Skip to main content

Tag: Career

Five Smart Interview Questions When Hiring A Project Manager

Written by Paul Oppong on . Posted in Articles. 12 Comments on Five Smart Interview Questions When Hiring A Project Manager

With so many expectations, a project manager is such a prominent position.

The never-ending demands and grind make it a critical designation that not everyone is cut out for. It requires preparedness, execution, accountability, and leadership ability.
That’s why choosing the right candidate for the job is an inherently complex task with no easy solutions. Even an hour-long screening interview can prove redundant if there is no surprise factor and candidates feed canned answers to your repetitive questions. They need to be challenged. In an ideal world, you would love to observe how each of these candidates perform in the workplace in the face of a tough situation. Regretfully we don’t have that option, but you can resort to something that seems to work well in most situations.

You need to ask hard interview questions to identify the right professional for your next project. Questions that help you draw their personalities out – while you carefully listen to what they have to say, and how they say it. Questions they can’t rehearse for – thereby making the entire process challenging, rather than just another box-ticking exercise. With that in mind, here is a list of five smart interview questions that will help you select the best candidate for the position of a project manager. Some of these questions are sure to trip people up.

Question #1: If we provide you with a new project, what will be your approach to manage it, and how would you present results?

On the surface, it seems like a simple question. However, what works here is this – It’s a process-based question. So as an interviewer, you get to venture inside their brain, giving you a quick peek into the kind of work culture they’ve experienced in the past. This is probably the best way to understand the blueprint of their ideal approach, which can help you assess whether they would blend with your organization.
The second part of the question referring to the “presentation of results,” helps you understand how they would handle a standard project delivery. You also get to know about their presentation style and the perceived involvement of different team members in the process. In a nutshell, this is the perfect open-ended question to understand a candidate’s personality, work style, team management attributes, and their most typical approach to fresh challenges.

Question #2 – What if we assign you a complex project that is already running behind schedule? How would you manage it and bring it back on track?

This question tests their creativity and how well they can formulate a hypothesis. Just try and understand how they plan to maintain the level of quality without creating any undue pressure on other team members. Notice whether the candidate is willing to negotiate for more time or resources with the upper management.
Not all PMs are created equal. So, if you don’t like one specific approach or the way someone handled this imaginary problem, you are welcome to move on.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Question #3 – What’s the nature of the communication style with your team members?

Here’s a cold hard fact. PM’s that communicate well with their team members achieve far more than the rest. The nature of this question would help you understand whether they are aware of the importance of communication mechanisms and how that affects their team members. This is a prime indicator of how they would be able to manage the difficult conversations as and when the situation arises. If you don’t get a satisfying response, it’s quite likely that candidate would fail to deliver in the real world as well.

Question #4 – Share your experience of when you were responsible for training others on any one aspect of project management.

They say great leaders and great trainers have a lot in common with each other. That’s not entirely difficult to understand since good project managers are also known to be the big picture thinkers that influence major decisions in an organization. Holding such an influential position, most PMs become great communicators. That’s why the art of training, coaching, or mentoring should come naturally to them. If the candidates share an experience where they were in the position to coach one of their team members, take it as a positive signal. This means they’re good at guiding other team members to success (as compared to a one-dimensional PM, known for giving orders.)

Question #5 – If you’re allowed to design a dream job, what would you choose as general metrics to determine if a project is on track?

We know that managing a project involves far too many moving parts and variables. This question allows you to listen to how they would design the ideal metrics and judge their ability to delegate, organize, and manage assets in a hypothetical situation. This is an excellent way to judge one’s domain knowledge and skills, as well. Don’t forget to analyse whether their answer is based on the in-depth understanding of the domain and what metrics they choose to ignore because that will reveal their experience and knowledge of the industry.

Summary

Given that hiring, training, and coaching employees are such a time-consuming process, asking these carefully devised questions can help you decide the best fit for your organization. Obviously, there is no right, wrong, or inappropriate answer to these questions. However, it gives you a fair idea of what a candidate wants from the position.

Here’s a bonus tip. Don’t forget to reverse the table and allow time in the end for candidates to ask you questions. This is a great way to understand what matters to them. Their own words will also help you decipher whether they have the correct mindset to succeed as a project manager in your organization. The basic idea is to create a challenging interview environment where candidates can showcase their business acumen along with the soft skills needed for the job.

Building a Real Project Plan that Delivers the Right Results in the Right Way

Written by Gary Garris on . Posted in Articles. 7 Comments on Building a Real Project Plan that Delivers the Right Results in the Right Way

I am not a purist by any imagination when it comes to Project Management. 

Any successful projects that I have delivered during my career required nuance, a bit of art and a reliance on some basic must haves to create a greater likelihood of success no matter the environment, type of technology or time constraints.   I am not exaggerating when I say I have reviewed hundreds of project plans drafted by Project Managers and drafted quite a few personally to help drive projects to successful outcomes.  The following represents some lessons learned that I hope you will find valuable if you are just starting out your career or if someone just walked over and offered you the chance of a lifetime to lead a cutting-edge implementation.  

Is it a Plan or a Schedule? 

Ugh! The purists now refer to it as a schedule because a plan is where you map out the approach to delivery (resources, logistics, etc.) versus the schedule which covers the tasks and dates.  Like I said, I am not a purist and we are calling it a plan for this discussion.   Before you read on let me just say that if you are building a project plan to only satisfy a governance/SDLC requirement you might as well just wing it.   If you don’t believe in running your status meetings off agreed to targets for tasks completion and actively using the plan to identify slippage, adjust resources and flag constraints, you might as well just stick with the stream of consciousness approach to project management and cross your fingers.   For those who have decided to hang in there with me for a moment to see where this is going let’s begin.

Microsoft Excel is Not Your Friend

I can list a ton of reasons why you should stick with Microsoft Project to build your plans but there will always be those who are just more comfortable working in Excel.   At a Global Financial organization, we essentially outlawed all Excel based project plans after repeated citations by the Audit organization for “violating” SDLC practices.    Here is what happens when you use Excel:
  1. You turn your multi phased, million-dollar initiative into a grocery like shopping list
  2. You have no immediate view into constraints, dependencies and predecessors 
  3. You cannot readily identify task slippage
  4. Don’t even think about resource allocations
  5. Rollup views become challenging
  6. Visualizations of the timeline require extra work
  7. Etc. etc. etc.
Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Strategic Plans that Deliver Business Value

We often talk about improvements in process as better practices, but one so called improvement that I have seen across organizations is the default project plan that is shared as a potential starting point. If you see such a thing, run in the opposite direction and take a step back.  Some things can’t be automated or standardized, and I refuse to have my creative project management side limited to a stale template of an approach that may or may not help build a better plan.  Use these kinds of tools as reference points but not shortcuts to doing the thinking about what is really needed to execute successfully.
Sit down and think about the success criteria of the stakeholders and begin to craft the high-level milestones that your task will rollup to and help deliver the vision.  Using delivery phases as the milestone with a whole bunch of tasks will not speak to the value that you are trying to deliver.     
You will have a difficult time explaining why the project failed despite you doing all the process steps accurately and timely.  Task fulfillment does not equate to process success and that is a lesson that requires a few laps around the proverbial project track before its learned.  
The tasks must be prescriptive and should not be done in short form tweet like entries.   Use declarative entries to ensure that work is performed and validated.  Words like Secure, Verify, Validate, Obtain, Draft, Approve and Distribute should be commonplace throughout your plan. 

Warning Signs of a Bad Project Plan

  • Task durations are greater than 10 or 15 days.  When will you know that a 60-day task is late?  On the 61st day it is too late to affect any kind of change.    Tasks that have a long duration require subtask items to allow for follow-up and remediation.  
  • Keep the schedule up to date, if all stakeholders agree to the approach and its reflected in the plan, you should be using it to manage your day to day deliverables.   I have attended hundreds if not thousands of status meetings and in most cases the project manager fails to leverage the plan to confirm status and discuss slippage or upcoming tasks for the week.  
  • Tasks that are past due with no percentage completed is a red flag.   Find out if teams have skipped tasks or decided certain deliverables have been deemed out of scope.  
  • Tasks are not prescriptive enough to convey work deliverable.   It doesn’t have to be war and peace but at least include enough information to make it reusable  
Unfortunately, Project Managers tend to get assessed on the existence of artifacts but not necessarily on the quality of products that get produced.    It is time to start looking at how your project plans connect to success criteria and how the details drive the intended result.   Start performing self-checks and peer reviews and include your stakeholders in the process.   Share your plans with them and ask them to opine on dates and resource availability.   That is a great way to get buy-in and learn from others.

Four Disruptive Questions to Spark Innovation in Project Teams

Written by Paul Oppong on . Posted in Articles. 10 Comments on Four Disruptive Questions to Spark Innovation in Project Teams

The year was 2007, people were in love with blackberry phones, and Nokia was still a major smartphone player.

The same year that’s remembered for excellent pop music and breakthroughs that became significant milestones in world history. Whether it’s the housing bubble finally bursting in the US, or the launch of Roadster from Tesla, things were happening fast. Plus, the most significant change which was Apple releasing a revolutionary product called the iPhone. A move that changed the smartphone market forever and change it did!

The release of the iPhone leads to an instant disruption for every other big name, including Google, which initiated the process to adjust their Android platform as per the new expectations. It was a time of radical innovation making everyone think hard because Apple just made several technologies outdated in a matter of hours. That’s precisely where some of the big names went entirely wrong. Established brands like Blackberry and Nokia only relied on two major factors to stay relevant – their position in the industry and the brand loyalty of their customers.

Whereas the management and employees at Apple were able to exploit the big gaps in the market, something that industry leaders (read blackberry and Nokia) were not able to identify and act on.

What’s the Learning Here?

If you’re unable to innovate in time, even the most loyal customers, and powerful foundations are of no actual use. Innovation is probably the only factor that separates best from the rest. Revolutionary products and services are usually a result of an environment that encourages unorthodox ways of seeing gaps in the market and creating path-breaking products to fill those spaces. Combining old and new thoughts to create something “new” is what takes you to the next level.
As senior executives at IDEO, a Silicon Valley-based organization known for award-winning innovation said, “Top creativity happens when there is an intersection of different perspectives.” Based on experience, here are four somewhat unique and practical questions you need to ask yourself to spark innovation within the project team.

#1 – Have You Embraced Diversity as An Engine of Powerful Innovation?

When it comes to innovation, “There is a business case for diversity,” says Richard S Warr, a veteran on the topic. Although, there are several times when organisations may have somewhat shaky reasons for promoting diverse teams, if done for the right reasons, a more diverse team means you have team members with broader range of interests and backgrounds to draw upon. Since culture and upbringing plays an essential role in how a person tries to solve a problem, a diverse project team will be able to offer different solutions than expected.

That’s precisely what credible research has already proven. Once you have the incredible advantage of a diverse set of team members working towards a common goal, your responsibility as a leader is to make sure they feel welcomed to propose novel ideas. Ensure “outside the box” ideas are heard and implemented in due time. Organisations should work hard to hire the precious gems – not promoting useless propaganda just to fulfill respective minority quotas.

#2 – Are You Ready for The Art of Fearless Brainstorming?

The only way to capture innovative themes is to encourage your team members to go off track, not worrying they’ll dive into the unexplored rabbit holes. Remember, the aim is to go divergent ways, which is entirely different from being unfocused. For instance, let’s say you’re trying to use common age-old assumptions in your industry to trigger a few ideas.

First, compile a set of assumptions which include consumer trends, positioning, pricing, and more. Now, have an active group discussion brainstorming all ideas based on these assumptions, even the crazy, weird and the wacky ones. Don’t forget to encourage every team member to push their limits and consider every related possibility. Now gather each one of these ideas. Pin it on a board and vote the best ones.

This free-willed process to spark new ideas works every time given that team members are allowed to go as far as they want to. Brainstorming is all about throwing random things out there letting the minds wander. The immediate sense of comfort that team members feel while expressing their thoughts would surface the most innovative ideas that you could never imagine in the first place.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

#3 – Do You Have A Precise Plan to Act on New Ideas?

Assuming you have generated innovative ideas from one of these brainstorming sessions. Now is the time to think whether you have a well-devised plan to evaluate these insights. There are many organizations, who’re unable to evaluate the ideas within a fixed timeframe. That’s a pity.

Even the organizations and teams which stress upon the importance of innovation have no real method or turnaround time baked into their processes for idea evaluation. Here’s how you resolve this entire tricky situation with a simple 3-step process:

  • First, create a transparent mechanism for capturing and documenting new ideas.
  • Second, devise clear-cut criteria you will use to assess the viability of ideas presented to you every week
  • Third, designate a diverse team that are responsible for evaluating these innovative ideas and replying within 72 hours.

The third step brings us to the last point.

#4 – How Do You Build A Bridge Between Leadership and The In-House Innovators?

The only reason why team members are not interested in sharing their out of the box ideas is this, “There is no sense of confidence whether their voice would reach the Leaders.” This restricted interaction between employees and management is a giant turnoff. It’s probably the biggest enemy of innovation.

Once you have a list of ideas evaluated, ready to move to the next stage, leaders should weigh in and give their inputs on these insights as soon as possible. Eliminate the bureaucratic obstacles and demolish the proverbial wall that stands in your way. Create a defined structure around the feedback process, and you’ll see an increasing contribution from every team member.

Summary

Formalizing perspective innovation pipelines can lead to sustainable results. Creating and handling innovative ideas is the real differentiator for why some organisations grow and others remain flat. It’s the perfect time to use these four questions to nurture your team and help those who’re on the cusp of an innovative breakthrough. All they need is support and a concrete mechanism.

5 Tips to Find and Develop Your Leadership Voice

Written by Frank Hamilton on . Posted in Articles. 10 Comments on 5 Tips to Find and Develop Your Leadership Voice

You might be surprised how much a single person can influence the overall image of a whole corporation.

Look at the powerhouses of each big company: Steve Jobs and Apple, Stan Lee and Marvel, Bill Gates and Microsoft, Elon Musk and SpaceX. Every time any of them did anything, it would influence the way people viewed the company these people stood or still stand at the head of.

This is exactly why it is so important to develop a unique leadership voice and stand by it. The way you hold yourself will influence the well-being of your company. But it’s not always easy to understand what makes you special and how you can use it to attract people to your business. Here are five tips on how to find and develop your leadership voice.

1. Identify Your Leadership Voice

The first thing you have to ask yourself is: What is my leadership voice?

It sounds easy and quite plain, but that question is the equivalent of “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” The only exception is that you ask it when you are already grown up.

Media has been covering the various stereotypes about being a leader. Some show corporate leaders as heartless beings, while others seem to just be jerks. In terms of female stereotypes about leadership, women are supposed to be stern, cold, and virtually unreachable, neither by her colleagues nor by potential suitors.

However, these required characteristics for being a leader seem to be changing with time. Nowadays, leaders are often the ones who joke a lot and try to keep an upbeat atmosphere in the team. If you want to know more about becoming a leader in our modern age, be sure to read this article about 5 Secrets to Leadership Success in the Age of Digital Disruption.

So, who do you want to be: a cold-blooded businessman or a down-to-earth boss? It’s really up to you to decide, but you should keep in mind that this decision will ultimately influence all of your choices in the future.

2. Select People Who You Admire

The next step is perhaps one of the most entertaining ones. Once you have a general idea of what kind of leadership voice you want to have, you need to find examples of this very leadership voice.

One thing to keep in mind is that you don’t necessarily need to have only one role model. In fact, the opposite is true. By selecting different people who you admire, you will then be able to model your own leadership style around their best traits. You might have only two or three idols, but the list can go on to dozens.

To find the people you admire, look in different places. These can be industry professionals, celebrities, businessmen, or even your own friends and family. A lot of people admire and look up to their parents.

Once you’ve selected these people, investigate and try to pinpoint what makes them who they are. Detect their leadership voices and understand how they created them. Try to read or watch their interviews, read their writing, and even talk to them if you have the chance.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

3. Write Down Appealing Characteristics

After carefully analyzing the people you admire, take a piece of paper and write down their characteristics that appeal to you. These can be as small as their habit of jogging in the morning or as large as their philanthropy.

As identified in the article How to Develop These 7 Leadership Skills, there are seven key leadership skills that you will absolutely need:

  • Communication: Communication is an integral part of almost any position, but it is vital to succeeding as a leader. Proper communication can go a long way, so you must make sure that your communication skills are topnotch. Listening to what your colleagues are saying is important, but getting information across to them is too.
  • Mentorship: A great leader often plays the role of a mentor for his subordinates. Remember that by leading your company, you set an example to others who strive to achieve the same things you did. But being an example is not enough. In addition to that, make sure to provide your mentees with the information and knowledge they will find helpful. Tell them about your mistakes and let them learn from them.
  • Humility: One of the key elements of appearing human is admitting your mistakes when you make them. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge the fact that you are wrong as it will show your colleagues that you are willing to take responsibility for your actions.
  • Delegation: Leaders are there not only to inspire others to do things but also to assign these things to each separate member. By delegating the various tasks to others, you show that you are able to see a bigger picture and make everyone work as a team.
  • Problem Solving: Directly related to delegation is the leader’s ability to solve problems. There will be many times when you have to find a way out of a complicated situation, but you must not panic. Instead, use your problem-solving skills to find a solution.
  • Goal-Oriented: Being goal-oriented means not only having a concrete aim but also giving a purpose to your team members. A good leader will know what he wants to see in the future and will motivate others to work hard to achieve this.
  • Innovation: Being a good leader doesn’t mean using the same tricks every time. On the contrary, a good leader is someone who can adapt to the new circumstances, propose innovative ideas, integrate modern technologies, and be an overall progressive person.

4. Find Natural Strength In Yourself

By this point, you are probably exhausted and thinking of how you will be able to manage all of these aspects of your leadership voice. And so, this is the time to review everything you’ve written by this point and ask yourself whether you really need everything.

Obviously, pretending to be someone you are not is complete nonsense and will only make you unhappy. However, you can be a better version of yourself rather than someone else completely. By improving your good qualities, you will be able to become the best version of yourself you could ever be.

Try to find that inner natural strength. Think of what you have in common with those traits you wrote down. Then, set a goal for yourself on what sides you’d like to improve.

5. Test Your Leadership Voice

Now that you know who you want to be, it is time to train yourself and become this someone. Practice and get better at all of the traits you want to possess. Try out these 5 Weekly Self-Assessment Tips to Improve Your Leadership Skills.

Once you feel like you’ve improved, test your leadership voice in low-risk situations. For example, you can organize something with your friends or family. Don’t go right in and try out your abilities on important business meetings or conferences until you are sure that you are ready to settle with the voice you’ve chosen.

Conclusion

All in all, finding your leadership voice is not as difficult as it seems. Once you know what you who you want to be like and understand your abilities, you will be able to conquer the world with only your charisma and leadership skills (and maybe a little bit of effort and dedication to your work). In any case, don’t be afraid to experiment until you find something for yourself and settle down with it. The more confident you are about what you are doing, the more successful you will be.

Six Essential Skills for a First-Time Project Manager

Written by Paul Oppong on . Posted in Articles. 11 Comments on Six Essential Skills for a First-Time Project Manager

With strict budgets, short deadlines, new processes, and a plethora of management decisions to be made, life is never easy for a first-time project manager.

An efficient PM is also expected to have a deep understanding of personnel management, risk management, and data-driven progress analysis. Even though this seems like a lot to do all at once, these challenges gradually become easier with time. 
However, as a new project manager, it is your responsibility to stay sharp and up to the speed so you can maintain your competitive edge. You will be expected to become the leader you promised during the hiring process, resting on your laurels is out of the question. A decent certification might help, but it does not guarantee success in day-to-day operations, and it all comes down to a few inherent skills that a good project manager must possess. Here’s a list of six skills that you need to develop right from day one.

#1 – Become a Problem Solver

When you’re starting out, there’s struggle, uneasiness, and way too many questions that need an answer. The best way to look at every tough situation is to consider it a challenge that will help you grow while you cement a place in a new environment. It’s all about training your mind not to panic and to trust your guts as a genuine problem solver. Don’t forget to look from every possible angle. You can always reach to a senior, mentor, or someone you look up to for finding a solution. This is the first skill that you need in your arsenal.

#2 – Manage Your Time Like a Champ

Time management is another vital trait that can help you stay on top of things. Being aware of the exact deadlines, the strength of your team members, and the knowledge to use every resource at your disposal are all essential facets of managing your time. In most ways, time management is nothing but the ability to manage the tasks at hand while meeting your targets and sticking to your timelines. Someone who manages their time efficiently is usually seen as a thorough professional commanding respect and authority both from peers and senior management.

#3 – Be Flexible

A new project manager can never stay away from constraints like strict schedule, low-budget, and the feeling of being understaffed. These are part and parcel of the game, and you need to showcase your flexibility by handling these obstacles. Most new candidates talk about flexibility as their strength before they are hired for a job. You need to prove it right from day one. Just manage the resources at hand with maximum precision and be a little proactive. As they say, project management is all about planning for a change. 
Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

#4 – You Must Be a Solid Negotiator

Managing a team full of experienced pros with distinct personalities is a bit of a challenge if you’re new to the organization. Naturally, you must make some compromises and utter “no” at more than a few occasions. After all, it’s not possible to give every team member what they want. However, you need to develop the skill to balance your odds while keeping the team interest on the top. Being a master negotiator is a skill that saves you from a lot of turmoil and unease. It is surprising how much of the modern project management has come down to just being a good negotiator.

#5 – Risk Management

One of the core responsibilities of a new project manager is to foresee any possible risk that may pose a threat to your project. The process of risk management is nothing but identifying and responding to every potential risk that’s associated with the project. Sometimes these risks are unpredictable and jump out of the blue. As a project manager, you need to assess the situation and prepare quick and effective solutions. If required, you might have to use certain damage control measures just to make sure that things don’t go out of hands. Life is unfair, and you might have to juggle a few hot potatoes. Deal with it. Even if you failed to handle a situation first time around, don’t panic and learn and develop risk management skill through experience.

#6 – Lead by Example

A project manager is probably the “go to leader” in most situations. The onus and the responsibility lies with the PM for the success and the failure of a project. This means fixing the underlying issues and obstacles as soon as possible; anticipating and expecting risks before they happen. A project manager is responsible for setting a vision for the team, and then doing everything in their capacity to realize that vision. It comes down to leading the team by example.
As a new manager, you cannot shy away from showing your team how it’s done. It’s also important for your own growth because if you’re not able to lead a team well in the first few days of you joining the organization, it becomes tough to gain respect from your team members. If you are facing a bit of a trouble to settle in, it’s always recommended to reach out to your mentors or participate in specific skill development programs to get better.

Summary

At the end of the day, being a new PM can be overwhelming. Even with the knowledge of all the skills mentioned above, you might make a few mistakes in the first couple of months. The idea is to learn from those mistakes quickly and continuously improve your skills. In fact, not every new project manager is expected to be on top of their game, especially at the beginning. It’s never easy, and the position requires an extensive range of skill set. All you can do is adapt fast and keep learning. Are you ready for it!