In part 1 I explained that there are 5 principles to ensure you get maximum vale from your training assessments.  The first 2 that were covered are as follows

1)      Align purpose with situation

2)      Context is king

Here is will outline the next 3 principles: Read more

Unfortunately, workplace assessments have gotten a bad rap. You’ve most likely been assessed to death and have participated in a number of assessments that didn’t result in much action or create the changes promised. Training application assessments (e.g., Kirkpatrick’s Level 3 Assessments) are no exception. Often, organisations decide to conduct this type of assessment as an afterthought, long after the training programme has been implemented; or they decide to conduct an ad hoc assessment in reaction to persistent, unsatisfactory project performance. However, using training application assessments in these ways may limit the value provided by the results if the assessments are not conducted properly. If reactive training application assessments seem to be the norm, how can you ensure your assessments provide valuable information for performance improvement? Read more

Let the participants decide what they want to talk about.

So, we discussed the misconception that you should avoid meeting, we got the role of the chairperson out of the way and decided that we should invite all interested participants, the more the merrier!

Let’s finish this series with discussing the use or misuse of the agenda. Read more

Invite as many interested participants as you can.

In the previous two posts we talked about the ‘badvices’ (aka bad advice) of meeting only when it is needed and making sure a chairperson is firmly conducting the meeting.

It’s time now correct the following misunderstanding: Read more

Get rid of the chairperson!

The previous blog post the ‘badavice’ to meet less was turned around in “Meet where and when you can”.  The advice was not to bog down meeting with procedures and rules. Get rid of them! Start with getting the right person that maintains them, the chairman! The ‘badvice’ (aka bad advice) often given is: Read more

Do you also get bogged down about meetings? Get irritated by talkative participants? Feel that meetings go on and on? That no decisions are taken? You are not alone. Despite much advice and a lot of practice, we seems to make the same mistakes over and over again. Or is this advice the reason we make these mistakes? In the following blog entries we will turn these “badvices” (aka bad advice) around and they will help to make meetings more inspiring and pleasant.

Badvice 1: Only meet when it is needed.

This badvice is based on the idea that meeting is a waste of time. People who talk are not productive, as if communicating does not contribute to productivity. In the book “Herding Chickens” from D. Bradbary and D. Garrett, the cost of meeting is calculated in a way that you almost feel guilty to organise a meeting at all![1]

On the contrary talking is very productive! By talking together people are communicating their thoughts, form their ideas, test them and improve them. Read more

A big ‘yo yo’ from the master mixer TLPM

‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’ William Shakespeare from Romeo and Juliet

Or to put it another way

‘Hi! My name is… (what?) My name is… (who?). My name is… Slim Shady. Hi! My name is… (huh?) My name is… (what?). My name is… Slim Shady’ Eminem (Marshall Mathers)

I do like to have a good contrast in life and that was certainly one of the extreme ones.

But the point is that we all use tags, nicknames, brands, titles, whatever you would like to call them. Some, such as ‘Slim Shady’ aka ‘Eminem aka ‘Marshall Mathers’ aka … more than most perhaps, but we use them all the time. Read more

Originally published in 1906, The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce offered cynical definitions of terms of the “political” language of the period. As one of the goals of a PMO is to ensure consistent processes and terminology, this posting attempts to provide similar “helpful” definitions of project management-related terms. Read more

How should new project managers learn from the ‘Old beans’

When my kids were young they loved to play one particular game at the annual birthday parties. This game involved ‘Beans’ – all of the kids standing ready and waiting for instructions and then the cry would go up of ‘Beans’ and the game would begin.

‘Runner beans’ as a call would mean that everyone had to run on the spot. ‘Jumping beans’ meant, naturally, a lot of jumping up and down in one place. ‘French beans’ meant a chorus of ‘Ooh la la’s’ and waving of arms in a posh French way. And ‘Baked beans’ meant … well you know kids so I am sure that you can work that one out for yourself. It goes without saying this is the one ‘Bean’ that they loved the most. Read more