4 Valuable Skills to Break Into Project Management

Considering a career in project management? Find out if you have what it takes to excel in this growing profession.

As companies look for that elusive competitive edge, they’re hot on the trail of candidates with project management expertise. This year, 44 percent of the 353 IT executives in a Computerworld survey said they plan to hire candidates with project management skills.

So what do you need to succeed in this growing profession? Here are four skills that will help get you started:

1. Business acumen

Why you need it: “In most organizations, a key difference between new and senior project management is not age. It’s what we call the ‘boardroom presence’ — the ability to communicate with the executives in an effective way,” says Marc Mutsaers, PMP, senior project manager, Equens, a payment processing firm in Utrecht, Netherlands. “This skill is required to run complex, high-impact or high-risk projects.”

How to hone: Along with taking business courses, put yourself in situations that demand immediate and decisive actions to achieve the organization’s business goals, Mr. Mutsaers says.

2. Project management basics

Why you need it: It sounds obvious, but going in with a working knowledge of some project management fundamentals may give you an edge. Although no organization expects the “newbie” to know everything about project management, you must be well versed in the more common tactics, tools and terminology.

How to hone: Find a mentor — someone working in the profession that you can observe or interact with, suggests Saad Ansari, PMP, senior consultant, CGI Group Inc., a systems integration, IT and business process services firm in Markham, Ontario, Canada.

“This allows you to observe project management in action and to get familiarized with the profession,” he says.

Along with gaining formal project management education and finding a mentor, Mr. Ansari recommends getting involved in forums such as PMI’s communities of practice or tapping into local PMI chapter resources, he says.

3. Emotional intelligence

Why you need it: “Successful project managers are leaders and managers at the same time,” says Mario Henrique Trentim, PMI-RMP, PMP, manager, project management office, Institute of Aeronautics and Space, São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil. “They know how to cast a vision and engage stakeholders, and they also know how to get the job done through their teams.”

How to hone: Keep a journal of your daily emotions and reactions, suggests Mr. Trentim. Then gather feedback from friends or colleagues. Analyze your journal and your responses to learn how you respond to situations.

4. Assertiveness

Why you need it: You must be able to foster a healthy exchange of ideas with a variety of people — each of whom may come on to the project with their own motives, says Mr. Trentim. You must be able to articulate your needs in a firm, but diplomatic and reasonable manner.

How to hone: Learn to identify the roles of a project team member or project manager versus those of a stakeholder or sponsor. If you know who is responsible for what decisions, you’ll have a better idea of when you can comply with requests and when to push back.

Armed with these four skills, potential project professionals may just uncover a new career path.

Fonte: http://www.pmi.org/en/Professional-Development/Career-Central/4-Valuable-Skills-to-Break-Into-Project-Management.aspx

10 Super Dicas para ser um Gerente Melhor

Por Marcos Alencar

1. Selecione melhor as pessoas

Como gerente, você é tão bom tanto quanto as pessoas que formam a sua equipe. As suas chances de ser bem-sucedido como gerente aumentam incrivelmente quando você seleciona as melhores pessoas desde o início.

2. Motive as pessoas

A motivação do chefe tem um reflexo imediato no humor dos seus funcionários. Seja uma pessoa 150% motivada e observe o que acontece com aqueles que o cercam.

3. Construa uma Equipe

Ter as melhores pessoas e ter as pessoas motivadas não é o suficiente para ser bem-sucedido no trabalho. As pessoas precisam trabalhar juntas como uma equipe para alcançar o objetivo do grupo.

4. Seja um Líder, não um Gerente

As melhores pessoas, motivadas e trabalhando em equipe não são nada sem direção. Para onde você vai levar os seus funcionários?

5. Melhore a Comunicação

Comunicação é talvez a mais importante habilidade que um gerente deve ter. Todas as outras habilidades dependem da capacidade de comunicação do gerente. Você não consegue motivar as pessoas se elas não souberem o que você está falando. Se você não nasceu comunicador, não se preocupe, habilidades de comunicação podem ser melhoradas através da prática.

6. Gerencie melhor o dinheiro

Para crescer, a empresa tem que ganhar dinheiro, ou seja, é preciso gastar muito menos do que se ganha.

7. Gerencie melhor o seu tempo

A única coisa que talvez você tenha menos do que dinheiro é tempo para fazer as coisas. Gerenciar melhor o seu tempo é gerenciar melhor a sua energia. Cancele compromissos que não levam o lugar algum, diminua a sua participação em reuniões sem propósito, delegue tarefas. Concentre a sua energia somente naquilo que realmente vai ajudá-lo a crescer. Quanto mais energia você tiver, mais rápido você vai fazer as coisas.

8. Melhore como pessoa

Não se esqueça de você. Identifique as áreas onde você precisa de ajuda e peça ajuda.

9. Pratique a liderança ética

As pessoas vão seguir apenas aqueles que possuem o dom da palavra, da energia, da Ética e da Integridade. Não seja uma pessoa na segunda-feira e outra completamente diferente na quarta-feira. Não mude de opinião tão facilmente, seja consistente e freqüente em suas ações.

10. Descanse

Se você não descansar, você será menos efetivo como gerente. Você será menos tolerante, menos paciente. Você precisa de tempo para descansar e recarregar as baterias.

Sobre o autor: 

Marcos Alencar: gerente de Marketing e Comunicação do Sebrae em Alagoas, com formação em Relações Públicas, pela UFAL (1992) e mestrado em Comunicação, pela UFRJ (2001). É mantenedor do Blog: http://comunicacaoempreendedora.com.br/

Scrum Advice: Creating The First Product Backlog

By Bruce McGraw

Scrum methodology is gaining recognition as an effective way to manage development projects. So, I thought it might be a good time to talk about some of the main elements of the Scrum framework for the PMs and managers out there. A good place to start is with the “Product Backlog” – which for the novice could be equated loosely to the functional requirements list.

The Scrum product backlog delineates the functions required to provide the outcome desired by the product owner. According to Ken Schwaber in “Agile Software Development with Scrum”, the backlog includes a list of all the functionality, features and technology needed to complete a development project.

Although the product backlog sounds like the requirements document used in traditional waterfall software development methodology, it is not. Don McGreal, VP of Training at Improving Enterprises, LLC and my Scrum trainer, describes what happened in his experience to requirements documents under traditional software development methodologies, “Never did we ever build what we first came up with in the requirements phase.” In the project close out to assess how well the system met the specified requirements, we didn’t. We would ask, ‘what went wrong’ and there was a blame game or a lot of excuses about unplanned for events. The managers would then decide that the solution for next time was to make the requirements more detailed – more time should be spent upfront on creating the complete requirements.

However, spending more time trying to create a perfect requirements document at the beginning of a project is doomed to failure. Admit it, says Don (and I agree completely), before anything is built, “users, customers, even experienced practitioners cannot specify everything that should be built.” Instead of spending weeks, months or even years creating a comprehensive requirements document in the beginning, Scrum practices acknowledge that requirements will change during development and recommends creating only an initial list of things the product or system needs to do.

The first product backlog is based on a vision, business analysis and even marketing promises. The initial list gets the team started working on functionality quickly. During the development, the requirements listed in the prioritized product backlog — which is updated before each sprint — will evolve into what can and should be done using empirical data gained by writing and testing code.

Creating the product backlog is the responsibility of the product owner. He or she may create a high level description of the end product’s capability as a vision statement or concept of operations. The product owner may get inspiration from user stories of what they do currently and what would make their tasks easier. There is a real art to collecting useful user stories. I suggest:

• Having many conversations with potential users. Carry a set of index cards to the meeting. On each card there is a sentence that begins, “As a _________________, I need to do _______________.” This simple format device gives the product owner a concise statement of a requirement.
• Holding a brainstorming session with a small group of users and facilitating discussion about what they need to do their jobs. Having several people talking together creates an environment where one person’s comment will stimulate the thinking of others.
• Working with customers, create a scenario that walks a user through an entire series of steps needed to achieve a successful interaction with the system. Each step in the scenario can be an item in the initial product backlog. Add scenarios for many types of user’s needs.
• Meeting with the development team to review the vision and initial product backlog. Add items to the backlog to accommodate identified needs for further research or infrastructure requirements needed to get started.

From these activities, the product manager builds the prioritized initial product backlog. The product manager gives the team a presentation of the product vision and the product backlog list. The team and the Scrum master meet to plan the first sprint, which may achieve completing the highest priority task or may break that high priority task into several sprint tasks.

Remember that Scrum’s power comes from iteratively evaluating product backlog priorities and tasks. As Project Managers we have been doing this for years in order to make sure the project goals are still valid.  Over time new tasks are added to the backlog. Each sprint planning meeting accepts the highest priority tasks that can be completed during the next sprint.  At the end of a sprint, the team delivers the demonstrable functionality of the backlog task, revisits how the deliverable fits within the product vision and identifies the next priority tasks from the product backlog.

The above ideas are methods I have found successful to create the initial product backlog. If you have techniques you find particularly useful to begin the Scrum backlog generation, please share.

Fonte: Artigo publicado em 24 de Fevereiro de 2012 no blog "Fear no Project - A Project Management Blog" - http://fearnoproject.com/2012/02/24/scrum-advice-creating-the-first-product-backlog/

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