Expand Your Business Potential at the Microsoft Convergence Conference

Business conferences are one of the best ways to expand your business and bring new life to your company. At Convergence, you will find everything you need to rock your industry, including exciting new Microsoft products, hundreds of sponsors, and potential connections with thousands of other companies.

Convergence is designed to help businesses in the following ways:

#1 Meeting Profitable Connections

Convergence is all about getting to know other top industry leaders from around the world. You will see a wealth of sponsors and even top Microsoft professionals that can partner with your company for a profitable relationship between both companies. Hundreds of businesses are attending the conference and are looking to make connections just like you. The person you meet in the elevator may be your next big client.

#2 Finding New Uses for Microsoft Tools

Participants will learn how to unlock the true potential of all Microsoft products. The tracks in the conference are designed to make your company better. You will find information covering new products like new apps for specific industries, new mobile capabilities, and the best cash management functions.

#3 Learning Out-of-the-box Ideas

All of the speakers at the Convergence conference are top leaders of Microsoft products. The speakers will communicate the new vision of Microsoft and talk about their own experiences with the product. You will find sessions that offer value to the following industries:

Government, education, and healthcare
Professional services
Financial services
Retail
Manufacturing

If you want to take your business to the next level with the help of Microsoft, then you will want to make sure you are able to attend the Convergence conference. Make sure you book your spot early to ensure you can attend and really get the value you need. Click the infographic to learn more about the conference and how you can prepare.

September 25, 2013September 26, 2013 Linky

What does Project Management mean to me – a Project Manager’s sermon

When I was young, a good friend made a prediction to encourage me about finding a job: “you’ll find something that will fit you like a glove”.

That statement became true, once project management found me and I chose to become a project manager.

I want to be a project manager when I grow up

When looking at project management as a profession, little used to be known about what a project manager does and what the typical work day of a project manager looks like. Children never use to say: “I want to be a project manager when I grow up.” Refer to an earlier article about “Take Project Management out of the Box”.

Where it all started

Years ago I started as a project administrator. Then I moved into IT support and I was always chosen to manage all the projects in our division. This is something I enjoyed because it was a natural fit.

As a project manager I’m in the fortunate position to be doing something that suits my abilities and temperament and which complements my core talents and skills. I enjoy the variation provided by being involved in various different projects and teams. It brings excitement when starting something new, as well as satisfaction when bringing a project to successful completion and having formed lasting relationships with the team members.

Being a strong communicator and a person who cares about people, project management has become my destined career where I feel comfortable and I believe that I am making a difference.

I was blessed with the addition of 3 beautiful children that enriched my life to the point that I actually gave up my full-time, permanent position and started to work in contract project management which provided more flexibility to work part-time and still continue with a professional career.

A Mature Profession

Today project managers are making a difference in every aspect of society whether it’s in IT, financial sector, retail, engineering, mining, welfare organisations or public sector and plenty of other industries. A thriving industry in itself has developed around the project management profession with companies providing products, software, training, recruitment and consulting; all with the main objective of making projects more successful in terms of how well they are managed and to provide the outcome and benefits as intended. Project management as a profession has matured.

In recent years young people are actually considering project management as a career with plenty of University and online training being available and offering a relatively well mapped out career path that offers growth opportunities and good compensation.

Blogging as my contribution

As part of my mission to give something back to my community, I have been blogging on Virtual Project Consulting about project management best practices, processes and tools for the past 4,5 years. I reach out to existing and aspiring project managers while offering a hub of recommended resources.

Let’s continue to develop, grow and contribute as this is how we find meaning and where we can continue to make a difference where we are.

P.S. This post is published as part of a first ever project management-related global blogging initiative to publish a post on a common theme at exactly the same time. Over 70 bloggers from Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, UK and the USA have committed to make a blogging contribution and the fruit of their labour is now available all over the web. The complete list of all participating blogs is here so please go and check them out!

About Linky van der Merwe: Linky is the Founder of Virtual Project Consulting. Her mission is to provide project management best practices and to recommend resources to aspiring and existing project managers. A certified project management professional (PMP) with more than 14 years project management experience and a track record of more than 40 successful projects. She is currently working for Microsoft Consulting Services, South Africa.

September 17, 2013September 17, 2013 Linky

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management – Part II: Webinars, Slideshare, Podcasts

For most Project Management professionals social media is already part of their lives. This article will look at Webinars, Slideshare and others and how it is adopted in project management.

Part I of this article, can be found here:

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management.

Part II: Facebook and Yammer

Part II: Blogs and Twitter

Part II: LinkedIn and Google+

Webinars

A webinar is essentially a seminar hosted on the web. It is also used to describe other types of meetings where the participants go to a website to see the presentation material. Participants use their web browser to access a website for that meeting.This is very useful to present a topic to virtual teams attending from different parts of the country or even the world.

Many webinars are hosted weekly covering useful project management topics and contributions from people in the profession. An example is Roeder Consulting for free monthly webinars:

Podcasts

Podcasts are audio files that can be delivered on-demand and regularly through a mechanism that allows people to subscribe to the latest episodes, like RSS. Numerous project management topics are discussed on podcasts that you can download and for existing PMP’s this can count towards PDU’s.

SlideShare.net

SlideShare is a social network site that contains PowerPoint presentations and other documents that users create and upload. Searching on “project management” will find thousands of presentations about project management.

WIKI

The Wiki is likely the oldest platform and it’s a space in which users can add, modify and delete pages and content using a simple mark-up language. One of the more compelling features of a wiki is that its structure and content is created and maintained by the users themselves as it is grows and is being used. Wikis are flexible and can serve as the backbone for a small team’s shared notebook.

YouTube

For the project manager, YouTube offers hundreds of videos on project management methodology. More people prefer video to text with certain types of information. Let your audience know your videos are intended to give them better and more compelling information. If you have distributed teams, set each group up with the means to create video updates. Not only will your status reports be more engaging, but putting faces to names creates a closer, more respectful team.

Refer to the article about 10 social media tools available to project managers for more details about the above mentioned platforms.

Please subscribe to the RSS feed to read more articles from Virtual Project Consulting.

September 11, 2013September 11, 2016 Linky

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management – Part II:LinkedIn, Google+

By Linky van der Merwe

For most Project Management professionals social media is already part of their lives. This article will look at LinkedIn and Google+ and how it is adopted in project management.

Part I of this article, can be found here:

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management.

Part II: Facebook and Yammer

Part II: Blogs and Twitter

As a social networking site for professionals, LinkedIn will help you find experts in project management. There are many project management related interest groups on LinkedIn which you may join. Add yourself to groups and communities that share common interests with you or your business. Then follow and contribute to the discussions. This way you can connect with as many project professionals as you like including experts who can answer questions and provide advice.

When I perform a search for project management groups, there are almost 7000 results, which can be narrowed down by adding more filters. Groups with the most members are displayed at the top and the number of active discussions are also shown.

With LinkedIn you can build your brand and profile to share with others, search for work, get valuable information about searching for work, and expand your network. If you are not actively participating here as a project manager, I encourage you to read “Benefits of using LinkedIn”.

Google+

Most people have a Google profile and it’s very easy to join Google+. There are multiple interest groups to join discussions, watch webinars or even join Google hang-outs.

Google Hang-outs

With Google hang-out you connect with your colleagues, communities and customers via a video chat. Google Hang Outs is a great way you can have face to face conversations both privately and publicly. Collaborate in real-time, share ideas and even do interviews. You can also record the conversation so it can be viewed at a later time

There are many project managers, Pages relating to project management, as well as PM communities. Use Google + to share posts, interesting links, photos, videos or perhaps events for project managers.

SEO value and Google Authorship

If you or your company has an online presence, there is also value in having a Google+ account for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. If you are a content creator, like I am, you can claim Google Authorship. It is really simple:

Create a Google+ Profile and upload a high quality headshot and fill out the profile information.
Go to plus.google.com/authorship, sign up with your email and click on the verification link that Google will send you.

The biggest advantage of doing this is if people search for a particular content, your Google Plus profile will be displayed including your photos and a brief description of who you are. If they like your content, there is a high probability people will add you to their circles to allow them to receive updates from you or your business.

Let us know in the Comments if you’re using LinkedIn or Google+ for your projects and how well that is working for you.

Please subscribe to the RSS feed to read the rest of the articles in this series.

September 9, 2013February 28, 2022 Linky

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management – Part II: Blogging and Twitter

By Linky van der Merwe

For most Project Management professionals social media is already part of their lives. This article will take a closer look at social media platforms, Blogs and Twitter and how they are adopted in project management.

Part I of this article, can be found here:

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management.

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management-Part II: Facebook Yammer

Blogging

Blogs are made up of posts, which are short articles that appear in reverse chronological order on the blog. Blogs have an archive facility which will display historical posts by day, week, or month. In the project setting, it is the equivalent to a project notebook.

There are a number of ways blogs can be used to enhance the success of a project.

Project documentation – you can put all the project documentation on a blog.
Major milestone announcements – blogs are a great way to keep your team informed of the major phases that are coming up, as well as to recognize the good work your team has accomplished as milestones are passed.
Interesting pictures – keep blogs interesting by posting pictures of a product in various stages, or of people who are making a product that aren’t usually in the company newsletter.
Use of features – use comments fields, as well as tags and ratings features of blogs.

Decide early whether you want to use external blogging sites or internal blogs. Many products are available internally. SharePoint Workspace 2010 contains a blogging feature that your organization can use to create a blog that is private to your team.

Micro-blogging

Twitter is the most popular micro-blogging tool today. It allows you to send short messages to the internet, but limits the update to 140 characters and also permits your “tweets” to be protected. As with a blog, the tweets appear on your homepage in a long chronological stream, with the most recent comments at the top.

There are several ways to use Twitter to help you manage a project.

Project management articles – use search to find good articles about specific project management topics and best practices.
#Hashtags are used to help index the subject matter of your tweet. For example, the hashtag #pmot is used for tweets about “project management on Twitter”. When you click on the hashtag, you will immediately see a page full of the recent tweets that have used the same tag. This is a simple way that users can quickly filter for only tweets about specific subjects. You can also search for tweets by typing the hashtag in the Twitter search box. Other useful hashtags for project managers are: #projectmanager, #pmp, #project, #msproject, #project2010, and #pm. Also check #PMChat for Tweetups every Friday for an innovative way for project managers to get answers to project management questions and obtain different perspectives. Source:
Team hastags – a project team can decide on its own hashtags for the projects they’re working on. If your team is working on a business application project, you could decide on a hashtag to use across Twitter, such as #busapp. This will work for projects where security is less of a concern.

Twitter Lists

On the Home page of Twitter, your Twitter timeline can get cluttered very quickly. Twitter lists become useful as it allow you to group Twitter users. You can make a list of other users who are also in project management. Every time you follow a person on Twitter who is also a project manager, you add them to your list. By following this process you will soon connect with project managers from all over the world who you can follow and collaborate with. Or create a list for your team relating to the project you are working on. Send them the URL of the list so they can see who you’ve added.

Consider subscribing to other people’s lists. My Projectmanagement list contains 316 members and a number of subscribers. Now I can look at Tweets from project managers on my list and the lists that I’m subscribed to and see all the latest updates at a glance. I can retweet, share them with my followers or reply and collaborate.

Let us know in the Comments if you’re using Blogs or Twitter for your projects and how well that is working for you.

Please subscribe to the RSS feed to read the rest of the articles in this series.

August 31, 2013August 25, 2019 Linky

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management

By Linky van der Merwe

The purpose of this article series is to educate project management practitioners about the use of social media in the project management profession.

Part I will cover the benefits from using social media, as well as recommended best practices.

Part II will cover the platforms to consider and the value of each social media tool for the project manager. See links to Part II articles at the end.

Social Media Adoption

Social media is a reality, and its growth is destined to continue. The integration and adoption of social media into our personal and business lives is increasing. There is no indication that it is going to stop anytime soon. If you are not currently involved with social media, either personally or professionally, and you have no plans to do so, you may find that you quickly get left behind.

Why Social Media

Managing relationships to build trust is especially important for projects managers, because it is becoming increasingly common for project team members to be distributed geographically while working on projects.

This increase in virtual teams makes the communication process more challenging; therefore more difficult to establish strong relationships and bonds that lead to high levels of trust.

Communications delivered through social media are potentially a valuable resource for developing trust between project team members.

Source: Herbert Remidez: Journal about the explosion of social media – the emerging practice of companies using social media to support project management.

http://www.ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol_3_No_3_February_2012/3.pdf

Benefits of Social Media

Social networks, both within and outside of companies, increase the value of collaboration by reducing the search and coordination costs of connecting parties who have related knowledge and interests. By developing and managing relevant formal social networks, organizations can facilitate communications that improve decision making and operations.

In a field like project management that depends on lessons learned and best practices to deliver repeatable results, the pool of resources you can tap into via social media is very powerful.

Best practices for Social Media

The best use of social media is to focus on building relationships. Make sure your team is in agreement with which social networking tools are to be used. You might want to document how the team should use the tools, when to use the tools, and what type of content should be contained, and not contained, in posts. There is a much stronger chance of the tools being used when everyone understand some fundamentals about them.

Privacy and security are valid concerns and must be taken into account when adopting social media into the workplace. You need processes and guidelines in place to ensure that social media is used responsibly and that care is taken when sharing information inside and outside of your team.

Social media is not a technology; it is culture, a culture created, supported and enabled by various technologies and applications that are constantly growing and changing. The true innovation is the cultural change that social media has bought about. People think, act, and communicate in a completely different way.

For example on Twitter, being able to discuss challenges with other project managers and hear from PMs in different sectors, provides an on-going roundtable that fosters continuous improvement.

http://workingwithoutwalls.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-use-of-social-media-in-project_19.html

Social media is an extraordinary opportunity to improve team collaboration at all levels. Social media is the way of the future. It will keep maturing, growing, and changing, but it is here to stay. Get on-board or be left behind!

Continue reading the series on the Practical Use for Social Media in Project Management:

Part II: Facebook and Yammer

Part II: Blogs and Twitter

Part II: LinkedIn and Google+

Part II: Webinars, Slideshare, Podcasts

Please subscribe to the RSS feed to read more articles from Virtual Project Consulting.

August 22, 2013August 22, 2013 Linky

Best Tips to Pass the PRINCE2® Exams

By Simon Buehring

If you’re about to sit your PRINCE2 exam then here are some simple tips which will help you to maximize your score and increase your chances of passing. Of course, the tips below won’t guarantee you will pass, but they will give you a better chance of passing.

Tip #1: Prepare, Prepare, Prepare!

Make sure you are well prepared by having completed all pre-course reading and homework during the course. Thinking you can skip homework and instead go out with friends during the course, is a high risk strategy and should only be attempted by those who are already very familiar with PRINCE2.

Tip #2: Drink lots of water

Drink plenty of water during the exam. Your brain needs water to function properly. Don’t give it extra stress by consuming diuretic drinks (tea, coffee or coke) which are likely to dehydrate you and slow down your brain function.

Tip #3: Read the question

This sounds like stating the obvious, but it’s amazing how many students fail to follow this simple tip. If you don’t read the question properly, then you are more likely to provide the wrong answer. Just missing out one word can change the entire meaning of a question.

Tip #4: Don’t hang around

Spending too much time answering one question is going to leave you with less time to answer the remaining questions. A good time-management strategy is therefore essential. Work out the average time available for answering each question and stick with it during the exam.

Tip #5: Tab your manual

This tip only applies only for the PRINCE2 Practitioner exam which is an open book exam. If you don’t know your way around the manual easily then you will spend too much time trying to find an answer in the book. That time might be better spent answering a question that you do know the answer to. So, before the exam, ensure you have put a coloured tab into the most important pages/sections. If needed, write your own table of contents for quick indexing of important pages.

Conclusion

I’ve highlighted the top 5 tips for helping to pass the exam, but for a deeper understanding of how to pass the exams, I suggest that you read these free ebooks Passing the PRINCE2 Foundation exam and Passing the PRINCE2 Practitioner exam.

About the author: Simon Buehring, is an approved PRINCE2 trainer and the founder of Knowledge Train, which is an accredited PRINCE2 training organization based in the UK.

PRINCE2^® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS.

August 15, 2013 Linky

What Makes a Good Dynamics AX Project Manager

The success and failure of a Dynamics AX project is directly related to the quality of the project manager leading it. A recent survey by PwC showed that over 85% of Dynamics AX projects failed to achieve their core objectives – poor project management was one of the root causes.

Implementing Dynamics AX has been compared to performing open heart surgery on an organisation, where the stakes couldn’t be higher, and so the ‘physicians’ that are entrusted to give the ‘patient’ it’s new lease of life, need to be masters in their craft and highly experienced.

So what makes a good Dynamics AX project manager?

Let us find out with the help of this infographic by Cognitive Group, a dynamics ax recruitment agency in the UK.

July 24, 2013April 23, 2020 Linky

Project Management Skills: Languages of Appreciation

Good project managers always look for ways to improve their leadership skills. Excellent project managers will apply these skills to become better leaders. One such tool to improve your skills, is the book: “The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People” by Gary Chapman and Paul White.

While being familiar with the “5 Love Languages” I was curious to know how the love language concept is applied to the workplace. Then more specifically I wanted to understand how words of appreciation can help a project manager become better at leading his/her project teams.

The book is aimed at helping managers effectively communicate appreciation and encouragement to their employees, resulting in higher levels of job satisfaction, healthier relationships between managers and employees, and decreased cases of burnout.

It helps to identify an individuals’ preference in the languages of appreciation. Understanding an individual’s primary and secondary languages of appreciation can assist managers in communicating effectively to their team members. It also relates to the power of acknowledgement – see “The Power of Grateful Leadership” for more.

Languages of Appreciation

According to the “5 Languages of Appreciation” there are five ways to show your appreciation in the work-place:

Words of affirmation
Acts of service
Tangible gifts
Quality time
Touch (language of touch is less important in the workplace than in personal relationships)

Benefits

The languages of appreciation in the workplace have shown to significantly improve relationships among co-workers (team members) and to make workplace environments more positive for all who work there.

Motivating through action

For each language of appreciation, there are specific actions that could be taken. Here are some good examples: (focusing on the first 4 languages only) 1

Words of Affirmation

Write me an email and acknowledge when I have done a good job.
Acknowledge my effort of a project, in the presence of my teammates.
Tell me “thank you” or give me a specific compliment.
Give our team a group compliment when we have done well.
Send me a text message after I have completed a task well.
Let me know when others have commented positively on my work.

Quality Time

Go to lunch together and not talk about business issues.
Invite me to go to lunch with project team members.
Stop by, sit down or have a weekly “check in” meeting to see how things are going.
Debrief a recently completed project with me.

Acts of Service

Help me get my computer to work correctly/more efficiently.
Assign someone to answer the phones so that I can complete reports tasks that require undivided attention.
When working on a time-sensitive project, protect my time from additional requests.

Tangible Gifts

Movie tickets.
Gift certificate for a bookstore or outdoor / sporting store.
Allow me to come in early and leave early that day.
Provide a special luncheon to celebrate an accomplishment by our team.
Register me for a conference or event.

How to apply on projects

In the book: The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, you will find a questionnaire to discover your language of appreciation and the specific actions that uniquely encourage you.

In addition to the book, you will find on the website: www.appreciationatwork.com more resources to use. One such resource is the “Motivating by Appreciation (MBA) Inventory” tool to assess your team members in order to understand how to express appreciation that resonates with each individual. Each book purchased also comes with a code inside for one free MBA inventory.

If you take the time to discover your language of appreciation, as well as that of your team members you can create a group profile showing the team members’ primary and secondary language. See example below: 2

Then you create Action Items for the Group serving as a reminder of what to do to make your team members feel appreciated for their hard work and efforts.

There are some signs that will tell you when team members need a message of appreciation or encouragement: 3

Discouragement
Irritability and resistance
Increased absenteeism
Apathy
Social withdrawal.

Problems with Language of Appreciation and how to overcome them

There are some problems with appreciation like when you genuinely appreciate some-one, but they don’t believe you are sincere. To get past a perceived inauthenticity, it is important to only communicate it when it’s true and to state your desire to be viewed as genuine. An example: “In spite of not saying this enough in the past, I wanted to let you know that I appreciate ….”.

You also need to be communicating appreciation consistently over time. When you team members feel valued and appreciated, good things will happen. There will be loyalty and commitment to the project, to the stakeholders, and to a successful outcome.

Sources:

http://www.appreciationatwork.com/resources – Action Template
http://www.appreciationatwork.com/resources/articles/ “Picking up cues”

July 15, 2013July 16, 2013 Linky

Project Manager Personality Types – Infographic

This Infographic from Zoho Project Management provides an interesting perspective on some essential characteristics of project managers. Then the scorecard shows how the characteristics are combined in different personality types.

Have you noticed a connection between the PM’s personality traits and the outcome of a project? Understanding a PM’s personality type, specifically how he/she communicates and interacts with others, can be very helpful to ease interpersonal relationships.

Can you relate to any of these personality types? Please let me know in the comments what you think!

Virtual Project Consulting

Where existing and aspiring project managers find practical advice on processes, tools and Agile tips to deliver your projects successfully

Author: Linky

Expand Your Business Potential at the Microsoft Convergence Conference

Convergence is designed to help businesses in the following ways:

What does Project Management mean to me – a Project Manager’s sermon

I want to be a project manager when I grow up

Where it all started

A Mature Profession

Blogging as my contribution

Best Tips to Pass the PRINCE2® Exams

What Makes a Good Dynamics AX Project Manager

Project Management Skills: Languages of Appreciation

Languages of Appreciation

Benefits

Motivating through action

How to apply on projects

Problems with Language of Appreciation and how to overcome them

Project Manager Personality Types – Infographic