By popular demand, we have expanded the opportunity for YOU to participate and learn more about Intelligent Disobedience. Check our new blog, get a subscription through an RSS feed, and leave your comments to become part of the dialog and the expansion of this important success skill!

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

Communication is the heart of any project, whether you are a project manager or a business analyst. This template will help you create a comprehensive and thorough Communication Plan - simply fill in the blanks. This template is designed for large projects, but it can be cut down to a smaller size depending on the size and complexity of the project on which you are participating. Make this template part of your standard toolkit and watch your perception increase with your customers!

The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam

So, do you think you can use hand-drawn sketches, PowerPoint, Visio or a similar tool and use just pictures to create an effective presentation? Do you think you can avoid the "boring dot point" presentation format and still be successful?

The answer is a resounding YES to both of these questions. In fact picture-oriented presentations can be the most effective. In this easy to read (and yes, illustrated with hand drawn pictures) book, Dan Roam takes us through effective thought processes, helps us overcome the "but I can't draw" issue, and gives us a guide as to what type of pictures to draw, based on the agenda of what we are trying to accomplish.

Using the ideas of function, content and what you want the audience to remember, Roam provides vital and easy to follow guides for conceiving the approach and presentation - using our natural abilities to engage in "visual thinking". The visual thinking concepts Roam discusses have a thorough basis in science, though they are presented in a simple to understand manner. These techniques help to bridge the gap between the creative minds that want to "reach" hard-nosed business people, and vice versa.

Using six "frameworks" for what we see (or vision for what needs to be or happen), and six others for what we are trying to show (making this convincing to others to embrace the vision), his process for creating effective picture presentations comes to life in a readily usable guide to increase your presentation success.

As project managers and business analysts, we are often challenged with creating presentations that need to convey a struggling status, sell an idea or "pushback" on the directions we receive from senior leaders. It is rare that a "word and dot point" set of slides will be made brief and powerful enough to make us successful in these critical presentation situations. This book is a great tool to help make our projects successful. You'll be pleasantly surprised by the effectiveness of this book!

Mindavation has staff based in Canberra. In addition, we'll be in the following cities/events:

July 1-2, 2009 Melbourne

July 6-8, 2009 Sydney

July 13-15, 2009 Melbourne

July 30-31, 2009 Perth - Delivering Intelligent Disobedience
Contact us for details.

August 10-12, 2009 at PMOZ Canberra

By Bob McGannon, PMP

As busy project managers manage their precious personal and project schedules, they look for any means to save time and money. The need to do this is amplified by the economic conditions present today. A tempting target for time and cost reduction activities is the communication tasks that are a major part of the successful project manager's responsibility. We are tempted to try and save time and money by foregoing face to face meetings, or the organsation of conference calls, opting instead to sending emails as they are quick and cheap. Don't do it! Emails are fraught with danger, and lurking costs due to miscommunication, potential misunderstanding and a lack of personal understanding that can accompany the "email cost savings". Here are suggestions for guidelines as to when NOT to use email.

1) Engaging in debates, deriving new solutions or settling complaints The agenda for your meeting or your objective should be a primary consideration for when to use email (or any other medium, for that matter). You are simply not going to be successful at achieving your objectives when you use a "low touch" tool when you need a highly interactive process to achieve your objective.

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) 6232 6005 or email info@mindavation.com