When the project is finished, what do you want to add to your resume? What additional skills have you required? What do you want your LinkedIn referrals say about you? How are you changed when the project is finished? What is the legacy you want to leave behind?

Relationship With The Project.

I talk a lot about a project being a Big Adventure, or a journey. A project is also a small episode in the personal journey of many individuals. Viewing what you do today in the context of a larger path will help you explore your relationship with the current project. Why do you do what you do? Why do you want to do things in the first place?

Relationship With Team.

It also addresses the relationships with your team members. They know a little more about your background. They see how you add to the diversity of the group. And it makes us all look more human.

From the many perspectives you can look at the project, the Map Of You will literally put you at the center. It is a tool to explore the relationship between what you do today and your personal journey (past and future).

Draw an empty map which basically looks like a bow tie. Put “NOW” in the center and “PAST” and “FUTURE” on both sides. Ask the participant to write keywords that answer questions as formulated in the first two paragraphs of this post.

This can be done as an individual exercise or as a group exercise.

Other Maps.

The Map Of You is part of a change/project management strategy focused on culture and using an “adventure travel” metaphor. For more maps and exercise, visit my list of Shrinkonian exercises.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Map Of You. How What You Do Today Relates To Your Personal Journey. is a post from: Project Shrink.

• Are you curious, yet cautious when it comes to social media?
• Do you wonder what everyone is talking about when they say Twitter or Facebook?
• Do you want to blog, but you don’t know what to say?
• Are you worried about sharing too much of your personal life online?

Social media when used correctly can be a powerful tool. Before you ‘discount’ the value of this tool, spend time with us – Margaret Meloni and Bas de Baar.

We are not asking for your money, we are asking for your time! That’s right, there is no charge for you to attend this event!

Join us and walk away knowing:

• Why Social Media?
• What’s Private, What’s Public?
• Can I Share Personal Information?
• What Not to Do
• Smart Tips

Sounds great, when will this take place?

Friday October 15, 2010 at 9:00 am pacific (6pm CET).

Please go to Margarets website to signup!

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Upcoming Webinar: Keeping it Real Online Without Feeling Exposed is a post from: Project Shrink.

But sometimes we are operating in unknown organizations. Sometimes we think we have the right authority, but in reality we don’t. Sometimes we just get a team assigned without any real influence in the selection process.

That’s ok. It’s our job to fix it. Deal with it. Or leave it.

But that’s easier said then done.

When our project sails under a clear sky on a smooth sea, you have no problem following the right procedures. This gets a lot harder when shit hits the fan, you are under pressure, dodging bullets and running for your deadline.

Not good. But human.

There is no instance fix. But this is something you can work on.

Perhaps something for the new year?

Train mental flexibility and communication skills.

This “mental flexibility” thing is nothing more than “thinking outside the box“, “seeing other point of view” and “knowing your own assumptions and biases”.

There are exercises you can do to train this. Like “Six Thinking Hats For Project Management” , “Project Potion: Meshups” and “Team Metaphor Game“. And here are 25 more ways.

Training communication skills is so easy these days: start engaging online. Start a blog, start commenting on a blog, get a twitter account, just choose your own tool and have fun with it.

Free training. Wow.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - It’s Not Always Easy Doing The Right Thing All The Time is a post from: Project Shrink.

“I learned that you cannot jump from the PMBoK directly to topics like “mental flexibility” and “emotional intelligence”. I am sorry to tell you, but most people cannot make that jump that fast. A path to “project enlightenment” has to be defined. Conveniently, I think I have one… In Buddhism teachings are presented in Turnings of The Wheel Of Dharma. Each turn builds upon the previous one and brings the student to a higher level of consciousness.”

I have been going back and forth this year between “Second Turn: Structure For Resilience”, “Third Turn: Global Pool” and “Fourth Turn: Flexible Mind”.

While writing, talking and discussing about these levels, I have found a more effective, easier to explain version of the 4 Dharma’s. The message doesn’t change. But the emphasis and words are slightly different.

Three Spaces: Personal, Reputation And Project

Basically, I just went from 4 to 3. I currently talk about:

• Personal Space
• Reputation Space
• Project Space

The idea originates form the Social Media presentation I’ve been giving this year (see slide 24). In order to use social media skills on your project, you have to learn and master them on a personal and professional level first. The elements of Project Leadership require strong personal and interpersonal knowledge and skills:

“Goals and Means on individual, project and organizational level
Alignment of goals and means on all levels by communication”

Or as I conclude my presentation on Project Leadership: “Develop Project Leadership Skills To Get Your Team To Self-Organize.”

So, you work on your own stuff, you master the skills before you can help your team.

Mastering Your Personal Space

If you are communicating clearly, without fear of expression and with respect for the conversation partner, under all circumstances, you have truly mastered you own personal space. Within your space you get to know what you are about, what your thing is and how to shift the mental models of your mind.

Mastering Your Reputation Space

The topic of this blog is running projects. The network that knows about you in this context is your Reputation Space. You can view this as your professional network, your community of practice or just your local office.

Your Reputation Space is your training ground for professional interaction. You practice communication skills, you get knowledge and provide knowledge back to your network. You use skills from your personal space to participate, and you use insights provided by the interaction to enhance your personal skills.

While doing this, you build your reputation (hence the name). This reputation becomes important as it is used in communication with people that don’t know you, or hardly. Reputation is used to “create trust”. Reputation is used to get an idea about what you are about. As creating an audience is also a form of self-actualization, there is a direct link to the Personal Space.

Mastering Your Project Space

In the context of projects, the essence is captured in the earlier described notion of Project Leadership. For details, check out this presentation on Project Leadership.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Mastering Three Spaces: Personal, Reputation And Project is a post from: Project Shrink.

Here is the slidedeck for one of them: The End Of The Human Cannonball: Project Leadership In Today’s World.

“Sometimes you end up doing everything in your project yourself. You become the center of control. But sometimes changes happen so fast, it’s hard to keep up and in control. It seems lately “sometimes” is more often then we would like.

In this presentation he will present the alignment of goals and approaches between organization, project and individuals as the central task of a Project Leader.”

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - The End Of The Human Cannonball: Project Leadership In Today’s World is a post from: Project Shrink.

Marketing: Tech People Hate It. Boy Are They Going To Need It!

“If your are into software project management, you are into marketing. If you are planning to keep on working on software projects in the years to come, you better get darn good at it. It seems to be a dirty word among technical people: “marketing”. But it’s not about selling your soul to the devil. It’s not about tricking people into buying stuff they don’t want.”

Dear Project Manager: Why Should Anyone Want To Work For You?

“If it’s not your reputation that’s going to kill your job, it’s your poor, old school skill set. Project organizations are getting more and more distributed over our globe, team members are becoming more mobile. The project manager will have to deal with an increasingly multi-cultural, global and mobile environment, in which the employees are working on more fragmented tasks. You desperately need to update your skills.”

Define Yourself As A Professional With Margaret Meloni

Earlier this year I had an interview with Margaret Meloni in which she answers the following questions:

• Why is it important to define yourself as a professional?
• How do you get to know what you bring to the table?
• How do you broadcast that to others?

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Project Shrink Rerun: Knowing And Promoting Yourself is a post from: Project Shrink.

You can watch the episode below or follow this link.

Subscribe with iTunes to “The Project Shrink Podcast”
Full Video Version of Project Shrink videocast

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Personal Productivity – The Power Of Slow is a post from: Project Shrink.

In this episode of The Project Shrink I have the pleasure of talking to Stephane Grenier, author of “Blog Blazers”, a fabulous book for every type of blogger. He also runs a software company and has his own blog (of course).

I asked Stephane the following questions:

• Most of my viewers are Project Managers and other professionals. How would you convince them to start a blog?
• What are your personal 3 favorite tips you encountered during the book interviews on how to write successfully blog posts?
• If people have one day of spare time, have the desire to start a blog, how would you recommend they arrange their day?

You can watch the interview below or follow this link to YouTube.com.

New: Subscribe with iTunes to “The Project Shrink” episodes

You can subscribe to this (and all other) video(s) using iTunes. It is available as a full video version or audio (mp3) only.

	Subscribe with iTunes to the full video version of Project Shrink videocast
	Subscribe with iTunes to the audio only version of Project Shrink podcast

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Project Managers And Blogging With Stephane Grenier is a post from: Project Shrink.

I am delighted to talk to Margaret Meloni on this subject. She consults with individuals and organizations on the topic of conflict resolution and she coaches professionals in advancing their careers. She used to work as a Project Manager, so she knows our profession.

Margaret answers the following questions:

• Why is it important to define yourself as a professional?
• How do you get to know what you bring to the table?
• How do you broadcast that to others?

You can view the video below… or follow this link to YouTube.com.

Special Offer For Project Shrink Readers/Viewers

Margaret has provided us with a great offer: her course “Define Yourself, Define Your Life- Develop clarity around – the real YOU at work” (which covers the topics discussed in the video chat and much, much more) will be available with a 30% discount until March 6, 2009.

To make use of this offer, go to the product overview (and read what you get, it is course nr2), and use the code ‘Bas’ at checkout. You will receive $23.70 off the regular price which is $79US.

You might also want to check out…

Intersection Between Personal Development, Change Management And Project Management
Alignment Of Individual And Organizational Objectives With Andrew Meyer
Successful Virtual Teams With Jessica Lipnack

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Define Yourself As A Professional With Margaret Meloni is a post from: Project Shrink.

As I am trying to infuse Project Management with some much needed “human stuff” a chat with her would be very good idea: the intersection between personal development, change management and project management.

Subscribe with iTunes to “The Project Shrink Podcast”
Full Video Version of Project Shrink videocast
Audio Only Version of Project Shrink podcast

The questions we address are:

• What does personal development have to do with changes in organizations?
• Why is it useless to plan for anything longer than a year?
• How can anyone bootstrap his own personal change?
• and more

You can view the video below… or follow this link to YouTube.com.

Tell us what you think about the intersection between personal development, change management and project management.

You may also want to check out…

Alignment Of Individual And Organizational Objectives With Andrew Meyer
Successful Virtual Teams With Jessica Lipnack
Self-Organization In Teams With Esther Derby

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Intersection Between Personal Development, Change Management And Project Management is a post from: Project Shrink.