Maker – Page 3 – Godinterest

September 29, 2015July 1, 2022

7 Signs that Suggest You Should Step Away from Managing the Church Project

Signs That You Aren't Cut-Out To Be A Project Manager

The lack of project management training or experience of many Christian leaders can be an enormous stress factor for them. Whilst natural organizational ability is enormously helpful, in itself it is no guarantee of any project being both successful and low stress.

As a Project Manager, you will need to manage every aspect of the project from start to finish, working on a series of pre-determined goals and objectives. Not everyone is cut out to be a Project Manager. It’s not even necessarily a highly desirable job. You get a lot of visibility, but not necessarily a lot of recognition, unless the project is very successful and highly visible. As such project management is not for the faint-hearted.

Although specific responsibilities vary from industry to industry, the role of a Project Manager will generally include the following:

Defining the project
Scheduling
Budgeting
Risk assessing
Project control
Providing direction and support to the team
Quality checking
Reporting progress, problems, and solutions
Assessing results of the project
Closing down the project
Managing and working with multiple stakeholders

When it comes to project managing, it is important to have certain skills to be the most effective Project Manager you can be. Some people have these skills and others do not. Here’s our list of indicators that you may not be well suited to be a Project Manager in no particular order:

1. You’re a poor communicator

More than 50% of a Project Managers time is spent on some aspect of communication. The majority of conflicts in a team involve problems in communication, either as a cause or an effect. A lack of understanding can result from ineffective communication and can then lead to further communication issues. Communication skills are ranked first among a job candidate’s ‘must have’ skills and qualities according to a 2010 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

Poor communicators will often believe that giving people facts about a situation will be sufficient to influence them into following a particular course of action. However as Richard Nixon said,

“People Are Persuaded by Reason, but Moved by Emotion; The Leader Must Both Persuade Them and Move Them.”

Avoiding communication is a common occurrence when a difficult conversation is anticipated. Project Managers with low confidence will tend to ignore opportunities to pass on difficult messages with the result that the communication vacuum only serves to increase the size of the problem in the team. The old adage that “no news is good news” doesn’t usually apply in such circumstances as the team on the receiving end of the silence will fill the void with their own perceptions, doubts, and fears.

Poor Project Managers also tend to react emotionally and erratically when communicating with the team which can make it difficult for the team on the receiving end to anticipate how the communication will progress. Lack of honesty and not sharing how you really feel can also lead to a lack of trust in the team.

2. You don’t work well with people

Good Project Managers make an effort to spend a lot of time with clients, stakeholders, and team members. If you don’t like working within a team and prefer to stay in one location and focus on your own work, you probably don’t have the collaborative ability to be a good Project Manager. While one person working alone can have an impact, your role as a leader is to guide your team to accomplish bigger goals than they could achieve on their own.

A Great Person Attracts Great People and Knows How to Hold Them Together — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

3. You don’t like to manage people

You don’t have much of a project if you’re the only resource. If you want to be a good project manager, you need to be able to manage people well. You will probably never have a 100% responsibility for people, but you will need to show leadership, hold them accountable, manage conflict, etc. Some project managers say they could do a much better job if they did not have to deal with people. If that’s how you feel, project management is probably not for you.

Earn Your Leadership Every Day – Michael Jordan

4. You don’t like to document things or follow processes

Many aspects of project management requires documenting things, including status reporting, communication plans, scope changes, and project plans. A Lack of process increases the risk that tasks related to the project will fall through the cracks, that projects will have to be re-worked, and ultimately that a project won’t be completed on time or on budget. A good project manager needs to be effective at process and information management.

The Art of Leadership Is Saying No, Not Saying Yes. It Is Very Easy to Say Yes — Tony Blair

5. You cannot tell the client “no”

Clients aren’t the same as customers. Sometimes they need to be guided in the right direction. This is your job. Clients who change project requirements all the time or who demand unreasonable working hours need to be managed.

A Leader is One who Knows the Way, Goes the way, and Shows the way — John Maxwell

6. You don’t like to plan and are not organised

The project managers job is to organise everyone in the team. If you cannot plan, you can hardly be an effective leader. When a client gives you a project, if your first inclination is start working, you probably don’t have a project management mindset. The Project Managers overall task is to keep the project on budget and on target. Sticking to deadlines is very important.

The Key to Successful Leadership Today is Influence, Not Authority — Kenneth Blanchard

7. You Micromanage the team

Babysitting the team. It’s very common for poor Project Managers to treat their job like an enforcer, policing the project team for progress and updates.

September 16, 2015July 1, 2022

Manage Your Project More Effectively Now

There are a few who get project management right from the outset, but for many it’s a minefield. In theory, project management seems easy, but it’s not as straightforward as it seems. If you’re like the majority of people, you follow what seems like a simple project management process. You start by setting your budget, you choose the right people to join the team, and hope the project gets completed without too many hitches along the way.

But, realistically speaking, project management is nothing like this – it’s hardly ever so straightforward. Mistakes are made. You might choose the wrong people to complete the project. Your team might have no idea what’s expected of them or what the project goals are, or in some cases they might even receive conflicting information, which puts the whole project in jeopardy. Sometimes the scope of the project changes, and because of everything else that’s going on, your team is unable to fulfill the requirements and meet the project deadlines.

It happens, and you’ve got to be prepared for any situation while working together towards the common goal – successfully completing the project.

Don’t throw in the towel just yet. It might seem daunting, but there are few surefire tricks of the trade which businesses and project managers can implement to better their chances of successfully completing a project on time and within budget.

1. Know the Project Details Well

Before starting, you need to create a thorough project scope that outlines every single thing. This then needs to be approved by every stakeholder involved.

Your scope needs to have as much detail as possible such as the short-term milestones, deliverable dates, and a budget outline. It makes sense really. The more detail it includes will improve your odds when it comes to completing the project successfully.

What’s more, you’ll also improve your relationship with your client throughout the whole project process from the beginning right through to the end. Of course every project will encounter a few changes along the way – this is the norm, but having a detailed plan will help you manage your client better when something is off course.

Choose your Project Team Members and Size Wisely

2. Choose your Project Team Members and Size Wisely

Naturally, if you want your project to be a winner, you need the right people for the job, which includes having the right project manager on board. Keep your team as small as possible – size does matter; so don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.

The smaller the team, the better the communication. It also eases the stress and takes the pressure off the project manager. With a smaller team made up of the right people, the project manager will be able to organise their group without losing sight of all the details and work that’s needed doing. So, if you really want to have an effective project, limit your group’s size and only use those people and their skills that can benefit the project.

3. Highlight your Expectations from the Outset

You need to outline what you expect and what the client expects, which includes all the milestones, from the very beginning. Setting more milestones more frequently will allow you to follow the project’s progress more effectively. This way you’ll be able to jump on things quickly when they begin to go off scope, allowing you and your team to remain on target and on time.

Setting frequent milestones in a project will also allow you to review your spending and the investment thus far, which in turn will help you stay within the budget.

Milestones remove any ambiguity. They allow people to stay on target and there’s less risk of derailing the project.

Milestone setting should be a team effort. Everyone should be on board, so there won’t be any excuses later on down the line.

4. Does your Team Know what They’re Doing?

It may sound like a given, but it’s really important to be crystal clear from the beginning regarding people’s roles in the project. In other words, you need to highlight who is responsible for what, and what their deadline or deadlines are.

Things can get complicated with many people working on the same task. Sometimes things get misinterpreted or lost in translation. Avoid anyone being confused by clearly stating who should do what right from start, and make sure you enforce accountability.

You don’t need to worry about manually managing such tasks, as there are plenty of easy-to-use online task management programmes that can do this for you, so embrace technology and ease your pressure.

You may think it’s a waste of time spelling it all out, but this ensures that the full scope of the project is understood, people are clear of their role and individual and collaborative timelines. This is the key to keeping people on task and motivated.

5. Stop Micromanaging

It’s important to constantly touch base with your team members. However, there’s a fine line between supporting them and breathing down their necks. Give them space instead of micromanaging. Empower your team, trust them, and you’ll get their best work.

6. Use a Reliable System to Manage the Project

Communication is key. Most people rely on emailing, but when it comes to managing a big project with a number of different people working on it, this can hinder the project’s progress. Constantly referring back to old emails and previous correspondence is only going to waste precious time. Use software that keeps everything in one place from communication to any project information and updates. This will save you and your team a lot of time and money.

Motivate your Team

7. Motivate your Team

Everyone works better with positive reinforcement. Set milestones and reward when they’re reached. Your milestones will keep all people on track. Celebrate milestones together, but be sure to also recognise those who can’t meet them.

8. Frequent Short Meets to Stay on Track

It’s a project with many people collaborating, so holding regular meetings is a must. This is the only way to ensure that everyone and the project are on track. But you need to keep it short and sweet. Don’t meet for the sake of meeting. Have an agenda and stick to it. If you’re doing your project virtually, it’s even more important to touch base on a regular basis, so keep those communication lines open.

People do tend to go on at times when given the floor, so give everyone a set time to speak and make sure you all stick to it.

9. Allow Time for Change

No project ever runs 100% smoothly and specifications do change along the way. So to avoid the unnecessary stress and running around frantically, do some forward thinking, and set aside a certain amount of time for any changes in the scope – you’ll thank yourself for doing so in the end!

September 15, 2015December 8, 2017

4 Simple Ways to Bring out the Best in Your People

Leadership is lonely, no matter the size of your team. Every day you work hard, utilizing the hard skill set you acquired through education and the early years of your career. While you may fit the bill as an efficient project manager, you are striving to go from ordinary to extraordinary. As tirelessly as you work, you cannot seem to crack the code to unlock your team’s true potential.

What Quality Is Missing That Sets the Elite Apart from Yourself?

Exceptional leaders possess the ability to motivate not only themselves, but the people around them, creating an environment that hones a sense of aspiration and inspiration.

Here are four simple ways to get started:

1. GROWTH: Most ambitious professionals know that who they are today is not the professional they want to be tomorrow. An environment that condones staying stagnant and does not promote professional growth is a huge deter for many employees. Instead, provide opportunities for your employees to feel empowered through the growth of their skill sets and taking on more responsibility as appropriate. Empowered employees will gain a sense of pride and ownership, which often translates into harder working employees.

“Coming Together Is a Beginning, Staying Together Is Progress, and Working Together Is Success.”

2. RELATIONSHIPS: While it is wise to often separate business from pleasure, it is also important to note that you will spend the majority of your waking hours with your team and co-workers. Creating healthy relationships that concentrate on good communication will help create a productive environment.

“The Greatness of a Man Is Not in How Much Wealth He Acquires, but in His Integrity and His Ability to Affect Those Around Him Positively”

3. AUTONOMY: On occasion, stress is derived from having a lack of control. Providing employees the opportunity to manage part of their workload can help alleviate this feeling, and increase their individual productivity.

“If You Can’t Explain It Simply, You Don’t Understand It Well Enough.”

4. MEANING: Giving a project purpose, direction and meaning is an essential element in creating a productive team that will execute a project flawlessly. If employees are unclear of why they are doing something they will be unable to create the deeper connection which promotes motivation for the project.

This brings us back to the need to create a strong vision and values that in turn will create a productive team that is capable of excelling project after project.

So get going, move forward, aim high and plan a takeoff. Don’t just sit on the runway and hope someone will come along and push the airplane. It simply won’t happen. Change your attitude and gain some altitude.

September 12, 2015July 1, 2022

2 Ways Residential Elderly Care Providers Can Drive Growth

The care sector is growing fast. People are its most valuable asset and investment in care-home developments is being fuelled by an ageing population and a growing demand for specialist skills.

Scalability and Replication Have Now Become the Building Blocks That Will Enable Residential Elderly Care Providers to Sustain Growth, Deliver Successful Change and Achieve High-quality Service Outcomes

Dean Jones, former Investment Growth Programme Manager for Care UK offers insight into how REC providers can take advantage of market opportunities by building a sustainable and scalable system. Jones’ experience includes programme managing a £250 million investment-growth programme from 2012 to 2015, which involved building and commissioning 20 new state-of-the-art care homes and their services. He also oversaw a £60 million 3-year investment in a Suffolk programme, for the building of 10 new care homes and 10-day clubs and bringing much needed additional nursing and dementia-specialist care to the community.

REC Providers Can Develop Their Own Blueprints to Replicate and Scale Growth

REC providers can learn much from Jones’ involvement with scaling successful care homes. In his work at Care UK, Jones employed innovative ideas for evolving the next generation of care homes and introducing a competitive edge through unique selling points to harness market potential. The trendsetting programmes have led to phenomenal success, with more than 30 new homes built over a five-year period, a level of growth rarely seen in this sector. Jones describes how REC providers can develop their own blueprints to replicate and scale growth.

Building a foundation

The organization relied on a guiding principle as it developed a scalable system. It consisted of a toolkit that would outline how to manage projects and launch new homes, along with the standard of care the organization expected once a home is operational. The first system in the toolkit, the Project Management Blueprint (PMB) consisted of methodologies, processes and systems that would guide the creation of an ambitious and exciting growth pipeline for new homes.

The Blueprint ensured that the programme and project’s team resources would deliver high-quality outcomes through the practice of sound project management, both at a programme and individual project level. However, the Blueprint was just one of three tools the organisation would use to govern the commissioning and operation of new care homes. The other tools, a Home Manager Launch Manual (LM) and a suite of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), complemented the programme on the whole.

Building the Capability to Service the Demand Is the Key to Driving Growth

The blueprint

Creating the demand for growth and the environment for change is not enough to generate scalability. According to Jones, building the capability to service the demand is the key to driving growth. Instead of control, managers need to:

Introduce a framework and certainty about processes.
Implement repeatable best practices.
Build the ability to drive quality.
Equip people to do the best job possible.
Introduce a suite of project documents that directly suit the organisation’s purposes while ensuring consistence use.
Increase efficiency and productivity.

As a result of the Blueprint, Care UK was able to construct the building blocks for scalability and replication that would encourage change, growth and quality outcomes. When the foundation of an organisation is built on highly standardised and formal processes underpinned by highly developed performance-monitoring systems and the ability to control quality, it has a scalable business model. Another component involved in the process, evolving the product offerings through a process of service innovation enabled Care UK to apply standardised business-model concepts.

The requirements

Building a methodology for scalability involves considering project and business requirements first. Then, the organization can develop a system that meets the business and management-style needs to deliver successful outcomes. Jones employed a methodology that outlined the standard project-management methods to be used, and practices and guidelines to follow when managing new-home opening projects and business-transformation projects. With a disciplined, well-managed and consistent methodology, Care UK promoted the delivery of quality products and services, on time and within budget for each location.

The essential benefit of adhering to such a defined project- and programme-management methodology is the ability to demonstrate repeatable successes, rather than learning the same difficult lessons again and again. The objective of the methodology ensures that each new home opening was delivered to the highest possible standards via:

High-quality product or service that adheres to the business case.
Excellent standards of care and service.
Financial performance that achieves or exceeds the business case.
Homes or change initiatives delivered on time.
Projects executed on budget.

Relationships

Effective working relationships are also critical to the success of large-scale projects. Management tactics based on a matrix structure ensure that functional and operational resources are aligned across the business. This approach results in significant advantages, as it enables effective and responsive participation from different parts of the organisation that have specialist expertise. In Jones’ matrix, people from different parts of the business took a lead role in managing a specific work stream and were known as Work Stream Leaders. Jones also adopted the RACI technique for identifying functional areas, key activities and decision points where ambiguities exist.

Project Lifecycle

The management of any large, complex project is made easier when broken down into more manageable chunks. This unique approach to the project’s lifecycle enabled Jones’ to establish clear controls, e.g. review points, or gateways, at which to consider progress before moving on to the next phase. The Care UK project lifecycle methodology consisted of five distinct stages, with each stage considered as a sequence, providing the structure and approach to progressively deliver the required outputs.

Risk and issue management

Focusing on critical risk issues helps programme managers mitigate threats. Regularly planning and leading benefit reviews helps organizations drive success and ensure that profits aren’t eaten up by largely avoidable risks. For example, a slight reduction to a home’s expected average weekly fee (AWF) – although based on a more up-to-date market analysis – could have a detrimental effect on the bottom line. However, if this market analysis re-evaluation were to take place at the pre-planning stages, then the organization has an opportunity to review down spec. Key decisions like these must be managed with due diligence and care, by referring to the original business case and using a clearly defined change-control process, and then directing such matters to the programme board for approval.

Recommendations

Programme managers embarking on a scalability journey should note that before diving into the planning of a system of methodologies and processes, it’s important to first understand what needs to be fixed. Jones began his appointment at Care UK by working with a small team. They spent time getting into the nitty gritty of launching care homes, reviewing checklists, liaising with the Care Quality Commissions (CQC), and understanding the business and identifying gaps. Only then did he present the findings and gain support for the project’s Blueprint. Managers also need to understand the organisational culture in which they operate, and then adapt their approach accordingly. Finally, gaining senior management trust is another critical step, as approval and support helps form links throughout the organization – including the lower-management levels.

Successful organizations need managers with a breadth of knowledge – not necessarily construction management expertise – to successfully drive the outcomes of the project. They also require some understanding of IT systems, staff, marketing strategy and more. Only then will the organisation reap the strategic benefits of higher management-level expertise. With the right approach to project management and creating repeatable systems, care home organizations can seize market conditions and drive growth, while delivering quality outcomes through scalable building blocks.