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By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions  I love this time of year. The air is crisp and clean, and—this is a bonus for me—there are no more bugs or the need to mow my lawn. For that, I’m VERY thankful! lol Speaking of being thankful, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because it’s a time to reflect on all the things I’m grateful for—good friends, amazing business colleagues and clients, fulfilling volunteer opportunities, and many more blessings I don’t have time to list. And, I’m thankful for those of you who take the time to read my musings. I appreciate you doing so! I aim to provide value in all I do, and I hope that comes through my writing. All that being said, I wish you and your family a HAPPY THANKSGIVING. Whether you’re eating turkey, ham, brisket, or something else, I hope your extended weekend is full of plenty of rest and good memories in the making. ‘til next time, Kathy
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By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions  Most business leaders over the years have experienced the failure of at least one project. In those instances, many executives have looked at what techniques would help to ensure success for future projects. One different way to view these failures is to hone in on what didn’t work in those situations. Flipping the switch on these scenarios can provide valuable insight into what could’ve worked. Along those lines, what are some common mistakes that project managers can avoid to help ensure success? 1. Failing to Think Outside the Box to Avoid Potential Problems Unfortunately, many Project Management (PMs) are so focused on putting out fires instead of thinking outside the box to help prevent the occurrence of possible challenges. Great PMs are tuned into what could potentially go wrong. They are forward-looking, ask questions, and are on the lookout for problems before they ever occur. 2. Prioritizing the Unimportant over the Important Too often, PMs will focus on minutia instead of the most important things: ensuring the client is happy, tracking to budget, and keeping the project on time, to name a few. For instance, it doesn’t matter nearly as much if someone hasn’t updated a chart or properly marked a task as 40% instead of 50% complete. A good PM constantly weighs what’s most important and tackles those items first. 3. Under-utilizing the Best Aspects of the Team When PMs don’t take the time to understand their individual team members’ strengths and weaknesses, this can sabotage the team functioning at more optimum levels. For example, Bob may excel at performing a particular task, but instead, the PM assigns the task to Suzy who isn’t as skilled at that particular job. Also, some team members may require more oversight than others. Finding out these abilities and assigning team members to perform tasks that match those skills can tremendously boost team productivity. 4. Neglecting to Regularly Test Early-On Assumptions At the beginning of projects, PMs often have to make assumptions based on a scarcity of available information. When more data becomes available, it’s important to test and revise assumptions against this information. Failure to do so can result in serious errors that can affect project success. These are a few examples of steps PMs can take to avoid issues that can lead to project failure. Speaking of avoiding failure, Scrum is a wonderful project management approach that helps identify problems before they ever become issues. As a certified Professional Scrum Master, I’ve experienced this reality repeatedly in my line of work. I’ve also seen how the use of Scrum typically decreases the amount of time to finish projects, and it doesn’t matter what type of project it is. If you have any projects that you would like to undertake but have limited internal resources to complete them, or you are stuck in the middle of a project with little hope of moving forward, I’d love to have a conversation with you! In the meantime, check out one of my case studies of how the use of Scrum helped a local manufacturer successfully launch a new product in record time. By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions  Transitions--doesn't life seem to be overflowing with them these days? We all have gone through difficult changes in our lives, some by choice and others not of our choosing. There’s leaving a place, be it a job or physically moving, where we would love to have stayed but couldn’t. And then there are the situations where bridges were burning down all around us, and we couldn’t get off the bridges fast enough! Either way, it’s not fun, but how you handle these situations can make all the difference in the world. For instance, you can:
By doing so, you can leave those situations with high levels of integrity, self-respect, and goodwill. Here are three things you can try towards this end: 1. Recognize When It’s Time to Leave This may seem like a no-brainer, but sometimes when you're in the thick of things, it hard to recognize the signs that it's time to leave. To make my point, how many of us have stayed in a job too long with poor results? It’s happened to me too frequently! Here’s one example: I had just moved to Kansas City, didn’t know anyone, and had to take any job I could find. I landed a role as an admin at a good company. And I must admit that I admire admins for what they do because I am NOT good at it. I had a great boss, so I could tolerate it at the time. Even so, it was time to leave, but I wasn’t too motivated to make the change. Even so, I was experiencing the following:
Out of this experience, I’ve learned to recognize these signs of when it’s time to leave and then to do just that. Here’s my advice: Once you recognize signs like this, carefully consider if it’s time to make a move, and then decide accordingly. If you choose to stay, analyze why you’re experiencing these feelings and work towards a resolution. 2. Try to Keep Your Bridges from Burning Down In this same example, things got intense when new leadership came in. They started me down the path of firing me. Thankfully, I was able to find a great job before they could. Once I told them I was leaving, I decided to prove that I was not the slacker they thought I was. I prepared desktop procedures for my job, even though they didn’t ask me to. Throughout the whole process, I was respectful. I think all of this shocked them! Management accepted my two-week notice and gave me the second week off. Woo hoo! In the end, it paid off! My advice: If you are in a similar situation, be the bigger person--don't burn your bridges. Retaliation and non-conformance will get you nowhere. And you never know, you may have to cross those bridges at a later date. 3. Ensure Continuity Next, do something like what I did. Help the next person coming in to fulfill your responsibilities to be successful. A potential benefit is watching difficult leadership reframe what they think of you! Kill them with kindness, I say! These tips are just scratching the surface. You can do many other things to leave intentionally and graciously. Doing so can bring a sense of satisfaction, self-respect, and higher levels of integrity. And who doesn’t want that? # # # Speaking of burning bridges, many companies feel burned by past IT projects that didn’t succeed and now don’t want to step their toes into the water again anytime soon. That’s one reason why Michael Cantu and I wrote our book, No-Nonsense Digital Transformation! We wrote it with these rightfully cautious leaders in mind. If you’d like to learn how to successfully plan for and execute IT projects, then click the button below! |
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