Art Petty writes at Management Excellence. A few months ago, he published the ebook Leadership and The Project Manager: Developing the Skills that Fuel High Performance.

While there is a lot of talk about leadership and project management, Art takes an original approach. Instead of telling anecdotes to illustrate his point, he uses questions. For example, to illustrate what leadership maturity means, he lists the following questions:

• Does the PM understand the true role of a leader?
• Can the PM lead effectively without formal authority?
• Is the PM capable of inspiring and motivating others and leading across silos?
• Does the PM understand her role in creating a high performance culture?
• Is she comfortable receiving and delivering constructive feedback?
• Does she have high credibility as a professional and a person?
• Does she understand the stages of team development and the changing leadership tasks at each stage?
• Does she manage upwards and communicate with stakeholders effectively?

Art's question-based approach creates a book where one stops and thinks at each chapter, and ponders one's own answer to the questions.

Leadership as a three-way street

Art sees leadership as an art practiced on three aspects. Project Managers, he writes, should be able to show leadership to their team, the project sponsor, and the client. Especially project sponsors. He also compares project leadership to being the salesperson for the project. The project manager must sell the project, its strategy, to both the team and stakeholders.

Through four "universal areas," Art explains his vision of leadership within a team: leadership maturity, strategic awareness, executive presence, and execution orientation.

Leadership is not control

I think this quote summarizes Art's vision of leadership:

"The effective PM understands that he/she is working for the project team and constantly reinforces this philosophy in both words and actions."

Art's brand of leadership is making people want to follow you, not forcing people to follow.

A quick an inspiring read

Leadership and The Project Manager: Developing the Skills that Fuel High Performance is a short ebook that is worth the time you'll invest in it.  Chances are, like me, you'll spend more time thinking about the answers to the questions in the book than reading the actual text.

In Art's words: "Go forth and succeed as a leader!"

The excellent post "The Lazy Project Manager" over at pmstudent got me thinking.

A common way to manage projects is management by exception. The rationale behind it is that we should only give attention to parts of the project that are not going according to plan. It makes sense. If parts of the project are going well, there is no use scrutinizing them.

However, if we're only focussing on what's deviating from the plan, we may be missing opportunities for improvement. If we use Pareto's 80/20 principle, 80% of the work in the project is on 20% of the project value. This is no doubt the most expensive part of the project. Even if it's going well, we may gain significant performance improvement by looking at the 20% most costly or most difficult part of the project, and looking for areas of improvement.

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We've been talking about it for a few months, and now it's official. AceProject 4.7 is released. While we've fixed a lot of  little things, 4.7 was also about making project management easier.

Project portfolio: out of Administration

We've separated portfolio management from account administration. This way, everyone can see all their projects, calendars and Gantt charts in one window. The Admin section is where you manage your account users, subscription, and other settings.

Workload over-allocation jumps at you

Besides the Portfolio tab, this is the most visual change. Based on the account default and the specific users settings, AceProject will highlight when someone is assigned more work than they can do in a day. This simple red highlight makes all the difference when running the workload report. We also like that the typical work day can be adjusted per user, to accommodate part-time employees, for example.

Task dependencies without the pain

Let's be honest here: Task dependencies can get complicated by nature, and AceProject was not making it any easier. In AceProject 4.7, we changed that. You can now configure non-mandatory dependencies. These are dependencies that don't require the first task to be completed before the second one can start. This allows for setting up overlaps between tasks.

The second thing we improved is date validation. AceProject is now more intelligent and can suggest dates when none are present, or when the current task dates don't work in the dependency.

Email notifications sent from your server

Sending emails was sometimes problematic with AceProject: some servers would block AceProject's emails. So we've decided to give our clients the choice: they can use our email server to send the notifications, or they can use their own server.

We hope you enjoy AceProject 4.7!

If you're using a Hosted-BASIC, Hosted-REGULAR or Hosted-ADVANCED package, you've been automatically upgraded to the new version last night. Please, drop us a note and tell us what you think of the new version!

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We've been working on a project with a client for the last 6 months. The challenge of the project was not so much the technical aspect of the work, but understanding the needs of the client. We were working via email and phone conference calls with the client. 

The problem was that it was difficult to get a clear decision from the client. Especially with email, the delay between the questionn and the answer made communications difficult. When we were on the phone, we were also missing an important part of communications: non-verbal.

We were stalled.

We decided to invite the client to our offices. With all of us sitting at the same table, we were able to reach an agreement  as to what needed to be done and how we were going to do it. It was easy to reach the agreement because we were able to communicate more efficiently. Being face to face gives us all the information that someone transmits: the verbal AND the non-verbal.

Virtual meetings are not as rich

It's easy to give the wrong impression in a virtual meeting such as a webmeeting or a phone conference. For example, someone's sarcasm can be interpreted more negatively than it really is if we don't see her smile when she makes the comment. We have to remember, in these situations, to check with the person who's projecting a negative image if that is really her intent.  The other side of the situation is also true: someone can interpret our comments wrongly because they are not getting the whole message.

It's up to us to remember the limitations of the virtual world.

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From the part of the person who gives it, trust is hard. It requires a leap of faith. It requires that we believe the person we trust is worth it.

From the part of the person who receives it, trust is energizing. It means that someone was willing to take that leap of faith for us. It means we are worth it. Trust also carries responsibility: if we want to keep that trust, we must prove the giver right. This means delivering on that trust.

Project management requires a high level of trust

• The project manager must trust the team to do quality work on time and on budget.
• The project team must trust the project manager to lead them efficiently and help them meet their deadlines.
• The stakeholders must trust the project manager to understand their needs.
• The project sponsors must trust the project manager to control the project and prevent cost and schedule overruns.

In a nutshell, the project team must trust each other. That includes the project manager, the team, the stakeholder and the sponsors. For most of us, trust is not something we give freely, to everyone. We tend to be careful with our trust. We want people to prove that they are trustworthy before we trust them at all.

From a leadership and teamwork standpoint, this is a problem. How can we know someone can be trusted if we won't trust them? Sure, they may have built a reputation - which helps - but we've never trusted this person before. Or maybe they've never managed such a big project. Or maybe the technology is new to them. There is always a reason not  to trust someone.

Lack of trust is bad

We all know how it feels not to be trusted. It reflects on the opinion people have of us. It taints the perception we have of the person who is not willing to trust us. It's difficult to do a good job if our project manager is constantly double-checking out work. It's even more difficult to build project forecasts if we always question the estimates the team is giving us. Over time, a team that is not trusted will lose its initiative and dynamics. They will turn into drones who simply execute.

It this what we want in our teams? I think not.

Take the risk of trusting your team

Trusting someone is taking a risk. While having that trust broken can have a high impact on the project, it also carries the opportunity of better project performance. Just like project reporting by exception is a technique that saves time, as project managers we should practice mistrust by exception: trust your team by default, and take the trust away from people who have proven they couldn't be trusted.

Isn't it what a risk register is for? :-)

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Since blogs are online, I thought it would be fitting to begin reviewing eBooks. This time, I'll tell you about "Getting Started in Project Management" by Josh Nankivel.

Josh is the founder of pmStudent.com, a website dedicated to those learning the skill of project management - a skill we may never be finished learning! pmSutdent is set apart from all the other learning-oriented sites for project managements, who are usually focused on PMP certification, and little else beyond that. With pmStudent, the focus is on learning, and getting certified is a subject secondary to that.

Josh wrote "Getting Started in Project Management" to help others getting started with project management, basically to provide a resource he would have liked to have when he got started in 2004.

The book is divided in two parts. In the first half, Josh tells his own journey into project management, from his last lay off in 2004, until he was asked to lead a major project in the aerospace business. This was an interesting read, especially where he writes about his job search for a project management position: "Reading through multiple position descriptions from the same company even gave me an idea of what the project environments were like." Josh also stresses a little-talked about aspect of blogging: "I think it was then that I discovered the benefits of being completely open and public with your thoughts, and how amazing it can be to be told you are absolutely dead-wrong on a topic."

The second part of Josh's book is filled with advice on getting started with project management. He addresses the technical skills VS project management skills debate: "The key is being able to effectively communicate with the techies and business suits...you need a foot in both worlds for this." He also covers the topics of certifications and higher eductation: "Always emphasize your opportunities to gain real-world experience."

Overall, "Getting Started in Project Management" is a quick an inspiring read. Josh's writing is easy to relate to and flows naturally. This is an ebook that deserves to be read.

"Getting Started in Project Management" is available on pmstudent.com.

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We think a lot about schedules and costs and quality when planning a project, but do we spend enough time thinking about our project team? When's the last time you thought about you team's happiness?

I worte an article for Project Management Tipoff's May editiion, about the importance of human resources in your project.

Read my article here, and the entire newsletter here.

I've had my Linkedin profile for while now, but was not very active on the network until a few months ago. That's when I discovered Linkedin Groups. I signed on for project-management related groups. The discussions on Linkedin groups are insightful, interesting, and go deeper than those on Twitter.

On Linkedin, we are all individuals, not the companies we represent. We become part of the community. And this is a much more powerful sales tool than one would expect. At first, it may seem like a big investment in time, that yields no direct sales.

This is not true.

Linkedin is about people. And people need tools and products in their lives. Guess who people will listen to when they are looking to buy something? Their network. It's simple really.

And the great thing is it really works. I follow and contribute to Linkedin groups when I feel relevant to do so. I am not pushing anyone or spamming groups to promote AceProject. However, when someone is looking for project management software, I'll tell them about AceProject. It's not a sales pitch. It's a simple suggestion to check out AceProject.

The interesting thing is you never know who you end up talking with, who will see the discussion, or the company behind this person. Sometimes, I'll suggest AceProject to a consultant, who has a mandate from [insert big company name here] to find a project management system.

Being in the community builds trust.

There is no better sales tool than someone's trust. The trick is we have to nurture this trust:

• Be part of the community. If your only interventions are aimed at selling your product, how will people know they can trust you?
• Be honest. With the amount of information online, people will figure out if you're lying.
• Don't push. No one likes a pushy sales person. Instead of manipulating people into buying, let them decide for themselves.