Archive for the ‘Organizational’ Category
Crucial Steps to Effective Communication
Effective communication is an essential component of organizational success whether it is at the interpersonal, intergroup, organizational, or external levels. Effective communication is an important characteristic of strong and healthy families. Effective communication in the workplace is necessary for a friendly and conducive work environment.
Learning
Learning how to communicate assertively allows you the freedom to know that you have a right to speak and be heard in most situations and the confidence to know that you can present yourself in such a fashion that people will want to hear you.
Three elements propel your leadership communications: speaking, listening and learning. What matters is not avoiding all disagreements, but learning to give and put your partner before yourself. If you want to be emotionally congruent, you must recognize the importance of learning to feel safe with all your emotions.
Family
Communication in a family requires workdiligent work. Here are some tips that can help your family have wholesome and profitable conversations: Take time to talk. As adults, we often use the radio as an escape; instead, choose to chat with your family. Yelling and throwing items during a family discussion sets a horrible example for our children and destroys your credibility as parents.
Conflict
Conflict between people is a fact of life and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Conflicts occur at all levels of interaction: at work, among friends, within families and between relationship partners. Conflict can cause resentment, hostility and perhaps the ending of the relationship.
Improve
The greatest skill you can have in order to instantly and significantly improve you communications skills is to understand the other person’s point view and how they see the world. You can make a big impact simply by changing some of your language and developing your verbal skills, This way you can significantly improve your communication skills.
As we look to the future for ever better ways to improve performance, leadership and teamwork and to handle the accelerating changes we face both at work and at home, we must understand the significant ways that interpersonal communication impacts our lives.
Conclusion
Communication skills have to be developed, honed and added to on an on-going basis. Interpersonal communication skills are the one asset that will take you up the career ladder faster than any other. Any organization or relations can be made more productive by effective communication. And from these new effective communication skills, you can start having increased happiness, success, and better relationships.
Use Organization Strategy to Drive Project Portfolio Management
Business or organizational strategy is intended to drive all decisions within an organization. It provides a direction, a rallying point, and a litmus test for decisions at all levels. Hence, it only stands to reason that strategy would drive the projects, programs, and the project portfolio management process. Good projects map well to organizational goals. In fact, the best organizations make sure their initiatives are in alignment with their strategic plan. Whether for project initiation or for simply evaluating how the value of a project fits within the organization, becoming familiar with the strategic plan is invaluable.
Background
Here is some background on strategic planning, project management, program management, and project portfolio management.
There are many approaches to strategic planning. One approach is to think through these 5 points for the organization:
1. Vision – where the organization wants to be in the future
2. Mission – purpose, or why the organization exists
3. Values – organization’s culture and priorities
4. Goals – results that the organization desires in carrying out its mission 5. Tactics and Initiatives – actionable behaviors and initiatives supporting all above
It is important for project managers to understand where their project fits into the organizational strategy. What organizational goals does it support? Does it support the organization’s vision and mission? How are the organization’s values being expressed in the execution of the project?
It is equally important for a program manager, with responsibility for an initiative, or program, which involves several projects, to understand how the program supports the organizational strategy. The program manager needs to make sure the individual projects align to organization strategy, and that the project set as a whole that make up the program support that vision.
Project Portfolio Management is concerned with selecting the projects that best support the organization’s vision and strategy. PPM works with a list of candidate projects and assembles critical data on each, such as cost, resources, purpose or objective, expected return, risks, and more. With a formal strategy in hand, assuming there is one, the PPM process involves mapping the products to the various elements of the strategy. One of the keys with such data is to be realistic by checking assumptions versus actual on projects and programs in the portfolio over time. Establishing the appropriate parameters for this data is important to accomplishing the desired results.
What the PMI Says About Portfolio Management
“The Standard for Portfolio Management” published by the Project Management Institute (PMI) states that in order to be successful, the portfolio management team must:
1. Understand the organization’s strategic plan.
2. Establish determining factors for managing the portfolio based on the strategic plan.
3. Consider all of the organization’s projects, programs, and other portfolio components.
4. Follow agreed-upon processes.
The standard clearly articulates the importance of the relationship between strategy and project portfolio management!
Working Together By Thinking “Outside the Box”
Project managers develop plans to execute the projects in the portfolio, and then lead the effort to implement the plan. Likewise, program managers develop plans for their programs, but they do it for a higher level entity that contains many projects. In each case, the Project Manager or Program Manager “owns” his/her project or program. It naturally follows that portfolio managers “own” their respective project portfolios. The element that MUST tie the portfolio managers, program managers, and project managers together is strategy, which often requires some “out of the box” thinking on the part of the respective managers. Strategy needs to be the common thread through the project portfolio, programs, and projects.
By taking “ownership” of a portfolio, program, or project, professionals are addressing the “what”. So how can they “think out of the box” within the overall organizational context to be more effective? The answer is by being driven by the “why” by clearly understanding the link to strategy. Maintaining that tie throughout implementation is a challenge, and can be supported by devising feedback processes to ensure that everyone is aligned with strategy. Each area needs to produce metrics that map back to the stated strategic initiatives of the organization, and communicate those metrics among the project portfolio management team, project teams, and program management teams on these metrics to “close the loop”.
Call to Action
The project portfolio management team, project teams, and program management teams need to take ownership of the “why” as well as the “what” in order to ensure their actions are aligned with the strategic direction of the organization. They need to be intimately aware of organizational strategy, and if there is no formal strategy, they need to devise one and verify it as formally as possible. They need to think “outside the box” by mapping the projects and programs back to the strategy, and taking ownership of the whole process.
Background
Here is some background on strategic planning, project management, program management, and project portfolio management.
There are many approaches to strategic planning. One approach is to think through these 5 points for the organization:
1. Vision – where the organization wants to be in the future
2. Mission – purpose, or why the organization exists
3. Values – organization’s culture and priorities
4. Goals – results that the organization desires in carrying out its mission 5. Tactics and Initiatives – actionable behaviors and initiatives supporting all above
It is important for project managers to understand where their project fits into the organizational strategy. What organizational goals does it support? Does it support the organization’s vision and mission? How are the organization’s values being expressed in the execution of the project?
It is equally important for a program manager, with responsibility for an initiative, or program, which involves several projects, to understand how the program supports the organizational strategy. The program manager needs to make sure the individual projects align to organization strategy, and that the project set as a whole that make up the program support that vision.
Project Portfolio Management is concerned with selecting the projects that best support the organization’s vision and strategy. PPM works with a list of candidate projects and assembles critical data on each, such as cost, resources, purpose or objective, expected return, risks, and more. With a formal strategy in hand, assuming there is one, the PPM process involves mapping the products to the various elements of the strategy. One of the keys with such data is to be realistic by checking assumptions versus actual on projects and programs in the portfolio over time. Establishing the appropriate parameters for this data is important to accomplishing the desired results.
What the PMI Says About Portfolio Management
“The Standard for Portfolio Management” published by the Project Management Institute (PMI) states that in order to be successful, the portfolio management team must:
1. Understand the organization’s strategic plan.
2. Establish determining factors for managing the portfolio based on the strategic plan.
3. Consider all of the organization’s projects, programs, and other portfolio components.
4. Follow agreed-upon processes.
The standard clearly articulates the importance of the relationship between strategy and project portfolio management!
Working Together By Thinking “Outside the Box”
Project managers develop plans to execute the projects in the portfolio, and then lead the effort to implement the plan. Likewise, program managers develop plans for their programs, but they do it for a higher level entity that contains many projects. In each case, the Project Manager or Program Manager “owns” his/her project or program. It naturally follows that portfolio managers “own” their respective project portfolios. The element that MUST tie the portfolio managers, program managers, and project managers together is strategy, which often requires some “out of the box” thinking on the part of the respective managers. Strategy needs to be the common thread through the project portfolio, programs, and projects.
By taking “ownership” of a portfolio, program, or project, professionals are addressing the “what”. So how can they “think out of the box” within the overall organizational context to be more effective? The answer is by being driven by the “why” by clearly understanding the link to strategy. Maintaining that tie throughout implementation is a challenge, and can be supported by devising feedback processes to ensure that everyone is aligned with strategy. Each area needs to produce metrics that map back to the stated strategic initiatives of the organization, and communicate those metrics among the project portfolio management team, project teams, and program management teams on these metrics to “close the loop”.
Call to Action
The project portfolio management team, project teams, and program management teams need to take ownership of the “why” as well as the “what” in order to ensure their actions are aligned with the strategic direction of the organization. They need to be intimately aware of organizational strategy, and if there is no formal strategy, they need to devise one and verify it as formally as possible. They need to think “outside the box” by mapping the projects and programs back to the strategy, and taking ownership of the whole process.
Project Management Training: Managing Organizational changes
Organizations across the world are undergoing changes and one change is the changing anatomy of projects. Today, the project scope is getting enlarged from locally bound to global environment, accompanied by new and challenging issues. As the geographical boundaries diminish organizations face globalization which has arrived and is here to stay. In the context of globalization, the traditional way of functioning does not work and importantly for a project manager he has to think out of the box to perform. Organizations and their services are moving beyond the geographical demands resulting in a paradigm shift in managing projects.
When professionals are increasingly expected to be skilled at the principles of project management add on to their other skills, the frontiers of Project Management demand in addition to the basic project management skills. In a fast paced working environment, professionals need to adapt to the new technology to help streamline their projects. Not only project managers have to become more creative but also expand his dimension of thoughts and ways of managing risks, resources and deliverables regardless where the project is being implemented or the project resources are from. These global opportunities confront and challenge a Project Manager’s old ways and morphing him to grow and affect overall project delivery.
As the things have changed the new project manager is rightly called as the global Project manager. The face of Project Management does not look like what it was as it has undergone many cosmetic surgeries. In the wake of these changes and development for a professional to get his PMP certification is the need of the hour. Project Management training prepares professionals to take on the project challenges heads on with their global teams. The best practices in Project management have proved time and again indispensible for organizations and now in the times of globalization too they have come out strong. Managing organizational changes with a PMP certification comes as a boon for any professional to plan and work with his remote teams and remote projects.
PMP® Certification is the most popular and esteemed certifications among PMP aspirants. PMP® certification from PMP, USA is a renowned certification according them with the expertise and skills to take on project challenges. Moreover, for a rising career graph and performance a PMP® certification by a project manager is an added advantage. PMP certification process involves undertaking PMP exams which requires taking up intensive exam preparation. Project management training is an important aspect of PMP® certification and plays a decisive role in attaining this certification. For PMP® certification Training in India a name that has made its mark in the project management training is AstroWix Corporation. A register education provider of PMI, it has been providing PMP aspirants project management training for over a decade now.
To know more about PMP® certification Training, Project Management Training Visit : www.astrowix.com