Are Your Expectations Clear?

Have you ever had a situation where your expectations were not met? Where, clearly, the person you were engaged with was on a different wavelength regarding the expected outcomes?

Well, this is a story where it seems that lines got crossed in conveying information from one party to the next, a story where too many assumptions were made. The end result?

Wasted time. Money for nothing.

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Do Your Employees Have a Stage and a Trumpet?

When times are hectic, many stressors can arise - stressors that diminish productivity. 

The stress of pressing deadlines and actually getting work done, amongst the requests from management for continuous progress updates, the requests for support on unrelated tasks, the frustrations with process inefficiencies, and the constant need to influence others to keep their commitments - so that you can keep your efforts on track too.   

To reduce these stresses, and improve productivity, anything that can be done to improve process and ease burdens on your employees can be beneficial.  But how to determine which problems cause the most frustration?  How to figure out where to start?  

By giving your employees a voice.

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Will your Actions Halt Your Project?

Time and again, we are being shown that our biggest project risks are NOT associated with the technical challenges we might start out with. Instead, we know that two very critical aspects surface time and again.  

Today I want to raise some issues and general links between risks, sustainability and stakeholders. Because I believe they are all tied at the hip.

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Ripple the Water

Anticipate. Influence. Elevate.

These were the themes of PMI Global Congress 2016—North America. Words of contemplation listed on a wall, blasted on screens, without context. Until we started the program and it all became clear.

Written as a closing for the Congress, "Elevation through Conflict" was about influencing change by anticipating risks, introducing healthy debate to find solutions, and really standing up for what you believe in...

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Do Your Project Objectives Align with Strategy?

Over the course of a conference duration, many conversations and debates were had around business strategy and project alignment.  I noticed throughout, every time I mentioned bringing projects in alignment with corporate strategies, my fellow expert would casually correct me to indicate that "projects are driven by strategy, initiated to achieve a set of outcomes."

His theory?  Creating alignment isn’t something we should need to do.  If the outcomes weren’t driving the project initiation, then it wouldn’t be there to begin with.  While I agreed with this statement, I had several examples where existing projects could be shown to align with business strategy.  

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Don't Let the Rocks Restrict the River

How do you add flexibility and iteration into a rigid system?  A defined management structure?  How do you manage stakeholder risks?  And how do you avoid the downfalls of assumptions?

Find your rocks in the river, and let the water flow around them.  Zoom out and take in the full picture.  And ensure you have found and engaged all of your stakeholders!

 

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The Importance of Mentorship

My modus operandi has changed significantly since leaving my past corporate life, and I have relied heavily on the world wide web, on social networks, and on online coaching and training to learn so many new things.  

The importance of having some mentorship and guidance to advance your career, to develop a business, or just to gain more insight into your line of business, cannot be underrated.  So, if you had the chance to ask anyone for mentorship, who would you choose?  Who is your shining star?

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