7 Stakeholders To Consult Before Starting A New Project
When starting a project, there are plenty of things to do: planning your schedule, plotting dependencies and milestones, finding the right tools, setting up your budget and allocating recourses. But one of the most difficult (and important) tasks is finding the right people to work with. After all, the success of your project doesn't only depend on your funds, goals, and ideas. Consulting the right stakeholders from the very beginning can make your project run more smoothly and result in better outcomes. Here are 7 people you should work with to make your project a success. 1. Users Who could be more important to consult than the very people who will use the product of your project? Find out their expectations and requirements — the more details, the better. If you are aiming your project at a particular group of users, your top priority should be making sure your project delivers something of great value to them. 2. Subject Matter Experts In most cases, SMEs are either IT or engineering staff, but it can be anyone who possesses the skills or expertise you need: technicians, architects, data analysts, developers, business analysts, testers, IT team and more. 3. Finance Team Having a clear picture of your finances is a very important part of project management. A good finance team can review your budget plan, check your models, and help you with any issues that may arise, like staff rates, formulas, etc. Additionally, they can help you put together a business case for the project you are working on by reviewing your benefit assumptions. 4. Senior Management When you decide on your objectives and project strategy, always consult with senior management to make sure your project is in alignment with overall business goals and objectives. It's also a big step in securing project sponsors who will be engaged in your project's success. 5. Legal Team If you're working on a new feature or security upgrade, you need to be proactive in discussing potential legal issues. Even if you are informed on all the legalities for your project, there is always a chance that you are not aware of upcoming changes to codes of practice. Luckily, a legal team can not only inform you on what you should expect, but will also deal with compliance and issues of any legal kind. 6. PMO Resource allocation, estimates, templates, models — seasoned project managers can help you identify best practices and find similar projects whose success you can learn from. Project management offices typically have searchable databases that you can look into to find all the information you need. 7. Yourself Listen to your gut! Your experience is a valuable resource — along with that of your project team. Draw on all of it to create the best possible strategy to execute the project and achieve your goal. Author Bio: Kate Simpson is a professional writer and editor. She works for assignment help team where she is a senior content creator for various projects and also manages an editing team.
Remote Collaboration: 5 Sentences to Ruin a Remote Worker's Day
Setting aside the joys of working from home and not having to commute, workers collaborating remotely have to deal with a lot of extra pain. The added pressure it places on their shoulders comes from the difficulty of creating immediate, visible value from afar. They struggle to be more "present" to their colleagues via the communication channels available to them — sometimes unsuccessfully. It's important to realize the extra pressure remote workers feel when you converse with them, and why remote work is important in the first place. Sometimes, jokes about "laziness" or how many hours they "actually" work can hit a nerve, and careless statements regarding work may cause a lot more harm than you think. For optimal remote collaboration, here are five specific sentences to stay away from: 1. "I tried to contact you, but I couldn't wait for you to get back to me." Possibly the biggest fear of your remote colleague is missing out on urgent tasks and direction-changing meetings that impact the work already being done. Saying something like the above hits home for an insecure remote worker already trying to compensate for not seeing people face-to-face. Especially if he is in a different time zone! It's tantamount to saying, "I Skyped you and emailed you (at midnight in your time zone) but since you never got back to me (because you were sleeping), I had to go ahead without you." This might be inevitable in a fast-paced business, but don't make a habit of leaving your remote workers out — especially on tasks they might want to be involved with. 2. "Oh sorry, that decision was already made last week." While there may be decisions made quickly at the home office, make sure you keep everyone in the loop. If you've been working on a project together and the project direction changes drastically, be kind enough to inform all stakeholders and collaborators properly so they're not left high and dry wondering what happened. Include them in decisions and give them enough lead time to give their feedback on important issues. 3. "Stop asking me questions, read the project brief." Remote workers don't always have all the context and will probably ask more questions than someone who sits one desk away from you. If their questions disturb your workflow, don't shut down communication with harsh words. Gently push back by saying you will get back to them when you're free. By saying something like "Stop asking me questions!" you're effectively telling your teammate you don't want to help and that their requests for information are annoyances. If your work culture is based on bureaucracy and selfish fiefdoms of knowledge, then you have more problems to solve. But if your culture is one of sharing and company-wide collaboration, you've just created a roadblock that might prevent your team from asking for help in the future. Don't burn those bridges. 4. "Let's cancel this morning's meeting since X and Y aren't here." While it might be morning where you are, it could be 10PM in your remote colleague's time zone. Which means she had to wait up for this scheduled call, or perhaps even cancelled a night on the town. Canceling last minute presupposes that your time is more important than your remote colleague's time, hence you can do things on a whim and she has to accept it. At the very least, cancel meetings early — minimum 24 hours notice is ideal — so that remote workers can plan in advance. For pointers, here's a great article about the polite way to cancel an appointment. 5. "Aw man, you had to be there to see it!" Remote workers don't just feel like they sometimes miss crucial information and context to do their work, they also often feel like they're missing out on the camaraderie in the office. By saying this, you're effectively isolating them from the team even more. Instead, why not try capturing and sharing a video of that awesome dance move that the CEO did during Friday cocktails? Or set up some sort of video wall/always-on video conference (a la Shutterstock) so remote workers can drop in and join the fun. Remote Workers Have Feelings Too In the end, collaborating with remote colleagues is a matter of being sensitive to the needs of all concerned. People need timely information, and they need to be made to feel part of the team. And it's your job as project manager to ensure communication goes smoothly and team morale is high. Read Next:• 5 Tips for Remote Collaboration with Wrike• 4 Common Problems with Virtual Meetings that You Can Fix
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Understanding the New Work Rules [Part 2 of 2]
Trying to list all the various ways that work has evolved in the last two decades would be impossible so instead, here is part 2 of the 10 rules which should help anyone navigate the constantly shifting waters of work. Think of these as the new work rules — our 21st Century Work Rules.
Dealing With Bullies, Jerks, & Toxic Personalities in the Workplace
Ever had a conversation with a colleague where you walk away thinking, "Whoa, that person was a real jerk." Turns out you're not alone. These head honcho, give-me-your-lunch-money-type personalities are not only affecting high school hallways, they're invading our office culture.
5 Ways to Use Google Collaboration Tools for Effective Teamwork
Younger workers especially are very familiar with the Google collaboration suite, so this can serve as a comfortable way to begin encouraging teammates to work together through the cloud. Here are four keys for making the most of using Google Drive for collaboration.
How To Survive Being Surrounded By Geniuses (Work Management Roundup)
Welcome to the Friday Work Management Roundup, where we bring together the week's best reads on productivity and work. This week, we feature articles on how to fight back when you're too busy, unmotivated, and feeling a little, well, stupid. But not in a negative way! On the contrary, some of it will make you laugh. Read on: Must DO: How to Kick Ass Even When You Are Stupid (Medium): With a title like that it better be hilarious. And it is. Writer John Altucher talks about how he's constantly surrounded by smarter people. These are his tried-and-proven coping mechanisms for surviving — without trying to fake intelligence. How to Keep Yourself Motivated (Medium): If you ever feel unmotivated to get through your work, here are 3 tips to help you keep on keeping on. It's includes a pretty unique tip we're reading for the first time: get yourself an accountability buddy. How to Be a Great Manager vs. an Average Manager (Medium): For you comics fans, here's a webcomic illustrating 5 typical situations in which managers communicate with their people. The difference between Great and Average lies in the choice of words and the accompanying actions. How to Start a 30-Second Habit with a Lifelong Impact (STARTUPS + WANDERLUST + LIFE HACKING): Super simple. After every meeting or significant experience, take 30 seconds to write down the most important points. Read about why this matters. Must READ: Your $4 T-Shirt is Costing You Millions (Medium): One entrepreneur advises companies to spend twice as much on logo emblazoned t-shirts so they get 10 times the value. Because people really will keep wearing your company's t-shirt if it looks and feels good. The Cult Of Busy (Medium): Dina Kaplan's insightful essay on how we tend to glorify busywork, and brag that "my to-do list is longer than yours." A great reminder to step back, make time for what's important, and stop using "I'm busy" as a status symbol. The Science Behind Broken Work Cultures (Fast Company): Amidst the debris of the Amazon culture debate, this article looks at research on motives. As it turns out, the better our reasons for working, the better we perform at work. Makes sense. Take a deep dive into the 6 fundamental motives of why we do anything. I Spent a Month Replying to All of My PR Emails With "I Love You" (Hexjam): The founder of a PR agency decided to prank everyone who emailed him by professing love in his email communications. Hilarity ensues. Work Management Listicles: 8 Strategies Famous CEOs Use to Fight Ineffective Meetings (Business.com) 6 Project Management Lessons from Fantastic Four that Guarantee Project Failure (Capterra) 5 Major Ways Freelancers Will Change the Economy by 2040 (Fast Company) 10 Best Growth Hacks of All Time (Medium) 5 Fantastic Free Apps for Fighting Forgetfulness (Fast Company) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then you can choose to read these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. And if you don't use Flipboard yet, this is the perfect time to give it a try: iTunes Store | Google Play Store Image Credit: Brainy vs. Brain by JD Hancock on Flickr. Some rights reserved.
How to Break Down Work Silos Between Departments
why aren't more people collaborating? One major reason: corporate silos and the silo mentality. This is where groups or departments within an organization refuse to share information with others, which results in turf wars and inefficiency. If you're going to break down silos, you will need a mandate from management. But then you will also need the right culture and the corresponding tools that can help lay your cards on the table.
Cross-Tagging in Wrike Opens Up Your Team’s Project Visibility (Infographic)
What does the Wrike CWM platform offer that the others don't? Cross-tagging. Cross-tagging in Wrike is a one-of-a-kind feature that gives you, your teams, and your organization better visibility and end-to-end transparency into every activity, all the way down to the tasks level. This is valuable because, without it, you'd have duplicate tasks, folders — everything — for different teams needing access and the flexibility to roll-up tasks, folders, etc. into larger projects or campaigns so that other teams can track the work. Here’s a more visual look at cross-tagging in Wrike.
Top 3 Trends Shaping Project Collaboration
Collaboration remains a hot topic because it still works. In fact our CEO recently wrote a guest post on Inc.com stating that collective wisdom, crowdsourcing, and project collaboration are essential for the growth of a business or movement today — they should be integral parts of every company's DNA in order to survive and thrive. If you look at the factors that enable collaboration to occur on a massive scale, you’ll see three main trends shaping project collaboration and driving the adoption of new tools in many organizations. Let’s take a look at these trends one by one: Trend 1: Remote Work is Rapidly Spreading Today, the fact that I can easily decide to work from home as needed is a huge change for me. Ten years ago, that would’ve been impossible with the companies I was working for and with the technology available to me. But you don't need to look back that far to notice how the times have changed. Wrike recently surveyed over 1,000 employees and discovered that 43% of them currently spend more time working remotely than they did 2-3 years ago. Moreover, 80% of respondents now deal with remote workers on a daily basis, either working with distributed colleagues, or as remote workers themselves. These figures show remote collaboration growing and infiltrating the workplace at an impressive pace. And this growth isn't exclusive to specific industries or organization sizes, either. It's becoming more and more common for every kind of business to have people collaborating across multiple locations. Trend 2: Accidental Project Managers are Multiplying Then there is the rise of the “accidental project manager” — those who must take on a project management role out of necessity. They usually lack any formal certification in PM, or may be new to established PM methodologies and practices. According to our survey on remote collaboration, 70% of accidental project managers have no special training or certificate when they take on the role. Which means, there are entire groups of people tasked with project success who may not have time for formal training. Therefore, they need to do several things quickly to hit the ground running, such as: find educational resources to their increase knowledge, adopt a more collaborative environment in order to learn from colleagues, and find the most efficient tools and technology to support that collaboration. Which brings us to cloud services... Trend 3: Collaboration is Increasingly Done via Cloud Collaboration Tools Remote teams battle challenges that co-located colleagues typically don’t have to worry about. Such challenges include inefficient coordination, reduced visibility into one another’s work, and, as a group, the inability to maintain high velocity. To combat these obstacles, the online services industry — A.K.A. cloud collaboration services — has boomed, allowing teams with remote members to continue working together efficiently. Instead of storing files in network drives that would require VPN access for remote workers, file storage services such as Dropbox or Box can be used securely. In place of lobbing different versions of a Microsoft Word document back and forth through email, Google Drive can be used. Then there are communication tools like Skype and Google Hangouts to facilitate meetings, as well as work management tools like Wrike enterprise collaboration software that help teams delegate tasks and coordinate projects both large and small. Cost-effective technology now exists that enables remote collaboration without breaking the bank. In fact, these tools are often free in their simplest versions, with tiered pricing based on an organization’s needs. Now Build a Better Team Understanding these three growing trends can help you better understand the landscape in which collaboration occurs so you can enhance the way your own organization collaborates. Now it’s your turn. What factors affect how you presently collaborate with your team? Hit the comments and share.
