Project Managers' Coffee Chat with Tim & Merv

Hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome highlight personal stories and experiences to illustrate various strategies for effective stakeholder engagement, mentorship, and leadership qualities beyond formal training. Through anecdotes about overcoming challenges and fostering teamwork, they emphasize the value of relationship-building, preparation, and adapting creative solutions to enhance collaboration and project success.

Main Take-Aways

Stories are powerful teachers. Today's story lessons:

• The importance of informal interactions with stakeholders
• Using positive influence to interact with stakeholders
• Influencing stakeholders to engage with each other
• Using teambuilding to enhance stakeholder participation
• Strategic methods for learning more about engaging with your stakeholders
• Developing strong bonds with stakeholders through common interests

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Leadership Lessons from the Trenches – Stories of Stakeholder Engagement

00:28 Merv and Tim reiterate that the sharing of their personal stories from their project experiences – both positive and negative – are meant to provide real life lessons learned for their audience. Their stories are not meant to be instruction, but do provide examples of what can work and what might not work in given situations.

01:30 Tim kicks off the podcast with an example of the importance of informal interactions with our stakeholders, which reminds Merv of a very similar situation of chasing down a key subject matter expert on one of his projects to their regular smoke break locations.

04:14 Merv recounts a 'banana nut muffin' strategy to gain access to a key stakeholder – an example of using positive influence to manage stakeholder engagement.

05:47 Tim provides an example of zeroing on stakeholder participation by influencing stakeholders to communicate with each other to come to a conclusion his team could move forward with.

10:26 Merv tells a story of organizing a social event with his team and his customer team that stayed within the confines of his company's contractual requirements while providing a team-building experience that was met positively by his stakeholder subject matter experts.

14:05 Tim recounts an experience where a competing (but collaborative) consulting firm pumped his team for information, and in the process taught him a strategic way to educate himself on establishing stakeholder relationships to build trust.

16:28 Merv confirms Tim's description of the other firms' strategy by revealing that his organization always held a 'meeting before the meeting'.

18:38 Merv enjoys telling of an experience where he developed a strong bond with a stakeholder executive through their common love of humor and standup comedy.

19:43 Setting up for upcoming weeks as Tim and Merv will explore many of the essential skills that project managers must develop to be truly successful. These initial discussions of effective leadership strategies with regard to leading teams and leading stakeholders form the foundation for those upcoming episodes.

In this dialogue between Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome, the hosts explore effective project management strategies with a focus on stakeholder and executive engagement. They discuss overcoming challenges with rogue executives and information gatekeepers through practical techniques and respectful confrontation, aiming to improve project outcomes by addressing human factors. Strategies include engaging in meaningful dialogue, sharing information to empower others, and leveraging executive support for project success. The conversation emphasizes the importance of understanding and navigating organizational dynamics and human behaviors to enhance collaboration and project delivery.

Main Take-Aways

1) Project managers will be faced with 'rogue' executives who must be effectively engaged to help your project succeed.

2) Project managers will encounter information gatekeepers who need to be persuaded to share their knowledge and not hoard it.

3) Project managers must become comfortable engaging stakeholders who have higher rank and greater authority.

4) Project managers will be subject to 'fly-by' stakeholders who must be confronted to engage effectively with the project.

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Our Stakeholders

00:28 Introducing practical application of tips and techniques to engage stakeholders on our projects.

03:02 Merv discusses some ideas on handling rogue executive stakeholders, and helping them engage effectively in their role as key contributors to the project.

04:18 Tim adds a tip on utilizing respectful confrontation.

06:23 Merv shares a way of dealing with information gatekeepers in order to help them understand that releasing information is more effective than holding it close.

07:34 Tim includes some thoughts about how we as project managers treat information as a commodity, and help our stakeholders understand this as well.

10:20 Merv offers a tactical approach to influencing higher ranking executive stakeholders to engage them in supporting the project for greater success to which Tim provides a lesson from Ben Franklin's approach to gaining others' trust.

15:05 Tim presents an idea on how to gaining executive stakeholders' confidence through employing assessment and engagement strategies.

18:11 Merv recounts a technique he was able to successfully employ in working with a 'fly-by' executive to have them become more engaged in his project.

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome discuss practical strategies for dealing with difficult stakeholders, particularly 'rogue' executives, and emphasizes the importance of never publicly challenging such individuals, instead suggesting delivering strong results to mitigate confrontation. Techniques are shared for engaging disinterested stakeholders, managing changes in project leadership, and treating stakeholders at all levels as people first, underlining the importance of mutual respect, clear communication, and understanding each stakeholder's unique perspective and concerns. The discussion advocates for a thoughtful, human-centered approach to project management, aiming for collaborative success through stakeholder involvement and adaptability.

Main Take-Aways

Stakeholders are necessary for project success, but:

• Some stakeholders will be difficult to work with
• Some stakeholders will not readily engage
• Some stakeholders will arrive on the project when the project is well underway
• Some stakeholders will leave the project and new stakeholders take their place
• Some stakeholders will be intimidating

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Strategies for Effective Engagement of Our Stakeholders

00:28 Introducing the challenges of dealing with difficult or non-engaged stakeholders.

00:51 Strategies for managing the rogue executive stakeholder: avoid challenging in public, respect the position, deliver well, confront the behavior (not the person) in a professional manner.

07:43 Addressing a lack of engagement among stakeholders: educate them on the need for their involvement, respectfully confront their lack of involvement, be collaborative.

13:39 Navigating changes in stakeholder dynamics.

15:51 Overcoming feelings of intimidation by stakeholders senior in rank and authority to yourself, by humanizing these higher ranking individuals and establishing professional relationships.

20:32 Always follow up and follow through.

In this engaging podcast episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome further extend their discussion about the identification, assessment, and engagement of stakeholders that they introduced in the previous episode. They discuss the significance of communication, emotional awareness, and perception. They provide insights into effective communication strategies, the importance of early engagement with key stakeholders, and the role of emotional intelligence in identifying and addressing stakeholders' needs. They emphasize the necessity of understanding and managing stakeholder expectations throughout the project, highlighting the value of tailored communication and the impact of stakeholders' fears and motivations on project outcomes. With anecdotes and expert advice, this episode explores the nuanced art of balancing technical and behavioral components in project management for successful stakeholder engagement and project execution.

Main Take-Aways

Each component of stakeholder management is critical for the advancement and success of your project:

• Identification of stakeholders involves mastering communication, emotional awareness, and studied perception
• Assessment of stakeholders requires a keen sense of understanding human behavior
• Engagement of stakeholders at the appropriate levels of involvement includes the same activities as noted for identification plus assessment, plus continued strategizing on how best to influence stakeholder participation

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: A Deeper Dive Into the Identifying, Assessing, and Engaging of Our Stakeholders

00:28 Introducing an understanding of the human factors of leading stakeholder teams.

01:10 A deeper look at the challenges in identifying stakeholder for our projects: communication, emotional awareness, perception.

02:01 Unpacking the challenges of communication and building those important stakeholder relationships.

04:13 The art of employing emotional awareness in identifying our stakeholders: developing an awareness of stakeholder interactions, using the Project Charter, having effective project kickoffs.

08:46 Navigating the complexities of stakeholder assessment, and the challenges of working with human behavior. A key question when assessing stakeholders and project responsibility: "Who has the most to lose?".

14:24 Mastering stakeholder engagement strategies involves ongoing assessment along with influencing the engagement, blending the technical and behavioral components of managing the project and the stakeholder teams, and employing the optimal communication channels.

Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome explore the critical role of leadership in stakeholder engagement within the realm of project management. They emphasize the significance of understanding and managing the human factors, such as stakeholders' wants, needs, and dynamics, to enhance project outcomes. The discussion includes identifying, assessing, and engaging stakeholders effectively, underlining the complexities and the dynamic nature of stakeholder relationships. They also touch on the challenges posed by diverse stakeholder needs, the importance of building relationships early in the project, and strategies for managing different levels of stakeholder engagement. The dialogue highlights that successful project management goes beyond technical know-how, requiring adeptness at navigating human relationships and organizational politics.

Main Take-Aways

Project Leadership regarding stakeholder management involves relationship building. The three major activities or tasks in working with our stakeholders involve:

• Identification – discovering my stakeholders (primary, secondary, minor)
• Assessment – analyzing and capturing their characteristics, involvement, skills and abilities
• Engagement – meaningful involvement and contribution

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Project Leadership With Regard to Identifying, Assessing, and Engaging Our Stakeholders

00:28 Diving into leadership as it pertains to stakeholder management, influencing our stakeholders to help ensure the success of the project.

01:45 The evolution of stakeholder engagement from passive interest to active involvement.

03:15 Some of the challenges and strategies in leading stakeholder engagement on our projects.

06:02 Introducing the topic of stakeholder identification, assessment, and engagement.

06:35 A deeper dive into the identification of stakeholders and some of the challenges project managers encounter in that discovery process.

08:30 Considerations in assessing stakeholder individuals and groups, and additional challenges project managers face as they both assess and continue to identify stakeholders.

16:24 Navigating stakeholder engagement and relationship building – it really does come down to the human factors of stakeholder management and those all-important relationships.

19:33 Concluding thoughts on this introduction to stakeholder management.

Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome host a dialogue that covers personal experiences, the importance of understanding team members' backgrounds, leveraging personal interests for team bonding, and the concept of situational leadership. Real-life scenarios are used to illustrate strategies for building stronger relationships within teams, including respecting and catering to individual expertise, and ensuring project managers create an environment where innovation thrives. The discussion emphasizes the necessity of fostering personal connections, removing barriers to team members' best work, and the pivotal role of leadership in stakeholder engagement.

Main Take-Aways

Stories are powerful teachers. Today's story lessons:

• Get to know your team as individuals and help them feel important
• Assess the project dynamics and apply leadership principles based on the nature of the situation and the individuals you are leading
• Integrate the client team into your own team
• Cultivate a professional one-on-one relationship with team members

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Leadership Lessons from the Trenches – Stories of Team Involvement

00:27 Sharing Experiences based on actual project life situations is a powerful tool to help other project leaders as they go about their day-to-day work.

01:39 Merv remembers fondly a time when an executive in the company he worked for took an interest in him personally and invited him to a professional sporting event. That event impressed him so greatly that from then on he took it upon himself take the time to get to know individuals on his own teams.

04:09 Tim recounts an experience he had in leading deep knowledge experts on his project team. He learned that through applying situational leadership concepts he was able to navigate the team dynamics more effectively. He reminds us that we must always pay attention to the behavioral components of team members.

06:38 Merv provides a remarkable example of how a very experienced executive handled a potentially embarrassing situation with an individual to both protect the individual's dignity and to provide an example of non-judgmental, compassionate leadership.

10:25 Merv provides a great example of the importance of integrating the customer's subject matter experts and team members into a single project team with your own team.

Tim augments this point with his own experiences of enhancing project engagement and accountability through integrating additional individuals from your own organization that may not be directly involved in the daily work.

13:07 Merv advises to find creative ways to involve members of your customer's team in your teams' social activities, making them feel completely involved while staying within contractual guidelines.

13:42 Merv speaks to the importance of cultivating a relationship with each project member to create a supportive project environment for innovation and growth.

17:57 Merv reminds our listeners that fostering such relationships can lead to rich experiences and lifelong connections.

Hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome center this podcast around practical strategies, tips, and techniques aimed at fostering team spirit, engagement, and productivity. They share personal experiences and methods such as integrating play into work environments, celebrating team achievements, and prioritizing the development of essential non-technical skills and leadership qualities. The dialogue underscores the importance of balancing technical and human aspects in project management, encouraging leaders to assess and adapt their approaches to team building, delegation, and motivation for enhanced project outcomes.

Main Take-Aways

1) Projects cannot be all work and no play. Project managers must infuse fun into the process.

2) Project leaders can use innovative methods to engage their teams and to have them work more cohesively.

3) Delegation is an effective tool for assessing project and team capabilities and productivity.

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: The Project Leader and Team - Tips, Tools, and Techniques

00:27 Based on the podcasts dealing with the project manager and their team, Merv and Tim now share some actionable project management techniques and tools that their listeners are welcome to copy and modify for their own situations.

01:08 Merv advises that project work cannot be all work and no play. We must integrate fun and play into our teams' work, and he gives you a few examples of some creative ways that his teams had fun.

02:24 Tim notes that you can develop ways to transform work into play. Discoveries during project execution can become fun innovations in and of themselves.

05:16 Merv and Tim add additional unique activity ideas to build effective teams: a cricket match, team building using outdoor team building, recognizing the families of team members, getting your message across,

11:19 Note that the examples and techniques provided so far have nothing to do with the technical skills of project management. However, there are opportunities to enhance team members' skills that are beneficial to them both on the project and beyond the project needs; these are personal growth opportunities.

13:17 Tim refers to a previous podcast on assessment, training, and influence, and illustrates the use of delegation to build team member confidence.

16:04 Merv is reminded of a project activity where the recognition of team members' accomplishment was noted publicly in weekly status meetings, and the recognition came from peers, not management. Powerful.

17:05 Tim describes a process for using assessment of deliverable, team, and individual to determine how to best engage and build the team for better outcomes.

19:19 Closing thoughts and a call to action for listeners.

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome dive into the essence of project management, emphasizing the need for a project manager to not only possess technical knowhow, but to also excel in assessment, training, and influencing their teams for better results. The episode covers practical aspects such as managing project schedules, importance of continuous learning, enhancing team dynamics, and the value of creating an environment where team members can self-motivate and take ownership. It touches on the challenges and strategies in virtual team management, the role of personal development in project success, and the importance of stakeholder engagement and delegation. The dialogue concludes on the note that effective project management requires fostering an environment conducive to internal motivation and ownership among team members.

Main Take-Aways

1) Project managers must be able to set their teams up for success through assessment strategies, innovative training techniques, and establishing an environment conducive for successful project execution.

2) While assessment and training of team is important, so is self-development of your own skills to be able to be a more effective project leader.

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Mastering Project Leadership Through Assessment, Training, and Influence

01:13 Introduction to today's tactical discussion on setting your team up for success to include assessment, training, and influencing:

01:43 Assessment when leading teams requires a collection of data/metrics and the analyzing the entire pipeline from contributions of individual team members, the maturity of the team, and the progress of the work.

05:03 Training during an ongoing project is challenging and requires innovative techniques for team development: taking advantage of downtime, collaboration among team members, shadowing and knowledge share, lunch-and-learns, scheduled with backup, internships, and others.

09:42 Does the need for training change when working with virtual teams? The industry is getting better at this given the development of remote management tools and the maturing of teams' use of the tools.

12:48 What can you as a project manager do when the team and project are progressing well? What are some opportunities to develop individuals? to develop teams? to develop self?

17:26 When projects are progressing well, it provides time to practice more effective delegation and stakeholder engagement strategies, to spend more time with the team(s). You should take advantage of every opportunity to continue your development as a leader of teams.

20:18 Above all, your main task is to create that motivating team environment for excellent project success.

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome focus on the challenges of leading virtual teams. They emphasize the importance of understanding workplace culture's impact on productivity and explore five crucial elements for improving team performance: clarity of role, optimizing team members' strengths, fostering development opportunities, cultivating strong coworker relationships, and establishing a common mission. The discussion highlights the significant role managers play in influencing these factors, particularly in a remote work environment, and shares practical tips and tools for effective remote team management. Key strategies include leveraging technology for better communication and engagement, encouraging team members to support one another, and maintaining a focus on the project's common goals. In all of this they continue their quest of enhancing project delivery by addressing the human side of project management.

Main Take-Aways

1) Project managers have the greatest influence on the productivity of their teams over any other factor.

2) There are five critical elements for workplace productivity to be considered for IT project teams, whether onsite or working remotely.

3) While remote work offers additional challenges, project managers must enhance their leadership skills to be equally effective when their teams are virtual.

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Strategies for Mastering Remote Project Management

00:27 Exploring remote team management – how do you lead and manage virtual teams effectively? Especially when you don't have that face-to-face interaction with your teams. In remote settings, so much of an individuals' body language is obscured.

03:06 Exploring the impact of workplace culture on productivity, and managers' direct control and influence over this.

05:28 Five crucial elements for enhancing productivity:

• Clarity of roles
• Providing opportunity for team members to do what they do best
• Providing opportunities to develop their skills
• Strong co-worker relationships
• Common mission or purpose

Project managers have as much as 70% of the influence on making these elements happen.

10:57 Navigating the challenges of remote work – the incentive is reduced costs, but the reality is that managers are poorly equipped to handle remote teams. It takes discipline (for both team members and the PM).

Is it a tools issue? Or do we as PMs need to learn how to deal with this in a better way? Can we influence those five crucial elements discussed earlier in a virtual situation?

17:15 Merv and Tim argue for the fact that there should be almost no difference in managing face-to-face versus remotely. Building professional relationships in a remote setting is even more critical as it cannot be assumed as when the team is onsite all together.

18:10 Empowering team members to support each other remotely is helpful to maintain team cohesiveness and collaboration.

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome emphasize the importance of technical competence in project leaders, allowing them to inspire confidence and efficiently lead their teams towards success. The discussion highlights the need for a balance between leadership and management skills, and how these skills must be adapted to suit the unique challenges presented by IT projects. They explore the concepts of team responsibility, delegation, and the vital role of project managers in ensuring project deliverables meet objectives, especially in a remote work environment. Additionally, they touch upon servant leadership and its relevance to both agile and predictive project management. The goal is to improve project outcomes by focusing on the human aspects of project management.

Main Take-Aways

1) Project managers who are strong leaders exhibit both strong management and leadership capabilities.

2) IT project managers need all the skills of any business leader plus skills specific to information technology.

3) Self-organizing teams still require strong project leadership.

4) IT project managers need to develop additional leadership skills when handling a remote work force.

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Leveraging Leadership Skills for Successful IT Project Management

00:27 Diving deep into leadership of IT project teams; leading IT project teams has its own challenges and characteristics.

01:48 Two particularly good examples of IT project managers – leaders who could easily move between and exhibit both management and leadership on the project. They were also technically competent and able to get into detail.

04:19 Managing and leading IT project teams means managing the technical components of scope, schedule, cost, quality, risk, etc. and leading the teams by making it easier for them to perform.

Project managers need to have the generic leadership capabilities expected of any person in a leadership role PLUS additional leadership skills specific to IT projects.

07:51 Skills specific to the IT project leader include:

• Helping stakeholders understand the benefits of technology
• Maintaining stakeholder engagement in the project
• Handling team members' training requirements in the midst of the constraints of project delivery
• Encouraging continuous improvement

11:31 The necessity of leadership in self-organizing teams seems to be incompatible with the concept of self-organization. The leader needs to:

• Assure the "big picture" is always in view
• Manage stakeholders and decision makers
• Integrate all project activities
• Intercede between stakeholders and the project team
• Resolve conflicts
• Develop decision-making frameworks
• Assure team member development and training

Self-organizing does not mean no leadership; it means no constant supervision.

15:31 In remote work situations, the role of the project leader becomes even more complex.

17:22 Servant leadership has become an important consideration in IT project management. A servant leader focuses on team members' growth, development, and relationship. Project leaders who exhibit servant leadership deliver projects with greater success and have more satisfied project teams.