Closing Out 2024

We love to apply project management concepts to everyday life. As we often say, “Life’s a Project!”. As we launch a new year, you might take a moment to do a "project closeout" on 2024, whether you’ve got a specific project in mind, or just general work effort, or even your personal life. How was the year? Did you accomplish what you set out to do? What did you learn along the way?

We like to borrow from the Project Closeout phase of project management for help in thinking through these questions. Maybe it can be helpful to you too!

Find this and other free resources at cwtrainingandconsulting.com and if you enjoyed these tips, sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss a future post or learning event announcement. 

CW Training and Consulting specializes in hands-on, interactive project management skills boosting workshops - either off the shelf or customized to your needs.  Contact Us and we will help you find the right learning solution for you and your business.

Project Management - 12/31/2024

Five Tips to Overcome the Layoff Workload and Work Smarter

According to layoffs.fyi over 142,000 U.S. employees lost their jobs so far in 2022 and it is climbing every day.  Crunchbase News estimates that over 85,000 of them are in the U.S. tech sector as of today (the links are updated - click through for current estimates).  This may be a first major downturn for some.  For others of us we look at each other and say, “here we go again.”  

As the impacts of layoffs hit, typically the workload of those remaining increases.  Many companies make efforts to prioritize, but as we saw from the whiplash of firing and hiring at Twitter (as a hyperbolic example), reality does not often match theory.  Layoffs are often tied to reorgs and uncertainty. Flush off a full employment economy, “the great resignation” and summer of “quiet quitting,” it may feel like the idea of a balanced life was a blip.  

This is the time to be ruthlessly efficient with your choices.  There’s no reason to pull late nights or eat at your desk.  You deserve a balanced life.  

CWTC's Top 5 time protectors

1) Ruthlessly Prioritize

Push back on your manager and their manager.  Push back on yourself (if you’re one of those people who find it difficult to say no).  I used to prepare for these types of talks with my manager by creating a list of my priorities and literally “drawing the line” of what I could and could not realistically accomplish in a given time period.  

Another way to prioritize is to make it practice to ask for input on whether something should be traded…not added when someone asks you to help them out.

This can be particularly difficult when you’re in a cross-functional role.  How frustrating can it be when you depend on someone who is not in your direct work group and they follow my advice?  This is the time to tie your needs to the strategy and priorities of the organization as whole. 

2) Be a Project Manager

We lifelong project managers joke that “life is a project.”  Right?!  Make the up front investment of time to plan out your deliverables so you have a realistic view of what it’s going to take.  Don’t stop at estimating how much of your time it may take, but also include people you will depend on from your team and other teams. 

What if you have unknowns?  Put placeholders in.  The goal is to have a sense of the big picture.  Across all of your priorities and not to get caught up in the minutia of planning. 

3) Eliminate Meetings

Be ruthless about your meeting choices.  If you’re asked to attend a meeting, ask yourself if you’re adding value?  If not, decline. Can someone else represent you?  If so, decline.  Can you provide feedback through an asynchronous document?  If so, propose it!  If live collaboration is critical, then keep the meeting.

If you are creating a meeting, keep the invitation to those who add value.  If someone wants to join you to stay in the know, record the meeting or take summary notes that you can share afterwards. 

4) Turn off those Notifications

It’s easy to get distracted by Slack, texts, emails and the like.  Block time for meeting free, heads down time to focus. I turn off all non-critical notifications and set aside time to scan and catch up later.  

You might even choose a channel for truly urgent requests.  For example, you could use Slack for everyday comms and train people to use your cell phone for urgent texts.  Let them know you’ll be out of pocket.

One last thing - I like to acknowledge receipt of information, but really. Do you need to? if there's action required, take and and don't file it for later. That helps you and reassures the requestor.

5) Take a Break

There's nothing better than taking a move break, even if it's a short walk around the block (or the office/house if the weather isn’t cooperative).  Fresh air does a body and a mind good.  You’ll be sharper when you return to your desk, I promise. 

I'm not making this up. Many studies have shown that walking boosts creativity.  Check out this one from Stanford University, which found that “A person's creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when walking.”  I’m a biker and I get all kinds of creative ideas when out on the road by myself. 

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I love efficiency and could go on and on, but 5 seems like a nice round number.  Pick a one or two to try over the next week and see if it works for you.  Maybe even come up with a few of your own or chat with some co-workers about what they’re doing to stay sane. 

Bottom line?  Be strong!  Be careful with your commitments!  Protect that vibe of a balanced life.  You deserve it.  #worklifebalance #balancedlife

Project Management / Work Life Balance - 12/05/2022

Six Project Communication Tips for Project Success

You may have read articles on how good project communication is critical to project success. So what is good communication? Here are our best tips to help you become an expert communicator on your project. Some of them even apply in life!

1. Be clear and direct.

    There’s nothing more frustrating for your listener than vague language and rambling. Know that sometimes your message may be difficult to hear, but softening the message too much doesn’t help. What helps is being clear and direct with facts, requests, and consequences. If you’re asking someone to work the weekend, make a direct request (“If you and I work this weekend, we can bring in the date. Are you able to do that?”) instead of a vague statement (“I wonder if there’s anything we can do to help bring in the date”). There’s an added benefit that you’re more likely to get a clear, direct response, too.

    1. Stand in your stakeholders’ shoes.

    Describe the project status or a newly discovered issue from more than just your perspective. Address what your stakeholders care about and what their worries might be, including relevant context, and use specific, straightforward language — not jargon. If you’re sharing the news that your project date is slipping, your manager or sponsor will want to know that you understand why it happened and how you will prevent it from happening again. The same goes for good news. Show that you understand the why.

    1. Create a project communication plan.

    Even if your project is small or doesn’t impact many people, it’s worth your time to identify whom you’ll communicate to and the communication types, channels, and frequencies you’ll use. Your core working team might meet weekly and also have a Slack channel for quick questions and updates. The rest of your stakeholders might benefit from a monthly email update that you post on your project web page, too. And if you’re new to the company or the role, it’s worth checking around for standard communication tools and processes. You may not have to reinvent the wheel!

    1. Get to know the project sponsor’s communication style and needs. 

    If you have a project sponsor, take the time to learn their style and preferences for project communication. Hands-on or hands-off? Slack or phone calls? Lots of detail or just a summary and specific asks? Your project sponsor is your best ally in setting you up for success, addressing any challenges, and ensuring project follow-through, so get to know them well.

    1. Don’t make it personal.

    When there are challenges, describe what has to change through the lens of the process rather than making it personal. For example, instead of making it about you and a teammate (“Why didn’t you tell us you were running late? Did you think we didn’t need to know?”), focus on why being late is a problem, letting the process do the talking (“As a downstream partner, my team is impacted by this project, so we’d like to know as soon as you know that the project has slipped. Can you include us in your communications?”).

    1. Find appropriate ways to use humor.

    If it fits with your style, find ways to infuse a little humor into your project communications. It’ll go a long way to reducing stress, both yours and your audience’s, and makes the work environment a little more pleasant. Ask at least one other person to review your humor for appropriateness, though, and know your company’s culture so you don’t go overboard.

    That’s it! Do these six tips for effective project communication consistently and your projects will run more smoothly.  Here’s to great success!

    Find this and other free resources at cwtrainingandconsulting.com and if you enjoyed these tips, sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss a future post or learning event announcement. 

    CW Training and Consulting specializes in hands-on, interactive project management skills boosting workshops - either off the shelf or customized to your needs.  Contact Us and we will help you find the right learning solution for you and your business.

    Business Communication / Project Management - 10/23/2021

    Why Bother With Project Tasks?

    I've worked with enough tech companies and startups to know that projects these days have to move fast and be ready to change course on a dime. While PMI (Project Management Institute) style planning is a good fit for many industries, the question "Why bother creating and estimating project tasks?" is firmly targeted at those of you who work and thrive in highly changing environments. Why not just plow through the project? Really? Might there be people (like perhaps your stakeholders) who want to know when your project will be done? Does anyone care if you're on track or not? Are there competing priorities? Is there a deadline? If the answers to these questions are "no," then kill the project. Otherwise, invest a little time to identify, estimate and manage your project tasks at the outset. Expect your first swag at tasks to be a bit fuzzy at first. You can get clarity by digging into what the tasks are and how long they might take. It's not realistic for anyone to think that you're going to be perfectly accurate. Like anything, you will refine the project as the team delves into the work.

    How detailed to make Project Tasks?

    How far should you break down the project work? A common rule of thumb is to break the work down to the level at which you can estimate effort. Another answer is, "it depends on your role." As a project manager, I like to get to the level at which I understand dependencies. As a team member, I break it down into more detailed "chunks of work" and create a hierarchy of tasks using an outline. I keep going until I feel like I understand what it will take to do the work. By the way, I never communicate task level detail to leadership. Leaders usually want milestones, a nice summary of the tasks being managed by the team.

    How do you estimate how long tasks will take?

    You have your tasks, now it's time to estimate how long they will take. I leverage past experience and projects to make my estimates - whether it's in my toolkit of experience or someone else's. I nearly always learn something new when I talk to peers and experts to help me with my estimates. One common estimating technique is called "t-shirt sizing," borrowed from Agile project management. The idea is to make your best guess at whether the effort is small, medium or large before assigning detailed estimates. I strongly suggest that you define the t-shirt sizes at the outset. For example, Small is 1-2 days worth of effort, Medium is a week and Large is unclear but at least 2 weeks. T-shirt sizing is often done by a small, knowledgeable group. Finally, don't confuse effort vs. duration. Be clear and consistent. Are your estimates for hands on time (effort) or calendar time (duration across the time available to do the work)? Project management software helps you manage both.

    Are you done?

    NOT YET. Identifying the project tasks and estimating the effort and duration is just the start. However, if you do this well, the rest is easy. I used a shed project as an example in earlier posts. It applies here as well. Task estimation may not seem like a big deal for building a shed. However, if you live with the potential of rain and snow it may be very important. How long will it take to order the supplies? How long will it take to build the foundation? The structure? Even the smallest of projects has many nuances and dependencies that impact how long it will take. As my partner in crime, Jenny Warila, and I say, "If you go slowly to go fast, then you will deliver higher quality with less spin in the end." The art is in the level of detail you go into as you break down the work and estimate the effort. Not too refined, but not too high level either! As they say, LIFE IS A PROJECT. Go practice!
    Find this and other free resources at cwtrainingandconsulting.com and if you enjoyed these tips, sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss a future post or learning event announcement. 
    CW Training and Consulting specializes in hands-on, interactive project management skills boosting workshops - either off the shelf or customized to your needs.  Contact Us and we will help you find the right learning solution for you and your business.
    Project Management - 09/26/2018
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