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

This month's download is our Team Management Q&A template. This template can be used to examine the status of your teams, and propose actions to improve team synergy and performance. The template highlights the most common deterrents to team performance and suggests action items to drive improvement in team effectiveness.

The One Thing You Need to Know by Marcus Buckingham

We decided to read this book because of Buckingham's prior work (First, Break All The Rules, and Now, Discover Your Strengths), not because of the title, which is misleading. The book actually addresses a primary principle of three different topics; leading, managing, and maintaining sustained individual performance. The primary "thing you need to know" for each is supported by secondary items that are useful. Buckingham does his usual great job by using a pragmatic, story-telling style. His stories are also diverse, covering business, childhood experiences, history and biology which makes for interesting reading.

This book caused us to reflect on some of the directions and assumptions we make about our "management presence" and approach to work. It is a powerful book that should make you do the same!

April 10-11, 2006 Denver, Colorado "Critical Judgment"

April 20-21, 2006 Richmond, Virginia "Requirements Collection & Analysis"

June 8-9, 2006 Colorado Springs, Colorado "Critical Judgment"

July 20-21, 2006 Denver, Colorado "Managing Integration Projects"

Looking for a class to attend? Would you like to meet us face to face? If we are in your area, feel free to contact us to schedule a meeting.

By Bob McGannon, PMP

Most project managers who have received any training at all have undoubtedly heard about the need to “delegate.” As we cannot manage significant projects and perform all necessary tasks ourselves, delegation is an absolute must to expand one’s capabilities as a PM. The smart project manager, however, goes beyond delegating; expanding the magnitude of projects they can handle. What is this magic ‘beyond delegating” trick? The highly valuable project manager knows how to coach. Coaching involves and instills powerful lessons, including:

Growth Can be Continuous
One’s past experiences provide a window to demonstrate current capacities. However, they also illuminate one’s capabilities. The watchful caring PM looks for capabilities in project team members, versus just nurturing capacity to handle tasks. Doing this requires careful listening and observing, and discovering the ambitions of team members. This does take precious time, and the dividends of that time are significant. Coached team members increase their capacities, expand their roles, and allow the project manager to delegate more extensive and critical responsibilities.

Mindavation offers 30 customizable 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 2000 (and Adobe). Modify each template to suit YOUR business and project needs.

Price (including shipping & handling): $100