TSE006 Project Leadership

Course Description

Many of us who lead projects, earned the responsibility by being high performers in our “regular jobs”.   Yet, we all know somebody who was a great technician or great worker but did not make the best project manager/leader. Those folks, however, are not always at fault.  They were probably never trained in the core competencies of Project Management or given the tools needed to lead a project and its staff.

Beyond the ‘normal’ leadership issues, in projects, we need to deal with the additional stresses of team members who don’t report to the project manager (for their “regular jobs”), team members who come from different departments, divisions or locations (near and far!), team members with priorities that do not align with those of the project and many more.  Leading a matrix or cross-functional task force is much different than leading a fixed team.  The practical tools, techniques and concepts provided here are reinforced and practiced with real-world project situations, exercises, and checklists.  A major goal of this workshop is to have participants able to readily apply key leadership and management concepts in their projects, in order to succeed even with limited formal authority.

The workshop follows and reinforces the PMI® (Project Management Institute) related knowledge areas. Upon completion of the program, participants involved with PMI® and the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Professional – PMP program earn 8 PDUs or “Contact hours”. 

Upon completion of this workshop, each participant will be able to:

In addition to specialized discussions about Project Management, participants are exposed to some foundational management, supervisory and leadership concepts, and techniques.  Instructional methods for this full day course are lecture, discussion, individual and case study exercises, specialized individual testing, critique, and action plans. 

Course Outline

  1. Introduction and Course Objectives
  2. Leadership
    1. What is Leadership 
    2. What is Management
    3. Leadership vs. Management
    4. Qualities of Effective Leaders
    5. Leadership styles
    6. Skills needed to lead
    7. What kind of Leader/Manager am I?
  3. Building Project Teams
    1. What’s a team? (Is there really no “I” in Team?)
    2. Where is everybody (on-site or virtual)?
    3. The Obvious need for team building
    4. Who’s really in control?
    5. Synergy
    6. Traditional Team-building Steps (Seems to have been around forever, but it still works!)
      1. Forming
      2. Storming
      3. Norming
      4. Performing
    7. The Team-building Process
      1. Planning to build or “corral” your team
      2. Organizing the team - Structure
      3. Communications within the team
      4. Effective tools and techniques
    8. The Virtual Team-building Steps
  4. Motivating the People on Your Team
    1. Sources of influence
    2. Theory X / Theory Y
    3. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
    4. Personality types
    5. The importance of Trust
    6. Motivating people who don’t work for you!
    7. Motivating remote team members
  5. Establishing the Right Project Environment
    1. Delegation vs. Doing
      1. Projects
      2. Work-packages
      3. The Individual
      4. The Team
    2. Leading a Matrix Project Team
    3. Leading a Cross-Functional/Task Force
    4. Supporting Each Other
    5. The Virtual Team
    6. Identifying and Dealing with (and avoiding) Issues
  6. Building Consensus
    1. Working together (Face-to-face)
    2. Working apart (Virtual – Agile anyone?)
    3. Consensus across teams and even continents (Cross-functional)
    4. The incredibly important issue of Trust!
    5. Importance of a "Partnership" relationship
      1. Rapport
      2. Business partner characteristics
      3. Building the partnership
      4. Partners from afar
  7. Symptoms of Poor Leadership/Management
    1. Sources of conflict (how sources change during the project)
    2. Communications and Team Breakdowns (and too many surprises)
    3. Conditions in that can lead to conflict
    4. Micromanaging
    5. Managing conflict
      1. Conflict management modes
      2. Resolving conflict
      3. Strategies for handling two-person conflict
  8. Conclusion
    1. Review Major Topics/Issues
    2. Participants Critique Class
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