Frank Saladis Speaks at PMI Northeast FL Chapter

Frank Saladis, current Chairman of EdSig for the PMI gave a rousing after dinner talk this evening to the Northeast Florida Chapter of the PMI. His topic was "Team Building and Influencing Skills for Project Leaders". I came away from the meeting a little smarter I think and will relay a sketchy list of points I remember that may be worthy of further thought and discussion:

• Influencing is about improving communication skills. All project should be WOW projects, get excited about the project and so will your team. Ask good questions. Deal with problems, get a hold of the problem. Ineffective project managers don't ask and don't listen.
  
• Acknowledge people. The world is full of people who deserve to be acknowledged. Acknowledge someone near you. Acknowledge someone you are jealous of.
  
• A leader in motion stays in motion, like Newton's first law says. Influence is all around us.
  
• Forcing someone does not work. First understand, then strive to be understood. Bullying does not work. Communication is two way.
  
• Listening is important, active listening is even more important.
  
• Communication is %80 non-verbal.
  
• Technical skills are not as important as leadership, organizing and planning, interpersonal, negotiation, team building, and being technically credible.
  
• Characteristics of influential people include vision and humility.
  
• In a high performance team the team selects the MVP.
  
• Teamwork includes seizing setbacks, keeping one set of books, and a winning attitude which excites others to get on board.
  
• Participative leadership shares responsibility, aligns on purpose, gets others to support the same vision, and understands what teams want.
  
• First impressions are very important.
  
• You don't have to like everyone. Get past dislikes, focus on what needs to be done.
  
• Show sincere interest in people.
  
  

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V_Grep, the better Windows explorer...

Microsoft would do well to check out V-Grep, a program distributed freely, as PostCardWare, where you can download the software for free, then send a postcard to the developer, Piotr Chodzinski, who has, by offering this powerful program to help you search your Windows computer or server, the power of Unix/Linux GREP with a visual interface, supporting regular expressions. Software Engineering, certified frugal, PMP that I am, I jumped on this, sent a postcard from Blue Ridge, GA, and hope Piotr gets an offer of virtual employment from a solid, progressive software company soon, if not already. Check it out!

Slow emails in the virtual team...

PMing a Virtual Team where teammembers are slow returning emails...

What to do: Propose a Communications Plan to address the issue.

Virtual Team Member Communications

Similar to industry SLA's and their corresponding window, we shall abide by no greater than 45 minute response time for any given mission email thread between team members or project stakeholders.

When team member email and/or phone discussion threads involve issue discussions, the issue submitter or assignor should precede and/or accompany any such discussions with at least a written statement of the issue, problem, assignment or need. At minimum, a couple sentences clearly stating the issue, purpose or goal so all involved in the solution have a clear understanding of the goal, the customer need or requirement.

If the nature of the email and/or phone conmmunication is to solve an existing issue, then minimum informal written descriptions should include the problem or issue to be solved and the agreed upon solution. If performance of the solution is required then enough clear written information should be disseminated to enable the accurate performance of the solution work.

Virtual teams rely primarily on clear informal written email and verbal phone conversations to accomplish team work. If someone cannot understand either form of communication, then you are not being clear. Communication is a two-way process.

Often team members, particulary members new to the team particularly rely upon answers to what may be considered simple questions by veterans. When a simple question appears in your inbox from a team member, give back a simple answer, but do answer. Our informal team communication is primarily email, since, we as developers are typically at our computers during working hours. We are not so busy that we can afford to leave team member queries in suspense, waiting for perhaps an easy answer. An effective development environment requires expedient communication between team members.

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