Spring is coming Toronto is forecast to get "walloped" by a snow storm tomorrow. No-one in asking for more Winter. We are all done. Ready for the next season. Spring is coming and Summer is on the way too. For a few weeks at the end of Spring every year there are beautiful flowers that blossom on our walkway. I look forward to seeing them. However, I rarely stop and slow down to examine them. This past June I did slow down and attempted to capture their beauty with some photographs. Spring Flowers 1 Spring Flowers 2 Spring Flowers 3 Stephen Wise http://www.IntegrationProfessionals.com/ March 12, 2014 By Administrator Account Blogging flowers, photography, spring 0 Comment Read More >>
7 things to carry in your Project kit Here are 7 things to keep on your person or nearby that will help you excel as a Project Manager. 1. White Board markers A magic device that propels a conversation and creates a record. 2. Wristwatch Place a wristwatch in front of you so you can keep your eye on the time so that the important items get covered and you end meetings on schedule. Integration Professionals Project Kit 3. 2 kinds of Pain reliever - ASA and Ibuprofin Make a drawer in your desk available for your project team with necessities. Learned this one from a wedding planner. Could also include stain remover, candies, taxi chits. 4. Project contact list with email, phone, and mobile contacts Missing a team member?, late for a meeting?, need urgent help from an executive? – always carry a printout of your contact list with email and phone info. 5. Project Issue / Risk log , Schedule, Change Log, and Budget Summary Some people like to carry around a complete Project binder. I’ve boiled it down to a few key items that I update periodically – the purpose to have written notes to be able to give unplanned “hallway” updates if you bump into an important stakeholder. 6. Post-it notes and Black Sharpie markers See number one above and add steroids. Get all meeting participants working on a plan, issue, or risk concurrently, if appropriate. Keep one idea per note. Print in large block letters. Post on wall and re-arrange to suit. Use a camera phone to snap the results. 7. Coffee-cards for instant recognition Giving out $5 coffee cards just to recognize folks for attending a meeting smacks of desperation – but it is still appreciated. What items should be added to the list? Add your ideas by replying below. Stephen Wise http://www.IntegrationProfessionals.com/ February 27, 2014 By Administrator Account Blogging, Project Management Ideas, Tools benefits, change request, collaboration, issues, planning, project management, risk, team 0 Comment Read More >>
The most powerful leadership skill an expert Project Manager needs for success No one can be an expert in all fields. A Project Manager is a skilled expert on leading teams to initiate, plan, execute and close projects. These are among the most important skills, but not the most powerful. If you aren’t feeling well you go to see your General Practitioner (GP). Your GP understands the big picture and upon identifying a specific issue or risk with your health may refer you to a specialist. In this analogy the GP is like a Project Manager – they do not need to be an expert in every field and one difference between okay GP’s and excellent GP’s is the speed and quality and follow-up related to the referral. All Project Managers will tell you that the most commonly used skill on a project is communication. However, neither communication nor planning are the most powerful skills in the arsenal. The true multiplier, the most powerful skill, is the ability to learn from others. The ability to learn from others enables the PM to absorb the nuances of the culture, mitigate the hidden risks of the processes, and allow for the complexity of the technology. When a diverse project team gets together it doesn’t matter who is the smartest or most senior in the room. What matters is learning from everyone’s skills and experience and channeling that back to the team so the whole is greater than the sum. The most powerful leadership skill is the ability to apply the greater whole in order to reach the objectives of the project quicker and with less risk of failure. Stephen Wise https://www.IntegrationProfessionals.com February 14, 2014 By Administrator Account Communication, Leadership, Project Management Ideas benefits, business, closing, communication, culture, executing, initiation, leadership, planning, project, success 0 Comment Read More >>
Re-Frame Project Success for the Strategic Business Project success is most often measured by answering two questions. (A) Did we meet the schedule goal? And (B) Did we meet the budget goal? A good indicator project success will improve over time is periodic review of the Time and Budget Dashboard by management. This approach is valid but not sufficient for framing project success over the long-term. Time and Budget Dashboard[/caption] It is very common that once a project is closed, it falls off management reporting dashboards. This is a serious mistake! Strategic success is dependent on the outputs of the project, not the inputs of Time and Budget. The outputs / benefits of the project are measured after project close and take the dimensions of customer satisfaction and business success. It will take several months or quarters after the project is finished until customer satisfaction can be measured. It will take even longer until business success can be measured. By re-framing the measurement time-horizons for projects and their outputs, we can provide more effective visibility and accountability at the management level for the strategic success of projects. The re-frame is to include medium-term and long-term results as part of project tracking and reporting. Team success can be measured in the Short-term. That is Time, Budget and other metrics such as scope, quality, stakeholder engagement, and others. Customer success can be measured in the Medium-term. Customer success is the metrics that indicate how well the product is meeting actual needs and how well the product is providing customer net benefits. Business/Strategy success can be measured in the long-term. Business success is the metrics that indicate how well the overall strategy is benefiting the enterprise, such as market development and risk profile. Measurement Time Horizons[/caption] Organizations have made great strides implementing project methodology and management reporting on time and budget. However a systemic flaw is introduced by reporting only short-term project success measures. There is correlation between success in short-term and success in the long-term but there is more to the picture. We need to re-frame and extend the time horizon for tracking project success to include medium and long-term measures. By linking Customer (medium-term) and Business (long-term) actual measures to project reporting we will gain improved insights on the projects that have either advanced or held-back the realization of strategic objectives. Stephen Wise http://www.IntegrationProfessionals.com/ January 27, 2014 By Administrator Account Measurement, Project Management Ideas, Strategy business, customer, dashboard, executive, long-term, management, project management, results, schedule, sponsor, strategy, time 0 Comment Read More >>