May 29, 2014

Project Management: How to Implement Trust

The basis for a good team is trust.

Team members who trust each other have positive expectations of each other. This is a great underpinning for resolving conflicts and discussing problems.

Simon Sinek talks about trust and leadership in his TED talk Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe.

So, how do we create a culture of trust? The basis is not that difficult: make the decision yourself to trust. Model and share this with your team. When making decisions yourself and with your team, reflect on whether those decisions agree with your value of trust.

So, as Simon says:
What I learned was that it's the environment, and if you get the environment right, every single one of us has the capacity to do these remarkable things, and more importantly, others have that capacity, too. 
You see, if the conditions are wrong, we are forced to expend our own time and energy to protect ourselves from each other, and that inherently weakens the organization. When we feel safe inside the organization, we will naturally combine our talents and our strengths and work tirelessly to face the dangers outside and seize the opportunities.

May 22, 2014

A Great Team

“My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other's kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That's how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they're done by a team of people.”
- Steve Jobs

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead

This week I'm writing about a tremendous team that I am proud to have worked with. It was the Steering Committee for the PDSummit (Professional Development Summit) in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The PDSummit was the grand finale of eight months of planning and preparation by a team of about ten people. Our team met every week (except Christmas) on the phone for half an hour to plan, come rain or shine.

Each meeting had an agenda put together by the Chair. The Chair also distributed minutes right after each meeting. Some members of this team had been together for a few years, and other members were brand new.

Why did this team work? I think a large part was the great leadership, including the roles being allocated and processes defined and followed. Another large part was the attitudes of the team members, which contributed to the collaborative culture.

I did some research on great teams (thanks Internet!) and here are some links about strong teams. I believe this team met all the criteria stated in the following articles:



May 15, 2014

The Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification is the Certification Most Likely to Get You a Job

Research was done by Toni Bowers, Managing Editor of TechRepublic, and award-winning blogger of the Career Management blog. She found that the PMP is the most frequently desired certification according to Dice.

So, if you are wondering if PMP is something worthwhile – many people think so!