3 Peak Performance Secrets

Originally posted on ConnectLeadership.com

In this video I introduce research showing the benefits of 3 everyday things you can do to increase your performance as a leader. With this knowledge, you’ll be more likely to do these things.

(more…)

Knowledge Management for Virtual (and non-virtual) Teams

Properly managed project documentation is critical for all types and sizes of projects. After all, the project documentation is the only real output from most projects. It is not the prototype that matters. It is the production documentation that includes things such as material lists, part drawings, assembly instructions, diagnostics, and source code that defines our products and services. I’m sure this is nothing profound to any of you. However, what you may not realize is that making it easy for everyone to find the latest version of a given document is especially important for virtual teams. Virtual teams often consist of people from different time zones or who work different schedules (i.e., a four-day week). As such, these teams rely more heavily on online sources of documentation throughout their work week. If they struggle to find the latest documentation on some aspect of the project that affects them, they’ll waste time sending e-mails, calling around or worse still, end up using an outdated version by mistake. (more…)

Whiteboarding for Virtual Teams

One of the most useful things I have learned leading teams is that pictures are a very effective way to help people understand complex ideas. I am sure you have all heard that there are auditory learners and visual learners, but in my experience, a good visual is much better than audio for most people. I have been in countless meetings where a discussion goes on and on with no apparent conclusion or convergence toward an answer until someone goes up to the board and draws a picture of the ‘situation’. The dynamics in the meeting immediately transform. Understanding increases, more people are engaged to help draw the picture, and things get moving again. People need a way to form a mental image of complex problems, to connect abstract ideas with things they already understand. This is why drawing even a simple flow or relationship diagram can help people understand the most difficult concepts. (more…)

Multi-Tasking in Project Meetings

In my many years in the technology industry, I’ve spent thousands of hours in meetings, most of them as boring as all get-out. During this time I’ve seen many interesting changes. I’ve seen meeting presentation technology evolve from flip charts and story boards, to overheads, to video projectors, and most recently, to laptops in front of each participant. I’ve seen virtual meetings evolve from a rarity to a common occurence. But, one thing that has persisted in all the years is people not paying attention. (more…)

Communicating Effectively in Virtual Teams: Part 4 of 4

In this final part of my series on communications in virtual teams, I will discuss the most important medium to evolve so far during the computer revolution: e-mail.  Pretty much everyone has an e-mail address these days, and many of us have several.  E-mail is the primary information channel in corporations across the globe.  It allows us to send everything from short text messages to  detailed project proposals with product specifications to anyone, anywhere on the planet, at any time. It is a non-real-time mode of communication as messages are queued up in one’s inbox for reading when convenient. (more…)

Communicating Effectively in Virtual Teams: Part 2 of 4

In part one of this series I talked about the problems with speakerphones in virtual teams. In this installment, I’ll discuss the problems with another type of phone, the Cell.

Most modern cell phones have a built-in speakerphone feature, and will therefore also have the problems mentioned in the previous article when used in this mode. I won’t repeat the problems and recommendations for speakerphones here, but cell phones do have several other nasty problems that I will discuss. They are: latency, dropouts, and signal fade. (more…)

Communicating Effectively in Virtual Teams: Part 1 of 4

We all know that effective communication is critical to every well-executed project. Everyone involved in getting that next product to market must constantly exchange bits of information with many people. Everything from project proposals to release-to-manufacturing documents must be created, discussed, edited, reviewed, approved and distributed. All of these information exchanges require clear communication for the outcome to be a good one. (more…)