Take me to your Leader

Make an introduction to your Head of Projects, Services Lead, PMO Manager, CIO or anyone overseeing your project community and I’ll send a free copy of my new book to you and your manager/director/VP

 

Challenging the C-Level Executives

How to get Fired at the C-level goes beyond the constraints of a book.

To that end the author offers some focused workshops, keynote presentations and insightful supporting education to help organisations achieve the success in strategic change that they desire, and to help C-level executives understand the challenge and benefit from the opportunity.

This is all about bringing a reality check to your executive team, and help can be found right here.

If your organisation or team needs a short sharp executive ‘scare’ session (or reality check) then Peter Taylor can deliver this, customised for your organisation, your executive team and the time available.

If you need to take it to the next level of detail, then the author offers two specific workshops based on his book.

Both can be customised to suit your audience’s needs and indeed, a fully customised engagement can be proposed if you feel your organisation requires something very specific in order to help you look at what you should be considering and doing to make sure your change, your projects, your organisation and you are still around for the foreseeable future.

Workshop 1: Executives – stop failing your projects!

Yes! You read that right – not ‘Executives – stop your failing projects’ but ‘Executives – stop failing your projects’.

The report Why good strategies fail: Lessons for the C-suite published by The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited in 2013 stated in its conclusion that there was a need for increased C-suite attention to implementation (and therefore projects). It said, ‘Leadership support is the most important factor in successful strategy execution, yet a substantial number of survey respondents indicate that the C-suite is insufficiently involved’.

This is why I make the loud and bold challenge that executives are failing their projects and why I strongly believe the situation needs to stop – now!

The workshop will explore the true value of your strategic change portfolio (projects) – which will probably be bigger than you think – and will explain why it, you and your organisation are at real risk of failure (and wasting a lot of that financial investment).

What you should do about this critical situation is, of course, explained simply. The two key actions you need to take to avoid strategic change failure will be introduced, making this undertaking far less onerous than it would have been had you attempted it solo.

 

Workshop time                                           1 to 3 hours^[1]

Participants                                                 C-level executives and senior project leaders

 

Workshop 2: Two key actions you need to take to avoid strategic change failure

If you are concerned about strategic change failure, and by association your portfolio of projects, then there are two key actions that can dramatically de-risk this potential situation.

Step 1: Strategies for project sponsorship

It is stated in the Standish Chaos Report, amongst many others, including PMI’s ‘Pulse of the Profession’, that the sponsor is the person who is ultimately responsible for the success (or failure) of the project, who represents the business and the business change. And yet, there is a chasm in many organisations between this statement and the reality of the professionalism and associated investment in development of those active sponsors.

We will explore the current challenges of project sponsorship maturity and offer some techniques for creating an effective sponsorship community as one of the two foundations of project success.

Step 2: Building the best PMO

Here will explore the true value of a good PMO in guiding project success and supporting the sponsor community in the management of the portfolio of project change.

We explore what is meant by a balanced PMO, a design developed by Peter, as well as presenting a new working model for project management excellence with the project academy concept.

This all adds up to a critical second foundation for project success.

The workshop will be an interactive experience with first-hand case study insights and the opportunity to spend some time with one of the world’s most experienced PMO leaders.

Workshop time                                           2 to 3 hours^[2]

Participants                                                 C-level executives, senior project leaders, sponsors and PMO leaders

The workshops are standalone but related and follow the journey from strategy investment through to the key foundations of change/project success.

Also available are keynote presentations based on this book, on project sponsorship and PMO leadership.

Peter Taylor

Known as The Lazy Project Manager, Peter Taylor is a project management office (PMO) expert.

He is currently leading a global team of more than 200 project managers acting as custodians for more than 5,000 projects around the world from Kronos Inc., a billion-dollar software organisation delivering workforce management solutions.

Peter is also the author of eighteen books, including the number 1 bestselling project management book, The Lazy Project Manager. In the last four years he has delivered more than 200 lectures around the world on his mission to show people how to work smarter, not harder in their quest for career success.

www.thelazyprojectmanager.com and http://tailwindps.com/how-to-get-fired-at-the-c-level/

[1] Workshop timing can be customised to the availability of the audience – the shorter workshop focuses only on the high-level issues with minimal interaction time permitted, the longer workshop allows for a ‘deeper dive’ and with audience interaction and discussion

[2] Again, here the workshop timing can be customised to the availability of the audience – with the longer workshop allowing for some audience interaction and discussion

Puppy Love

It is OK, you can relax – I am not launching in to a version of the (in)famous Donnie Osmond song, but the house has a new puppy.

Well to be brutally honest, after only 7 days, it is really that the puppy has a new house since pretty much everything revolves around this 4 lb bundle of chaotic energy and general cuteness.

Even I, who didn’t want a dog – we have cats; cats are easy, arrogant and aloof but they show you just enough love to make sure you keep feeding them and keep the central heating on in the winter for them – yes, even I, must admit that ‘puppy’ is quite the charmer.

But my goodness has it caused disruption in the house by its arrival. The general mess, noise, piles of incredibly annoying squeaky toys (why do they have to make that awful sound), training pads lying in nearly every room and two very, very grumpy cats stalking outside are just some of the impact results. Life as usual is on hold right now.

But we will get there, it will all settle down eventually.

Anyway, you know, it reminded me of something I teach about project teams.

Long ago, Bruce Tuckman defined the stages of teams as ‘forming, storming, norming and performing’ (and now ‘mourning’ as well as project teams disband quickly and move on to other projects and other teams) – I am sure you all know about this – it has been around since 1965 (the fifth stage was added in the 1970s) – but if you don’t know this model then you should, start here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Tuckman

But the part many project managers forget is that project teams do not (usually) all gather on day one of a project and disband on day ‘x’ at the end, instead resources come and go throughout the project and this therefore has the result of multiple disruptions to the ‘forming, storming, norming and performing’ process.

Don’t believe me? Then get a puppy…

The point is, you may have formed your core project team and successfully navigated the storming phase, normalised and might well be in that beautiful performing phase being incredibly productive when bam! A new key subject matter expert team is called in and, through no malicious intent on their part, drags the team backwords in to the storming phase most likely.

Just think about this when significant new resources come on board, and be prepared. The closer your team is the faster you will progress back to the norming stage but there will be a few days of rough progression more than likely.

And as for the puppy – I should use its name shouldn’t I – the puppy, ‘Pretzel’, will no doubt settle down, the house will settle down and normality (a new normality for sure) will resume.

Pretzel may not be the love of my life but it is rising the ranks fast damn its cute puppy fluff, deep dark eyes (it is always the eyes isn’t it), and general licky love.

I am sure I didn’t want a dog.

 

 

 

Peter Taylor

Peter Taylor is a PMO expert currently leading a Global PMO, with 200 project managers acting as custodians for nearly 5,000 projects around the world, for Kronos Inc. – a billion-dollar software organisation delivering Workforce Management Solutions.

Peter Taylor is also the author of the number 1 bestselling project management book ‘The Lazy Project Manager’, along with many other books on project leadership, PMO development, project marketing, project challenges and executive sponsorship.

In the last 4 years he has delivered over 200 lectures around the world in over 25 countries and has been described as ‘perhaps the most entertaining and inspiring speaker in the project management world today’.

His mission is to teach as many people as possible that it is achievable to ‘work smarter and not harder’ and to still gain success in the battle of the work/life balance.

More information can be found at www.thelazyprojectmanager.com – and through his free podcasts in iTunes.