Project Management, Virtual Teams and alternative communication.

 

Project Management is a constantly changing disciple and one that seems more than willing to embrace alternative methods of team management and communication. The concept of virtual teams and tools like, MS Groove, twitter, facebook and the newly released Google Wave and changing the way in which Project Managers can organise and communicate with their teams.

We as Project Managers should be willing to embrace these new technologies because these offer us the ability to communicate with our teams in what amounts to real time without have to be able to get every into the same location. They allow us to simply and easily share information, files and data and to get feed back from other team members in ways that were not possible without these new technologies.

Both Twitter and Facebook give Project Managers the ability to be able to communicate with large groups spread across a disparate locations. They are also a great way to communicate with stakeholders and the wider community about the progress of the project, milestones, issues, and to garner support and create buzz about our projects.

Technologies' like Microsoft Groove, or the newly beta testing Google Wave allow us to even more closely link our teams across different locations. We can have meetings without our team members having to all be sitting around the same table and unlike traditional teleconferencing we can also share files, make changes and get feedback in realtime. This should allow us to spend less time in meetings and more time managing our Projects. We should be able to more quickly communicate changes to schedules and scope, gauge progress and identify and resolve problems more easily than before.

As Project Managers we should be willing to embrace these new technologies as a means of making our projects run more smoothly but we should also never forget the basics of good scope and good scheduling.

Technorati Tags: project management,pmb,pmbok,prince2,google wave,ms goove,twitter,facebook,virtual teams

Positive Communication and Influencing

 

The ability to communicate effectively and influence people, and to do so positively, is something that most of us could do better - and we would be all the better for it.

Generally, it is not something that has been encouraged in us. (Even professional influencers and communicators, such as salespeople, do not always do it positively.) Neither our informal education at home nor our formal education at school and work tends to put sufficient emphasis on it. Yet it is a skill that enables us to achieve more when working with other people and it boosts our personal credibility. So what is it? How can you benefit from it?

What are positive influencing skills?

They are non-manipulative, persuading behaviors. They enable you to achieve more with other people in such a way that they feel good about the interaction with you.

They are vital for modern organizations. After all, if managers have to rely less on their position in the hierarchy and more on their personal credibility, if specialists have to rely less on their technical knowledge and more on their personal credibility, if achieving results relies more on the active involvement of the workforce rather than on their passive acceptance of orders, everyone will need better face-to-face skills.

As managers are so central to many organizations, as they can determine how other people feel and think, let's take them as an example. If, in modern organizations, managers are spending less time giving orders, checking that procedures are being followed and controlling what their staff get up to - what are they doing? One would hope they are:

• instilling the right values in people
• agreeing targets with them
• giving productive feedback
• coaching people
• helping people capitalize on learning opportunities
• resolving differences of opinion
• facilitating two-way communication.

All of these activities require skills that have little to do with the traditional view of motivating down the line; they have instead a lot to do with influencing other people.

Priority Management has a range of training programs to enhance teamwork, communication and leadership  skills.

For information about better Priority Management, go to http://www.prioritymanagement.com.au or contact:

Michael Janz
Phone: +61411 420 918
Email: mjanz@prioritymanagement.com.au

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Janz