for me, being dyslexic makes it a little easier to see the words. I can do your average word-find puzzle in a matter of minutes while someone else might take considerably longer. So why can I do it so quickly? I think it is because I know how to relax my eye and see the patterns, thus finding the oddly placed words easy to spot at a glance.
So, why do you care and what does this have to do with project management communication? Actually, it’s a very good analogy for communication, and miscommunication. How many times have you engaged in a discussion that ended up becoming a rather heated discussion, when you thought everyone was originally on the same page, only to later find that you were all saying the same thing anyway, just misunderstanding each other? Now, I know it’s not just me who has experienced this! At the very least, the others in those meetings with me have experienced it! But sometimes in a discussion, you need to be able to see beyond the surface. Actually, this is usually the case. You have to be able to see past the issue at hand, and read between the lines – while also being cautious not to misread between the lines. Each participant has their silent agendas (I hesitate to say hidden, just because that often denotes a negative agenda. The agenda could be quite innocent). By allowing yourself to be able to focus on the issue at hand, while simultaneously focusing on the external influences, you will probably be more likely to understand your project team members more, and be understood more as well.
Now, this is all nice theory, but some more tangible examples or techniques would probably be appreciated, right? Let’s work from an actual example (in which names and places have been changed to protect the innocent… and not so innocent!).
© 2007 allPM.com
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Laura Moore (PMP, M.A. Social Psychology) has an eclectic background that includes not only project management, but clinical research and social work as well. Currently, she works as a Senior Project Manager in the telecommunications industry and does, what her team calls "guerilla project management", that is, taking urgent, high impacting issues and resolving them within a matter of days. Laura lives in California with her husband Lorin, and their two amazing daughters Lily Faye and Layla Blue.
"Ask Harry" Practical Advice on Project Management & Six Sigma By Harry Rever, Certified Six Sigma Black Belt
Q: Harry, our company has embraced the concepts of project management. However, our leadership seems resistant to implementing Six Sigma, as well. How are the Project Management and Six Sigma disciplines similar? - Peter in San Antonio.
A: This is a good question and an important topic as there are often times confusion concerning how project management and Six Sigma relate. Without question, Project Management (PM) and Six Sigma (SS) are complementary disciplines. The biggest similarity between the two approaches is that both approaches are project focused. Six Sigma utilizes a project approach to improving processes and key metrics of the business.
As with traditional projects, Six Sigma projects have a project Sponsor or Champion. The relationship with the project Sponsor must be established, developed, and nurtured throughout the project. Successful project managers know how vital this relationship can be to the ultimate success of any project.
PM and SS projects are generally represented by a cross functional team of 6-8 team members representing their respective business units or areas of expertise. As with any project, Six Sigma projects go through the traditional life cycle phases including the team dynamic phases of forming, storming, norming, and performing. The myriad of issues associated with managing team members, who generally don’t report directly to the project manager, are faced by both project managers and Six Sigma managers.
As project managers well know, developing and managing stakeholder relationships are a key aspect of successful projects. This is no different for SS projects. Because SS projects are generally process focused, numerous stakeholders could be impacted by the project. Therefore, SS practitioners must identify and constantly be cognizant of various stakeholder needs and wants and manage those issues accordingly.
Send questions to Harry at harry.rever@iil.com
© 2007 allpm.com
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Harry Rever is a Six Sigma Black Belt for a Fortune 50 communications firm. He earned bachelors degrees in Marketing and Management from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX and an MBA from St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX. He earned ASQ certifications as a Six Sigma Black Belt and Certified Quality Manager and is also certified as a Quality Consultant. Mr. Rever teaches one and two day process improvement courses on how to improve results using the Six Sigma DMAIC methodology.
PM Crossword Connections™: PUT ME IN COACH! Mentoring and Coaching Teams and Individuals
By Frank Saladis, PMP
(Click here or the image above for a larger, printable crossword in a new window. )
Across
3 Person who conducts and directs
4 A win / win outcome
5 To fill with ideas or incite action
8 A belief about something
9 Coordinated effort
11 To form or accumulate
12 Make things easier
15 Yoda said there is no _____
16 Impart skills or knowledge
20 To honor or hold in esteem
21 Expected behavior or position
22 A trusted counselor
23 Cohesive group
24 Place to learn or where fish group
25 Ability to control or force
27 Ability to perform a task or action
31 Manner in which something is done
33 What is gained over time
35 Behavior or result subject to appraisal
36 To acquire skills and knowledge
37 To gain through effort
Down
1 Worth
2 Level of legitimate power
3 Latin for "to lead by the hand"
6 Indirectly control or affect
7 Answer
10 Take it if it’s good
13 To seek advice from someone
14 Sows the seeds of knowledge
17 Connection or association
18 Person who directs a team
19 What is to be achieved
26 Most valuable player (Abbrv.)
28 One who inspires others to action
29 Mentee
30 To unify or bring together
32 To instruct or prepare someone
34 Collection of people loosely organized
© 2007 allPM.com
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Click here to view/print the crossword solution.
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