Communications

By Lisa Winter • September 7th, 2009

As I was wracking my brain trying to think of interesting topics to write about for this week’s blogs, it came to me, a subject which is a sore spot and a pet peeve of mine – the fact that people don’t say “thank you” very often on projects, or in everyday business situations much (except [...]

This is an extension of my last blog about “Don’t Blame Others”.  Today I am not only urging you not to blame other people – don’t play the victim by blaming anything at all for your problems and failures.  For many years I thought that my troubles were caused by external forces.  My career didn’t [...]

Key success behavior #3:  Don’t blame others.  It’s not that other people aren’t responsible for a lot of the crap that you have to clean up as a project leader.  It’s just that blaming them doesn’t help fix the situation, and worse – it diminishes your personal power.  I have continued to lead projects only [...]

Well, this shouldn’t come as a big surprise to anyone, but I’m sorry to say I felt the need to put this one out there as one of the keys to success as a project leader.
Key success behavior #2:  Don’t Lie.  I recently had lunch with someone who’d been lied to by her manager three [...]

In honor of summer, I’m going to keep this week’s series of blogs bite-sized so you can get back to your beach and margaritas lickity split.  This week I’ll review a few behaviors that are key to success as a project leader.
Key success behavior #1:  Keep your promises.  Sorry if this seems trivial.  I bring [...]

If you ask 10 project managers to give a definition of their role, you most likely will end up with 10 different descriptions ranging from project admin and task master to program manager. In marketing terms, our profession has an image problem: there is no standard job description and most people have no clue what [...]

I am very avid diver here in the cold California waters. If at all possible I dive every weekend. Diving is not an extremely dangerous sport, however, decisions I make before, during and after the dive form the foundation of mine and my buddies safety and survival every dive. Making a good decision relies heavily [...]

The results delivered by projects depend upon what you negotiate.  A “secret” employed by successful project leaders is that they explore a perspective, principles, tools, and recommendations to achieve better results through the power of negotiations. They avoid being set up for failure by recognizing and developing skills that lead to greater success.
Every day involves [...]

In my last blog I mentioned that I recently received a job offer at a new company.  This started me thinking about what is my plan for getting started at the new job, so today I figured I’d share my thoughts and maybe it will help you or maybe you’ll have some feedback for me.

Technorati [...]

Recently, like all too many people these days, I found myself in the position of needing to find a new job.  Now before you give up on this blog I promise not to rant on about how bad things are; rather I’ll talk about a topic that came to mind while I was preparing for [...]

My first two guest posts were about the intersection of Knowledge Management and Project Management; in this post I would like to talk about what I think are some of the peculiarities of Knowledge Management projects.
For the most part Knowledge Management projects are just like any other projects, tasks have to be delineated, risk managed, [...]

In my first post about Project Management and Knowledge Management I spoke about Collaboration, in this second post I will talk about after-action reviews.
After-action review also known as a project snap-shot, lessons learned, or any number of other names is an important Knowledge Management activity to complete at the end of a project. They don’t [...]

When Loyal first asked me to guest post on this blog, I said sure without thinking about it too much, I knew that Project Management and Knowledge Management went together, that’s what I do after-all as part of any project I do. Then I thought how am I going to explain it and make [...]

It had all the earmarks of a disaster, a real career-sinker of a project. And here was my old friend and former colleague calling me up enthusiastically, on the phone: “Hey Lisa, we need a Technical Project Manager for this start-up I’m working for, in Redwood Shores… you’ll love the project and the team. It’s [...]

After years of managing online products and projects, you’d think it would become old hat… but never, not for this gal. There’s always something new to learn, and a different twist on old scenarios, if you’re open to them. People and team dynamics are endlessly fascinating, and you never know how it’s going to go [...]

As Project Managers, I’m sure we’ve all seen the kind of scenario where there is a project team member who is generally uncooperative or can’t seem to get the tasks done on time – and the different approaches you can take in order to solve this problem. You can take the dictatorial “Do as I [...]

I’d like to start things off in this posting with a joke I heard on the US Television show, Two and a Half Men. Now keep in mind that the show is full of gratuitous innuendo and juvenile comedy, much of it not easily translatable in (nor suitable for) the context of project management.  In [...]

The ability to influence people is a good skill for a project manager. Isn’t it?
Isn’t it our job as PMs to influence people on the project? To find ways to get our stakeholders onboard?

Could it be that one person’s influencing can be another’s political manipulation?

Teams.  It seems like such an obvious part of project life.
Or, is it?
Recently, I’ve been noticing some things about project teams that trouble me.
Here are some descriptions of a team:

A group of two or more people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose and approach for which the team holds its members [...]

I recently changed hats from project team-builder to project team member.  As the e-learning course developer on the team, it has been a very enlightening experience to watch and support our most excellent project manager in action. 

This week I will share what this PM and others I have known have done that has made [...]

To wrap-up this week on being a change leader, here’s my short list of what to be and what to do:
BE
-  A person with character; leadership descends from character
- Visionary – Have a vision of the “changed” project
- Reliable and consistent to develop and maintain trust with your team
DO:
- Take a couple steps at a [...]