Self reflection is critical to project success. So, for the final post of 2011, I offer this short, multi-part post.
Looking back
I took some time and read all the articles I’ve posted here over the past six months. These three resonate with me the most. Feel free to take a minute and buzz through them one more time (or for the first time, if you missed them originally):
Looking forward
My own project, building the SagePoint Workforce Management Solution, is going through a period of rapid growth. We expect to announce our first partnership in Q1. Since project communication is critical to project success, we're replacing the screenshots on our home page and information page with videos – after all, if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a million. Q1 will also see some new personnel coming on board to support all aspects of the business.
The lesson learned for me this year is one that’s proven to be true over and over again: perseverance is what turns the achievable into the achieved.
Optimize your workforce and achieve your business goals in 2011. Sign up for a free trial of SagePoint today.
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There are two major variables that maximize your project team's effectiveness:
- Evaluate candidates accurately and efficiently. Place the right skill sets in the right places at the right time.
- Once placed, provide the tools and environment to maximize the project team’s productivity.
The tools may change and evolve over time, but are easy to provide. The project environment is much more challenging to get right.
What’s the correct number of team meetings to ensure proper collaboration? What’s the right frequency of status meetings so progress can be reported? How many one-on-one meetings should be held to ensure activities align with goals?
The right number might be exactly zero.
Zero Meetings = Project Success
Jason Fried, founder of the project collaboration tools company 37Signals, makes the following observation about work: it’s like sleep. There are five phases of sleep. Each phase is successively more intense and restorative than the last. If you get interrupted during the progression, you don’t pick up where you left off: you start back at the beginning.
Like sleep, large blocks of uninterrupted time are the only way to get to the most productive work phases. And every time a meeting is called, the progression of your team members’ work phases is threatened.
In this TED talk, Jason describes this phenomenon in detail and offers alternative methods of simultaneously enabling collaboration while maximizing efficiency – without meetings.
Take 10 minutes and watch it now. Then, cancel your next meeting!
Now that you've maximized your project team's effectiveness, maximize your own efficiency in evaluating the project team members. Download our free resource evaluation tool.
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