Building Trust the Key to Exercising Influence

building trust

We all know people who have influence but whom we do not trust; these individuals are often referred to as “political animals” or “jungle fighters.” While these individuals are often very successful in the short run, the prevalent sense of mistrust prohibits long-term efficacy and hinders them from building trust. Successful project managers not only…

Ethics in Project Management

ethics

The idea of ethics has already arisen in my previous articles where I have discussed padding of cost and time estimations, exaggerating pay-offs of project proposals, and so forth. Ethical dilemmas involve situations where it is difficult to determine whether conduct is right or wrong. Is it acceptable to falsely assure customers that everything is…

Managing Upward Relations Like A Boss

managing upward relations

Research consistently points out that project success is strongly affected by the degree to which a project has the support of top management and that ties directly into your ability to handle managing upward relations. Such support is reflected in an appropriate budget, responsiveness to unexpected needs, and a clear signal to others in the…

Leading by Example

leading by example

A highly visible, interactive management style is not only essential to building and sustaining cooperative relationships, it also allows project managers to utilize their most powerful leadership tool—their own behavior, thus creating what is called leading by example. Often, when faced with uncertainty, people look to others for cues as to how to respond and…

Management by Wandering Around

management by wandering around

Once you have established who the key players are that will determine success, then you initiate contact and begin to build a relationship with those players. Building this relationship requires a management style employees at Hewlett-Packard refer to as “management by wandering around” (MBWA) to reflect that managers spend the majority of their time outside…

Network Building Methods

Network Building

The first step to social network building is identifying those on whom the project depends for success — Mapping Dependencies. The project manager and his or her key assistants need to ask the following questions: Whose cooperation will we need? Whose agreement or approval will we need? Whose opposition would keep us from accomplishing the project?…

Influence as Currency Exchange

influence

To successfully manage a project, a manager must build a cooperative network among divergent allies and make use of their influence. Networks are mutually beneficial alliances that are generally governed by the law of reciprocity. The basic principle is that “one good deed deserves another, and likewise, one bad deed deserves another.” The primary way…

How To Be An Effective Project Manager in a World Full of Contradictions

effective project manager

An effective project manager has to be able to deal with the contradictory nature of his work. Why would I say that, well here is my view: Project management is, at first glance, a misleading discipline in that there is on inherent logic in the progression from formulating a project scope statement, creating a WBS,…

High Performance Project Team: Pitfalls

project team

A high-performance project team can produce dramatic results. However, like any good think, there is a dark side to a project team that a manager needs to be aware of. I referred to this phenomenon as projectitis in this article. Now I would like to examine in more detail some of the pathologies that a high-performance…

Project Plan, is it important to have one?

project plan

Well, every course, article and training provider out there is stressing about the importance of having a project plan. It’s as simple as that. A project plan will help you plan, execute and control your project, at least that is the official definition. I will like to state my personal view on the subject as…