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Season's Greetings From Deanne and the team at May 2017 bring continued business and project success

New eBook: How to be a Good Project Manager

Last month I published my response to Rogerio Manso's question 'What is your best advice to be a good project manager?' If you haven't read it yet you can do so by clicking here.

The question was prompted by TimeCamp's list of the Top 123 Influencers in the project management industry in 2016, and Rogerio's worked hard to consolidate the advice he received.

He's done a great job and this eBook is a collective of that advice from the 30 influencers who responded.

Published by the team at PMAGP, they say knowledge should not be proprietary. Knowledge should be shared to create more knowledge. I agree with them!

If you do too then download your copy today and continue sharing the knowledge.

Book Review: Leading in a Changing World

In September I attended the Global WIN Conference in Rome. One of the plenary speakers was Keith Coats. A South African, he's now based in London and is a founding partner of TomorrowToday Global, a strategic insights firm. His plenary talk was on-point for the challenges faced by leaders and business today. He focused on something he calls Adaptive Intelligence, making clear that this is a cultural challenge rather than a strategic one.

After listening to Keith, I bought the book he and his TomorrowToday Global partner Graeme Codrington have written together. What follows is my review of the 2015 Edition of their book Leading in a Changing World.

Business Change from IT Projects - Infographic

What Is Your Best Advice To Be A Good Project Manager?

Recently I received an email from Rogerio Manso. He's involved in IT project management and also teaches others on the topic. Rogerio's contacting other subject matter experts around the globe because he's putting together a collection of advice that he'll offer for free to his project management students and anyone seeking to learn from others. In order to do this, he's asked a question. It might seem a fairly straightforward question but when you sit down to think about it, there are many possible responses that make it challenging to fix on just one thing.

The question?

What is your best advice to be a good Project Manager?

What Moving 6 Cubic Meters of Gravel Can Teach Us About Change

We’re doing some landscaping. It’s not a huge amount but it’s enough. Landscaping = change and just like any change, it’s exciting and a little scary all at once. What if we’re being too ambitious? What if we don't know what to do? What if, in the end, it doesn’t meet our expectations?

Regardless, we made a start and had 6 cubic meters of gravel dumped in our driveway. Looking at that gravel and what we had planned got me thinking about how organisations approach change and why they’re often disappointed with the results.

Here then, are 4 lessons that came to mind as I helped shovel, barrow and spread that gravel around…

Musings on Arras People's Project Management Benchmark Report 2016

The Project Management Benchmark Report from Arras People is a must read for all Organisations and anyone directly or indirectly connected to projects. I've read the 2016 report a number of times and find it particularly interesting for 4 main reasons:

• It's the 11th annual report in this series so that plus the number of respondents is a solid base for year-on-year analysis, trends and drawing of conclusions.
• Certification statistics clearly don't support the amount of noise in the market about Agile.
• Regardless of the time and effort expended on methods, process, or training, projects continue to fail.
• 42% of hiring Organisations believe it's getting harder to find "appropriate" talent.

This last point really stuck out. Why can't they find the talent they need?

11 Things for Clarity, Pragmatism and just the right amount of Disruption

Do you know what's happening across the organisation and what it means for your area of the business? Or do you rely on your employees to do the right thing for the business as a whole?

These and a raft of other questions are frequently asked by Executives that are connected with what's going on both in their own business unit and wider organisation. Through clarity, pragmatism and just the right amount of disruption, these Executives are connected in a way that increases the level of business benefit they can achieve through their operational and project activities.

We've identified #11Things we believe only a connected Executive could know...

Having trouble reading this? Click here instead.

A New Year Sanity Check

2016 is underway and it'll be February before we know it. As per normal at this time of year, much is being written about resolutions; who's making them, why they fail, and whether or not we should even bother. Resolutions are great, if you like that kind of thing, and congrats to all those who do actually set, keep and achieve theirs.

Funny thing is resolutions seem to be the exclusive territory of individuals. While some people might set resolutions with a work related component, e.g.: better work / life balance, change jobs, finish a degree, I can honestly say I've not heard any from organisations or that relate to work-place behaviours or activities.

Perhaps this is a missed opportunity...