PMcrunch

We never really arrive at the end of the road in our quest to become leaders. We may achieve [tag-tec]leadership[/tag-tec] status in some way but it is always a moving target. Indeed, I believe it is our own movement on a continuous basis that can enable us to maintain ourselves as a leader. One way that we can do this is by continuously evaluating our own leadership capabilities.

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Project and program management are all about change; so how can we leverage the vast amount of knowledge out there about change? One way to do this is to begin to think about change as a process and then seek to learn from there. It is our job as change agents to help people through the process of change. One way to do this is to understand the Virginia Satir Change Model (VSCM).

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360 Degree Feedback is a popular mechanism for learning about performance. It is valuable for both the managers involved and for the individuals involved, as all can know more about each other in the process. However, as with all other performance review processes, there are some issues with 360 degree feedback. Let’s take a look.

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Leaders must be able to depend on their people — especially the commitments they make. Projects and programs are built on estimates from the people we depend upon. When there’s a pattern of delay, or poor estimates, intervention is required.

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Thomas Edison was the quintessential mistake maker. He believed that the more mistakes he made, the more wrong answers and wrong solutions he could eliminate and, therefore, the closer he came to the correct solution to his problems. In management and on projects, on one hand, we seek to minimize mistakes but it is important to recognize when “mistakes” can actually be beneficial and produce positive outcomes. Indeed, we should not be afraid to make mistakes but rather should try to control and leverage the process. The project portfolio management process is an ideal place to formally do this.

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The Student Syndrome is something that we all have experienced one way or another. It is evident that most of us tend to do at least to some degree of cramming for exams, completing papers, completing projects, doing problem sets and more. The student syndrome is based on our human tendency. For example, the student syndrome is demonstrated where, if we have 25 days to do an assignment, we put off most of the work until the final days or hours before it is due!

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Parkinson’s Law – the concept that work expands to meet the time available – is a common human behavioral reality. To deal with it, we can always tighten up the timeframe or define the work and deliverables more explicitly, but it is not always so straightforward to deal with.

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Good projects map well to organizational goals. In fact, the best organizations make sure their initiatives are in alignment with their strategic plan. Whether for project initiation or for simply evaluating how the value of a project fits within the organization, becoming familiar with the strategic plan is invaluable.

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More and more companies are becoming interested in increasing diversity in the workplace. Having different kinds of culture in the workplace can make the office more interesting: people will have different ideas, they can interact and find new things to be interested in through interaction with other cultures, and officemates can enrich each other’s work experience through cross-cultural interaction.

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As project managers, we are at the center of one of the biggest things life has to offer – time. So often, the push is on getting more and more out of our time – personally and as groups. Patient leaders tend to delegate better and operate more effectively – because they take the long view.

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