Team Management Archives - Project Management Insights

Productivity tools for your project team

October 21, 2017October 21, 2017 by Karen

Productivity tools should be something you consider using for your team, especially with remote workers. These days with the agility and stability of technology we often end up with Project Team members working across many sites. Having these workers on your team is a great benefit. It can also feel like it makes your job … Read moreProductivity tools for your project team

How to Improve Teamwork

April 12, 2019May 8, 2017 by Karen

Do you often wish you could improve teamwork on your project team? You may notice that people or groups don’t work together. It may seem as if they are working in opposition to each other. This doesn’t help you when you have a project to deliver. Why there are opposite views of what the world … Read moreHow to Improve Teamwork

How to run effective project meetings

April 2, 2017April 2, 2017 by Karen

When you manage a project you want to run effective project meetings. It is important because… -> wasting project resources time costs money, -> wasted time impacts on your delivery schedule, -> staff working on the project want information they can easily digest, -> effective meetings gain buy-in. Six tips for running effective meetings #1. Consider … Read moreHow to run effective project meetings

Why byte size information sharing is valuable

April 2, 2017April 1, 2017 by Karen

There are many online tools available these days to support project team collaboration. With social media such a part of everyone’s life, many people are used to byte size information sharing. People presented with a full load of information, become overwhelmed and don’t read it. I see the future of team collaboration as providing these … Read moreWhy byte size information sharing is valuable

Frustrated with your project team?

April 14, 2016April 14, 2016 by Karen

What is it about your project team that frustrates you the most? I used to find that it was the people who would tell me they were going to deliver something, and then not deliver, They wouldn’t tell me they were having difficulties meeting the deadline we had originally set, they simply didn’t deliver. This … Read moreFrustrated with your project team?

Ways to improve team cohesion

February 27, 2016March 16, 2016 by Karen

Have you considered ways to improve team cohesion? As a Project Manager it is all too easy to get caught up in the day to day of running your project. There are a million and one things that need to be done, you’ve got pressure being put on you from your Senior Executive to deliver, and things may not always be going as well as you would like. Working on assisting the team to work better together is probably the furthest thing from your mind.

Tips for managing political situations

April 2, 2017March 2, 2016 by Karen

How do you manage political situation that cause problems for your project? Here are my tips for managing political situations to get what you need. Political situations arise when there are people or groups that feel they have power over others. Do you see people within your team or the broader context of the business … Read moreTips for managing political situations

Ways to bridge generation gaps on your team

February 24, 2016September 30, 2015 by Karen

Do you have perceived generation gaps between workers on your project team? You know what I mean, younger team members who don’t listen to older more experienced team members. Older and more experienced team members who won’t listen to the younger and newer team members. Do these ‘differences’ mean that their are issues with the … Read moreWays to bridge generation gaps on your team

Dealing with passive aggressive team members

August 17, 2015May 12, 2015 by Karen

Do you identify that you have ‘passive aggressive’ team members on your project team?

How to re establish trust the right way

August 17, 2015April 7, 2015 by Karen

Do you have any idea how to re-establish trust the right way? Trust is something that you feel in a way that it’s hard to describe. You know it exists, or you don’t.

You trust one person in your team and not trust a number of others. This impacts on your ability, as the Project Manager, to get things done, and it costs your project both time and money.

Project team roles and responsibilities

August 17, 2015February 6, 2015 by Karen

A project team is like a mini organisation where understanding of roles and responsibilities is important
If you look at a project as a mini organisation and consider that it is very important that the people working in your ‘mini organisation’ fully understand their roles and responsibilities, just as is the case in any organisation or business, then this might help alleviate some issues that you may have with teamwork and delivery output.

How do you collaborate?

August 17, 2015September 25, 2014 by Karen

The ability to collaborate as a project team is the key to it’s success. As the Project Manager you need to ensure that collaboration across the team is easy and working.

For the past four months I have been using a collaboration tool for my own projects. There are a number of these tools available in the market, each with similar and different features.

I’m going to talk about my own personal experiences of using Xtrant so that you gain some idea of the value that I see in using this sort of tool.

Project teams perform like a Premiership team

August 17, 2015September 12, 2014 by Karen

After watching sporting teams playing in the finals (and ultimately the Grand Final) I realised that there is a strong connection between these high performing teams and project teams that perform well and succeed. How you may ask?

Project team culture is important

August 17, 2015September 10, 2014 by Karen

I’ve spoken before about what I see as the really strong value in creating what I call a ‘One Project Team culture‘ and a discussion that I had today reinforced my views on this principle.

Many projects fail, because there is too much tension around ‘who owns the system’ (business or IT); ‘they don’t deliver’ (and ‘they’ usually refers to the IT team/department; ‘you wanted too much’ (which is IT talking about the business); ‘you didn’t let us do our job’ (again IT talking about the business); ‘we know what’s best’ (IT talking TO the business).

What does it take to manage a project?

August 17, 2015August 29, 2014 by Karen

In my opinion most people don’t really understand what ‘managing’ a project is actually about.

I have seen many project managers who do everything other than actually ‘manage’ what needs to be done in order to deliver the project. And in seeing this occur I also see that the project is usually flailing, falling behind, and there are problems delivering.

So, what does it actually mean to ‘manage’ when we talk in terms of a project.

Communicate your project plan

August 18, 2015August 20, 2014 by Karen

Project managers are taught that if they spend hours developing a good clear and structured project plan, then their project has a better chance of success. Whilst the plan might ‘contribute’ to the success of a project by ensuring that tasks are defined, or at least listed, and there is some method for how the project is going to be run, the plan is only as good as your communication of it.

Are you an ego driven Project Manager?

August 18, 2015April 5, 2014 by Karen

I want to thank all of the ‘ego’ driven project managers out there. Without them I wouldn’t gain such wonderful ideas for my blog posts.

Project individuals vs Project team

August 18, 2015March 16, 2014 by Karen

A project team needs to be a group of individuals all striving for the same outcome. Let’s look at the difference of people that work as individuals on a project versus those that are really working as part of the team.

6 reasons to hold an all team meeting

August 18, 2015January 14, 2014 by Karen

Today I had the privilege of participating in an all team meeting.

This meeting is the first one that has been held for this project. The project has been running for seven months now and at times there have been difficulties with it. The project team operate in two sites, in different cities, so communication is not easy. Whilst project team meetings are held over Video Conference (VC) there isn’t the same ‘one team’ feel as I have had in other project teams, understandably.

6 tips to avoid burnout of IT project teams

August 24, 2015December 1, 2013 by Karen

One key task for a project manager is to manager their resources so as to avoid burnout.

Burnout on projects is quite common these days with so many of them running over time and budget.

This has it’s toll on your project team members in ways that you really don’t want. Here are some tips on how to avoid this burnout (and it might just mean that your project is delivered on time too)

Trust among team members is important

August 18, 2015November 3, 2013 by Karen

Why would trust among team members be important in a project team even more so than in any normal circumstance? Or perhaps I should say, why it is needed even more so than ever? Because in a project team each and every individual contributing to the outcome of the project is reliant on each and every other person for something to ensure successful delivery. It is therefore very important that there is a strong level of trust among the team.