While some projects might have an end of year deadline, in my experience, most projects finish when they finish. So there’s every chance that your projects, like mine, will run through the holiday period. We do need to recharge, rest and reset, and so do the people on the team. So how do you balance the pressures of work and leadership’s desire to keep hitting those milestones, over the festive season? I’ve been project managing for over 20 years and I’ve had to balance my workload with taking time out for family and having a personal life over that time, like we all do. I love Christmas, so ..read more

People often ask me how project managers can be evaluated, or what targets should be set for people in project roles. It’s a bit tricky to provide a one-size-fits-all answer, but I have come up with some Key Performance Indicators for project managers, that you can use as a starting point for your own team. I find it easiest to start with the ‘why’ of why your team exists. If you don’t have a mission statement or purpose statement for your team, start with that. Here’s a very generic one that I drafted for a coaching course assignment that you can use as a starting point: Our vision is to pro ..read more

Mentoring, at its core, is talking to other people and sharing your experience. A successful mentoring relationship relies on the mentor (that’s you) being able to ask effective questions and listen to the answers. In this article I’ll show you how I use effective questioning and active listening, and how you can use them at work to improve your mentoring practice. Technique 1: Effective questioning Effective questioning is a learner engagement technique where the question supports the learning goals and encourages the learner to respond in a particular way. In other words, if you ask better ..read more

What is the stakeholder salience model? The stakeholder saliency model was proposed by Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997). They define salience as: the degree to which managers give priority to competing stakeholder claims. Their model looks at how vocal, visible and important a stakeholder is. Those dimensions help you identify the stakeholders who should get more of your attention. Project stakeholder management and saliency Project management relies on people: you need the project team to get things done, and that team might include members of different stakeholder groups. It’s common to hav ..read more

Has your project just ticked over into Red status? I know what that feels like! And I know what the scrutiny is like too – suddenly you’ve got a lot of attention on your project and everyone is demanding a path to Green. I’ve been managing projects for over 20 years and many of my... This article first appeared on Rebel's Guide to Project Management and can be read here: Real-life tips for managing Red projects and getting back to Green ..read more

You’re looking for the best PRINCE2® course online. In this article, I’ll share what to look for in an online training provider and how to choose the right PRINCE2® certification course for you. TL;DR: The training provider I think is the best online PRINCE2® training is Management Plaza, led by expert trainer Frank Turley. They offer reasonably priced training including the exam voucher. Find out more about their courses. What to look for in an online PRINCE2® course The criteria I use to rate online training are the following: Delivery mechanism Content Time zone (for live classes) Company ..read more

Mentoring is one of the top enablers that improve project performance, but only 48% of organizations have a mentoring or coaching scheme in place to support professional development, according to PMI’s Pulse of the Profession 2024 report. So how do you build a professional relationship with a mentor, and where do you even find one? I’ve been mentoring project managers for over a decade, and I’ve worked with in-house colleagues and independently to support their career development, so I know what it takes to be a good mentor. And I know how people find me! The best way to find a project manage ..read more

Risk management is a staple skill of project managers. As the project environments we work in get more and more complex, with greater levels of uncertainty and more transformative, disruptive projects, being able to deal with risk remains top of the list of desirable skills for managers in all areas of business. However, project risk management is something that many project managers find tricky. The theory is easy – implementing risk management successfully so that it is actually useful on the project is a little bit harder. In this article we’ll look at tips for risk management, the role of ..read more

Let me tell you about the time I missed a key stakeholder during a project. She rang me on the day the project went live, unsurprisingly upset that I had not consulted her. The deliverable we’d created did affect her team, and no one had bothered to tell her. Oops. So I know firsthand that stakeholder registers can be really useful tools to ensure everyone is identified and bought into the project at the most appropriate times. Are you just starting to put one together? Or perhaps you’ve done it and thought, “Have I got that right, is that it?” (Spoiler alert: it probably is, this is not a ha ..read more

I’ve always found giving feedback a bit awkward – even positive feedback where I was praising someone for a job well done. It has got easier now I have children, because frankly I get to practice giving feedback all day at home! It's also got easier knowing some of the theory, and while I was doing my mentoring training I got to understand several feedback methods in detail. Here are some of my favorites (and a few I don’t rate much but might work for you!). 1.    The feedback sandwich The feedback sandwich is a common feedback method – I wasn’t able to find out where it origin ..read more