Practical PM

Being a project manager isn’t always an easy job. Besides the technical responsibilities many of you have, an awful lot of duties line up to be taken care of.

As we started writing these down, we realised the list keeps growing and growing the more time you spend thinking about it. We organised those duties into three phases: start, execution and closure. We are not following any formally strict scheme here, but are merely simplifying things with these three rough categories. Also, consider it an open list, an inspiration. It is by no means complete and not all kinds of projects will require exactly the same duties and tasks. Feel free to comment and add your own ideas and experiences. Continue reading →

‘… can you just write us a little proposal about this …? – The moment your project really starts!

You might know this moment: You’re working in a small organisation (one without rigid structures or well-defined processes in project management) and you have come up with a good idea. You started developing it slightly, you’ve chatted with some others about it, and finally you have presented it as an idea to your seniors.

And guess what, because your idea is really good and you have presented your idea well, you now casually get tasked with developing it: ‘… just write me a little project proposal’… and then you realise your project has the potential to become reality!

For many of us this is the moment of great excitement but also of some level of heart-sinking. How on earth can I communicate this idea and all its add-ons clearly? How do I write about it knowing the very different requirements and goals within the wider team?

Continue reading →

I love meetings – they give me an excuse to interrupt my work and relax.
I hate meetings – they are a waste of time while I have more important things to do.

Believe it or not, within some organisations those two statements exactly describe the attitude towards meetings. In fact, this mindset is more common in professional environments than many may think or are willing to admit. Maybe even you yourself secretly adopted this destructive way of thinking?

But why this disastrous attitude? Should meetings not be an excellent opportunity for a team to work together on a common problem? Or to spread information? Or to motivate and create a sense of common ground?

Well, yes, in fact meetings can and should do all of that. But too often they simply do not!
If people experience unproductive and inefficient meetings too often, they will accept this frustrating experience as normality and to be unchangeable.
But it is not! You yourself can and must do all you can to boost your meetings to success. Make it your personal goal to organise meetings where people like to attend – because they feel that these meetings are time well invested. Productivity time.

You are asking yourself how to do that? Read on, we have prepared a list of 10 simple tricks that will help you host efficient meetings where people actually like to attend.

Continue reading →