Does Social Media Work for Project Communication?

The use of social media in project management can bear fruits, if conversations are structured on the topic at hand. It may be good to establish an official response ethics on project management topics(eg. on facebook) between participating members. To stay on topic. Reading through many threads on a topic may seem like like a drag, but it can bring new members to a project up to speed. Of course social media cannot replace project document updates but can aid the process of communication and awareness.

Ty Kiisel takes on a very familiar subject of social media use in Project Management. Read the what Kiisel has to say on the topic:
http://blogs.attask.com/blog/strategic-project-management/does-social-media-work-for-project-communication

Choosing your Project Sponsor

Ensuring you have an appropriate project sponsor is one of the best ways of getting some focus on a project and making sure the project gets delivered. It is often the mistake in many organisations to assume that the project manager is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the project when this does in fact come down to the project sponsor. After all if a project manager has no authority to sign off on the costs and benefits of a project then how can they be expected to be ultimately responsible for it?

So what should you look for in a project sponsor, to make sure things go smoothly? Well first of all we should weigh up the different personalities who will naturally be involved in any project.

• Users: on this side are the people who want everything and they want it now (incidentally there’s nothing wrong with this, but its why they’re balanced by…)
• Suppliers: the suppliers want to be able to deliver a simple, focused solution that can be delivered easily, quickly and cheaply.

There two sides are generally represented in a project environment by two individuals called the “senior user” and “senior supplier” respectively. The job of the sponsor therefore is to arbitate between these two characters to ensure that a middle balance is struck which is in the best interests of the organisation involved (company, charity, programme, strategy, event etc dependant on the context of this project).

An effective project sponsor will therefore have the following traits;

• Pragmatic: the sponsor should not be predisposed to either the user or suppliers arguments they should make pragmatic decisions based upon the needs of the organisation;
• Natural communicator: the sponsor will need to be able to communicate and arbitrate between the opposing perspectives of the project, as such they will need to be comfortable listening to and weighing up arguments;
• Organisational power: even with the two traits above without some organisational power your sponsor may fall down on two counts.
  • First they must be able to overrule the senior user and supplier, after all the sponsor has the final say on all project decisions;
  • Secondly your sponsor should have the power to drive things forward when the momentum begins to wane, they should be able to get people into rooms and they shouldn’t have to wait for decisions.

Article posted in PM Coup:
http://www.pmcoup.com

Contagious Enthusiasm in Public Speaking

A few years ago, I was at a PMI chapter professional development day to give a presentation and attend some sessions.

Between sessions, I saw a young man who worked for one of the conference sponsors reading something. I asked him what he was reading, and he said he was going over his notes for his upcoming presentation.

"Excellent," I commented. "What will you be talking about?"

Our product," he replied. Then he added, "I'm probably going to bore everyone."

"Why would it bore everyone?" I asked. "Well," he said, "because it's a boring presentation."

Now I was really intrigued. I asked again why it's boring and got a similar response: "It's just not very interesting."

I kind of felt sorry for the guy, but thought maybe I could help him out.

I continued, "Certainly, it's interesting to you. You must have some enthusiasm for the topic -- the product you are here to sell! How can you share that enthusiasm with the folks who will be listening?"

"No," he replied, "I don't really find the topic interesting at all. I don't have any enthusiasm for it."

You can't give what you haven't got -- and the most important thing you can have when speaking is your enthusiasm for your topic. But having enthusiasm isn't enough. You have to be enthusiastic, and you have to be able to share your enthusiasm with others. But the biggest inhibitor to sharing enthusiasm is self-consciousness.

Therein, I believe, lays the great secret to effective public speaking.

Public speaking is a giving act. You are giving of yourself - your insights, your experience, your enthusiasm, your knowledge, your stories, your being. The effective speaker is fully tuned in to the people he or she is speaking to - fully conscious of their presence, their reaction, their needs - fully other-conscious. This leaves no room for self. No room for self-consciousness.

Article by Jim De Piante for Voices on Project Management
See: More articles by Jim De Piante