For those of you who would prefer to read rather than watch the video, here’s the transcript:

Elizabeth Harrin: I’ve come to Victoria in London and I am looking for the Microsoft offices. I’m going to be chairing a round table discussion there today about project management in the collaborative age, and the things that are making our new ways of working, and the ways that we’re doing project management change, like globalization, virtual teams and things like that.

So I think that would be quite interesting to hear what the practitioners who are coming are saying about how their working life is changing, if indeed it is. And also we’ve got some software suppliers who are coming as well, so it will be interesting to see what they think the future of technology and the tools are. So I’m going to go and find where I’m supposed to be now.

This pointy building here is Microsoft office on Victoria Street. So I’m about to go in and meet the people from Project Magazine who are hosting the round table today.

At the round table:

Richard Gordon (Microsoft): …in a few days to a wider audience. And so it’s not necessarily about finding a common format for things. I guess coming back to the point earlier where there are lot of formats and we’re not necessarily sure whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, blogs, it’s this, that and the other, but allowing people to be able to bring whatever it is that they want to do, however this project is going to be managed whether it’s very rigorously or whether it’s much more open and fluid, to bring people together to share information and ideas.

Fredrik Kellerman (ProjectPlace): So I think very much our approach is that we believe in opening up, allowing people to see the overall progress of the whole project. And actually for their customers to invite their stakeholders, because if the stakeholder is involved in the project and they can see the progress then there are no surprises, then you can handle issues before they turn into massive proportions.

Anne (project manager): There is so much information out there. It’s getting the right bit of information with the right contact which is where I think it needs…

James (project manager): …And that’s where face to face can often help, I mean with the number of problems I’ve seen just in the last couple of months with misunderstood emails or any electronic message without that context is…I’ve been bitten too many times…

Elizabeth Harrin: If we’re seeing that the step change… This all comes back to communicating to stakeholders and yes, okay, that does mean they will have to have difficult conversations with sponsors and senior executives in organizations to try and bring these collaboration ideas to the forefront and maybe we’re not empowered enough to be able to make a decision to go out and buy new tools or design new ways of displaying information. But we can at least be aware that it’s happening and ask the right questions.

Benjamin Sarkka (Improlity): Oh we need to do this and it’s really slow as often this kind of integration projects are really expensive and time consuming, and there are so many IT projects that fail and they have bad reputations. So I think there is still lots of work to be done and meanwhile, there needs to be the right tools to enable project managers to go on. We can’t wait for the perfect tool to arrive.

Editor of Project Magazine: That’s a good point. On the question of the right tools I’m just interested in the views from the project managers around the table: What do you think of the tools that are available at the moment? Do you think they’re up to the job? Do you think they are the right tools? And also from the software providers: Are project managers really maximizing those tools? Do they really understand the capability and the potential that’s at their fingertips?

Matt (project manager): Personally, I know and understand technology and things, but listening to you guys, I’ve realized straight away that there are opportunities there that I don’t even know about in terms of collaborative tools. I’ve worked all my career in traditional engineering type organizations, and email now, that’s the de facto standard for written communication. You get the odd person who might want to go into instant messaging with you but virtually everyone wants to email. And the volume of email you have to deal with, that you’re sending and receiving is just ridiculous, we’re at saturation point now.  You need to find better ways to get those messages across.

Paul Major (Program Framework): Yeah! What I’m saying and picking up on the PMO conversation in that context I think is really interesting because PMO’s potentially have the challenge of being perceived as more of an administrative function. I think that is changing.

Two of the organizations I’m working with at the moment we’re designing what does a global or enterprise PMO look like? And it’s actually the antipathy of the admin piece. It’s moving it to something that’s much more value added in strategic space, kind of almost sits as an adjunct to the chief exec’s office and it’s kind of almost that space of the strategic director or the strategy director sat in in the old world way of looking at things. But one of the things that those organizations I see are doing is starting to look at actually what’s the role and career path of the project management professional.

Later…

Elizabeth Harrin: I’m back now from the Project round table that was hosted by Project Magazine and Microsoft. And it was really quite an interesting way to spend the morning. We had suppliers there, software vendors from Improlity, Microsoft and Projectplace and we had practitioners, real project managers who are using these tools, and we talked a lot about collaboration and the problems that project managers have. Some quite interesting topics came out. I’ve just got a few notes here to share with you.

One of the guys said that project management bleeds into a number of different tools which I thought was really quite an important point as we’re trying to match up different types of technology. Complexity then increases with everybody wanting to know what’s going on at the same time and again, technology can help with that.

As part of our collaboration challenge is to work out how we deal with the fact that we need to provide different information to different stakeholders at different moments in time, and that gives us a tension between control and collaboration. So we want to be able to share everything or share what we can, but we also need to apply project controls so there’s a requirement for security. There’s a requirement for audit trail. There’s a requirement to not share confidential information with people who shouldn’t see it. So we talked a lot actually about the tension between collaboration and control and where the project manager’s role was in improving transparency while still managing to keep control of what was going on in the organization.

I think we generally concluded that technology is not the answer to some of the problems that we are facing as a discipline. But that it is there to help us deliver to the challenges that we’ve got and are currently facing like globalization, the requirement to be more green, virtual teams, distributed working and the challenge of having five different generations working together in the workplace for the very first time.

So technology is there to help us but talking to the vendors, what we realized was that the tools are so far advanced and very few project managers are actually using the full functionality of the tool, partly because the tools have become very generic. Oh, that’s not really the right word, they’ve become feature rich. Project managers are perhaps picking and choosing what is relevant to their project and their environment. But from a vendor’s perspective, they have to make a tool that suits all projects and all environments and they’re constantly getting feedback from customers as to what they want to see included in those products. So that was quite an interesting point.

The conclusion we came to really is that technology is there to help us be the next generation of project leaders. We just have to get on and actually do it and step up and we are being pushed in the direction of being able to want to embrace this new technology by a number of different forces including the consumerization of technology, of IT and gadgets and so really, we’ve got a way to go before we are these inspiring project leaders full of innovative ideas really driving through change in our organization.

As a whole, I’m sure some people are already doing that now and the role of the PMO in that is to become a strategic centre of excellence to support project managers in achieving all of those goals. So really, quite a lot of stuff came out. We talked for 2 hours and that’s just the summary really of some of the key points. But yes, quite an interesting day.

No related posts.

Business Life magazine – the one shoved in the seat pockets on British Airways flights – has a column in this month talking about project managers. It’s the light relief, ‘Business Lifer’ column at the back, written by an anonymous ‘executive globetrotter’. During January, Business Lifer has been recruiting as well as considering his own CV in the light of transferable skills. He writes:

I realised with joy that I had the ability to ‘project manage’. I had to be sure so I went through the common attributes of the best project managers I knew. They all maintain a tedious attention to detail, like to call in well before work and command you to do something, strut about as if they are extremely important and have an annoying habit of summarising conversations and emails midflow. It turns out I’m just as pompous and manipulative as the best of them.

Now, I can strut with the best of them, but I hope I’m not pompous and manipulative. In fact, pompous and manipulative is the worst of them – these are exactly traits that project managers should not have.

Project managers serve others through their actions. We deliver a service to our project stakeholders and project customers (both internal and end user). We get things done through other people; we enable others to do their best work in a way that delivers the most value to the organisation.

Pomposity is the enemy of getting things done. Manipulation is the opposite of collaborative teamwork. Both of these may deliver very short term results, but the long term damage to your career and credibility is not worth behaving so badly for.

For another take on what project managers are like, check out this YouTube video: Stuff Project Managers Say. I thought it was funny, and I’m sure you’ll recognise yourself and colleagues. I reckon I’ve said all those things, although I don’t have alcohol in my desk drawer, I have emergency chocolate. What do you have?

And do you think the Business Lifer view or the video is a more accurate description of project managers?

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Welcome to the January/February 2012 edition of the Carnival of Project Management. The Carnival is a round up of the best project management articles (according to me) over the last two months.

Brad Egeland presents Watch Out for Warning Signs posted at Project Management Tips, saying, “Four warning signs that things may not be going well with your project and how to tackle them.”

Bruce McGraw presents Cognitive Science Insights into Decision Making posted at Fear No Project Blog, saying, “how you make your decisions? Are you watching for other cognitive clues from staff and stakeholders?”

Luis Seabra Coelho presents Using Mind Maps: how and what for. Luis blogs at ah-ha-moments.net. Mind maps can be a useful tool in project management.

Ty Kiisel presents Crude Confrontation Curtails Collaboration posted at Work Management Blog. “Effective communication is personal,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s face to face, via email, or even in a blog — it’s one person interacting with another.”

Lindsay Scott presents Emphasize “Management” in PM posted at Michael Greer’s PM Resources blog, saying, “Put the emphasis on management back into project management.”

Soma Bhattacharya presents Who’s your boss?, which she’s written on her blog for newbie project managers, Stepping into Project Management. She has presented an interesting take on personality types – recognise anyone?

Finally, I’ve come across a new website called MBA Online which aims to educate people on a number of topics including company culture, productivity and leadership. You can choose your own course and then follow a thread through to learn about the basics and new advances in the subject.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Project Management using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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Kevin Ciccotti

In the last part of the Focus on Coaching series, I’m interviewing Kevin Ciccotti, CPCC, ACC. Kevin is a coach who has chosen to work specifically with PMPs (although I expect he’d work with any project managers). I asked him why.

Kevin, how did you get into coaching?

I will say my path to coaching was not exactly a straight line. I spent many  years working in different organizations, from hotel-casinos (I grew up and still live in Reno, Nevada), to airlines, and a few others before ‘settling in’ and working for more than 25 years for a world-class manufacturing company that happened to be the world’s largest slot machine manufacturer. The last 16 of those years were spent in management, and that is where I really began to develop my ability to help my team members build upon their strengths, overcome challenges, and create successful careers.

One of my employees told me, “You’re wasting your talents here. Not that what you do for us isn’t appreciated, but you have so much to offer beyond these walls. You need to think about how you can reach more people and help them the way you’ve helped us.” Well, those words both inspired and terrified me. The truth was that I knew I wasn’t playing to my own strengths. So I researched coach training programs, and attended one of the best in the country.

It’s been more than four years now since I left my corporate job and started my coaching business and it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done. I haven’t looked back once, or regretted a second. That, for me, is the ultimate definition of success.

Why did you choose to work with project managers?

In my previous job, I was heavily involved in product development – from product concept, to planning and development, to production, and ultimately end of life cycle, or obsolescence. One thing that was a constant was that no matter how well team members knew each other, regardless of skill sets, we struggled to get traction on new projects. For me, it was a fascinating, and sometimes frustrating, study of how complex relationships in the workplace can be. We’re all on the same team, right? Then why is there so much conflict, so little cooperation?

When I became a coach, I honestly thought I’d left all that behind. Then, I began coaching the CEO of a technology company that specializes in ERP implementations and PPM/BPM processes for large corporations. After working with me for a while, he mentioned that what I do as a coach could greatly benefit project managers who struggle with leading teams – especially when they have no direct authority over members.

That sparked something in me, and I investigated further. Over the last four years, we’ve seen an incredible shift in the workplace, and all of us are faced with unprecedented challenges. Companies have dramatically cut staff and asked people to do more with less, and PM’s are under more pressure than ever to get their teams engaged and working together effectively. I’ve since joined PMI, have spoken at multiple events, written articles for a number of publications, hosted webinars, and created a one-day workshop called The Human Factor in Project Management, and I absolutely love working with PM’s!

Well, we are lovely people. One of the things you’ve said is that some of our behaviour is down to brain wiring. Does that mean that there are some behaviours that we cannot change?

While it’s true that many of our behaviours are influenced by the way our brains are wired, that by no means implies that we are automatons who are simply running on programs. Ultimately, we always have the power of choice in any situation.

For example, think of a time when you faced a major change or uncertainty in your work or life. If you’re like the vast majority of people, your initial response was probably one of resistance or fear. That’s because the brain is literally wired to see change as potential threat, it craves certainty.  Anything new and unusual triggers us to make a ‘toward or away from’ decision, based on moving toward a perceived pleasure or reward, or away from potential pain.

The most important thing to be aware of in those times is that you get to decide what the change means. Of course, we all know that not all change is inherently bad, nor is it always good. Our ability to discern the events, study our choices, and then make a conscious decision about how to proceed, gives us the power to make more effective decisions. So, regardless of the situation, we are not slaves to our brain’s default settings.

Hmm, interesting. How does understanding human behaviour help project managers coach their team members?

It’s really all about increasing awareness. We all tend to view and interpret the world around us through the lens of our own experiences. And, what’s ‘true’ for me is not necessarily true for you or anyone else. Without that understanding, we tend to judge others who don’t share our perspectives as ‘different’ or even ‘wrong.’

When Project Managers learn to see the individuality in team members, they’re much less likely to judge them or their behaviours, and they are far more likely to develop a better sense of connection with them. In the end, my belief is that the single most important aspect of leading teams is your relationship with the people on that team. Understanding human behaviour is a gateway to understanding the people around us. Now, I’m not talking about turning PM’s into psychologists, but having a basic
understanding of behaviour is essential to learning not only how others view their world, but also how you view and interpret your world.

What’s your top tip for project managers who want to start better understanding the way that their project team members work?

Wow, it’s so difficult to come up with just one. I’d have to say that if there were only one thing PM’s could do it would be to really work to become a better listener. And when I say that, I mean don’t just hear what’s being said, but really listen for understanding. So many times, we get caught up in the busyness of our day and our projects, and we don’t give our people the attention they may need. When team members don’t feel heard, it can dramatically impact their level of engagement. When we take the time to listen, even if no action results from it, the person feels heard. And it’s a big difference maker.

For the project manager, this can translate into stronger connections with team members, a deeper level of trust, and more effective communication. All of this can absolutely work to the PM’s advantage when it comes to getting the most from their project teams.

Thanks, Kevin!

Kevin Ciccotti has been a student of peak performance, interpersonal communication, and human behavior for more than 25 years. He was trained at The Coaches Training Institute (CTI), the world’s largest in-person coach training organization. He is certified by both CTI and the International Coach Federation, and in 2012 was named President of the Nevada Professional Coaches Association.

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In this video I ask 9 project managers how they deal with a bad day at work.

With thanks to Todd, Samad, Nathaniel, Cindy, Adrienne, Cornelius, Taryn, Dave and Melanie.

Filmed on location at PMI Global Congress North America 2011 in Dallas/Fort Worth.

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jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $(function() { $('.error').hide(); $(".button").click(function() { // validate and process form // first hide any error messages $('.error').hide(); var name = $("input#name").val(); if (name == "") { $("label#name_error").show(); $("input#name").focus(); return false; } var email = $("input#eStore_ajax_email").val(); if (email == "") { $("label#email_error").show(); $("input#eStore_ajax_email").focus(); return false; } var prod_id = $("input#free_download_product_id").val(); var ap_id = $("input#free_download_ap_id").val(); var clientip = $("input#free_download_clientip").val(); var dataString = 'name='+ name + '&email=' + email + '&prod_id=' + prod_id + '&ap_id=' + ap_id + '&clientip=' + clientip; //alert (dataString);return false; var process_script_url = 'http://www.pm4girls.elizabeth-harrin.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-cart-for-digital-products' + '/ajax_process_download.php'; // Because the server might be invoking the PDF Stamper, we want the user to have a "warm fuzzy feeling" while they // wait for a response. Otherwise, they might get "click happy" with the submit button. // -- The Assurer, 2010-09-14. { $('.free_download_form').html(""); $('.message').html("") .append("Processing Order...") .hide() .fadeIn(250, function() { $('.message').append(""); }); } $.ajax({ type: "POST", url: process_script_url, data: dataString, success: function() { $('.free_download_form').html(""); $('.message').html("") .append("

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At the end of last year I ran a contest to giveaway a pile of books worth about £65 to one of the people who bought Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: Ten Steps to Stop Feeling Like a Fraud at Work when it was first launched.

The winner was…

Lucy from Milton Keynes, UK.

Congratulations, Lucy! You won copies of:

• All Your Money Won’t Another Minute Buy: Valuing Time as a Business Resource by Curt Finch
• A Short Guide to Facilitating Risk Management by Penny Pullan and Ruth Murray-Webster
• Get Started Using Social Media on Your Projects (ebook) by me
• Social Media for Project Managers by me

If you don’t yet have a copy of Overcoming Imposter Syndrome, click here to buy one, or get a copy on Kindle.

 

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This short series is looking at coaching in a project management environment. Today, I’m reviewing The Project Management Coaching Workbook by Susanne Madsen (Management Concepts, 2011).

“It is not your ability to manage tasks and resources that will set you apart,” writes Susanne Madsen in her new book, The Project Management Coaching Workbook. “It is your ability to manage relationships and lead the team to success through your vision and engagement. As much as knowledge matters, it is your drive, confidence, and attitude that will really help you get your projects over the finishing line.”

Madsen has written a unique and practical book aimed at project managers who want to perfect their craft and those in the role of coach to project managers. You can use the checklists and exercises to assess yourself and improve your skills. If you work with others in a coaching role, this workbook could form the basis of your coaching interventions.

6 Steps for self-coaching

Madsen outlines six steps for you to work through as part of a self-coaching exercise:

1. Create your vision
2. Benchmark current skills
3. Get feedback
4. Create an action plan
5. Review guiding practices
6. Review progress

The book aims to guide you through these six steps so that you can be your own coach, identifying where you are not as proficient and helping you work on these areas.  A large part of this is establishing where you are starting from, which requires both self-assessment and feedback from your colleagues.

Using feedback for improving skills

It is very much a workbook and there are spider diagrams to fill in about each project management dimension, including time management, quality management and stakeholder management, amongst others. This first exercise will give you a personal rating against 80 project management skill areas, so you can quickly see where your strong and weak points are.

You then repeat the exercise with customers, your manager and team members, so you have a complete picture of perceptions of your performance, all of which can be recorded in the workbook, although you will probably want to photocopy the pages so you can get feedback from multiple people. At this point you can identify where you want to dedicate time for improvement. Or, if you are using Madsen’s book as the basis for coaching one of your project team, you can use this assessment to discuss with them their potential areas for improvement.

Keep going for success

Madsen writes:

“One of the differences between ordinary and successful people is that successful people do not give up when presented with an obstacle or challenge. They pick themselves up, get to the root cause of the issue, and change their approach accordingly. Successful people come across as many roadblocks as everyone else, but instead of giving in and blaming others, they change their approach and do something about the situation. They are proactive and keep trying new ways.”

She suggests forming a support group of project managers to act as a day-to-day sounding board. This could be useful, especially if you do’t have a formal coach or mentor and are using her book to develop yourself. If you don’t have a real-life network in your company, you could join external groups like the APM or the project management organisation in your area. You could also tap in to networks online like LinkedIn groups and Gantthead.

As well as providing the framework and forms for a coaching assessment, Madsen also included hints and tips to help you improve in certain areas. I particularly enjoyed the advice about making sure that you know what red, amber green actually mean, so that your reports are meaningful.

Although I am biased towards books that use the Oxford comma, overall I thought this was a structured, useful book. I would like to see the worksheet pages available as a digital download as once you have written in the boxes and completed the spider diagrams you will find it difficult to use again when you come to reassess you skills in a year or so. In the absence of that, make sure you take a photocopy of the workbook pages before you write on them, so if you want to review your progress and reassess yourself, you can.

That continual reassessment is important. “Keep looking inward, reassess what you really, really want to achieve as a project manager and do’t let anything deter you from reaching your goals,” she writes. “Be the best you can in everything that you do, and you will set a great example for others to follow.”

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Susanne Madsen

This short series is looking at coaching in a project management environment. Today I’m interviewing Susanne Madsen, author of The Project Management Coaching Workbook and herself a coach.

Hello Susanne. Tell me, what made you go into coaching in the first place?

I started coaching and mentoring project managers because I wanted to make a difference. I had a desire to contribute and to help others overcome some of the challenges I had experienced myself. I had seen the positive effects of coaching in other walks of life and was keen to use it in project management. But although I expected it to have an impact, I didn’t know that it would be quite as powerful as it proved to be. I didn’t know that only a few coaching sessions could be enough to give people the tools and support they needed to excel and make rapid progress as project managers and leaders. Coaching is just such a phenomenal and empowering tool.

That’s a significant claim. Tell me a bit more about the power of coaching.

Coaching is tremendously powerful for people who are willing to work on themselves and take action to achieve a certain goal or outcome. This ‘outcome’ can be anything from finding one’s true purpose, gaining more self confidence, or becoming a better project manager and leader. The power of coaching is that it helps people identify and articulate what their challenges, goals and aspirations are and subsequently assists them in achieving these goals – or avoiding certain challenges. This often creates aha-moments for the coachee and unleashes energy and potential as the individual starts to feel empowered and in control of where they want to go. The coach is the facilitator and the sounding board – and ensures that the right questions are being asked. As John Demartini says, “The quality of your life depends on the quality of the questions you ask!”

Coaching seems to revolve around asking questions. Why is asking quality questions so important?

In coaching we don’t spend hours analysing why things are they way they are. We acknowledge the current situation and then ask how the person can move just one step forward. Some of the most powerful questions you can ask is: What could make my life more fulfilling right now? What am I tolerating or putting up with at the moment? What is my hidden potential? In which ways can I start to contribute and be a role model to others?

OK, so here’s another question for you! What prompted you to write a book about coaching?

When you publish a book you are able to reach a wider range of people and contribute to their personal and professional development. I am passionate about coaching and empowering project managers – what better way than writing and publishing a book? I want the project managers out there to be the best they can and to be confident and competent at managing projects. I want them to feel good, to leverage their strengths and to focus on the 20% that contributes to 80% of their achievements. I want them to work smarter; not harder!

The Project Management Coaching Workbook I have written enables people to achieve this. It assists people in building confidence and in becoming highly valued and truly successful project management leaders.

If people want to become successful project leaders and believe that being able to coach is part of that, where should they start?

I would like to encourage everyone to imagine more and look around less. Listen to yourselves, be honest about the things you would like to achieve – and never give up!My best advice is to get a coaching qualification and learn to coach that way. When you train with a good institution not only will you learn the core coaching techniques and when to apply them, you will also build a great network with other coaches and have someone to practice with.

I originally studied with The Coaching Academy in London which gave me a great foundation in personal performance coaching as well as corporate and executive coaching. The Coaches Training Institute (CTI) is also a good place to be trained.

When it comes to books I would recommend Coaching for Performance by John Whitmore and Co-Active Coaching by Laura Whitworth. They are invaluable resources for a new coach.

Can you coach someone whom you manage directly?

It is possible to coach someone whom you manage directly, but the relationship and the role of the coach is slightly different. Independent or external coaches can focus on their client’s goals and aspirations 100% and will often build a very trusting relationship where the coachee opens up and talks in confidence about very personal issues and aspirations. As a line manager you don’t have that independence because you have a lot of information and pre-conceived perceptions about the employee and because you have to also consider the needs of the organisation you both work for.

On the other hand, the manager is able to coach the employee in a variety of situations as and when they occur – and is also able to provide the best possible career opportunities for the coachee. When the manager doubles up as a coach she becomes a mentor and will at times make suggestions and tell the employee what to do.

As an independent coach it is not good practice to tell the coachee what to do. I would encourage all managers to also become coaches – however that would not replace the need for independent coaches.

I know you can’t coach everyone who reads A Girl’s Guide to Project Management, but have you got a few words of advice for us?

I would like to encourage everyone to imagine more and look around less. Listen to yourselves, be honest about the things you would like to achieve – and never give up! Read motivational books, surround yourselves by inspirational people, get a coach, listen to podcasts and attend events that interest you. When you mix with likeminded people you will be reminded of the things that are important to you and you will be more inclined to pursuing them.

Thanks, Susanne!

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1. Focus on Coaching: expert team coaching with Phil Hayes Phil Hayes is a coach with over 20 years experience in team development. He’s executive director of London training and coaching company Management Futures. I...
2. Focus on Coaching: Book review of Leading and Coaching Teams to Success I particularly liked the sub-title of this book: The Secret Life of Teams. Leading and Coaching Teams to Success by Phil Hayes is about what...
3. Focus on Coaching: What a coach does, with Josh Nankivel It’s January, which means it is cold and grey and we are looking to do things better than last year. That’s why I’m spending January...

I particularly liked the sub-title of this book: The Secret Life of Teams. Leading and Coaching Teams to Success by Phil Hayes is about what happens to teams behind closed doors. It talks about how teams gossip, go off the rails and implode. There’s something cathartic about reading about teams in a worse state than that of your own.

Hayes, whom I interviewed earlier this week, is a team coach. It’s his job to help teams work out where the problems lie before they derail completely. On a more positive note, coaching teams can also help them move from being great performers to excellent performers, so it’s not all about remedial action.

Much of what I know about coaching is about coaching individuals, and the concept of coaching a whole team at a time had never occurred to me. But from the stories in the book, you can, and it works.

Practical coaching advice

It would be hard to pick up this book and suddenly be a great team coach. However, there are stories, examples and exercises here that can help you be a better team leader. For example, Hayes talks about the 3 styles of leadership: authoritarian, laissez-faire and achievement focused/democratic.

All these styles can work in different situations, but it is the leader that sets the tone. Knowing the characteristics of each style and what works in different environments would help you create a project team that is not dysfunctional. In a project

Phil Hayes

environment, I believe that the achievement focused/democratic style would be the best option for the majority of the time.

Good team ‘housekeeping’

“It should be explained clearly to each member of the team that when speak to them individually you will respect confidentiality,” Hayes writes. He has some general guidelines for teams that I consider ‘housekeeping’ and would be good practice for any project team, whether or not you are working with a coach. For example:

• Create a team contract that documents how the team is going to work together. Everyone should agree to it.
• Develop your facilitation skills if you work with teams (although facilitation is different to coaching).
• Respect confidentiality.
• Listen more than talk.

There is also a chapter on how to be a good team member, which I found interesting, especially the bit about how to manage your boss! Top tip: “Demonstrate that your work is helping to achieve the boss’s goals.”

Avoiding ‘why’

Hayes recommends that you stop asking why. He says that it’s counterproductive to put people on the spot like that. He writes:

“It is generally asked mainly to satisfy the curiosity of the questioner and tends to put the client on the defensive, requiring them to explain themselves. It is a useful question for journalists, politicians and scientists but not for coaches. The question ‘Why haven’t you solved this yet?’ will have a very different impact from asking ‘What is getting in the way of a solution here?’”

As project managers, we all work with teams. Coaching a team is a difficult job, and it’s not one that every project manager will be equipped to do. However, it doesn’t hurt to understand a bit more about the secret life of teams. And if your team is going off the rails, this book will help you understand what to look for in a team coach – hiring one might just save your project.

Buy on Amazon.co.uk
Buy on Amazon.com

 

 

 

Related posts:

1. Focus on Coaching: expert team coaching with Phil Hayes Phil Hayes is a coach with over 20 years experience in team development. He’s executive director of London training and coaching company Management Futures. I...
2. Focus on Coaching: What a coach does, with Josh Nankivel It’s January, which means it is cold and grey and we are looking to do things better than last year. That’s why I’m spending January...
3. How to be a PMO Leader: Book Review of Leading Successful PMOs Project managers have to be project leaders as well, at least some of the time. But what happens when you want to take the next...

Phil Hayes

Phil Hayes is a coach with over 20 years experience in team development. He’s executive director of London training and coaching company Management Futures. I spoke to Phil about how team coaching can work with project teams.

Phil, I’ve heard about coaching individuals, and I can see how you could extend that to a functional team that works together. But project teams come together for a short period of time so how can coaching work in that environment?

The less connected the team is likely to be, the faster it needs to agree how it’s going to work. It’s more important for loosely affiliated teams. It’s key to establish ground rules early on and practical protocols for how the team is going to work together. This includes the team ethos and acceptable interpersonal behaviours as these can create friction.

Project managers rarely have line management responsibility for their team members. Does this help or hinder team coaching?

Where the project manager is not the line manager it creates a stronger case for working on the communications and values aspects of the team. Team coaching with project teams is about getting the team aligned as quickly as possible. With project teams, individuals bring in the interests of their own parts of the organisation or even from external organisations and as a result the politics and dynamics of the team can be much more complex. The whole system comes into the room with the individuals – it’s not like working in the goldfish bowl of the intact team that has regular contact and shared long-term goals. Team coaching interventions are vital to establish how to get the best out of each other and how to handle conflicts.

Yes, there can be a lot of baggage that people bring into the project team from their normal functional role. That sounds complicated to manage. Is a project manager equipped to hand these challenges?

Sometimes they are not! Project managers themselves can sometimes benefit from individual coaching. Often they are skilled technical experts with poor people and leadership skills.

If you do want to give team coaching a go, what should you consider?

It’s best to have a background in at least one of four areas: training, 1 to 1 executive coaching, organisational development consultancy or facilitation. Preferably in more than one of these areas.

OK, that probably rules out a lot of project managers. Knowing how much damage could be done if a team coaching intervention doesn’t work out as planned, it might be a good idea to call in the experts! How did you get into it?

By osmosis, really. I started working with teams over time, delivering team building, team facilitation and training. Teams started asking for me to work with them. You have to build a reputation in those areas but there is no clearly defined career path. In a sense, you have to look for the work.

So if I want to get a professional, experienced team coach to help my poorly performing project team, what should I look for?

You want someone with a track record who can demonstrate through case studies and examples the benefits of team coaching. You should ask for references and you should feel that they are personally credible. That’s a bit subjective, but it’s a combination of personal impact and track record. They should be easy to work with, and they should talk about pragmatic outcomes, not theory. It’s a very practical discipline. The teams I work with want results, not rhetoric, so look for someone who is grounded in practice.

OK, so let’s say I’ve found my perfect team coach. How do I convince my Project Sponsor to pay up?

It depends on the Sponsor! There’s not much research on team coaching, but organisations like CIPD have done some work on the efficacy of different interventions. You could get someone who has been through the experience of team coaching to talk to them about it and the benefits they have seen. If that doesn’t work, try talking to them about the consequences of not addressing the issues. What is the cost of not developing the potential in the team?

Good point! Team coaching is the next natural step from team building activities. Not everyone is going to be able to afford the investment in a team coach, or be capable of doing it themselves, so what’s your top piece of advice that we could use to put coaching principles to work on our teams tomorrow?

Creating authentic communication in teams means getting beyond facts, beyond opinion, to feelings and values. A lot of energy can be subverted because of the fear of saying how people really feel. Ask yourself if your project team can communicate congruently, authentically and honestly and if the answer is no, focus on how you can build trust in the team. Getting people to trust each ther more is at the heart of building effective teams.

Thanks, Phil!

Read the review of Phil’s book, Leading and Coaching Teams to Success, here.

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Josh Nankivel, speaking at PMI Global Congress

It’s January, which means it is cold and grey and we are looking to do things better than last year. That’s why I’m spending January focusing on coaching and the role it can play in improving your performance and that of your team. Today I’m talking to project management coach Josh Nankivel about what he does when he coaches people. Josh founded pmStudent.com in 2006 and has been writing and training in the project management space ever since, primarily focused on helping new and aspiring project managers.

Hello Josh. I know you coach new project managers, but what does a coach do?

I identify with the definition put forth by Eric Parsloe in The Manager as Coach and Mentor.

Coaching is “a process that enables learning and development to occur and thus performance to improve. To be a successful a Coach requires a knowledge and understanding of process as well as the variety of styles, skills and techniques that are appropriate to the context in which the coaching takes place.”

So it’s about teaching?

A successful coach enables learning and development through teaching, but even more than that a good coach cares deeply about empowering the people they coach to reach their goals.  I teach people how to land a job or manage project effectively, but if they don’t go out and actually DO it to earn success for themselves, I’ve failed as a coach.

Therefore, much of what I do is making people see why they are empowered to make things happen for themselves and inspire them to tap into their own potential. I’m not satisfied unless they execute on theory and make it reality.

If you want to start coaching people in your team, where should you begin?

Begin by listening, observing, and building trust. Until you have gained the trust of your team members, you won’t be able to coach them effectively. They need to know at a gut level that you are there for THEM, not the other way around. They need to know your goal is for them to grow and be successful.

If you charge in with great ideas and ‘best practices’ you will lose them immediately. Only after you’ve figured out what the heck is going on and have gained trust can you coach.

Sounds like a challenging job. What do you enjoy about coaching?

I love seeing people succeed. That could be a light bulb going on, having them implement a strategy I coached them on and having it land them a job, etc. It makes all the hard work worth it.

I also enjoy challenging people. Some of the advice I give to people I’m coaching or in writing on my blog is hard to swallow. I tend to be rather candid (but nice!) when pointing out how people can improve. These are the times when I see the most light bulbs going on, because I’m challenging basic assumptions and getting people outside of their comfort zone.

You write a lot and you work with people online, for example through your Work Breakdown Structures that Work (And How to Implement Them) course. Isn’t it necessary to coach people face to face?

It’s not necessary to coach people face to face, but without that direct interaction steps must be taken in order to have the best communication possible.

In my online programs for instance, I have had students create their own plans for sample projects and then in a coaching session I record my screen and voice as I critique their ideas and work. We go through iterations back and forth, improving the item under discussion as we go.

These lessons are made available to all students and are a very powerful way of coaching on specific nuts-and-bolts topics that you can’t really understand unless you are doing it yourself.

Regardless of the medium, the best method of coaching is to be able to observe what someone is doing directly and give candid feedback on how they can improve. That is why having a mentor at your workplace can be so valuable, because they can observe you managing your team or running a meeting and give you direct feedback based on their observations of your behaviour.

What do people do with the feedback?

Just as with everything else in life, results are dependent on the work put forth. You get out what you put into any endeavour, including a coaching relationship. Great athletes can’t rely on their coaches to make them successful, they have to put in the hard work and persevere. Many people I have coached have gone on to land jobs in line with the career trajectory I helped them define and pursue.

That’s pretty good. Do you have any examples?

There are several examples of people on the Career in Project Management LinkedIn group where people have shared their personal success. Some leave comments on pmStudent.com and many more send me personal email. Sometimes I ask for permission to share these stories when they involve lessons learned that can help everyone else too.

I’ll take a look at those. Thanks, Josh!

Josh has been managing projects in Computing, Financial Services, Telecommunications, and Aerospace for over a decade. Josh’s educational background includes a Bachelor of Science degree in Project Management and he is PMP certified. He uses his experience and love of teaching to empower people to get started and get ahead in their project management careers.

Some links in this post are affiliate links, so if you click them and sign up for one of Josh’s products, I’ll make a small commission. Thanks, if you do that.

Related posts:

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2. Focus on Coaching: Book review of Leading and Coaching Teams to Success I particularly liked the sub-title of this book: The Secret Life of Teams. Leading and Coaching Teams to Success by Phil Hayes is about what...
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I’m taking a two-week break over Christmas to enjoy the holidays. A Girl’s Guide to Project Management returns on 4 January, 2012. In the meantime, I thought this video would cheer up the gloomy December days – Gina Schreck showed it at her presentation at the PMI Leadership Institute Meeting earlier this year. Enjoy!

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Image credit: Jon Ashcroft (http://www.flickr.com/photos/theilluminated)

This blog might be called A Girl’s Guide to Project Management, but the success of it isn’t just down to me. There are a lot of people who contribute to making it happen.

We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in the UK (our November holiday celebrates the chap who didn’t manage to blow up Parliament in 1605) but that doesn’t mean we can’t give thanks. And when better to do it than now?

Here are the people who have contributed in some way to A Girl’s Guide to Project Management this year.

Companies who have let me review their software

• Nucleus Group: UnleashPM
• Digital Crew Application Developers: TeamworkPM
• Stand by Soft Ltd: RationalPlan
• Applicom: Apollo
• Websystems, Inc.: AceProject

People I have interviewed

• Suzanne Doyle-Morris
• Joanne Flinn
• Jeff Furman
• Penny Pullan (video)
• Rick Valerga
• Margaret Meloni
• Chris Field
• Jovia Nierenberg

And everyone I interviewed at project management events this year.

Publishers and authors who have sent me books to review

• Melanie Franklin (IT Governance), Managing Business Transformation
• Vineet Nayar (Harvard Business Review Press), Employees First, Customers Second
• Laurence H Seton, On Top Of Everything: Manage Your Projects and Life with Ease
• Emanuel Camilleri (Gower), Project Success: Critical Factors and Behaviours
• Karen B. Brown and Nancy Lea Hyer (McGraw-Hill/Irwin), Managing Projects: A Team Based Approach
• Rick Valerga, Projectegrity: Using Integrity to Make Your Project Great and The Cure for the Common Project
• John Estrella, Lessons Learned in Project Management
• Thomas Juli (CRC Press), Leadership Principles for Project Success
• Todd Williams (Amacom), Rescue the Problem Project
• Robert Bly (Career Press), Make Every Second Count
• The people at OGC for Management of Portfolios
• Stever Robbins (St. Martin’s Griffin), Get-It-Done Guy’s 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More
• Penny Pullan (Gower), A Short Guide to Facilitating Risk
• Lin Grensing-Pophal (Self Council Press), Managing Off-Site Staff for Small Business
• Tom Kendrick (Amacom), 101 Project Management Problems and How to Solve Them
• Guy Kawasaki (Penguin), Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions
• Joanne Flinn (John Wiley & Sons), The Success Healthcheck for IT Projects
•  J. Kent Crawford and Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin (Auerbach Publications), Optimizing Human Capital with a Strategic Project Office
• Karen R. J. White (PM Solutions), Agile Project Management: A Mandate for the 21st Century

And a few personal thank yous to:

• Computer Weekly, for making it possible for me to win the IT Professional Blogger of the Year award (and to the people who voted for me)
• Jonathan and Pauline
• Cornelius
• Joanne, for her help behind the scenes

And you. Without readers, there is no point in writing at all.

I hope I haven’t missed anyone off the list, and if I have, I’m sorry.  Who is on your gratitude list this year? Let us know in the comments.

No related posts.

Project managers have to be project leaders as well, at least some of the time. But what happens when you want to take the next step and lead a PMO?

Peter Taylor’s new book, Leading Successful PMOs, explains. He discusses the PMO that he led at Siemens. It was a three year journey. They began with a focus on 5 Ps:

• People
• Process
• Performance
• Promotion
• Project Management Information System (PMIS)

He started with People and Performance and then added the others as the PMO became more mature. It’s interesting to see the year by year advancement that this PMO had, and Taylor also includes other stories of PMO leaders and their experiences. He shares some top tips including:

• Act like a business leader not a project manager.
• Develop the new processes and tools with the people who will use them.
• Know your customer and provide excellent customer service.
• Don’t underestimate the effort required and organisational change needed to get PMO set up.

Leadership challenges for the PMO

The book includes the results from Taylor’s own survey, including the fact that 78% of respondents had a project management team before a PMO came along. It seems as if PMOs are adopted after the principles of project management are recognised as valuable by the company. This may add to the reason why PMOs are sometimes seem as an administrative function, and can make it even harder for the PMO leader: they are not starting from scratch. Instead, their role is often to bring together what was already there but make it perform better.

Chris Walters says in the foreword, “Although the visible part of the PMO is often operational in nature, the real value of a PMO is when it becomes transformational. This is where leadership becomes much more important than management.”

Taylor summarises this as shown in the picture below.

This is the underlying principle of the book, doing the right things, in the right order, in the right way with the right people. However, there is more to successful PMOs than just having the right people doing the right thing.

“Being part of a PMO team is all about supporting ‘the right stuff’ delivery by best practice and professionalism,” he says.

Characteristics of a successful PMO leader

“Be passionate about projects and project management but act like a business leader,” Taylor says. He lists other characteristics of successful PMO leaders. They are:

• Decisive
• Excellent at communicating
• Great with people
• Able to understand projects
• Able to influence key stakeholders
• Pragmatic
• Able to understand the big picture and communicate the end goal
• Not enforce process for process’ sake.

This final point came through strongly in his research. It highlighted the fact that project managers want the PMO to be flexible enough to adapt to needs of all projects and not adopt a one-size-fits-all approach. This is key to getting the unit set up and respected, and, of course, delivering value to the customers.

The right experience for PMO leaders

So while understanding projects was flagged as an important characteristic, Taylor’s research flagged that project management experience is actually way at the bottom of the list for recruiting PMO leaders. Only 12% of job adverts asked for project management experience and none of the sample of he studied asked for programme or portfolio management experience. Are the skills really that different?

Taylor assumes that project management experience was implied in the adverts that he looked at. I would say that if you have to ask for something like good communication skills (which is a prerequisite for most jobs) then you should spell out the need for project management experience as well.

“Do not be afraid to be unique: anything else is probably wrong for you and your business.” Peter Taylor

There is a lot of common sense in this book, but it is there because many PMOs are staffed by people who haven’t had lots of PMO experience or need the confidence to be able to sell the ideas of a PMO into their senior executive team. Comments like, “Do things for the right reason,” may seem simple taken out of context but in the construct of the whole book they serve to build strong foundations towards creating a leader out of the reader.

A leader needs something to lead

Chapter 4 covers creating a PMO, because after all what is a leader without something to lead? A PMO is more than just a department or function. It is also a culture and way of working.

I heard the term ‘corporate honesty’ recently, as in “I think we should ask so-and-so for some corporate honesty about this project.” Honesty is one of my 4 pillars of leadership and Taylor also talks about the value of honesty in creating a PMO that is respected, valued and adds something to the project managers and the organisation. He writes:

The one thing that you need from the PMO members, the project managers, is honesty. If they can honestly share the state of play in their projects with you then you can establish yourself as being on their side. And, just as importantly if you know the true state of things then it also means that the PMO can offer the right level of help; conversely, if you don’t know the truth, they you’re in no position to provide help before matters get too critical.

Well said.

Buy on Amazon.co.uk
Buy on Amazon.com

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Encouraging people to tweet: Twitter is promoted on the big screen at the PMI Global Congress earlier this year

Robert Kelly and Rob Prinzo have started using Twitter to connect project managers in an unusual way. I spoke to Robert about how they are bringing project managers together online (and even better, how you can earn PDUs for hanging about on Twitter!).

Robert, you use Twitter to coordinate conversations between project managers through a Twitter chat. First, tell me what a Twitter chat is.

A Twitter chat is a pre-arranged discussion that occurs on Twitter at a specific day and time each week. While there are several variations, most Twitter chats are coordinated by a host/s and leverage the use of a hashtag (#) for the community to participate in this virtual conversation.

Each Twitter chat has its own feel and personality. While some are more of an open discussion, others chats have a more structured agenda and the discussion is moderated by the host/s.

OK. Your chat is tagged #PMChat. How does it work?

#PMChat is hosted by myself and Rob Prinzo and we both take on a role for the week. One will post a question and make sure we are staying on track, usually one question on topic every 15 minutes or so. The other person is welcoming folks as they join, retweeting comments made by the group, and making sure we stay on topic.

For those who aren’t sure, you don’t have to have a Twitter account to see the discussion, although you would need one if you wanted to contribute. For people who aren’t comfortable using Twitter, are there other ways to join in?

Some Twitter chats stop there, while others branch off into other platforms. #PMChat for example has branched out to include a 15-minute live radio show just before the actually Twitter chat, we have a LinkedIn group, and a website. The website is used to post a recap to the previous week’s chat, guest blog posts for the upcoming week’s topic, the schedule of topics and more.

Why did you decide to start #PMChat?

Rob Prinzo contacted me about the idea few months back. He had noticed a few of the Twitter chats happening with other topics, but realized that project managers didn’t have such a platform. I was getting a bit tired of some other commonly used hashtags moving away from collaboration and turning into one-way distribution of information. We saw a void in the PM community for a real-time, collaborative platform for practitioners to share best practices and bounce ideas off of one another.

There is a shift in how people are learning and traditional development models. The project management path has long been characterized by the accidental project manager who is left on their own to figure it out. We saw a real opportunity for junior project managers (coordinators, analysts, etc) to join in discussion from industry thought leaders, for senior practitioners to collaborate with other experienced PMs from around the world and across industries. #PMChat is turning into the open-source learning module of our discipline and it is exciting!

If there is lots of learning going on, can people count that towards their professional development?

Yes. One great side effect of their participation is that they can earn 1 free PDU under Category C for the hour.

What sorts of topics are discussed?

To date, the topics we have covered include: Project Management vs. Project Leadership, Developing a PMO, Developing Requirements, and Managing Scope. The full list with links to the past Pre-Game Radio shows and Twitter chat recaps can all be found on the website.

Sounds great! How can people get involved?

Rob and I do not want this to ever become the Rob & Rob show, we need the PM community to get involved and we believe there is something for everyone.

If you want to simply participate you can listen in to the 15 minute #PMChat Pre-Game Show on Fridays from 11:30-11:45 EST. You can go to BlogTalk Radio and search for KPS Chatter. During this live radio show, Rob and I host that week’s guest and talk about the topic for that week’s chat. Then you can join in on Twitter from 12-1pm EST by following the hashtag #PMChat. (It is easier to leverage a tool…my favourite is http://twebevent.com/PMChat.)

A Twitter chat is a pre-arranged discussion that occurs on Twitter at a specific day and time each week.If you would like contribute, we have opportunities for people to provide a guest post and/or join the#PMChat Pre-Game show each week.

People can also join the LinkedIn group, right?

The LinkedIn Group is #PMChat and we invite you to join. The discussions get deeper then the 140 character limit of Twitter and often tackle different topics than that week’s topic. All with the theme of collaboration.

Excellent! If people want to join in what should they be aware of in terms of etiquette around participating?

Our group is a lot fun! There is a lot of reference to beer when talking about team building. Aside from fun, we ask the community for two things.

Self-promotion should be kept to a minimum on the site, LinkedIn discussions, and during the Twitter chat. Having said that, we want your efforts to be recognised. We know that sometimes a blog written by a community member supports their case or comment and that is well accepted by everyone.

Next is collaboration. Success of  this community will only come from bi-directional feedback. Simple retweets are not embraced by the community as much as feedback,insight, and opinions.

What’s been the most surprising thing you’ve discovered as a result of running the chat?

There are a few things that have surprised me about running the chat. First, the amount of time that is required to coordinate all the activity. Rob and I alternate posting the recap each week, updating the Pre-Game show links, coordinating the guest for the week and so on.

The feedback we have heard has been outstanding! Most people have not joined a Twitter chat before and are pleasantly surprised. We have received dozens of messages thanking us for setting up the chat and providing a fun, professional, and educational experience.

Lastly, I am amazed at the relationships being formed. We have had community members collaborate on book titles, students being assisted with class projects, and members chatting on Saturdays about their weekend road trips. People are learning, relationships are being made, and people are having fun.

Thanks, Robert! I look forward to joining a Twitter chat!

You can get in touch with Robert (@rkelly976) or Rob Prinzo (@robprinzo) on Twitter.

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The homemade BlackBerry case I would like to replace

How are you doing with your Christmas shopping? If your Christmas project planning has gone a bit awry and you still have gifts to buy, here is my list of what to get the project managers in your life. Or you could suggest that people buy these things for you!

Anyone who saw me at Congress and Synergy struggling with a microphone will know that my skills at managing cables are non-existent. I have the same problem with headphones. If you have the same issues, a cable management tool is just what you need to keep everything from being tangled.

I think I waste a lot of power because my BlackBerry switches its screen on in my bag if the keys are touched. I crocheted a case but it is not really doing the job. A hard BlackBerry case would stop that from happening.

I still don’t have any Cocorose folding flat shoes. Perfect for when you have to travel for business and don’t want to schlep around the country in your heels.

A jumper for my morning coffee cup. It’s what all the best dressed coffee cups are wearing. I used to have a handmade coffee cozy but I’ve lost it. Personally, I’d like a ball of yarn so I can make another one but you can buy them on Etsy.

A small flat square make up bag. Too often small cosmetic bags are structured (for example, triangular) which means they don’t fit well in a laptop case which is laptop shaped, and only fits flat things.

Personally I’d like another set of make up for my workplace so I don’t have to carry it around and then find I’m at home without a mascara as it is in my desk drawer.

A massage, to soothe the way the stresses of the project.

A facial, to blitz away the scum of working in a polluted urban area.

This is probably wishful thinking, but I think something that means you do not have to carry a laptop power cable around would be a good idea. My iPod doesn’t need one so why does the laptop? Or a collapsible plug that does not have prongs that stick out, as the plug is the part that makes it difficult to pack the cable.

And if you are still stuck for ideas, how about a copy of Overcoming Imposter Syndrome, my new e-book?

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