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Welcome to the Mindavation online project
management newsletter.
Our commitment is to share news about project
management upcoming events, tips & tricks of
the trade, recommendations for reference and
inspirational materials, and Mindavation course
offerings.
| Free Template of the Month |
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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 Business Case Justification
Categories template. This template can
be used
to develop business cases for your project, with
consideration for all of the benefits your project can
bring to the business.
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| Book Recommendation of the Month |
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Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan
and Al Switzler
In a previous newsletter we recommended Crucial
Confrontations, the "companion book" to this
month's book recommendation. This book doesn't
disappoint - it is full of practical tools and
recommendations that leaders can apply immediately.
The book reviews the typical processes by which we
react to adverse conversations - and allows us to
stop and think about this process of participating in
vital conversations. Crucial Conversations gives us
the perspective and tools to - with practice - make
significant strides towards greater success with all of
our conversations. It is well laid out, easy to read
and apply, and is universally applicable to our
business and personal lives.
The book includes a survey to determine what areas
in your approach to conversations represent
strengths and which areas surface your weak points.
The results guide you through the book's chapters,
to allow the reader to focus on one aspect of
improving conversations, practice that skill, then
move on after the skill is mastered. With this
approach, the book serves as a primer, a reference
and an end-to-end guide to improving our
communications effectiveness.
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| Coming Soon to a City Near You... |
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Mindavation has many public offerings on the horizon.
Reserve your seat now by calling 1-866-888-MIND
(6463) or sign-up via the web at
www.mindavation.com
November 10-11, 2005 Colorado Springs, Colorado "Intelligent
Disobedience - The Difference Between Good and
GREAT Project Managers". A soft skills course for
experienced project managers."
December 8-9, 2005 Denver, Colorado "Recovering Troubled
Projects"
January 12-13, 2006 Denver, Colorado "Requirements Collection
and Analysis"
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.
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| This Month's Article: Your Job is to BE a Hurdle! |
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By Bob McGannon
The project manager’s ultimate responsibility is to
protect and promote the business for whom he is
working. Towards that end, the project manager
works diligently to produce the best business results,
meeting or exceeding the objectives of the “triple
constraints” – scope, time and resources. However,
there are a number of instances where the astute
project manager will realize his business is on a
pathway to failure. These situations need to be
addressed and assessed against project objectives or
corrected before the business suffers avoidable
losses. The initial approach for the effective project
manager is to remove the hurdles that impede her
project. Sometimes however, that cannot be
accomplished easily. In these cases, the project
manager needs to take a profoundly opposite role –
they need to become a hurdle – a hurdle to
impending disaster.
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| Mindavation Project Templates CD Available |
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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
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Mindavation Releases New Public Classes |
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Three new classes have been added to the
Mindavation public class schedule for 2006.
- Requirements Collection and Analysis
- Managing Integration Projects
- Effective Software Testing Techniques
Check out our website which, by the end of
October, will detail our
updated and complete 2006 schedule.
Coming Soon - Mindavation's next edgy and
innovative class!! Watch for updates on Critical
Judgment, a class that advances the foresight
and anticipatory capabilities of intermediate and
experienced project managers.
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