Project Communication, Management & Leadership — A 5-Day Course

 Closed In-House Course

Synopsis

Relationship management for project management success.

Managing a successful project involves more than schedules, templates, and paperwork-it requires the application of strong interpersonal management skills to work effectively with people in a variety of roles.

The skills you'll learn in this course will enable you to set clear stakeholder expectations and create a communication management plan for any project. You'll negotiate for and retain required resources, create a solid team atmosphere, and adopt a successful leadership style for different situations. You'll learn to manage conflict, set priorities, and use a systematic problem-solving process. With the aid of the hands-on case study exercises, you'll learn to create a motivating team atmosphere, delegate effectively, run efficient meetings, and, ultimately, manage your project successfully.

Course Objectives

After completing this course the student will be able to:

• Build and execute a communication plan
• Manage stakeholders and teams
• Negotiate for internal resources and with vendors
• Lead, manage, and motivate a dispersed team
• Manage conflicts, solve problems, and make decisions
• Delegate appropriately and manage stress
• Develop situational management styles
• Set clear expectations and priorities
• Create a stakeholder communication plan
• Develop a plan for managing expectations
• Influence key stakeholders
• Conduct a negotiation between a project manager and customer around scope creep
• Create a motivation plan for a team with morale problems
• Deal with a dysfunctional project team
• Use systematic problem-solving and decision-making models
• Set clear project priorities
• Conduct a conflict role-play
• Delegate to on-site or remote team members
• Create a relief plan for a stressed-out team

Intended Audience

Associate project managers, project managers, IT project managers, project coordinators, project analysts, project leaders, senior project managers, team leaders, product managers, and program managers.

Prerequisites

Before attending this course, students must have the following skills or knowledge before attending this course:

• Introduction to Project Management
• IT Project Management
• Applied Project Management

Publicly scheduled dates, locations, and prices

Outline Course Contents

Roles and Responsibilities of a Project Manager

• Communication and human resources knowledge areas
• Role of the project manager and key stakeholders
• Politics and protecting your project

Building an Effective Communication Plan

• Interpersonal communication methods
• Listening skills
• Balancing stakeholder interests
• Performance reporting

Setting Stakeholder Expectations and Matrix Management

• Strong and weak matrix organizations
• Role of the expeditor, coordinator, and project manager
• Negotiating for and keeping resources
• Setting stakeholder expectations and buy-in

Influencing and Negotiating Skills for Project Managers

• Powerbases Influencing styles
• Types of negotiations
• Planning for a negotiation

Cross-cultural and Remote Teams

• The six successful project team processes
• Developing cultural competence
• Communicating across cultures
• Managing remote project teams

Leadership

• Popular theories
• Four styles of effective project leaders
• Applying the right style
• Leadership and decision making

Conflict on the Team

• The role of the project manager in conflict
• Signs, symptoms, and causes of conflict
• Five conflict resolution techniques
• Handling angry team members

Setting Stakeholder Priorities

• Conflicting priorities within and across projects
• Setting constraint priorities with stakeholders
• Resource conflicts and workload histograms
• Shifting corporate priorities and your project

Problem Solving and Decision Making

• Seven-step model
• Assumptions and facts
• Generating alternatives
• Planning for implementation

Motivation

• Popular theories
• Role of the project manager
• Create a motivating team environment

Delegation Skills for the Project Manager

• Why we don't delegate
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Delegating easy jobs
• Delegating challenging jobs

Running Effective Project Meetings

• Setting the purpose and tone
• Running brainstorming or planning meetings
• Difficult people in meetings
• Running remote team meetings

Stress and the Project Team

• Signs, symptoms, and causes of stress
• Seven stress keys
• Coping strategies
• Create your personal stress control checklist