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ProjectManager.com © 2013 All Rights Reserved 1 Top Tips for Project Management Success A selection of professional insights from the Blog archive

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Project management is a challenging space to work so perhaps this collection of top tips and insights, covering everything from working with the executives to audits and information overload may help. This is a collection of excerpts from the ProjectManager.com blog archives 2008 - 2013 presenting top tips and advice from our professional project managers in a "best of" series now available free to download and share.

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Page 1: Top tips for project management success

ProjectManager.com © 2013 All Rights Reserved 1

Top Tips for Project Management Success

A selection of professional insights from the Blog archive

Page 2: Top tips for project management success

ProjectManager.com © 2013 All Rights Reserved 2

Since 2008 our project management professionals have been sharing knowledge,

experience and learning with online readers via the Project Manager Blog.

Their collective wisdom provides a wealth of how to, top tips and best practice advice,

for project managers, teams and businesses.

To make their writings more accessible we’ve created a series of “Best of” project

management topics available free to download and share.

We know that Project management is a challenging space to work so perhaps this

collection of top tips and insights, covering everything from working with the executives

to audits and information overload may help.

Enjoy!

Jason Westland CEO

ProjectManager.com

4 Ways to Attach Yourself to the C-Suite as a Project Manager ................................................................. 3

Project Management Training Tips for Executive Reviews ......................................................................... 6

4 Ways to Power Through Tough Projects .................................................................................................. 9

6 Steps to Prevent Project Information Management Overload .............................................................. 11

5 Ways to Survive the Auditors ................................................................................................................. 13

When Your Projects Are Late .................................................................................................................... 16

When You Are Not Meeting Targets ......................................................................................................... 16

5 Steps To Improving Project Quality Targets ........................................................................................... 16

30 Day Free Software Trial ........................................................................................................................ 17

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4 Ways to Attach Yourself to the C-Suite as a Project Manager

The problem is that Project Managers sometimes have a hard time relating to the rough

and tumble environment of the executive offices. We have a pre-disposition for our

Gantt Charts, online collaboration software, Work Breakdown Structures, risk

mitigation, and the predictability and certainty on how our day unfolds. Executives, on

the other hand, are all about opportunities, risk taking, the unknown and uncertain, and

many times may deliberately throw chaos at something that appears to be working just

fine.

How can these two mindsets come together? First, it’s up to you as a Project Manager

to change YOUR mind-set to think like an executive. They will not change THEIR mind-

set to think like a Project Manager. This will entail leaving your comfort zone and

stretching a bit. However, you will soon find the benefit of thinking like someone in the

corner office puts you in an entirely different league than run of the mill project

managers.

Next, you will want to implement the following 4 suggestions on how to attach yourself

to the C-Suite:

1. Learn to Speak in the Language of an Executive

Executives are about return on investment and increasing value. They love innovation,

uncharted territories, and business opportunities that will propel the organization

forward. They like growth, efficiencies and process

improvement. They don’t like excuses, complaining,

stagnation, inactivity, or wasting time.

Your challenge, then, is to translate the current project

you are working on into language that will resonate with

the executive. Let’s say you have the proverbial 30-

second ride up together in the elevator and the CEO

asks you what you’ve been working on. You have a

choice to make. You could say

“I’m working on implementing a new project

management software package”, or you could say

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“You know, we recently ran a study and found that there were missed opportunities

when it came to project collaboration which resulted in 30% loss of productivity. To fix

this problem, I’ve been working on an enterprise-wide initiative that will not only

recapture that 30% loss of productivity, but also introduce an additional 20% increase

on productivity once this new project management software is implemented…which, by

the way, will be done in the next two months.”

What a difference between the two responses!

The CEO undoubtedly knows about this initiative since it is company-wide, however, he

will appreciate and make note of your excitement about the opportunity, the cost-

savings it will introduce and the fact that you understand the impact to the business

that your project will have.

2. Don’t Talk to an Executive in Project Manager-ese

The opposite of the above is true as well. In Project

Managers roles we have our own jargon and expressions

we use to move projects forward every day.

For example …“Is the WBS complete so I can begin on

the project schedule to allocate resources to determine

if we need to crash or fast-track this project and develop

the necessary contingency plan based upon the

probability and impact of the associated risks…” may just

leave us giddy with excitement.

However, you can be assured that talking to the CEO, CIO, CFO or other Executives at

this level of detail will be sure to make their eyes glaze over. Worse yet, they may

mentally banish you in their minds as someone who can’t see beyond the tactical level

and grasp the big picture.

There’s a time and place for project manager-ese. You just need to be judicious on when

you break into this dialect and make sure you are not losing your C-Level audience.

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3. Present the Idea of a PMO

Depending upon how your company is set up and where they are in the lifecycle of

Project Management maturity, floating the idea of a Project Management Office is a

great way to attach yourself to the C-Suite.

There may only be a handful of Project Managers that work for individual departments

with varying degrees of effectiveness and success. The appeal of a Project Management

Office is the ability to establish consistent process and provide visibility into what is

happening within the organization.

One component of a PMO is a regularly scheduled meeting where upper level

executives in the company come together for a quick debrief on where all project

activity stands. This is a great opportunity to talk about the business value that can be

realized from projects that are in the works, enlist the help of executives to clear

obstacles out of the way, and provide an overall pulse on how things are going within

the company.

Many times, a PMO will report directly to a top level executive to remove any conflicts

of interest or interdepartmental infighting, another great opportunity to attach yourself

to the C-Suite as a Project Manager.

4. Market Yourself and Your Team

One final aspect of being visible at the C-Level is to market yourself and your team. You

need to let them know the business value you continue to bring to the organization.

We’re not saying always going around patting yourself on the back, but tastefully letting

people know that you and your team’s contribution bring value to the organization.

Here’s an example of how that can be done. You’ve just received an email from

someone who benefited from the project you finished implementing. It may be the

project collaboration software. The email states that it’s easy to use, saves them a lot of

time, and has indeed increased their productivity.

All you need to do to market yourself and your team is to forward that to your manager.

Your manager will then forward that to their manager, their manager will forward it on

to their manager, and up the chain it goes. This type of feedback makes everyone look

good, and your name, along with the team are attached to another successful project.

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Whether or not you feel comfortable with marketing yourself, we can no longer delude

ourselves with the feeling that “our work will speak for itself”. Business moves too fast

and there are so many distractions that your work will quickly be swept under the

carpet unless you take a moment and have others pause and reflect.

It’s up to you whether you want to be an executive or not. But, it’s also up to you to

maintain your viability as a project manager in any company you work. By implementing

some, or all, of the suggestions above you will find yourself attached at the hip with the

vision, strategy, and future of your company.

Project Management Training Tips for Executive Reviews

The presentation was set up. Everyone took their

places. The meeting was brought to order. The

presentation began. The money slide was the 4th

slide into the presentation. Everything was going

great as we gracefully moved through slides one

through three.

Then, someone accidentally hit a button that

caused the screen to disappear into the ceiling

and all the equipment to power down! What’s

worse, nobody was able to figure out how to get

things running again.

I was relegated to handing out a handful of printed presentation copies I had brought

with me. Gone were the sweeping transitions, gone were the creative slide animations,

and gone was the impact of this slide show I had worked so hard on!

It was replaced by scrappy sheets of black and white paper that had jumbled together

pieces of presentation artifacts that nobody could read. How disappointing!

The meeting went well despite the mishap, but it I learned a lesson that day. I could

have probably spent my time on things more important than putting together a

presentation that nobody even saw. After all, the meeting went well.

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The next time I cut the time down by 75% in the time I spent putting the presentation

together and things went just fine! Nobody had told me this before. It’s not like there’s

project management training on how to make it through a quarterly executive review.

1. What Does This Audience Care About?

Presenting to this audience is very different from presenting to other audiences. You

may be used to presenting to your project team or your colleagues that work for your

client.

You can be dropped into these meetings at any moment in time and pick things up

without missing a beat. They are interested in where things stand, what’s next, and

what’s in the way. You know these facts like the back of your hand.

The first lesson in project management training to be prepared for an executive review

is that they are interested in something entirely different. This audience of executives is

not interested in the details. They want a high-level overview of where things stand (see

#2 below for the exception). More importantly, they want to understand how this

project ties into the company’s corporate strategy and ways that it supports this

strategy. They are more interested in where things are going in the future with the

project and less interested in where it has been.

2. Start at 30,000 Feet, but be Prepared to Land if Necessary

Another project management training lesson

about executive reviews is that most of the

time they are not interested in the details.

You can keep your presentation at a high

level in order to cover a lot of ground in a

short amount of time. But, there are times

when you must be prepared to land.

There may be a topic that comes up that has been bogged down for some time. This

group of people has the ability to clear things out and move forward, but they will need

the details to get this done.

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Be prepared to get into the weeds with any topic you are presenting. This may be the

opportunity you need to unclog an area of that project that doesn’t seem to be going

anywhere.

3. Keep it Short

Executives are busy people. They are booked from early in the morning until late at

night. Their days are carefully orchestrated.

Another project management training tip for executive reviews is to keep the

presentation short. You are on their time schedule. They are not on your time schedule.

Think about what happens if you don’t cover everything in the time allotted with your

project team. You say it will take another 10 minutes or so and ask everyone to stay.

Everyone is usually able to stay and you are able to wrap things up.

It doesn’t work that way in an Executive Review. If you have 2 hours to cover the

material, you have 2 hours to cover the material. They will be on their way to their next

meeting (mentally and physically) as your allotted time comes to a close.

4. Cover the Most Important Points Up Front

Prioritize where you put your material in the presentation by its level of importance.

Start with those points that are the most impactful and meaningful up front or that you

know will take a lot of discussion. Executive review project management training

dictates that you may not be able to cover all the material no matter how hard you try.

It will be better to have covered the most important points up front. If you run out of

time, it will be the less important points that are missed

at the end.

5. Always Leave Time for Questions

Executives are inquisitive. They want to know, who,

what, why, where, and when about your project. Make

sure that you leave plenty of time for these types of

questions to come up in during your presentation.

What if questions don’t come up? Then end the meeting

early. If you’ve covered everything that needs to be

covered during your presentation, then there’s nothing

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wrong with ending the meeting a few minutes early. Everyone will appreciate getting

those couple of minutes back to their day.

By the way, you may want to ascertain why there were not any questions asked. Was it

because the material was covered so well, or, was it perhaps an indication of peoples

waning interest in the project. Project management training for executive reviews will

keep you on the lookout for these signs. Don’t assume that it’s one or the other but look

at the situation in an honest way with yourself.

6. Provide them with a Brief Handout of What They Need to Do

Leave the executives with a one page “to-do” list with a couple of major tasks that need

to be accomplished. For example, it could be that a particular contract needs to be

approved, a decision needs to made on a direction to take, and some equipment needs

to be purchased. Leave them with that list of actionable items and the rest of your

project will go that much smoother.

Oh yeah, and don’t spend a week on one slide of your PowerPoint presentation that in

the end doesn’t make that big of a difference anyway! If you apply the list of executive

review project management training tips above you’ll find that you no longer dread

these reviews, but rather look forward to them as an opportunity to showcase your

project and the great job your team is doing!

4 Ways to Power Through Tough Projects

1. Realize that Everything is Temporary

Think about all the other tough times you’ve

been through in your life, whether professional

or personal. They seem insurmountable. You

can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel and

each step you take feels like one step further

into darkness. But, here you are and maybe

five, ten, or even twenty years have passed and

it’s only a distant memory.

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The people that were around at that time are probably not here now. You may have

changed careers. The circumstances that were bringing you down may have changed.

No matter how tough times get, you can be guaranteed of one thing…given time, things

will change. It’s no different with tough projects or clients. When a mess has been

created, and you just don’t see a way out of it, keep your head down and power through

it. Things will change if given enough time.

2. Know the (Extreme) Details

Project managers are expected to know the details about their projects. However, they

can’t be expected to know every little detail. Guess what? During the tough times you

do need to know every little detail about your project. This is a powerful tool when you

are up against a bully that is looking to create a scene. You can’t blow smoke about the

fact that there are legitimate issues that need fixing on your side. Anybody that has

been around technology for any amount of time knows that this will happen. You’ll

instantly undermine your credibility if you try and paint the picture that your company

has zero issues and it’s all user error.

3. Never Lose Sight of the Ball

It’s a bit cliché, but also very true. Never lose

sight of your project’s end goal. Someone

like this VP is going to come along and try

and knock you off course every now and

then. They’ll push you sideways, pull you

from behind, and block you from moving

forward. If you don’t have a firm gaze set on

the end of the project, it will be easy to be

pushed off track. Have a deep understanding of what the project is to accomplish and

the benefits it will bring.

4. Understand You Are Learning Invaluable Lessons

Honestly, not a great deal of true learning occurs when things are going smoothly. Once

you’ve made it to a certain level of competence as a project manager, your days can go

by effortlessly. Sure, there may be a crisis or slight emergency, but you know exactly

how to handle it. You know what to do, who you need to work with, and that it’s not the

end of the world. That’s a great place to be as a project manager. But, it also introduces

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the risk of becoming a bit stale in the profession. Without adversity you run the risk of

getting a bit soft on your skills. True learning comes when you are faced with extreme

situations. It forces you to think on your feet. You have to figure out the best way to

make it through these tough times. You have to go down some paths that are dead ends

or lead you to big, bold mistakes on your part. Once you’ve made a mistake while the

world is breathing down your project manager neck, you will never make that mistake

again, guaranteed!

Take a moment every now and then while you are going through a tough time to reflect

on what you’ve learned. You’ll at least feel you are gaining some experience along the

way.

6 Steps to Prevent Project Information Management

Overload

7 step process to provide avoid overloading other people with information

Define Your Users: The first thing that must

be done in order to prevent project

management overload is to have a very clear

understanding of who is using your reports:

Is the report being used by management to

make decisions on whether to continue or

cancel the project? Is the report being used

by project team members to get a feel for

when it will be their turn to start working on

the project?

Sit down with end users and get a feel for what they need to glean from the report. Find

out what they don’t need on the report.

Determine What Information You Already Have: Once you know what is important to

your users, start pulling together the metrics and data you already have at your

disposal. Is everyone interested in the percentage of high, medium and low risks that

are attached to a project? Find out where you have this information and pull it together.

Are people interested in the variance of actual over budgets? Find out where you have

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this information and pull it together. Map the needs of the different users to the

information you already have.

Determine What Information you Don’t Have: Despite the fact that project information

overload is rampant, there may be some things you do not currently have available, that

showed up on the needs assessment from step #1. Identify those gaps and then come

up with a way to locate this information. One thing that’s way worse than providing too

much information is not providing enough information. If someone is asking for a

relevant piece of information to be included on your report then it’s incumbent upon

you to find a way to make that happen.

Determine What Everyone NEEDS: Just like the song says “You can’t always get what

you want”…you need to now take the data that was assembled in steps two and three

above and come up with a matrix clarifying which stakeholders requested which

information, and what it is that you will be able to provide.

You may find out that some requests are just not

achievable or require an inordinate amount of

manual time pulling information together that is

spread out over 2-3 disconnected systems. Even

the best pivot table expert and VLOOKUP expert

in the world would struggle with accommodating

some of the requests for information.

You now go back to the people that asked and let

them know what can and can’t be done. You may be surprised to find that what you are

able to provide, is fine. People are so used to being overwhelmed by project

management information overload that they ask for the moon. When they realize what

you give them will satisfy their needs, they are usually just fine.

Determine the Frequency of Reports: You now have the basis for a solid report or set of

reports that can be generated which people can use to understand what is going on

with the project. Find out how often they need this report. Remember, a daily report

may contribute to project information management overload and quickly find its way

into the Trash folder. People may initially say they want a report generated every day,

but the changes are so minute, or it doesn’t tell them anything new, that they quickly

stop looking at the report. Perhaps it’s better to spread the frequency out over a week

or two to allow for bigger changes to occur.

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Make the Reports Easy to Access: Finally, now that you have given everyone just what

they are looking for and in the frequency they need it, make sure everyone knows how

they can get the report. Is it something you are going to email to them on a weekly

basis? Is it a folder on a shared drive where they can access the report? Are they able to

run the report themselves whenever they want? Make sure everyone is clear on how

they can locate the report so it is utilized.

That’s it. The above should help you address your stakeholder’s project management

information needs without overwhelming them with unnecessary bits of information.

5 Ways to Survive the Auditors

Find out why your project has been selected for audit. Are you just the unlucky recipient

of the audit lottery or is there a special reason why your project has been singled out?

Of course, you might have volunteered, especially if your project schedule shows that

the project isn’t going as well as you had hoped. Once you know whether the auditors

are looking for general reassurance or evidence that something is going wrong, you’ll

know how best to approach the next few weeks. Here are five tips to help project

managers survive the audit process.

1. Get Prepared

As soon as you know that your project is going

to be audited, start preparing the team. Let

them know that the auditor may want to talk

to them about their involvement in the project.

If you work with any contractors or third

parties, they may be interviewed too, so warn

them in advance.

You’ll also want to prepare all your project documentation. A project audit normally

begins with a documentation review, so you will be asked for copies of your project

schedule, project initiation document, requirements, status reports, latest Project Board

minutes, risks and issues log and so on. The list can be quite long and pulling it all

together in a handy format can take a while, so get as much as you can prepared in

advance.

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An easier option may be to set up your auditor with access to your online project

management tool, so that they can browse information about the project and then

come to you and ask for additional information as required.

2. Don’t Hide Stuff

Don’t try to hide anything. If your risk log hasn’t been updated for weeks or your project

schedule never had a baseline, it’s too late to do anything about it now. Auditors have

seen it all before, anyway. Chances are, you were busy managing the project and not

updating paperwork – this is something you can explain so don’t try to cover it up. No

one is expecting you to be perfect. Anything too perfect in the real world is a bit

suspicious!

3. Agree the Reporting Schedule

You really don’t want there to be any surprises,

especially if the person doing your audit is going

to send a report to your manager, project

sponsor or the Project Management Office. Talk

to the auditor about the frequency of reporting

while they are carrying out their investigations.

A once-a-week summary of their findings and

recommendations, sent to you, is a good start. It

doesn’t have to be long – a quick email will do.

This gives you a chance to build up a picture of what their final report will say. It’s also

an opportunity to review as you go – weekly updates will give you a chance to identify

any weaker areas and work to put them right, perhaps even before the audit has

finished. You’ll get extra credit for reacting quickly.

4. Make Enough Time

It is hugely time-consuming to have to explain yourself

to someone else. Especially to someone who knows

nothing about your project and potentially very little

about your business.

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They may have lots of skills in uncovering problems on projects or making

recommendations about how organizations can manage things more effectively, but

what do they really know about healthcare, or running a college, or candle-making – or

whatever it is that you do?

Don’t underestimate the time it is going to take to provide all the background data the

auditor needs. Talk to your project sponsor about the impact that the audit will have on

your project progress. If you pull key project team members into audit meetings for a

day or so, this could have a detrimental impact on the work they are doing, so you might

need to review your project schedule accordingly.

Try to schedule meetings in at times when you don’t have critical resources working flat

out on essential tasks. It’s another planning job for you, but minimizing the impact on

the project and the team should be a priority. A good auditor will understand especially

if you share the schedule with him or her and explain why someone can’t meet them

right now.

5. Remember, Audits are Good!

Try to stay positive! If your project is going well,

then the audit will show that you are doing a

great job at managing the work and the team.

Look at the areas where you are strongest and

see what you could do to build on those further,

maybe be mentoring a junior project manager or

giving a ‘lunch and learn’ session on what you do so that you can share your good

practices with the rest of the project managers in the company. Be proud of what you

have achieved.

It can be very frustrating to work on a failing project, but sometimes project sponsors

just won’t listen. If your project isn’t going well, and you already know that, then the

audit could give you the visibility you need to get your message across to senior

management. A report from an independent person is exactly what’s needed to get

your project sponsor to take notice of all the issues you keep flagging up. It might even

recommend that the project is closed down, which would mean your time and

resources could be redeployed on to projects that have a chance at delivering

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something of real business value instead of working on something that everyone knows

is a waste of time. Everyone except the sponsor, that is!

Of course, there is always the option that the audit report will say that the project isn’t

going well and you had absolutely no idea about the failings. That’s not a great place to

be, but keep a positive outlook. The output of the audit process will help you get the

project back on track. It can be a really valuable learning opportunity as well, even for

experienced project managers. Use the report to identify areas that you need to work

on and talk to your manager about getting some training or mentoring on those topics.

In short, project audits can be a real pain – they are time-consuming, intrusive and a bit

scary. But a good auditor will help you identify areas where the project is not going as

well as it could be. Look on audits as a great learning experience and something to help

you make sure that your project has the best possible chance of success. And they

should give you advice on what to do to put it right. Of course, it’s up to you whether

you act on their recommendations or not!

When Your Projects Are Late

There isn’t a project manager on earth where 100% of their projects have come in 100%

on time. Devin Deen, Content Director here at ProjectManager.com offers five simple

steps that every project manager can do to get back on top of this situation.

http://www.projectmanager.com/when-your-projects-are-late.php

When You Are Not Meeting Targets

Devin Deen, Content Director at ProjectManager.com shares his advice on what to so

when your project team is not meeting their date or time targets. Watch the video here

http://www.projectmanager.com/when-you-are-not-meeting-targets.php

5 Steps to Improving Project Quality Targets

To learn more about meeting quality targets, follow these steps presented by Jennifer

Whitt, Director at ProjectManager.com http://www.projectmanager.com/meeting-

quality-targets-on-projects.php

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30 Day Free Software Trial

There are two key differences between ProjectManager.com and its competitors.

The first is that we give you all of the features you need to plan, track and report on

projects efficiently. The second key difference is that our competitors charge a high

upfront price as well as annual maintenance fees for new releases.

Here at ProjectManager.com we offer you all of the features you need to manage

projects, at a small monthly price of just $25 per user. That simple! When you sign up to

ProjectManager.com, you also get for free:

Unlimited Projects

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Take Action, Sign-Up for a 30 Day Free Trial Today!

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