10 Tips to Improve Your Next Project Management Presentation

June 18, 2010 Leave a Comment

Presentations are powerful tools for relaying information, persuading key stakeholders, and displaying your team’s successes. Below are some tips to help make your next presentation a crowd pleaser.

1 – Avoid visual overload. Save the flashy animations for areas of your presentation that need additional emphasis. For everything else, stick to smooth, subtle transitions.

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2 – Don’t try to include everything. Distill your visual and verbal components down to the fundamentals, and make your message clear and concise.

3 – Keep charts and graphs clean and simple. Your audience’s comprehension level will increase if they can easily interpret the information you’re presenting.

4 – Select a handful of key points (about 4-6) that you most want your audience to remember. Focus on those elements throughout your presentation.

5 – Limit your jokes—you might not be as funny as you think—and remember to keep them appropriate to the audience. If in doubt, leave it out.

6 – Use note cards to get back on track if you’re interrupted or become flustered. A brief outline of talking points is usually all that’s needed.

7 – Be familiar with the technology you’re using (projector, software, microphone), so you can make necessary adjustments (brightness, volume), and resolve any glitches that may occur.

8 – Select colors and fonts for your visual components that will enhance readability and comprehension. Strive for good contrast between text, images, and backgrounds.

9 – Unless your attire is truly part of your presentation (think “birthday clown”), keep it conservative—you don’t want your appearance to draw focus away from your message.

10 – Let your audience know if you’ll be addressing questions throughout the presentation, or only at the end. Consider passing out note cards so that participants can jot down their questions as you go along.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

Filed Under: Checklists, Project Management, Project Management Lists

5 Tips to Neutralize Personality Conflicts within Your Team

June 1, 2010 Leave a Comment

Project management professionals are generally organized, skilled, and highly driven. Any time you have several of these strong personality types working together on a team, you’re bound to discover some tension. How do you keep these self-motivated people working toward the same objectives without letting their personalities hinder progress?

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1 – Clearly delineate responsibilities. Providing team members with a strong, clear framework of their respective project responsibilities will help everyone stay on track. This will likely be your most powerful tool in defusing potential problems among team members.

2 – Provide structure for meetings and presentations. You’re more likely to prevent tension by giving your team direction and purpose. Wandering off-topic or addressing tangential issues are sometimes preludes to unproductive arguments. Set time limits for discussions if necessary.

3 – Maintain an uncomplicated team hierarchy, and make reporting relationships public. Dotted line and matrix reporting structures hold significant potential to stir up problems, so keep an eye on them for the first signs of trouble. When possible, assign people that are known to work well together.

4 – Don’t assume that every disagreement is part of a larger issue. Project team members—just like any other group of professionals—will have different viewpoints and opinions on how tasks should be carried out. As long as progress continues and issues are handled professionally and for the betterment of the project, allow your team to work out garden variety disagreements on their own.

5 – If issues do arise, address them head on. Speak plainly and candidly with those involved. Some issues may be awkward, but your efforts won’t pay off if you attempt to sidestep the central problem. Remember to always discuss the matter privately—the rest of the team likely has an idea that friction exists, but there’s no need to feed the gossip mill.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

Filed Under: Checklists, Project Management Lists, Project Management Tips Tagged With: , ,

Project Management Tips: Regulatory Oversight 101

May 10, 2010 Leave a Comment

Projects of every size and in any industry may sometimes require regulatory oversight or approval. Working with a regulatory body has the potential to affect every facet of your project, from where documents are archived to how long a particular activity must take.

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Regulatory oversight may seem daunting at first, but some basic research and preparation will go a long way toward making your project successful.

What information do you need? The following breakdown is by no means all-inclusive, but it will give you a good starting point.

Who

Contractors with particular licenses or certifications; regulatory inspectors, reviewers, and other contacts; internal team members with specific responsibilities (life safety, insurance, licenses, etc.); vendors able to provide agency-approved goods (equipment, tools, chemicals) and services (storage, cleaning, documentation).

What

Scope of oversight; text of codes and regulations; documentation that must be posted, submitted, filed, stored, signed or discarded; requirements for insurance, licenses, certifications, insurance and training.

When

Deadlines for requests for information; expiration of permits, certificates or licenses; actions that must be completed in sequence or require mid-project review and approval; limits on the types of activities that can be completed concurrently.

Where

Locations for meetings, tests, procedures, reviews, inspections, and the submittal of documents or data; storage requirements for documentation, equipment, test results, chemicals and other materials.

How

Approved procedures; deviation reports; requests for information; submittal of data; signatures required on internal and external forms; recordkeeping and reporting requirements; security of data, computers, software platforms and documents; restrictions on quantities of chemicals and other materials.

Now that you have an idea of the information you’re looking for, it’s time to begin your research.

Visit the regulatory body’s Web site. Review online copies of the regulations or codes, and sign up to be notified when changes are made. Consider ordering a hard copy of the current regulations, so your team can reference a single common information source. Depending on the agency, you may also be able to find a list of recent actions. The results of past inspections, pending permit requests and recently completed projects are all good learning tools.

Network within the client’s industry. Others have likely dealt with the same regulatory requirements, and can help you understand them and their potential impact. If you’re able to find local contacts experienced in dealing with regulators, all the better – regulatory agencies often have regional offices, with inspectors or reviewers responsible for your particular area. Familiarizing yourself with the working style and expectations of the local regulators will put you a step ahead.

Ask the client. If you’re comfortable approaching your client, you can learn a great deal by examining past projects completed under the same regulations. Review the documentation, deliverables, and results; become familiar with the potential impact to your project’s schedule as a result of necessary inspections, leadtime for onsite regulatory visits, availability of specialty contractors, and activities or processes that require a set period of time to complete; make note of any can’t-miss deadlines; identify internal resources; and plan for outside experts you may need to involve.

Look for industry and professional associations. Locate groups that are comprised of companies frequently under the same regulatory oversight as your new project. These organizations often maintain information on the status of regulations and recent developments, and can provide you with additional resources. Their members have a deep knowledgebase of past projects – be sure to ask about projects that failed, or were significantly hampered by incorrect actions or poor decisions. Understanding how to avoid these situations will teach you a great deal about managing your project correctly from start to finish.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

http://www.pm-alliance.com

Filed Under: Checklists, Documentation Tips, PMO Development, Project Management, Project Management Tips, Project Management Training, Project Office Tagged With:

Project Management Tips: Use What You Don’t Know

April 10, 2010 Leave a Comment

A team’s strength often lies in the diversity of its members – a range of experience, expertise and personalities work together to successfully execute a project. [Read more...]

By embracing the diversity of your team and looking to the expertise of your fellow team members, you’ll increase your personal knowledgebase for future projects, you’ll have ready access to an expert source the next time you need one, and your current project will benefit from a broader support base.

Industry

Team members with significant expertise in the current industry are a critical component of your team. They can offer insight into industry trends, normal company growth metrics, project budgeting quirks, and impacts of regulatory oversight. It’s also likely your expert will have a more robust list of contacts and resources who are accustomed to getting things done in the industry.

Discipline

Face it, you may not be terrific at everything. From communication to documentation to estimating, it’s likely that your personality and your past experience lend themselves to some disciplines and not to others. If something on your current project’s list of requirements isn’t your strong suit, it’s time to tap the other members of your team. Some folks are naturally drawn to certain aspects of project management, and objectively determining the strengths of each team member will give your project better support.

Niche areas

Your project may require specialized skills or expertise due to complexity, scope, stakeholder expectations or other factors. Tapping into the capabilities of your team members can fill a void you’d normally need to outsource, potentially saving the project both time and money.

Gather information on team members’ strengths and areas of expertise at the beginning of each project, so you know which resources you have available in-house. You can then track down outside experts to fill any remaining holes.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

Filed Under: Checklists, PMO Development, Project Management, Project Management Tips, Project Management Training, Project Office Tagged With: , ,

Project Management Documentation Tips: Forms & Templates

April 7, 2010 Leave a Comment

Forms and templates are the foundation for many types of project documents. Rather than putting unnecessary effort into creating new forms for each project, the use of existing forms and templates can streamline your project’s documentation requirements, and allow your team to focus on higher-level objectives. A variety of resources are available to you when looking for ready-made forms, and a few simple tips will help keep your project’s momentum moving forward when truly custom forms are needed.

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Save time by leveraging the work that others have done, and use pre-made forms or templates when possible. The supply of ready-to-use forms is vast, and you’re likely to find exactly what you need for the majority of applications. Remember, though, to respect copyright laws. Whether you search the web or peruse one of the many available template books, always look for materials that are copyright-free, or whose copyright allows for unrestricted use.

If your team has already created a similar form for use on a previous project, why not repurpose it for today’s need? Existing templates for checklists, memos and reports can often be applied to new projects with little or no modification. This practice also helps to maintain document continuity from project to project, making future research easier for project team members while also presenting stakeholders and end users with information in a familiar format.

You’ll occasionally encounter the need for new or unique forms. To avoid the possibility that multiple team members will each create their own version – often resulting in several forms circulating through your team and potentially causing conflicts or confusion – it’s wise to designate one person to manage all project-based templates. This helps to ensure your team’s documentation is clear, organized, and in a standardized format, and also facilitates master template storage in one always-available location.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

Filed Under: Checklists, Documentation Tips, Project Management, Project Management Tips, Project Office, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,
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