Project Management
Most projects in today’s fast-paced business world are team-based. Deadlines and deliverables are the focus of most team projects. But timelines, flowcharts, and software can’t ensure that a project will be completed on time, or that a high-quality result will be delivered. To have projects run smoothly and produce deliverables on time, project teams need to be able to function as a cohesive unit. Project team members need to communicate effectively and manage themselves through the conflicts that will inevitably occur. Relationships within teams are not intangible, unmanageable aspects of a project; they are the key ingredients to successful project management.
The Strength Deployment Inventory will give the individuals working together on a project team the understanding of each other that they need to work effectively together. The SDI will provide the platform from which effective working relationships will be crafted. Once the team members know each other’s motivational values, they will be able to communicate more effectively and work toward common goals, avoiding unwarranted conflict.
The Portrait of Personal Strengths can help to further define specific skills that each individual brings to the project team. It will also help each individual to know what skills they may need to borrow in order to push the project to completion.
Finally, the Expectations Edition of the SDI will help the project team members to define what they believe the role of each project team member to be. This will open up an honest and non-judgmental discussion of the expectations of each team member, as well as the ideal for the team as a whole. In setting and managing expectations for the team, the team can avoid falling into unwarranted conflict over unmanaged and ill-defined expectations.
When used in conjunction with each other, these tools will provide the background personal information and team expectations to ensure the timely and successful completion of the team’s projects.
Personal Strengths offers a low-tech approach to project management… Project Management: The Team Approach is a complete project management system that stresses the importance of interpersonal relationships to the timely and successful completion of projects. This course helps project teams to understand the principles of project management and create a project plan, which can then be used as input for any software program. This Facilitation Guide and accompanying workbook was authored by Gary Robinson, a Personal Strengths Publishing master trainer with over twenty years of training and consulting experience. Gary has trained many organisations around the globe in the successful use of this project management program.
Project Management: The Team Approach integrates the SDI and the Expectations Edition of the SDI into the coursework, so that effective interpersonal communication is presented as a cornerstone of successful project management. Teams learn how motivational values affect perception and communication. They also learn how conflict sequences can easily progress deeper and deeper if the conflict is not well managed. Teams learn how to apply the knowledge they gain about their own and other team members’ relating styles so that they can avoid communication issues and work toward common goals without the hindrance of unwarranted conflict. The Expectations Edition of the SDI helps teams to set relationship expectations within and across the team, clarifying roles within the team.
Many organisations have found this low-tech project management method to fit well within their culture, enabling them to complete projects on time, with high-quality results.
