Acing Project Management: Advanced concepts

1. Introduction: So welcome to part two of this project management course. So during part one, we saw how project management works. During part two, we are defining a framework for you to really AC it as a project manager. So in order to do that, we'll bring in some new concepts that are not usually part of project management, but that would really make a difference in your project management style and the way you are seen by stakeholders. And we will also take some concepts that we have seen in part one and we will refine them. We would give them a twist. We will perfect them to put all the chances on your side. 2. Course content: Welcome again to part two of this course. So we've done the introduction. But when the course now we are located here a framework for acing it. As we've seen in the introduction. This three major components, the context, the framework, and then interview tips. So let's have a look on a more granular level if you like the section overview. So we start off with a project management context. There's a framework made of five steps, are five components, if you like, the expectation metrics, golden rules, the artifacts, the dangers, names, and numbers to know from memory. We'll also have a bonus tip which is a project log, which is not really strictly speaking part of the framework, but he's a very good tool what to see our interviews or so we'll discuss that and then we will finish by a review of what we have seen in part two and the wrap-up. 3. Project Management context part 1: Welcome back to the course. So let's see if we can build on the knowledge of part one. And not only be a decent project manager, I've been trying to up our game a little bit. Let's try an acid. Just, I wanted to give you a bit of context initially. So obviously it's not easy to represent a context for all projects, but I'm, I'm trying to find if you want the common the most common type of structure that you could be working in. If you are a project manager. I've brought it up in more or less four categories. Business, project office manager, and the project team. Every group. It's considered stakeholders of your project. And within each group, each stakeholder comes into your project with a different need. So this is your philosophy, if you like, of acing project management is to attempt to meet their needs and also at the same time, cover yourself. So let's have a look at the needs of each one of these groups bearing in mind that each group has individuals that could have different needs. You could have two resources to business stakeholders doing more or less the same job, but taking into account their personality or their history within the company, they would have different needs. That's something that is very important. They are not all the same. So when you get into a new job, it's very important to understand all those components here or a new project for that matter. So if we start with the business, why do they want from a project manager or the business? Wants you to understand their business. So they don't want someone who's just going to take the project, put it all in, into milestones and deliver that might appear this whale sometimes. But I tell you what, they really want you to be part of their team. They want to see you as one of their team, putting their project together and just delivering it. So if you understand the business strategy, the final outcome of the project, you will be able to communicate with the business. You will be able to share their excitement. You will be able to make suggestions. So they want to see you as part of their team and not just a specialized resource. So that's something that is important. Something else that they want from you is I want you to be flexible. They want, as I was saying, they want someone part of the team. So they want someone who was not, was not going to come in a way of their quote, unquote dream of a project. They don't want someone to tell them, Oh sorry. You can do that with a process. As soon as they ask a small change. If you say no, sorry can do, I'm gonna be in trouble with my goals. They don't want that. So this is why I have this principle that when the business asked for a challenge, any type of change, even if I know there's no way that can be implemented. I never say no straightaway. I don't want to come across that way. I said, I will investigate. I will check. First account is seems a bit a bit of a bit of a challenge that I will get back to you on this one. This is more or less the business. That's two key things they want from you. Needless to say, they all also wonder project to be implemented on time and on budget because they're paying and they wanted a business benefits earlier. But those are more common attributes of project management and the project manager. So I'll leave those aside and I'm more focusing here on the on the individual needs. So have a look at the project office or sometime it's not a project or face has mentioned, this is just one possible variation. But I'm just going to assume there is a project of his, if it's not the project of his that wants you to be compliant because as you need, they have compliance. It would be someone else. There is always someone out there. Want you to be compliant. You cannot implement change without going through a change control. You need to have your issue register up-to-date. You need to go through a, B, C, to get to D. You cannot jump to D directly. You need to have your report by that point in time. That's a project of this for you. 4. Project Management context part 2: Then you have management. Could be a program manager. It could be your line manager. It could be anyone someone that you report to Morris. So what does he or she wants from you? She wants you to be fast. She doesn't want you to do that. Whenever you're ready. All the business came up with a proposal. Take your time. They will always want you to be fast, to put summaries fast. On their side. They have a lot of pressure for a lot of managers. Maybe your project is competing with another project that should have gone there. So they want you to give them what they want very fast. Now you already see probably a bit of a challenge here without going into any further. I just wanted to highlight that quickly if I can get this pen started, is that you have stakeholders here, wants you to be flexible and compliant. It's not always compatible. And you have to stake holders here, I want you to have a bit of a conflicting information here. So we've seen in part one, the best way around this is to simplify. If you simplify, you are faster, you can be more flexible as well. So that's a bottle. The challenge I suppose. Let's go back to the manager wants you to be fast. What does the manager wants you to bring options to add value? This time? It's not option two, but the business understanding the business. But it's more on the technical side sometimes, or on the lateral thinking side. So the manager here, when you have an issue, it isn't when someone who just reported issue back to him. The adding value here component is key. There's an issue escalate. There's an issue. Is got it. There's any issue. I scale it without any options. That is not good, that is doesn't meet his or her needs. I think this is the most important part of project management and I believe what else? On top of that thorough and accurate. Your budget is being scrutinized by roll-off part of the business project of fees and your manager as well. But your manager really want you to nail it first time. So you can see that if you have something that is simple that we've seen in part one, it's easier to be accurate. And also to be very thorough. It's very important not to drop things off, especially during the planning phase as we saw. So that's for your management team. Now you could say the project team, you know the quote, unquote, work for you. But they are not to be neglected. I see. Project managers would choose their side from the beginning. Stick with the business. And they do everything for them or the cost of the others. They stick to their manager. Or they are a sticker to the rule. And they forget the other very important component. So I know it is not easy, but we try and meet all those needs. Otherwise, it's easy just to stick to one, very easy. And the forgotten child project team. So resources come from this project team. They are often taken away from their usual daily tasks. So they are a bit if you want isolated, sometimes they can be also dedicated project resource and I used to eat. But regardless, as the management line between yourself and the project team is always dotted lines so they don't really directly works for you. Or very rarely. In projectized project, they will do the alphabet. It's doesn't occur that often. So there'll be disconnected in a way they have dotted line with you and they are still reporting to their functional manager somewhere. And they are a bit split between the two. So the functional manager might not be that interested in the project. They need support for mu. You need to understand the challenge that concerns. You need to be very supportive for your project team. And the end, I tell you what they will give that back to you. They also want you to be organized. I mean, we have a project manager. It's for one reason is to organize stuff around here. They might have worked together for a long time, but if there's a project manager, let's use he, him or her. This is what they want from you. They want to be supportive, although they might not always say this way. But they also want you to be a top node project manager who will help them communicate with the other teams. Sometimes there's some history between the teams. So this is what they really want from you. As you can see, not all environments are the same. Sometimes things can vary, but there's something that we will not vary is you will be working with various groups, will have different needs. So that's an exercise evaluating their needs that you need to do on every project. Even if you work in the same company, you would definitely have different business unless you are working with the same team manager project of his end business on the next project, then that doesn't need to be, to be redone. So that's it for project management context. It's not just a matter of running around and doing your project. It's also a matter of building the relationship with these various teams. Have them on your side. It's always much easier when you have Teams on your side. Remember, when I was working for IBM, actually, I was working on a client side. Requiring the resources for this client side. Project team was on the client side, not from IBM. But I remember how this discretion with one of the Important team manager who was providing resources to to project managers. And when I came to his desk, he was a bit upset with another project manager and he admitted to me, when project managers arc like this with me, I put their request at the bottom of the pile. That's a conversation that stayed with me for a long time because this guy was harnessed enough to tell you that. So that's just another example, that relationship with all those teams, all those stakeholders. 5. Intro to Framework: Welcome back to the course. Async project management framework to success. Let's get straight into it. What is this framework about? It's made of five components. Let's go through them one by one. I will show you a very useful tool that are served me very well. It's called the Project Manager expectation matrix. So that's something that I've created. It is the matrix that will, you can put together to really roundup all the stakeholders that you have to really try and understand it. So that's building from the previous slides in a way. The second component of this framework is I will provide you with four golden rules to follow. They will be key rules that you always need to bear in mind. Some are stuff that you need to do as a one-off, but some are ongoing during the life of the project. I will tell you which five artifacts you need to have imperfect order to protect yourself from all potential requirement from any type of stakeholders. I will tell you about some dangerous that you need to look out for. So that doesn't necessarily mean that you need to take action. But once you know the type of challenges that you could potentially have, it makes it much easier to spot them and to react to them. The last component, that's a very simple one. As part of this framework, there are three things that you need to know from memory. So this is the framework that those are very concrete activity and things that you need to do if you really want to erase it. And we'll go through them one by one. 6. Expectation matrix: Welcome back to the course. Let's get started with the first component of this framework, what I have called the Project Manager expectation matrix. What's the other approach? The first thing we need to do is understand what all stakeholders expect from you. We saw that on the, on the slides to open these BOT-2, they all want different things. They all have different needs. And it's dangerous to leave one neat aside as a project manager. Number to give it to them. Give them what they need, to give them what they want within reason, but give it to them. How do we do that? Perception and action? For perception or action as well. It doesn't have to be both. The first, third step is to ask for feedback. This is something we never do. It's very rare that I see someone asking someone else in a work environment, how am I doing? So we've seen this. What stakeholders need. We give it to them for perception and action. So perception is sometimes we are doing a lot of work. I see sometime project managers doing a lot of work, but don't get much from it because they are not good at quote unquote setting themselves. And it's a bit of a lose-lose situation because the Project Manager doesn't get the reward or the attention that they deserve or she deserves. And the manager or the business thing that this project manager is not really putting his weight or her weight. Because the Project Manager doesn't give the perception that he is doing a good job. It might be doing all the action that no one notices it, then the confidence is lost. I was giving in part one the example of report and why they're so important is that you could be doing the best job. You could be running around doing a lot of action, doing a lot of stuff. But you don't do your report. So you have your project to fish, you have your manager, you have your business. Judge, you in a way for your report and they think are these guys never has his report on time. How many terms do we have to tell him or her? The project team who think your grid because you've been doing all this running around with a few other components. They don't. So this is why perception is very important that makes everyone relax. After we have this loop for feedback. Now, let's see what this matrix looks like. So here it is. It is very simple in a way. It's a bit of it's not easy to do a request for you to do your investigation work. When you join a new company or you start a new project, you really need to get this from the stakeholders. And it's not always, you don't want to always go and ask the question, what are your needs? You can not do that. So sometimes you have to do it by other means. So sometimes you just go and ask someone who has worked with him or her. You just see have a field at meetings or what if questions were concerned he has without asking him or her directly. So this is going to be very subtle sometimes because you don't want to go to everyone. Come on everyone, what are your needs? But it's I'm much more subtle way to get to that. So what does that look like? So the first one is we put here the stakeholder or the group of stakeholders. So it could be either a name or a group of stakeholders name. If you feel that there are three stakeholders working for the business, all at the same level. They seem very similar. And if they have to have the same personality as well, then you can put the group. But sometimes you would see that there are some that are, that have different needs. So depending on Nudge, would have either the group of stakeholders, so you have an individuals, they called it. So this is the key. What are these group expect of me? Is, is in contradiction veneered groups expectation. So this is what you will have to do. You might have to do some work as we saw before. Can you be compliant and flexible at the same time? Can you be fast and compliant at the same time? So you would have to ensure that you meet the need. You're going to have to find a bit of a middle ground and how to address those conflicting needs. So the expectation, the needs could have been another way to name these. And this is how you're going to address it. Perception. How can I cover these expectation to these group? They are perception. How can I cover that? What can I say? What can I show? What can I remind them off to make them feel comfortable about this expectation, which is some examples on the next side. So it's not a clear action here, is we're gonna do indirectly, if you like. So they can perceive that I am meeting, they need action. That's more straightforward. What activity can I actually undertake to make them understand I are meeting the expectation. Can be something very concrete that you do. In feedback. Check with stakeholder if you are doing okay. So this is a little bit like I mentioned about getting the expectation. It has to be a bit subtle sometime you cannot go directly and say, How am I doing? You cannot do that every, every, every few weeks, but use your best judgment for this. You would feel it sometimes. But sometimes it's very difficult. Sometimes you work for someone. For moms. They seem to be a bit grumpy. They don't seem very happy, they end. And one day you can't hold it anymore to save how, how am I doing? And you realize that you've been doing very well. So sometimes it's not very easy to read. But it's important to get disinformation. Is it a success? And if this is a success, then this matrix for the stakeholder, you can put that on hold because you know, you're, you are working on it, you know what, everything is going perfectly well. So on the next slide, we'll see some examples. 7. Expectation Matrix Example: So let's see what this expectation matrix could look like. So as a stakeholder, for instance, you could have the project office manager, Mary, and our expectation is processed me understood and followed. So what could I do for her to be confident that I'm keen and willing to follow the processes. What do we call it a cowboy, which is a project manager. We just go straight to the end, though it's not too concerned about processes. So one thing I could do once again, depending on your environment you're in, but one thing I could do is I could ask her clarification on a complex process that would make her understand and realize that I've reviewed all the processes and I'm on board. I am keen to follow them as much as I can. The action I could take. I will send reports on time, but I haven't gone yet to receive feedback. So I do not know yet if my strategy is working. So I need to keep an eye on my next meeting with her and all the project managers, how she know she views me. Next example, team member Eric. So it seems concern is role is not valued. It's been in this role for a long time. It's been front from projects to projects to projects. And it doesn't show enthusiasm at meetings. And it just feels that is blind manager doesn't really value him. What could I do as a perception? So as a perception, a good reminder important of Israel at meetings and autonomy to him, that feedback is always stronger when other team members. So I could ask him if he has any concerns with what's happening around this activity. So that will make him realize that I'm working with him, that I have a good idea of his work and I value his work and an action. I really want to do something concrete for this person. I don't want to put the other team members as a disadvantage, but maybe I will do it just a little bit more with him. So when he does something good, I would send him to his manager and coping him. They really appreciate that. Usually they always send me an email and say Thanks for that. But what is very important here? Only do that when they do something good. So there's a principle, catch them doing the right thing. And that is point highlighted to themselves and to their manager. This is how we build confidence. So we don't want to be repeating that every week. Good work, good work, good work with this a bit empty. When I do something concrete, that is good. Remind them and reminded managers, I haven't gotten feedback yet, but I will soon see that the ring project meetings regarding his attitude because his attitude was not very positive to start with. It's been dealing with a lot of project managers. So let's try and turn him around. The business owner row node m. We expect me to understand how this project is important to the company. So it took me aside and really made me clearly understand that this project is very important for the next three years of this company. I didn't even have to check. It's it's not very subtle, but it wants me to understand the business impact the business benefits this project. I really need to show him that I am on board the end that I understand the business impact of this project. So what I've decided to take as a perception action is I will mention in the next meeting the potential requirement additionally mentioned. So you mentioned requirement and instead that could be even better. And I just want to follow him, but I don't want to hide away from it. If it's going to come, let's face it now. And I think that will show good commitment. Project managers often reticent, of course, and rightfully so to any new change. But there could be a good opportunity for me to really show that I'm working with him. So I want to take any concrete action at this stage. But I will review next month ended the 21st of FEB, seemed okay with my understanding of the business so that that already gathered some good good feedback here. So now my manager, Jane, she seemed concerned, I don't understand yet. When technical aspect of the project sometime manager really expect you to understand horror the very technical side of projects. So when it's an IT project, something to do with a Cloud was technical or if it's any type of project, there's always something very technical to understand about it, but I have feeling that yeah, that she doesn't fully trust me on that aspect because she's questioning me a bit too much on them. So I need to learn the technical aspect. Obviously not to the level of the project team. It's not my role, but I need to understand the high-level stuff and dependencies and what is required to fix issues around this technical aspect. So I will buy perception. I will ask who is the best person to explain the technical component of the project. I will go front on and I will ask her so I will not do anything yet, but at least I will ask her so she understand that I'm keen to understand it and then we'll learn it. So even if I don't do that, immediately, at least have done that and the wheels in motion that she knows that I'm on board. She knows that I'm committed to know that I want to learn. 22nd of FEB. I asked her what I should focus on. We check in a few weeks if I'm doing okay. So I've just asked for more feedback here. And she's still refers to this and I know I've perception is not enough. I need to go back to this, but I need to mention something else they have something else to work on. But I will check again in a few weeks. She has another expectation. She seems extremely focused on the budget. I mean, you could argue every manager, but here too, to an incredible extent that she's asking me to give her a debt every week on a budget. So what I need to do is I will prompt you mentioned any issue impacting the budget, so that's something we always have to do anyway, but in this case, I will be really doing it on almost on a daily basis. If it occurs, will do is I will not come to her after the event. I want to be proactive and I want to give her the option to help me so we don't have that budget problem. So in other words, she'll be involved as well. And if she cannot say you didn't fix it, she she will have to say, well, we didn't fix it. So that's a bit of a difference if you like. But I definitely gonna give you the perception that I'm really on top of the jets and action. I will provide regular meticulous project updates. My theory, you get them more than what they want. If they're really focusing on something, give them more than what they want. This way they will leave you alone. And then ask for feedback yet, but haven't noticed anything that shows me that I'm on track, but I will definitely do it. So that's it. That's a very useful tool. Now obviously this is, this is the best-case scenario when you would have this and you would update it likes. Sometimes you'd see that you can do that with that. Actually maintaining these, obviously you would have some type of nodes, all the likes, but it's very important to do it. I've only I've done it with the project of his one productive member business owner, and manager. But you would obviously have civil you could have several group, several names. Okay, so that's it for this first component of the framework. 8. Golden rules: Welcome back to the course. Acing project management framework. Now it's time to present the four golden rules. I will go into more detail for each one of them. But initially, a quick overview here. First one, fit into whatever environment you are in. It's following on to the previous component of the framework, the expectation matrix. Understand where you work. Sagan rule is understand the business and what they want from the project. We've already also touched on that on expectation matrix. But we will put another layer of this on top here. Roles and responsibilities. Remember three, extremely important. So you could ignore that rule and have a very good project. But you could ignore it. And they could go do some challenges on the project. Let's put it this way. And finally, use meetings to get outcomes. Not update. We focusing on team meetings. But I suppose the same would apply to Steering Committee type of meetings. While you weren't, you really want to not only provide updates, but also try and get outcomes from the executive team. That's it. Let's start with the first one. Fit into whatever environment you are in. 9. Golden rule 1: Let's continue with this course. Golden rule number one, fit into whatever environment you are in. So what does that mean? Understand the company culture initially and then match it. So you could be a consultant, working for the service provider and you are thrown into a client side. And you think, well, I'm come from this service provider. We doing this way, forget about the company culture, but you'd be wrong. You need to match it, otherwise you'll be standing out and that's not good for yourself. And that's not good for you're hiring company as well. If you are employed in a new company, you also need to understand and match the culture you need to blend in. Initially. This is the role of the project manager. That doesn't mean you don't have any personality that will come. But as far as culture, you don't want to stand out to start with. And also what you do is you need to understand if the environment bleeds towards being process-driven or result-driven. So it's not clear cut is not 0% on one side and a 100% on your site. So it's a blend. That's why I put lean rewards. Usually small service provider or service provider engineer all day. They don't really have as a stringent process. They are more they want, they have a bottom line. They want the client to be happy and to get things done. But on the other hand, working for government banks and the likes that they are more process-driven. They have a lot of audits. They want to make sure that you take all the books. I was working for a very large government agency in Australia. And the project of his really didn't care if the project was led as long as all the books were ticked. So you need to know which process absolutely needs to be followed and those that don't need to be followed. So part of establishing if, if the environment is too on being process-driven or result-driven, you would have a look at which component of processes really are, are mandatory and are strictly followed in his company. So they could give you a huge process documentation that you spend the first week reviewing. But in the end of the day and in real life, not all of them are really mandatory. So that would save you a lot of time. So you can navigate your way through only the monetary, the processes. So bottom line is give the complainants people what they want. During interviews. They often want to assess you and ask you what is your style and the like. So they have a culture and they want the urine so to match their culture. So it's very important even before you start working for a company to understand this. I had interviewers at an anterior view just telling me they are result-driven. So they already put the cards on a table during the interview. So to summarize all these, don rush into doing things your way. Take some time in the first maybe couple of weeks to really understand how things work. And bottom line is, be as pragmatic as possible while flowing monetary rules and processes. Because if you are pragmatic, you have more time to work on results. But at the same time, processes that have to be done, have to be done. 10. Golden Rule 2: Welcome back, golden rule number two. Understand the business and what they want from the project. And what do they want from the project. They won't benefit realization. What they're working on. They want to see the benefits at the end of the project. So sometimes they are not the most riveting benefits. It could be just a military legal change, but at least it will be compliant and it's important for them. It could be a new product. And then that will be more obvious that the benefit is important for them. So I have included this in the project management process because we should always keep that in mind. In planning, keep it in mind, execution, in closing, keep it in mind. Understand the business model and the industry that will be so useful for you. It seems like a lot of work, but also that makes you a bit more interesting. Give, gives it more variety. Let's say you work on a project, has a look at one business component and you hear about another project that the company is running that doing something a little bit similar and you understand the dependencies and the right and you start bringing that in. Now the business that they would like that, that you actually understand the dependencies between components from a, from a business point of view. So talk to the business in business words, not project words. Don mentioned, deadlines, registers, product management processes, constraints. Talk to them using their own words. We mentioned earlier, the business want to see you as part of their team. They don't want to see you as someone doing something technical that doesn't really interact with their team. If you understand the business and if you talk to them in business word, then you are on the right track. See your project's objective as delivering business benefit. That's the same thing, not following process in meeting deadlines. So if you delete it on time and on budget, that the benefits are not really evident and not really there for the business. Because you didn't do something during planning and execution that would have made things better as far as benefits realization, then I don't think you've achieved your goal. Remember, the business area is paying to get this work done. Work with them, be part of their team and understand what they want. 11. Golden Rule 3: Welcome back to the course, golden rule number three, clear roles and responsibilities. So that seems to be an easy one on the project. Everybody know where they are doing, but it is not that obvious. So when you start a project, and sometimes it's not evident when you started these as you progress on a project, it's very important to find out all the areas where the responsibility is not clear. And when there's no one responsible for something, it falls back on the project manager. And that is not good because the project manager is not a technical resource. The project manager is a coordinator. So areas that don't have a clear responsibility will definitely negatively impact the project. So you need to check the responsibility for project activities and also all issues. Let's say you take over a project. There's a huge issue register, and most of the issues don't have owners. So you've already right from the start, you have a lot of work to do to allocate each one of those until they're clear they're located, they're not going to solve themselves. Another thing to bear in mind is be mindful of is a resource doing the work that he or she is not supposed to do. So that seems like very helpful on the short-term. But say the project comes under pressure so that person doesn't want to do that anymore and you're left with a gap further down the track. The thing was not done properly. And he or she tells you where you look, I've done now just goodness of my heart, I'm not really an expert. So that's just an example. But I think it shows that it's critical that everybody needs to know what they're doing. And I think it's all downhill when everybody knows what they're doing. But this doesn't only work for your project team. It's also very important as a project manager, for instance, that you know, where are your limits? If you make decisions on the sport with your project team and then they are being overruled by your manager or by their managers for that matter. So it's very important to know what you can and cannot do without getting prior approvals. So you have to put cards on the table and say, okay, what are my limits were aware of my own authorities. And also where is my ultimate responsibility? Because it's not always the same depending on where you work to finish or so approvals. So you could be working on a project about to implement it, but to reach a milestone. And after, when you look for sign-ups, everybody looks the other way. So it's really important. And we had that in a project charter or the PNP in order to sign off list if you can. Because otherwise it's going to be extremely difficult. And then you could waste time because someone is going to be brought in as a last-minute has a sign off. And guess what? There'll be reviewing all the documentation and the chances increase that they're not going to be happy with it. So you might have to take a step back. Another one on the approval side is team members. Sometimes you think that, you know, you have all the authority in a room when you tear a project team meeting. But after you realize that each one of the team members reports to another entity, like for instance, the technical expert might have designers on staff, technical stuff. And when you think, well, it's really soon, he said yes. But I need to go through this review and it's another technical committee who needs to review and Alexa that happens so now, especially in government and very large company where you can not just have a project doing is on stuff regardless of what's happening on a broader scale. The company governance checks as well. It's important. They can show when something happened. It doesn't need to be double check, triple check by other entities because they actually stakeholders. If your document is being reviewed by a couple of other persons. So this person's become part of the project in my book because they have the quote and quote power to slow down the project. View of that. Especially when you have to make a decision on the project as a group to make sure that everyone that is making a decision is known to you. You might not be able to bring them all in the room. But technical groups, column and checks. Functional managers, make sure that they are all clearly articulated and so that you know that you need to get this final tick before you can make that decision. So to finish on the Golden Rule, three roles and responsibilities. Just quickly. Reminder areas was that clear responsibility will negatively impact the project and be mindful of what we've seen, assumptions. And always the, Nobody is doing a task because they assume the project manager will do eat or team member will do it. Be mindful of our tools project. And this is where the roles and responsibilities start to get a bit blurred because IT service provider to do this or is it the company to do this, the hiring company to do this? Between a manager and a team member. We've seen that be mindful of shared responsibility when there's no one really responsible is more a team responsibility and alike. So who is making the final core? Clear delegation? How much money can I spend or this person designing this stuff for writing this document? Do they really have the delegation to do it or have someone above them to sign it off. So that's it for that completes golden rule. Number three. 12. Golden Rule 4: Welcome back to a single project management. Golden rule number four, use team meetings to get outcomes, not updates. In part one, we've gone through the theory of meetings, which is meetings, seeing for the project manager to coordinate tasks and get up there square around a table. And then you go back to your desk and you just put all that in your schedule and you're good to go. Now, I will be proposing we run meetings differently. It's a unique opportunity for you when you have all the team members together to solve some issue and to really get things moving. There's a very strong focus for me on issue resolution. You want to keep control on an issue resolution process. In order to do this. There's a few things we need to do. First, we prefer individual updates done outside the meeting. So you have Mary working on the task. But if if it's an independent task that no, she doesn't rely on E1. So you can get that update yourself. Outside the meeting. One-on-one, a debt. It is yet to challenge. You don't want a challenge married in front of everyone. If there's something a bit dodgy, if it takes longer than I thought. So it's it's easier, it's less confrontational and is better or so for team morale, I believe this we're going to learn also that though, so that's a key one and that's the whole idea of getting outcomes is you give more time and more focus on a group discretion in meetings. This is what we'll try and achieve during these meetings to really get things done. So the advantage of sodium have individual updates outside the meeting is you build a relationship and you're being kept up to date on a hotdog Bessie. So there are activities or take three moms. Do you need to bring that person the meeting every week if there is no dependency on others? Probably not. So you could go to her desk, Can you discuss with a new and you get a good feel and relax and you bring it back to the meetings when she's needed unless she wants to participate, of course. So before the meeting, what we do, we put together the list of outcomes that we need. You ensure attendance. Attendance of the key resource that you need to solve your issues or to get outcome. So to get things moving. Meetings are an O2 often focusing on action items. You go. So you go around the table with all the action items. And you also go around the table to get updated, as I was mentioning, you halfway through the meeting and you're still going through the action items. And usually they are one-on-one conversation. And this is what I want to avoid during my meetings. This is my opportunity sometime just your own you're putting t during the week where I have all the team inverse, what do I want to waste that to have one-on-one during this meeting when I can do it outside of meeting. Nope. So what do we do? Letting go of the need to control the meeting? And that's a big one. Of course, it's not as black and white as that. But I will explain why I sometime let go of the need to control the meeting. I know you're being told project managers need to control limiting. And sometimes you have to, but other times you need to let it get out of control. Let's have a look. So during the meeting, you focus on the issue resolution. You have to fix issues on the spot if you can. So let's take the scenario. Two resources are required to fix an issue. You have the choice. They both attend because you have ticked your attendance and you have picked your outcomes and you know, this issue needs to be fixed. They both attend the meeting. They both start discussing resolution for the for that issue. What do you do? You have other team members that are looking at you and say, you know, not using those words, but say, Ben, this is getting out of control. I let it happen because they had a choice. Either I just say, Okay, guys, take this one offline and then they lose the control. Or ISM. Guess that's good. Keep going. Keep going. I like it. They could reach a resolution within ten to 15 minutes, but it has send them back to their desks. It might take two days to get for them to get back together. I mean, that's why we need project managers because team members are not that organized and it's not their role either. So usually if you if you leave it to them, you are you are not sure whether an adequate quick outcome. Something else that you can do during the meeting is started brainstorming session. There's a whiteboard. Let's brainstorming. Okay, so you might have a look from a team member who, who clearly knows now that the meeting is getting out of control. But you know, I don't care because my outcome is being worked on and now we'll get my outcome. This is good. This is good stuff. If I want, a debtor can get them outside the meeting. This is good stuff. Say another scenario is you have a resource hotel. Is you well, I need to talk to that person. They just need to have a yes or no from that person. And then I will get back to you and then we can meet again in the next call, that person straightaway. Don't hesitate to do this type of stuff in meetings. And you will see huge progress with this. So something else you can do is focusing on issue detection. So you will hear words like, there is a slight delay with this, nothing to worry about or I'm facing minor issues with this. What I recommend is you take them out and you really assess their impact right now. Because a slight delay could turn up to be a very large delay or very concrete delay. And sometimes resource that just don't really want people getting involved. Their issues. They want to they want to fix it. They don't want to have to explain it to somewhere else and go through all that process. But it's in your interests to pick that to pick that up and then fix it before it gets out of control. I've mentioned that. So it's okay to let you go off track if needed. And brainstorming is okay. I have no issues with brainstorm during meetings. So the last part on meetings, these meetings, so you're golden opportunity to motivate the team and really influenced the project. So what you do is you open and you finish on a high. I think it is always good. Try and catch them. Doing right is like if there is something good that happened during the week, open the meeting with this. Open the meeting with something positive, a good outcome, an issue resolve a good progress made during the week. Say, well done guys. I was really impressed. This is completed. And the like. That's a good start of the meeting. You often have resource coming to the meeting. I asked them How are you today and they say, Well, I'll be better if I didn't have to come to these meetings. Oh, it happens. So if you give them something at the meeting, I think next time then there'll be a bit more motivated. So praise them often. And their managers as well. Explain a little bit to catch them doing right, so make sure you do it when actually something was done, right. Something else to motivate the team and not being seen as a slave driver, if you like, it's due not only interact with them when you need something from them. You don't want a team member. When they see you coming, say o. Is Ben is going to ask me for an update. You just come and you don't talk about the project at all. You talk about anything sports, whether Have a good day. So this way they don't associate you as someone who just need him or her for updates. So to finish on project meetings, I really think that projects are wandering project meetings. They are not very popular. Nobody really wants to turn up. You don't really want to organize them. But this is where you really get the chance to make a difference in a project. This is really where you need to be super organized. Now everybody is busy. So if you come with something half-baked and then I could be super organized. Spend as much time as you like to prepare this meeting. Read all your notes, go for it. It is your opportunity. Projects are worn during meetings in my view. So that's it for golden rule number four, motivate and influence. 13. 5 Artefacts to always keep up to date: Welcome back to the course, a siem project management framework. So now I will be presenting five artifacts to always have in perfect order, or at least having very good order. So personally, if I worked on the project and I knew there will be never any audits or there's no project to fi so no one would ever look in my project folder. There's plenty of artifact that I wouldn't even create. Like for instance, the issue register for me is not very useful because we'd have my own least I would have that in my notes with issues and who is resolving those and the likes. But when you work on the project, if you don't do stuff for you in the end of the day, you don't do all the all the admin paperwork for yourself. You do it more for perception for the oldest. So this is why I will list you those and I will give you after the reason why, I would go into a little bit more detail on each one of the artifacts and that I will tell you why. I believe they need to be kept in good order. So the first one is the registers. The risk and issue registers need to be up-to-date. The reports need to be in perfect order. I think that should occur automatically, but they're all perfect order for reports need to be very precise on the budget and the timeframes and where we are squeezed. The key milestones. The budget. Very good order, two key numbers. And how we are tracking the schedule. Of course, the key milestone in the near term and the approvals. Are we okay to do this? Did we get a big tick? We will get to progress. I will get to do what we're doing now. Did we get the approval to get here? So if you could get this 56, because there's two here. But if you could get these five artifacts in very good order, you are protecting yourself from any types of audit, internal or external, from from the project of fees, reviews, from someone taking over your project and thinking. You haven't followed the processes and the project is a mess. Anyone coming to you requesting some information? You can tell yes, I have this information. It's up-to-date and it's located there. So project resistor, it's for perception. Anyone has heard of issue registers? And it's a very frequently asked question. Do you have that nourish register? Everyone can relax once they know it's locked. It's crazy, but that's the way it works. Reports. It's really always for perception that make you look good if you give them on time and of good quality. The budget or so for perception, the schedule for perception, approvals for insurance. So you can cover yourself. Even if it's just an e-mail from someone. We will review that in a little bit more detail in next slide for audit as well. And we will see that in the next slide. 14. Artefact 1 and 2: So let's review those key artifacts and the reasoning behind them needing to be in very good order. Let's start with the registers. So that's a typical during the project, you will have someone, project office manager, a stakeholder, concerned about an issue or their likes. And they would say, Can I have a look at your issue register? So if you say well, I don't have it yet. I haven't updated yet. I have it on my list. I know I have to do it. But the problem is they don't know that, you know. So if their foot for them to look at the register, they will give them the confidence that you know. So also the doubles up with the fact that he's a key governance artifact. Project office, even if they're not interested in your issues or in your risks, knowing that you have these up-to-date, I will make them relax. So they would be interested to see if you have yours up-to-date. We've said that already. Makes sure there's another for them. It doesn't take a lot of time. You could negotiate a noun, add only the key issues in there. So it's up to you to use your common sense. And when someone to stakeholders say, well, you should put them all then use your comments and then say what? The overhead is just too high of decided not to put this in issue register reports. So this is how you are being perceived as a project manager. Sometime you send your report or people who have never met you before. Don't even know you. They will be quote unquote, judging you for your report. So if you send a report with a budget that is not accurate, always a timeframe there hasn't been updated, is not going to look good. So protect yourself. Have it in perfect order and also send it on time. So we've already discussed that. 15. Artefact 3 4 and 5: Welcome back. Let's continue with the key artifact number three, which is budget. So budget maintenance is in my view, you're putting t to shine. As a project manager, there is no thing like a PM who has a spreadsheet and knows exactly where we are with the budget. And this is very important because stakeholders, obviously the business, your managers, they see that as a critical component of the project and they want to know if the project manager is on top of this. So anyone coming to your desk say, we know where we are with the budget, you should be able without hesitation to say yes, I have it there in my, in my spreadsheet. If the company has a central way to drug budget, put it in there as well. But sometimes they are a bit clunky and they are many updated every month. So go beyond. Have you on way to track your budget as a more granular level. And the actual rules need to be up-to-date. You need to know the time sheets from last week and need to be included in there. They need to be really needs to be in perfect order. You might not get the call that often, but when you get to core for budget, it has to be almost instant and in very good order. And you will see they will love you for this. Because the more senior other stakeholders are, and the more they are interested in BoJack numbers. You know, as you go up the company, they look more on numbers. And if the project is implemented one to three months later, it's not as critical for them. They are really interested in a bottom-line budget, big tick schedule. Of course. The schedule, the thing you just schedule is I said budget, not everybody is interested, but schedule. Every leader of the project is interested in the upcoming dates. And they want to a good level of confidence that you are on top of things that you have coordinating the tasks and the likes. I've scheduled tailored for each stakeholder levels, detail for the project team. So it doesn't need to be in MS project for the project team. But full management steering committee the day. As I was mentioning in part one, they liked the idea that you have MS project somewhere. Again, chart some way that makes them feel confident. And I could have put the project office also in this category. Project to fish usually would want you to have again child some way. But keep it up-to-date. Even if you know what's going on. It needs to be up-to-date. There's nothing worse like someone having a look at your schedule. I notice is some some tasks are completed that are not put out a 100 per cent. Or someone coming to you and say, Well, we are very late on this when in fact we are not built just that the schedule is is not up to date. So we talked about simplification in part one, simplified. Put your Gantt chart in this and for this to whatever you like. But the project team needs to have some way to know where we add for the smaller tasks. The largest tasks, MS Project to make everyone happy. Last artifact, approvals. We talked about gates that in the last slide of part one or one of the last slides that you know to go from one phase to the other, or to get anything done really formally, you need to have some type of approvals that is important to have early in the project, you are provably, so there's no confusion as you move on on who should be signing off and what. You need to keep track of these approvals. Depending on where you work, you'll be very formal. But sometimes it will be just an e-mail and sometimes it will be just someone saying it to you, which is which is a bit of a problem sometimes. So I think when when someone says to you, if it's in during a meeting, you send minutes of the meeting and you confirm that you say, please everyone review and if you disagree, just let me know, but that's a formal way. So if you during the meeting you asked are we okay to implement this on on Saturday and someone say, Yeah, fine. So either you ask them to send you an email which they might not do that or else you put that in a minute, then you use that as a formal approval. But sometimes, you know, implementation, This seems very obvious, but sometimes it's a decision that is being made during the meetings, so an approval to do something differently. And I would do that during the minutes of the meeting as well. It's it's it's easier. But what if it's one-on-one? This is the scenario I just mentioned. We did one-on-one and you're being told on one-on-one? Yes, it's fine. Let's do that. So that's I think sometime is done unintentionally, but sometimes it's done intentionally. So be careful with those and try and get emails. And not try but get emails. It is important to protect you as a PM, you know, as we saw these artifacts out just to make everyone happy, but also to protect you some type of insurance. Cover yourself. 16. Artefacts wrap up: So to wrap up on those. So it seems maybe a bit of hard work, but he doesn't take you long and is something you need to do anyway as a project manager. And you know, that narrows it down to the type of things that really need to be up to date. So there's a lot of other stuff that you need to do as project manager, but I would focus on those first. So I don't know. I mean, it would take you how long to do this? Let's see registers. Not that long. If you limit yourself to the key risks and the key issues, maybe 30 minute per week. Reports spent some time, sometimes there's some wording, especially if there's some you would have weeks where you would have to do the mom for DNS tearing so obvious you don't go but maybe maybe 30 minutes to two hours. Their budget, maybe two hours scheduled. It's it's you managing the project is around managing schedules. So that's something you'll have to do anyway. So maybe three hours and approval doesn't really take long. That will take you Mitch. 57 maybe maybe eight hours per week. So that gives you four days to do all the other stuff. And you have a very solid base here. So that's it for artifacts. 17. Dangers: Welcome to another part of this acing project management framework. Now I don't want to scare you off, but there's just some dangerous hadn't you need to be aware of? And what I mean, danger is something that could impact you as the project manager and therefore the project as well. So where do you stand? So you stand here, say, let's see what would come in in your way. So we've talked about the project office. They are companies that have on top of project or fearsome audits. It could be an internal audit to very large companies, say they want to make sure you manage the project properly. So especially if you're a contractor. But regardless, they would check your stuff. And the five artifacts that I've listed before. If you are on top of that, you should be okay as it should, because you need to have a closer look at previous audits. So ask your project officer, your manager, do you get internal audit and what are they looking for? Because it could be looking for something different. But if you do the final artefact, you should be in very good shape in my view. External. So external. You have your company on your side with this. So it's not entered into and always accompany ticking on themselves. Make sure every team members, where it's more externalist, more looking at the overall company. So there'll be tricky because you could meet with them and you answer all the question and you think everything's fine. And after you get the reports and you realize that there are things that you were not even aware that would be part of the equality check. So it's also very important to ask, do you get external audits and what type of things do they want? So for those two strategy, if you like, is to check with other project managers. Project of v. So even manager or anyone, you know, do you get those and what do they want from you? Now, that seems a little bit cheeky, but I suppose PMO, protector Fees, Project Management, Office and management. They will also keep an eye on your governance. And sometimes when, when things get tough, they, they are looking for, are going up without politically correct way. They are looking for points of failure. So if you get everything in order, the file artifacts and all the roles and responsibilities and their IQ should be covered. But keep an eye on this. As for audits, obviously, you cannot really ask them. That asked maybe peers, colleagues and the likes. What, what have they done in the past against project managers that could put you in trouble as a project manager. Chick, project resources. Now, they don't always do that purposely, but be careful that they don't want to shift the responsibility to you. I mean, just give you maybe a very obvious example is have had no taste managers are supposed to test a product and give me a sign off and say, Yes, I'm happy with the product, but I've had the test manager asking me, Are you happy with what we've done? Are you happy with the product? It is not my responsibility. My response to that is yes, maybe to check that they are followed their own process and they have followed the quality management plan. But it is not my responsibility. So obviously this is just one example that, you know, when there's a whitespace on a project on when there's an area that nobody has really taken care of, they expect the project manager to do it, but that could put you in trouble. So that's the first thing to be mindful. Ask yourself, is there anything that my team is expecting me to do or it could be anyone? It could be also the business might be my thing that you have the responsibility to do something when you just simply don't to ask yourself this question. The other thing is management or your manager want might want you to fix existing resourcing issues who either had that a lot of time? You are not a resource manager. The project manager. And and all the project management standards would tell you that as a project manager, you are responsible for delivering a project. And when there is a resource that you're not happy with, you need to raise that as an issue. You need to say, I'm not happy with that resource. You do not have to fix, quote unquote, this performance issue from a resource. And I've had that many times. Managers were coming to me and say Ben, What are you doing to fix that resource and saying, this is not part of my role, I am not there to fix. This resource, I'm here to alert you when a resource is not suitable for the project, but I am not going to fix your HR issues. So I've had to do that several times. And is something that sometime the resource manager just just don't understand that you are not a resource manager. They are. And they see opportunity for you to fix that issue. But you know, they have processes to do that. And I don't have the power as a as a contractor or as a dotted line project manager to do these stakeholders. So this is probably focusing more on the business side. Although you could argue that project resource management, even project office maybe could fall into that category, but, you know, misinformed. They are not fully aware of what's going on. So they could come to you and ask you stuff so they can get better informed. But is that really your role? And why are there misinformed that they left side? You could have some internal disagreement, especially on the business side. Some could be against the project. Or they could have completely different philosophy on the company's strategy. Or they could simply also be latecomers, the coming late in the project. And I've seen that so many times when, especially when a resource leave, the business owner leaves another business owner columns and okay, what are we doing here? And then we're gonna review absolutely everything that needs to be raised and that needs to be addressed and need to be discussed with your project. So you don't want to be as a project manager to be left with dealing with this issue. If there's a lead coma and they have a lot of influence on the project. Everything needs to be put back on the table. Formerly, not by side discussions, legacy issues. So those are existing issues that the company is as internal workings that are not performing. I'm not talking about resource issues. He understood talking about processes, about things that are not working well. Maybe your lack of quality somewhere. And as a project manager, is it really your role to fix those things were neither working to start with now they have a project working in this area. Is it really your role to fix those on the long term? So that's it. So it's more awareness for this danger here, for this step of the framework here. So what do you do? You'd need to acknowledge them, be aware of them. You could have a strategy for each, especially for the audits. Okay. I know that there is an internal audit done every six months. It's coming in a couple of months and I need to be ready now. So in the strategy can be in function of the existing company, of the innovative visuals and the governance model in place. And this is where suppose where you have to be very, very, very, very tactful and very subtle in a way you address those. But please bear those in mind. 18. 3 things to know from memory: Welcome to the final part of the async project management framework. Free things to know from memory. So this part here is more to make you look good, which means in project management term, people would trust you. You will come across as professional. People will have confidence that you're on top of things. But more from the if you want. High level stakeholders are from executive's steering committee and above. So having said that, there is really something that you need to know is all the key stakeholders names. Especially on the business side. Imagine this scenario where you're working with your manager. Introduce you to Stakeholder. And you don't know him or her. When in fact you should, because he or she is a key stakeholder and you should have that in your in your paperwork. So if you say hi, nice to meet you. And what is your role or you ask, they wouldn't they wouldn't be very good. That would be like you don't really know who's who and you don't really know who is involved in your project. On the other hand, if you say Oh, Mary J. Yes. So you are the senior executive in this and we are working very hard on your project, you know that, so something along those lines to show that you are on top of things. So it is not a long list. Please do it. You will, you will really thank me for it when you come across in one of those scenario. Or if you're sitting in a meeting and someone is being introduced, that you should know, but you don't. To a certain extent. Even sometimes in some scenario, you would need to know, even if they're not directly involved in the project, if they're not, if they are just part of a management team or even the business owner, manager and relax, It's always very good and you will come across as very professional if you do sample the next one. The next one is a budget. So I'm not asking you here to know all the budget figures. Just the key one. Just two numbers. At this stage, if you like, if you really minimalist and you want to simplify the project budget, which is the overall budget at completion and the current spent. So this is also very good for perception. You have a senior executive, you have a steering committee member or Lyft conversation or even your finance manager leave conversation are things with your project budget? Well, I would need to check my spreadsheet. I'm not really sure. I think we're okay. But if you say, well, the budget was 12.5 million and we are now at 6.3 and we are tracking well. So they would see immediately this guy's on top of things. These guys nodes, what he's talking about. So this is not a big imposed on you. You might know this one anyway. But if you know the current spent, if you want to be a bit more detail, you can know some more. You can know a little bit more granular in year we have 12.5 for overall and 66 million for procurement. Looks like we're going to we're going to meet no problem. But the, the free million for something else, We are a little bit behind, but we should be fine by the end of the project if you want to be a bit more granular. But once again, the more information you provide, the more you open yourself to be inaccurate. And the last one, milestones. You might have guessed that already. But Sam scenario, you see someone from the business even if they are not involved in the project. And if they asked you when when will this be going live and you said welds somewhere on April. It doesn't look good. So what I have here, you should know two or three key milestones and one or two near dates. Someone asked you to, where are we at with this project and say, well, we're implementing the 12th of November. We start testing the first of September. But in the coming week, we'll be doing ABC. Once again. You look good. You are a project manager who is on top of his or her dates. You're the project manager who knows, but budget. Who knows the team? The business team, not only the team is working with John Murray and Paul, but also who has an interest in, in a broader company, who knows also the key high-level stakeholders are. So learn those. And after go to meetings, go to the water cooler or anything. And you're ready to answer any key questions and show that you're on top of your project. 19. Project Log: Welcome back to the course. So as a bonus, not part of the framework. I thought that'll throw in a tip. The tip is to create a project looks so I'd like to put out your consideration. Project log is a type of log where you keep a precise count or what's happened on a daily basis practically, when I say precises, precise in a way that the information in there, it needs to be accurate. But you don't have to to log things that are not really important to the project. So this is not, in my view, formal project document. It's more for myself, although I believe some project management standard to see that as a formal project document, but something that you'd just write on your own, I think cannot be seen as something really, really formal. It's more your notes. Let's go quickly why? I think this is a useful exercise on very active projects. Or if you might have similar project that there'll be very variable. So you remember it after the meeting or after the phone call or on a day. But at the end of the week or the week after, you can truly exactly remember because that was not included in a minutes or in a report or the likes to increase if you want, is its value d t was credibility. You just put it on a shared drive and say, guys, for your information, I'm putting a project log here if you want, so that you might not want to do this because you might want to keep this information here more personal, but it's up to you. So this is definitely not a substitute for any project manager project management artifacts. But you can use to fill the gap when all the documents that are available to host the data, sometime you just don't have anywhere on your project management artifacts to say stuff like Jen was sick that day, or that there will be a free resource performing testing from although this is a type of things I would have in my in my minutes somewhere. But sometime they are just no, no. All the artifacts. Jog your memory. As mentioned. Sometimes there is just a phone call and maybe during if you can or after just reading down, if any free to put it somewhere else after that, some time you'd be on the very active or human age, three or four projects, you'll be seeing o can't even remember what we agreed on. So you could, as a final resort, I suppose you could still use it as if he then. So that will be in extreme cases. But in situation where you might have put something in a minute. But still, you know, the, the, the resource for instance here, business etiquette, it would be through so performing testing from the 10th of John and some alluded them. So you can you can take your notes and say, Well, that was discussed the 12th of December. We agreed on that. And this is why in the following meeting, I put it in my minutes so you can provide a bit more and more evidence on this. So obviously, not use use best judgment on this one. So that was for just a bonus tip. I'll leave it to you if you want to create a project logo or not. 20. Interview Intro: Welcome back to the course. So in part one, we've seen the theory of project management, how we can simplify it, and the practical tips about who we are seeing now how to really apply game and become what I believe is a very good project manager. And now whether you're already in a job, whether you just have some interests at the moment in project management, or whether you just want to transition into project management. I thought I'll give you some interview tips. Even if you're already a project manager, I think there's always opportunities. So a phonon in project management, there's a lot of turnover. So you will be bound to go for interviews quite regularly. So I just wanted to start with some interview tips. Let's get started. Let's see. First let's have an overview of the questions. Those are questions that I believe are quite important and LB often ask as a project manager, I've often been asked the old. So what is your main weakness? Is your strength? How do you deal with scope creep? Are you hands-on? What time of PM ru. And the question for you is, do you have any concern because my resume me or my profile. 21. Interview 1 and 2: So if we get started, the first question, what is your main weakness? So, the main weakness, I suppose it's always a tricky one. Obviously is not only a question that is being asked for project managers. So I think the interview book will tell you, you have to mention weakness, that you are actually working on an old weakness. And now you're working on and you don't have it as melt and you are aware of it. So I think that can satisfy them. What I prefer to do, project management is actually give them a weakness. That is not a weakness. I'm going to be a bit tricky and I'm going to say, yes, I have this weakness. And in fact something that they would like. So you could say, I'm a bit too thorough or sometimes I'm a control freak because some interviewers would like that from a PM. So let's go through the bullet points. Mentioned a weakness that is useful in project management. So this answer we always satisfy the interviewer. For me. This is what I was saying is my weakness is I'm sometimes I'm not patient enough with a team. When they are tight deadlines. I tend to follow up quite often with them to ensure we keep on track. So you are seeing some I'm not patient. Of course you have to wrap that up by saying, I like to work with a team. I give them positive feedback so they know that you are not, you're not gonna be headed by the team. But I think this one always works for me because you say that you are not patient enough with a team and you use the keywords to keep on track. So if they hire you, they want you to deliver projects on track. They might have project managers or were not, quote unquote, strong enough with a team and the likes. So I think this always seemed to satisfy them and I see them writing, putting a bit of a tick on their, on their notebooks. When I tell them that. Another one is, what is your strength? The thing is we strength is it depends really on where you are interviewing. So if the ads, for instance, have you looking for Project Manager that is autonomous and self-driven, then you have as a strength, you have to put that I can work with little supervision and I report by exception only. You have to demonstrate that. But another adequate to the opposite they could see or we want a team player because there's a pool of project managers and there's a lot of interaction between them. So in other words, pickers trends that will be useful for the job that you're applying for. Look at the job description for cruise, fitting that if you want more, if you didn't get managed to get a feel of what they are, you have to remember the key attributes. The basic attributes for project managers is planning and communication. So your answer should be around that they don't want someone who cannot plan. And it was terrible at communicating. So your answer should be around those two. But also how you usually to deliver projects on time and on budget. So if you could mix these four things into one sentence or just pick two out of four. So I think that there'll be a good standard blanket response if you'd like. So try these. I have been told that I'm good at planning and at entering activities are completed on time. So you say planning on time. I have also received a good feedback on my communication skills within project team, but also steering committee. If you compete on time, you could imply that you will be on budget as well. Or if you feel that they are more into the budget side of things, it's just you can see a completed within budget allocated and the likes. 22. Interview 3: This question is sure to come up. So it's not always worded this way. Sometime it's worded a little bit differently. Could be. What do you do when a business comes to use additional requirement? How do you control the scope of your project? How do you make sure you don't overdeliver? And therefore, the timeframes are all the budget are impacted. So I've been asked this question very often. So the key word should be changed control. You could see a change request. The I asked the business to raise a change request. I've noticed sometimes I can see all of words. But as soon as I hear change control, they relax. They write that down and SEM to be happy with their Enter. So it's got management is critical for projects will be delivered on time and on budget. When a new requirement is presented to the project, budget and schedule impact need to be assessed and a change request raised for the steering committee to approve. So you could be tempted at this stage to say things like, well, if the change is small, I might be able to slip it in. I like to be flexible and likes. That could work if you are being interviewed with a better business. But I think it's a bit of a high risk. Why risk it? So I think it might look good in some circumstances, but I think it's it's it's a bit it's a bit high risk. So I would during the interview I will really keep it safe. So to compensate if you want for note, for note saying that you could stress or all of your flexibility component so they don't want to you just as a bit too strict if you if you like, and someone who could scatter business. So if you mix that up a little bit of flexibility side. I think that could work. But yeah, I would I would definitely use use the safest. You've changed control, use, change request. This way. They feel more relaxed. But there could be asking you the question because the previous project managers have led the project, go out of control as far as scope is concerned. So they'd been thrown additional requirement and they'd been including additional requirements to the project. Or if they ask you this question, it's because they know that the business a very, a very volatile requirements and they often come with projects and after they want to change it and the likes and there'll be concerned and they are hiring a project manager to make sure that this doesn't happen. 23. Interview 4 and 5: Let's continue on how to answer interview questions for project management jobs. So next one is also a little bit tricky like the previous one. Are you hands-on? So I've been caught wants on with this one. See the challenge. If you are hands-on, you working with the project team. And you are more or less the manager. And definitely the project of fees and manager might, might pay the price for your involvement in that area. The business might be happy for you to work with the project team because that would assist the project. But I think it's a bit tricky. And I have found that this is usually asked by contractors, they are not working for the company full time, so they are also contractors and they want to know if you are type of PM will be able to help them if there's any problems or if you're going to stay in your ivory tower and high BM progress reports, paperwork and the likes. And I found that this question is often asked also by team leader, Bye. More hands-on type of guys. I think if you have an interview with the business very high level executive, he or she would now have no interest in asking you this question is just too detailed. So at the beginning, I was as I was saying, there was once where I was asked this question and I said, if I focus too much on the detail, there's a change. I could lose sight of the bigger picture. And therefore the project could get out of control. I might have been, right? But this answer didn't satisfy the guy. So we thought, okay, all these guy is not going to roll up the sleeves. So since then, when I being asked this question, what do I say? You end zone or yes. Often rolled up my sleeves and help the team when there is something I can do to assist. And it works much, much, much better. If they asked you this question, they have some concerns. It's not because they want to know if you get dragged into wheat and lose sight of the big picture and all that, they want to know if you are 100% committed. Next one. What type of PMO you. So for this one to be the same as the previous ones, if you had the opportunity to have a look at a company culture or the job description, use this. So it's a bit like the, the interview question we saw before. If you feel that the company is very process-driven and their likes you, you say that I like to follow processes because I think they are very important project management and the likes you, they are more reserved, driven. You said, you know, I understand some time we have to be pragmatic to get things over the line. So you can you can play along those lines. If there is absolutely no clue in the company's culture or that you have been able to investigate all the job description. It's just play the flexibility, Karla, suppose. So, you can say, I am flexible enough to adapt to a company culture and project management can be pragmatic to get quick outcomes if required, but at the same time and relational value of processes, especially in project management. So don't take any risks. Don't take the risk of seeing you all at this type of PM and they actually looking for another type of Pn. 24. Interview Question to ask: So to finish on interview question, just to turn the table, if you like. I think there's a question that you need to ask at the end of the interview, so I cannot take the credit for that one. And that one is the one that have learned actually relatively recently and that is a very good one. It's actually do you have any concerns? So obviously, you need to ask the usual questions. You need to show interest in a company you need to ask or what type of projects that you have. But I found this one so useful. So if you ask them, Do you have any concerns With my profile? Do you have any concerns with my resume that gives you the chance now to address any concerns after it's too late. After you shake hands. They have a meeting to discuss all the interview is that they've had and they say, Well, what about this guy? Well, I'm a bit concerned about this. That if you see me sits beside another one where they didn't get this concern because they've got an answer during the interview, then you are at a disadvantage. I don't know about you, but I've never had someone after an interview calling me back and say, we were interested, but we were just wondering about this point here. So can you answer that for us and then we can be sure if we hire you or not. So that doesn't happen. Usually they use the interview or as a final selection criteria to hire someone. So you ask them this question, do you have any content with the interview I just gave? Did I say something that might have quotes, I'm concerned. They could say they could say something like, Yes, I think I think we have a good profile, but we're just a bit concerned on the fact that you haven't worked with you didn't mention that you work with these type of software issue, right? And you've got to say, well, I actually have, I didn't mention it, but I have worked with this type of software. So let's say they could tell you where we'd like your profile, but we're a bit concerned because you don't seem to have worked on projects where the project manager needs to be very hands-on. They work very closely with the team. And then you have your boarding t, You can see yes. The project I'm working on, I'm practically all the time with the team and I'm going down to very low level of detail because I really wanted to get this project over the Rhine and equity. Or it's good that we clear that when a, because that's where the content for us. But after the interview, the shake your hands, Have a nice day. Thanks for coming and you're potty is lost. So that's it for the interviews. And I believe this is it for part two as well, but we have a wrap-up and we will review everything to refresh our memory. As mentioned in this part, there are no there are no quizzes. I didn't think it was appropriate for me to have quizzes on stuff that I've created. Bit. I didn't feel comfortable doing it. But by all means, if you want to, if you want to use it, it will pay dividends. 25. Course summary: Welcome to the conclusion of b2. Let's have a quick summary just to refresh our memory and we will not go into detail this time. Just very briefly. Visual way if you'd like to summarize what we've seen. So I have presented a framework that have created. So it has five components. The expectation metrics for rules, five artifacts to have in perfect order. Then just to look out for and free things to know from memory. So the expectation matrix is just a tool that will really allow you to have an overview of every stakeholder and what they want from you. And if you can satisfy everyone within reason, then everybody would be appreciative of you and it will be much easier to work with everybody. And it would all be down here. If you have any issues with one group of stakeholder and you have already the relationship, it will be so much easier to deal with it as opposed to a group of stakeholders that you don't really know, that you haven't done your homework ways. I tell you it's gonna be a huge difference. So now there's a little things here. It's just a one-pager to summarize everything, obviously with less details but you know, to, to put things in a different order. Free things to remember. Some key stakeholders names, the project budget, the current spend, two or three key milestones in one or two near that. So you could argue, yes, well that's very easy. I know that already. But imagine you work on three or four projects, which is not unusual. The highest amount of projects I work on is seven. So it took it when you have one project, but if you have seven projects, remembering the budget and the spanner, tell you what, it's not that easy. So simplify. Now you don't have to do to know your correspond on a daily basis. Obviously. We also had a look at four golden rules. Be mindful of the environmental green. Understand the business or calm. Work with the business. Speak the same language. And I cannot stress that enough. Do some work on roles and responsibilities. The thing is, with this, nobody would really encourage you to do this is not really something that is expected from the start of the project manager. But it's so important. And I think I've made my point on team meetings that the current the current ways that team meetings are being used. For me, it's not sufficient. I need to get outcomes from meetings, not update. We've seen some dangerous. So this is good to know when they are things that could come in your way so you can anticipate and you can be ready. So audits, government oversight a little bit similar. Make sure you do all that is required. If those come up with some requirements. So you look good and you have them already. Project resources that also around roles and responsibilities. Make sure that they have they are, they are clear responsibilities. They don't try and throw some your way. Stakeholders, Sam, especially the business stakeholders, be mindful of lead commas are some stakeholders. I haven't been really involved so far so that hopefully you can, you can work with your stakeholder matrix as well, will help you with this, but bear that in mind. So it's one thing to have a bit of a challenge with a project resource, but having a challenge with a, with a business stakeholder is really, is really more of a problem. And be careful of legacy issues. Especially when you work in an environment that has never really had project managers in the past and they don't fully understand your role and they really want you to fix it all into finish. Five artifacts to perfect your report should be spot on budget and schedule. I think this is where if you have three or four projects simplified to the max to what is allowed and keep track of all approvals. So that's a slide that we saw in part one. Be flexible and try and bring out new, new, new, new quality, new focus if you want based on the phase that you're working on. So if you are initiation, more foresight, look ahead. If you are planning, be very, very thorough. Execution. Just do it. Just do it. If it's not perfect, if it's not very detailed, you you just have to do it. An enclosing loop back, reflect and say thanks to the people who really help you with the project.