1 – Tie up loose ends. Now is the time to be sure you don’t have any year-end tasks lagging behind. Submit the last of your team’s performance evaluation paperwork, process any remaining invoices, and finish setting up files for this year’s approved projects.

2 – Prioritize. Your new year’s budget may include a lot of good news—approved new hires, authorization for updated software, the go-ahead on key projects, or confirmation of an upcoming expansion—but you still need to be careful with your resources. Determine which initiatives should be tackled first, and delegate those out to the appropriate people. Assign target dates to remaining items so they don’t drop off the radar.

3 – Announce staffing changes. Information on promotions, transfers, reorganizations, and the loss of any temporary workers in your department should be disseminated throughout your PMO. It makes it easier for staff members to do everything from exercising increased signature authority to redistributing tasks.

4 – Plan early for training opportunities. Team members with new responsibilities, such as first-time managers, will benefit from getting some education under their belt early in the year. Look for training sessions that outline fundamental principles, so they can feel confident in their abilities and experience less stress going forward.

5 – Bring stakeholders up to speed. End users and project supporters may be unaware of the final status of proposed initiatives. Instead of fielding hordes of phone calls all asking the same questions, take the time to proactively notify stakeholders about the approval status of projects and when they can expect to learn more about those activities that have received authorization to move forward.

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

STEP 1: Identify tasks for delegation. Look at what’s on your plate and determine which items could be done by someone else. Even if it’s just one task, you’ll be doing something positive for your workload and offering another team member the chance to contribute at a higher level. Concerned there isn’t anyone in your PMO qualified to handle any of your tasks? High performers could be good candidates for some quick coaching, and solid performers might benefit from the challenge knowing you’re available for mentoring if they need it.

STEP 2: Prepare the team. If you haven’t been a good delegator in the past, now might be an opportunity to talk candidly with the team about workload distribution. Let them know the evolution of the PMO is at a point where shifting tasks around makes sense, and consider asking them for suggestions. You may discover they already have ideas about which members’ skill sets mesh well with overflow tasks. This is also your chance to set expectations on both sides of the table.

STEP 3: Delegate! Once you’ve selected tasks to delegate and the right team members to take them on, it’s time to hand off the responsibility to the new designee and get out of their way. Be available if they have questions or need additional direction, but don’t hover. Follow up regularly to ensure things are happening according to plan and make course corrections as necessary.

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

1 – Divide and conquer. Divvying up tasks will help reduce stress in several ways—as employees are gone for vacation or snow days, their workloads can more easily be shifted to others in the group, and spreading out time-intensive tasks helps prevent last-minute bottlenecks.

2 – Be realistic. What really needs to get done now, and what can wait until after the holidays? If budget submittals or performance evaluations won’t truly begin until mid-January, let employees know that the first few post-holiday weeks will be focused on completing those activities and they can dedicate time now to more pressing priorities.

3 – Bring in temporary help. Whether it’s another admin tackling those mountains of paperwork or an experienced consultant pulling together estimates for next year’s projects, some short-term support could be the key to maintaining your team’s sanity (and keeping its many activities on schedule).

4 – Get organized. Now is not the time for team members to be frantically searching for stray invoices or missing project files. Pull your PMO’s documentation together early, and centralize any information that might be needed by multiple team members.

5 – Set up a system. If you find that the steps you took last year (or are taking this year) prove to be successful in controlling the year-end chaos, write them down and be ready to institute them again next year. Continue tweaking your processes until the year-end rush runs like clockwork.

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