Each month Mindavation will offer a template from our Project Templates CD free of charge. Don't miss out on this opportunity!

The Risk Identification Checklist can be used to consider potential risks for your project. Pass the checklist around to team members and other various stakeholder to help them identify risks for your project as the project is kicking off. It's a great way to get a head start on the Risk Management Process.

Hope is Not a Strategy by Rick Page

"Hope is Not a Strategy" is actually a sales book. You may be wondering, how could a sales book possibly relate to project management? You would be very surprised! In fact the byline on the book reads "The 6 Keys to Winning the Complex Sale". Amazingly enough, this "sales" book really packs a punch that directly relates to the world of project management and the types of issues we face on a daily basis.

The book focuses on opportunity management and how to be proactive, which are topics that we need to discuss and utilise in our field as well. One of the chapters entitled "Link Solutions to Pain (or Gain)" is all about our ability to solve business problems for our customers, which is exactly what we do in the world of project management.

One of the best quotes from the book reads: "Every requirement either has a political sponsor or it doesn't. Every requirement is either connected to a business problem or it's not. Not all sponsors have equal power and not all business requirements have equal impact." Sound familiar? The author has a wonderful knack for pulling these types of statements into meaningful examples and real-life stories that make his points come alive. Give this one a shot, you won't be sorry and you may even improve your negotiation skills by understanding a little more about the sales world!

March 13-14 Perth "Recovering Troubled Projects"

Mindavation Director Denise DeCarlo, through a partnership with Coffey Projects, will be presenting Recovering Troubled Projects as a 2 day course open to the public. This course is designed for experienced project managers who are responsible for recovering out of control projects.

For more information, and to register for this course, click here.

By Bob McGannon, PMP

We hear this all of the time - project management is the "accidental profession." Very few of us went to university with the objective of being a project manager, nor did we enter the business world with that objective. Somehow, through the course of human events, we ended up at the wheel of a scheduling management tool, and we stumbled into a new career. This pathway to a role in the world of projects is not restricted to the project manager. Project sponsors also end up in their role by accident; often with little personal focus towards that role, and with little knowledge of what they are supposed to do. As project managers, it is up to us as to train and leverage this reluctant resource. We need to teach without lecturing, and engage without monopolising the precious time of the senior executive that serves as "the accidental project sponsor." Here are a few techniques you can start using today, as we walk this tightrope in the "mahogany row" hallways of the businesses we serve...

Mindavation offers more than 30 customisable project templates and tools to make your life easier! The CD includes full project lifecycle templates and tools.

Documents are in MS Word, MS Excel, MS Project 2003 (and Adobe). Modify each template to suit YOUR business and project needs.

Price (including shipping & handling): AUS$125. To order call (02) 6273-8749 or email info@mindavation.com.