by Daniel Raymond | Apr 23, 2012 | Project Closure
The Project is Done – Now What?
By James M Shaffer
It has been 18 long months since this project started, and now it is done with just a few small details waiting to close out. There is only one remaining question, now what?
There is one thing that I’d like to focus on for this post, the closing meeting.
After so many days and weeks and months on this project, it seemed anti-climatic to just end the project by simply stopping work. Besides, I would not be doing my part to really wrap it up the right way. So, I invited all 25 team members and other stakeholders to a long, but not grueling, meeting to finish things up. The agenda looked like this:
- Welcome
- Project Overview (we also had a pot-luck to break it up a little during this time)
- Accomplishments (including value adds)
- Lessons Learned
- Awards
- Final Thanks
Now this meeting lasted all morning, but after 18 months, 3 more hours was not going to hurt anyone and produced a great pay-off. Read the Complete Article
by Daniel Raymond | Apr 19, 2012 | Leadership
A Look Into Project Leadership
By James M Shaffer
Project leadership and project management go hand in hand, with leadership having perhaps more soft skills than a person who “simply” manages a project by following some sort of process. I have written several posts about the difference between management and leadership so I won’t get into that topic here. I use the term leader rather than manager because I believe it takes both to be truly successful. Of course, only you can define your success but what others think of your success should play into your definition at least a little, especially your boss.
Project leadership can take on many forms and definitions; there are many widely accepted principles and disciplines to keep you up-to-date on the specific ins and outs of your area of expertise. I will not get into these specifics here. Instead, I want to get into the general skills that it takes to keep you into a project leadership role. Read the Complete Article
