The 4 greatest communications blockers in history…and that’s not a good thing
Posted by lward on Jun 10, 2013 in PMChat Bloggers, Uncategorized | Comments Off
We all do it; it’s part of life. We do it at home and we do it at work. We squelch good ideas, put the kaibosh on creativity, and stamp out innovation because of the stupid things we say. What am I talking about? Communications Blockers , of course. Here’s an example.
Read MoreGuest Blogger Joe Czarnecki writes: A Different View of Training for Project Managers
Posted by chohlbaum on May 27, 2013 in PMChat Bloggers, Uncategorized | Comments Off
For too long training for project managers has focused on managing the triple constraint of the project itself. That was fine when things were good. But the world has moved on and without anyone noticing, project managers have taken the lead in transforming our businesses, establishing global IT infrastructure, and driving the products and services that are sold. Just about everything we do today is a project and business is more dependent than it realizes on project managers. Just to survive in the new economic reality, project managers need essential business skills on top of their process or tools-focused project management training. Essential business skills have been ignored for too long because they are difficult to quantify, teach and master.
Read MoreGuest Blogger, and PM Expert, Matt Ferguson discusses how to manage the Millennial PM
Posted by chohlbaum on May 20, 2013 in PMChat Bloggers, Uncategorized | Comments Off
It is nearly impossible these days to read any industry rag from the Human Resources or management fields and not come across the topic of “ the millennials ” . For the uninitiated, the millennial employee (or Generation Y depending on your bias) was born between 1981 and 1999 thus making them between 32 and 14 years old as of this blog. Studies have shown that the millennials are characterized by traits of entitlement and narcissism (based on personality surveys), a focus on becoming wealthy (75% of respondents in a University of Michigan study said this was the main goal of employment), a confidence in their abilities that border on hubris, and a need for social interaction and team participation that is hard for most managers to understand. They idolize the dot-com entrepreneurs who wore flip flops to work and took the reins of an organization before they hit 30. Conversely, they don’t understand the career trajectory of the industrial CEO who started as a junior engineer and ascended over a 30 year career with the same firm. They learned to network and develop relationships in cyberspace and came to believe that the only measure for the quality of your ideas was how many “likes”, “retweets”, or “trackbacks” you got from the digital masses. They look quizzically at relationships that take time, and substance, to nurture
Read MoreInvestment in project leadership skills declines…from an already low point
Posted by lward on May 13, 2013 in PMChat Bloggers, Uncategorized | Comments Off
A couple of weeks ago I raised the following question: Is the lack of project leadership training the reason we are still struggling with projects? Many responded with some very interesting insights. In this post I present data clearly showing that, despite organizations’ complaining about the apparent lack of leadership skills, that investments in soft skills training, and training generally, is on a disturbing decline. First, a little background. For the past three years, ESI has conducted its annual Global State of the PMO Survey. In year two, we asked the respondents (> 3,000 responded) to tell us where their organization was investing in their development. We categorized respondents into two camps: those that work directly for the PMO, and those who are influenced by the PMO but do not report directly into it
Read MoreCan you learn project leadership skills online? In Europe the answer is a resounding “NO”
Posted by lward on May 6, 2013 in PMChat Bloggers, Uncategorized | Comments Off
I recently returned from the PMI EMEA Global Congress held in Istanbul where I gave a presentation entitled “Fourteen Project Leadership Skills to Boost Your Career.” It was very well attended: SRO (standing room only), indicating that project managers are really interesting in improving those highly valued leadership skills. I presented the results of a research project that Nancy Nee , one of my colleagues at ESI and Agile expert, conducted over the period of roughly 18 months in which we spoke with upwards of 30 of our strategic clients regarding their need for developing leadership skills for their project and program managers. In my presentation, I spoke about the inexorable trend toward online learning and the rise of the MOOC (massive open online courses) as alternatives to instructor led training. I informed the participants of how Virginia Rometty , CEO of IBM, encouraged her employees to take 40 hours of continuing education in 2013, at their own expense (IBM would pay for books, etc), and how one individual decided to take a MOOC because it was free. As part of my conversation, I asked the group this question: “Can you really learn project leadership skills online?” Because I had about 200 people in attendance, there wasn’t time for a robust conversation so I just had them vote. I gave them three options: Yes, No, or, Maybe. I asked them to raise their hands for each option.
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