“Dear Elizabeth: I have a new hire starting on the team, a junior project manager. How can I make our new relationship work? I want to give her meaningful tasks, but I’m personally drowning in work, and I need someone to take some of the burden.” First: Congratulations! It sounds as if you’ve had a...
Whether you’re looking for a career change or you’ve been tasked with hiring a competent PM, project managers are an integral part of the modern-day office. Indeed, having the right one (or several) in place can mean the difference between completing projects on time, under budget, and with purpose as opposed to aimlessly playing whack-a-mole...
Anyone that manages a team knows that organization and an efficient workflow are critical to effectively allocating your talent, meeting deadlines, and getting everything done on time and under budget. The problem is that most employees and team members spend much of their time in meetings, answering emails, and getting stuck on various other distractions...
Team building activities can be an enjoyable part of workplace culture. They can also build meaningful bonds that help teams excel even more in their collaborative projects. Here are some ideas that can help you grow your company culture with group activities. Mixing Fun and Purpose Since the goal of team building activities is to...
Employers understand the importance of diversity in the workforce and with many organizations now employing five or six generations of employees, they have ready access to a diverse pool of mature and emerging talent that can bring enormous benefits to the business. However, this can also create challenges. How do employers motivate and engage multiple...
Dear Elizabeth: There are people in my team who don’t pull their weight. They don’t deliver what they say they will, and they don’t seem committed to the goals of the project. I need them to step up and do what’s required, but I can’t seem to make that happen. Instead, rather than let them...
Dear Elizabeth: I start a new job in a week after a couple of years away from work on a career break. From what I know, I am entering a complex project with multiple stakeholders. They are active in leading the work, so at least I don’t have to worry about not having support for...
Every project manager will need to inspire a project team at some point in their career. The reasons may range from having an over-challenging project to being appointed to recover a failing project. Or, the reasons may be less daunting, and things are just business as usual. Whatever the circumstances, as a project manager you’ll...
Mentoring is known to have positive effects on career paths, both for new entrants to a role and for more experienced personnel. In a study by Gartner, over 5 years at Sun Microsystems, the results were startling. The analysis showed that 25 percent of people in the mentoring scheme had a salary grade change, compared...
We’ve often been taught that happiness is the result of success, but what if it’s actually the other way around? That’s what one researcher in the field of positive psychology, Shawn Achor, has set out to prove. In his book, The Happiness Advantage, he examines how the brain functions better when a person is feeling...
We dive into the latest report from the Project Management Institute: Next Practices: Maximizing the Benefits of Disruptive Technologies on Projects....
Learn what makes a successful team, along with tools and techniques to improve team performance, from Cloverleaf CEO Darrin Murriner....