Hello, I am Klas Skogmar from Sweden. I work as a methodology specialist and help organizations to improve the way they work with project, program and portfolio management.
I also hold seminars and teach courses in these areas and I’m here to talk a little bit about governance.
Project governance is something that restricts management; it limits how managers can manage things. Governance can be things like:
-policies
-processes
-roles are responsibilities,
but it can also be softer things like culture, as that also restricts how a manager can manage in an organization.
It’s very, very important to understand how projects are being governed in an organization and how we can use governance to govern the organization, because that is one of the most important ways you can influence management in the organization.
If you’re not going to influence the management in the organization with governance, you need to manage everything yourself. So if you want to write a policy, you can ensure that people behave in a certain way without directly managing everything in detail.
So that’s why governance is so important and that’s the basic description of what governance is.
Dr. Deasún Ó Conchúir (pronounce) is a Collaboration Consultant at Scatterwork, which supports Project Solutions for Virtual Teams.
“Everyone has to do everything in virtual teams” – a short video from Scatterwork.com.
Here is a project scenario: the team do all the technical work they have been assigned,they ask for the constraints and requirements and then they focus on the work. In the same scenario, the project manager specifies the technical work and delegates it to the team and manages the external communications, for example with stakeholders, and watches for issues and interacts if something seems to be going wrong. But this can be a particular problem for a Virtual Team.
If for example the work was not specified or understood correctly and the other person is not nearby, this may not be noticed. Or the project manager is not aware of some issue at another location; they ask for work which, for some reason, genuinely can’t be done.Or maybe the project manager cannot act due to overload or illness, and nobody notices because they’re not in the same place.
So what is a good solution?
Simply stated, “everyone has to do everything in virtual teams” but maybe we could fine-tune that and say “everyone needs to take joint responsibility in virtual teams” for watching the deliverable of the entire team or maybe we could fine-tune that again and say that “The individuals within the team need to take joint responsibility, much more than they would in a co-located team”.
If this does not happen and something goes wrong, nobody from another site notices and then the project suffers. So if you have any project issues you would like to discuss, please connect with me through LinkedIn or any of the other methods.
Thank you.
Dr. Deasún Ó Conchúir (pronounce) is a Collaboration Consultant at Scatterwork, which supports Project Solutions for Virtual Teams.
‘How to keep everyone on the same page’ a short video from gd.scatterwork.com. In team work commitments matter, colleagues undertake work expected that the others will also deliver and of course this principle applies to life in general not just a business.
So commitments are important and we share them by a combination of person-to-person communication and keeping the commitment visible. So to keep it visible or to keep everyone on the same page, we publish the team commitments in a format that is easy to read, easy to find and easy to review.
If we do this we can keep their commitments in front of people’s eyes but if the commitment is deep inside some document after several clicks it will never be rates and of course we give praise friend praises due to people who meet their commitments and we do that in public.
So to discuss your project issues please contact with me over LinkedIn or any of the other methods.
Thank you.
Dr. Deasún Ó Conchúir (pronounce) is a Collaboration Consultant at Scatterwork, which supports Online Training for Project Management & Team Building.
Document Version Control is important,right? – a short video from Scatterwork.com. One way of creating problems in the working environment is to collect information that others need, to put it into a version of a document, to pass it on to them but if the information is not correct then that creates problems for the person who gets it. Either they do the wrong thing, that takes their time, they have to sort out the mess and go back or they can’t do their work at all.
So maybe to avoid problems we could think of version control in a more emotional way and say “don’t mess things up for others”. When you pass the information, don’t pass problems to them but make sure that they have the right version of it, and this means all the time: attention to detail.
So if you want to discuss this or any other project issues please connect with me through LinkedIn or any of the other methods.
Thanks very much. Dr. Deasún Ó Conchúir (pronounce) is a Collaboration Consultant at Scatterwork, which supports Project Solutions for Virtual Teams.
This video from Scatterwork is entitled “Don’t risk being late!” We are talking about projects where the triple constraint is well known. I was once talking to somebody who put it this way. He said “in a project you can have it quick or you can have a cheap or you can have it good.” The punchline is: Which two of those do you want? There are other parameters but usually these are the three important ones. Sponsors need to be pinned down and say of the three which two they want. if they say they want all three,that’s not very realistic. All companies have some way of controlling budgets, money, expenditure and so forth so the “cheap” part is covered by the normal process. In the same way, most companies have some sort of quality approach, quality control and so forth. That corresponds to the “good” constraint.
So that leads us to the conclusion that for a lot of project managers,the thing that we need to prioritize is Time. We look after time and then the system’s look after the other ones. So if you’re interested in these topics or want to discuss your own project, please
connect with me through LinkedIn or any other way. Thanks very much!
Dr. Deasún Ó Conchúir (pronounce) is a Collaboration Consultant at Scatterwork, which supports Project Solutions for Virtual Teams.
This is the second short video based on the keynote presentation to the PMI Serbia Chapter Project Society Conference in Belgrade in September 2015.
In this section we’re talking about personal experiences of virtual teams and I’m presenting five of them: the first one involved a research team where everybody was in one city. We used to meet from time to time and in fact physically whenever we could. What was interesting was that when somebody was absent, they joined the meeting by Skype. One time one of the participants instead of being in Switzerland was in China and I hadn’t been notified in advance. I turned up to the meeting, asked where he was and someone said “oh that’s all right; he’ll join in anyway”. With that sort of environment where people are very used to using their smartphones, the interactions and the development of the project can be really very speedy, very fast compared to the old way of doing projects, where people used to hold their decisions until they actually met face to face.
A second format that I experienced involved bringing people together in the chapters of the Project Management Institute over all of EMEA, in other words from South Africa right up to Finland, which involves about a hundred and twenty countries. But this turned out to be particularly difficult because I think the people did not know each other. They spoke different languages, they had different cultures but there were also technical issues, for example some people preferred to join a meeting by telephone, others said yes, that was too expensive but they were quite happy with something like Skype. If you were on telephone, then you couldn’t share the slides and it took a lot of effort even to get consensus on things like how long the meeting should be, how often it should take place and what technology it should use. So that was a very challenging environment.
Another one that I’ve experienced involves PMI volunteers located globally.These people do in fact know each other and they meet each other once a year precisely to get to know each other. It’s called a planning meeting but it would be very hard to work if the people didn’t really know each other. It involves interviewing people and so that coverage can be offered globally.There are three people in each team and any two of them can usually make a meeting, regardless of where the applicant is.
Another format that I worked with was by having all the members of the team in one country.This meant that they shared language, time zone, legal environment and this made the contract issues easier. From time to time there were face-to-face meetings but the international working was limited by the choice of language. If a project is going to be global, it really needs a global language or one that is at least spoken by the vast majority of the people involved.
And a fifth environment that I’ve had contact with was a network of teams. In the previous example it was a network of individuals but this has a disadvantage that if one person is away, than their skill-set drops out and they don’t really have anyone that they can brief. But by having contacts along the same lines but with teams means that when something needs to be covered, then another person in the team can be briefed and brought in. Also if there are problems or challenges or arguments, then it’s easier to change the people involved because there are more people there and that makes it easier to resolve.
However a feature of this type has been commercial differences an some of them very much unexpected. For example, between Europe and the United States there are very different ways of using banks. United States people use checks a lot; in Europe they have been superseded by electronic transfers completely. People publish their bank account number because all you can do with it is put money into it. In the United States there is a preference not to publish bank account numbers. So those sort of things can mean that the commercial interaction is that little bit more difficult.
So if you wish to discuss any of your own project issues with me please, to connect through all the usual methods either through our website at gd.scatterwork.com and email phone, call or connecting by LinkedIn. I look forward to hearing from you, thank you.
Dr. Deasún Ó Conchúir (pronounce) is a Collaboration Consultant at Scatterwork, which supports Project Solutions for Virtual Teams.
Icebreaker games are something that you would normally do in a collocation.
Today we’re going to do that online in an online meeting, something quite different. Some of the things you’ll see on the screen are cues for us to be able to have some fun together. We can see which locations we are from; we can see Macdara is in Switzerland. I also have a fortune cookie; everyone gets a fortune cookie, another item for us to discuss before we start the game.
Once all participants are online (we can have up to 10 participants) we will go ahead and start the icebreaker game. I just get a warning saying that people won’t be able to start, if I start it.
The first element which we are going to do is something called the dream vacation,talk about her dream vacation together; that’s the name of this particular ice-breaker and everyone has an opportunity to type in what their dream vacation will be.
I’ve got mine pre-done. I’ll go ahead, and type it in, as well as my friend will also type theirs in. Once I’m done typing, I hit continue – its waiting for everyone to do their responses.
On this screen we get to find out who’s done which dream vacation. Obviously with two people it doesn’t make as much sense as if you had five or ten people on the screen. I’m going to go ahead make my guess and say that I like it and then I continue on to the next screen and I’m waiting for my friend – there we go.
As the moderator I get to choose to expand on my experience. In this particular instance I’ve always wanted to go to Tahiti. I want to experience the local culture, be able to do some scuba diving, just see as much as I can about the islands. I’m not much of a beach dweller so I wouldn’t spend too much time there.
Once I hit next it goes on to the next individual to expand on their experience. They would talk about how they wanted to go to the north pole before it melts and when that person is done they hit next and that goes in the same same way through all the participants. So Macdara, go ahead and hit next.
Then we get a summary of what’s happening. We can see who’s done what, who’s got correct guesses.
There’s been “likes” received. Once we get to this stage we’re able to continue with our meeting more invigorated. We’ve been able to learn a little bit more about each other.
I’ve learned quite a bit about co-workers like this. I learned that I’ve got friends that are pilots that I never knew are pilots before; that were certified scuba divers I never realized that before so it’s been an excellent experience for me.
I hope you enjoyed it thank you, Gerard Beaulieu of Virtualicebreakers.com.
Scatterwork supports Project Solutions for Virtual Teams.
Hello! Here’s another short video from Scatterwork, this time about errors in work and using good communication to solve them.
In a project environment there are deliverables to be delivered, in other words there is work to be done; it has to be done the right way; in the right place, at the right time and so on and the big challenge is usually to fit everything together.
Very often the technology is well known and the company is doing projects similar to the last time so it’s really this meeting of minds which is the hardest part.
Well, we want to understand what the other person is saying and they want to understand what we are saying. They say that there are three different ways of learning; three ways we can think of communicating.
One way of learning is by sound. For example I knew somebody who used to remember telephone numbers by the tone that the dial used to do; they used to have a tone for every number and she used to remember the tune.
She was a musician and that was her way of communicating.
Other people are very vision oriented and it’s much easier for them to understand what’s happening if they get a little picture and this is why PowerPoint slides are so successful.
And then another way of learning is by movement; for example if we say “we’d like you to make a picture of this” and you draw it. The actual doing of that somehow communicates with our body and it helps the memory.
Now, with virtual teams we don’t have that third one but we do have the first two. So what I would suggest is to use a combination of communication styles and to stimulate a combination from the people that we’re trying to understand so that we really understand what they’re saying.
We can get our ideas together and then agree what needs to be done.
Thanks very much.
Dr. Deasún Ó Conchúir (pronounce) is a Collaboration Consultant at Scatterwork, which supports Project Solutions for Virtual Teams.
Hi I’m Howard Esbin and I’m a co-creator of a creative trust game for virtual teams called Prelude.
Prelude is a facilitated game for virtual teams that accelerates trust and improves collaboration prior to a new project, training program or educational course. Basically, it improves visual thinking.
The features of the game: In one system there are five human development tools.
-There’s a component for character assessment.
-There’s a component for EQ development or social-emotional skill development, soft skills is another term for it.
-A collaborative team building component.
-A diversity training component and
-a creative training component, all in this one system.
And underpinning the game system and design are twenty virtual team best practices that we’ve identified through original research.
The game process is a facilitated series of activity modules as you see illustrated.
There are four modules in total and the purpose of the process is to take team members from an I-centric perspective to a sense of “we as a team, as a whole” with an awareness of how each member thinks and communicates distinctively and an awareness of how the team as a whole, through this creative activity can best draw upon their shared diverse skill sets.
The benefits are very simple:
There’s strengthened soft skills for that virtual team, improved communication,a better appreciation of diverse assets, an enhanced positive team mental model of itself, more effective collaboration and as a consequence increased well-being.
Thank you very much.
Dr. Deasún Ó Conchúir (pronounce) is a Collaboration Consultant at Scatterwork, which supports Project Solutions for Virtual Teams.
Project Bias or how our psychology undermines perceptions and decisions.
Projects are meant to be diligent,almost scientific undertakings with carefully planned business cases, weighted risks and detailed procedures and governance. But the reality is that everyone is biased and these biases affect the way we see the world, the assumptions we make and the basis for all our decisions.
The problem with any bias is when it’s unconscious. If you know for example that you tend to be over-optimistic in your view of the future,then you can make sure other people know this about you and you can take particular care to make sure you have mitigated any risks may cause.
My name is Jonathan Norman. I’m the publisher at Gower Publishing and I’m going to share a couple of striking examples of project bias and offer you some advice on how to deal with it.
We all like to believe what we want to believe and as a result we all fall foul of confirmation bias from time to time.
Arguably project managers are more prone than others because there’s so much pressure to provide hard evidence when he you’re making a business case or advocating a change.
Essentially confirmation biases are inclination to put unjustified weight behind selected pieces of evidence because they support or confirm some aspect of our Project. I suspect that illusion of control is the most challenging bias for project managers not least because people expect us to be in control.
But don’t ever be tempted to assume that because you’re planning your schedule map out the way a project will run that you control the project.
Remember, if you ever find your risk riding superhuman power to your ability to deliver outcomes the benefits associated with your project and only be realized by the users and if you think you can control customers, employees or other users,then clearly you are deluding yourself.
In many situations including projects, people resist change and this is a really compelling reason to do it, most often because we believe the changes will make things worse.
Look at the recent FIFA elections and the re-election Sepp Blatter. How many of those voting were more concerned about what the absence of Sepp might do to the continued commercial success of FIFA and investment in football in their country than they were by the prospect of a fifth term with Sepp.
I’m not telling you about project bias to trip you up or make you feel bad about yourself or other people but here are five simple tactics you can use to mitigate the problem.
The first thing is to recognize that project bias happens. Everyone is subject to bias.
Secondly, try to keep things simple. Bias is far more apparent in situations where decisions and solutions are transparent.
Thirdly, ask yourself what happens if i’m wrong or if we are wrong. Just because something is unlikely doesn’t mean it will never happen. Make sure you have a backup plan.
Fourthly, check the sources of your information. Risk registers and benefit maps can look imposing and authoritative but to what extent are they based simply on someone’s perception as opposed to actual research.
Finally be suspicious of your bias, particularly if it is pronounced and particularly if you’re dealing with a genuinely new situation but it’s hard to categorize on the basis of prior knowledge. But don’t discount you bias out of hand. Biases are developed from our experience of prior events so they can be very useful radar systems if something is going wrong.
Thank you for listening.
Dr. Deasún Ó Conchúir (pronounce) is a Collaboration Consultant at Scatterwork, which supports Project Solutions for Virtual Teams.
