Alignment, as occurs when your parts are aligned, brings much value to NLP, because it empowers our resources. The most basic alignment occurs when our sense modalities are in harmony. If there is a mismatch, then we have internal contradiction.

On a larger scale, we become congruent when our parts harmonize. As you'll recall, parts act like little personalities within us, or clusters of motivations that work together. And ecology refers to parts or other systems supporting each other.

So you could say that in congruence, your parts play well together. On an even grander level, coherence happens when our alignment points in a constructive direction that matches our self interest. The highest order of congruence takes place when we align all the way up to and including our higher values and aspirations. This extreme alignment brings perhaps the greatest satisfaction a human being can experience.

There are a number of ways to deploy common project management practices within an organization. One approach is to think of everything that needs to be improved and try to deploy everything at once. Instead, our approach is to deploy items more gradually to provide some time to absorb initial changes before others are rolled out.

Like waves rolling toward the beach, you select certain aspects of the new project management practices, and then pause before rolling out the next wave. In many cases, one wave builds on a prior wave. After a period of time, you will have introduced many new skills and new processes, but the staff will not have viewed it as traumatically as if everything came crashing down on them at once. A sample scenario of waves is as follows:

Wave 1:

Wave 2:.

Wave 3:.

Summary. 

Contact us today to help you deploy better project management practices in your organization

Managing staff can be a challenge. In large organizations, or on large projects, you may have the luxury of full-time resources for your entire team. However, in many (or most) situations, the project manager must utilize shared and part-time resources to complete the work. In a matrix organization, people are assigned full time to a functional organization, but can be temporarily assigned full time or part time to a project as well. In this case, the functional manager may be responsible for part of a team member’s workload and a project manager is responsible for assigning the work associated with the project. 

Project management processes should be applied scalably based on the size of the project. Large projects need more rigor and structure. Small projects don't need very much. 

Small projects cover many types of modest work efforts. In most companies, these small projects are not actually viewed as “projects” at all. Your company may call these enhancements, service requests or work orders. One reason many companies don't consider these small efforts to be projects is because they are typically executed in the support or operations organization. In general, small projects can include the following:

• Unique work efforts that are clearly projects but have short durations and small numbers of effort hours
• Enhancements to existing operational processes and systems
• Errors in operational processes that require a lot of work to fix. This may move the work from being operational or support in nature, to being a project. 
• Small process improvements
• Discovery or fact-finding work that may lead to a project later

Would you go to a doctor who took their last training course in 1996? Of course not! Training is absolutely essential to stay current with the latest diagnoses, treatments, and technologies that cure sickness and disease. Likewise, it is essential for the project management professional - whether in-person, virtual or e-classes. It’s just as important for you to keep up on new methodologies, techniques and technologies that increase your ability to deliver a project on time and on budget.

You all know of the primary benefit of training - skill building. Here are four more not-so-obvious benefits.

#1 – Training Keeps You Engaged.

#2 – Training Helps Your Career

#3 – Training Introduces New Ideas

#4 – Training Exposes You to Other People

Don’t be like the doctor who hasn’t taken a training course since medical school. Find training that interests you today and you’ll benefit for years to come!

Many teams have some personality conflicts among team members. This is a typical human resource problem. However, on some teams the personal animosity is so great that the team has a hard time functioning together. When this problem is recognized by the sponsor or the functional manager, the project manager is often replaced (this is usually an easier option than trying to replace the entire project team).

If you are a project manager that takes over a dysfunctional project team, there are a number of areas that require your attention.

. Any plan is going to include the following items: 

• Communicate well.  that may impact the project team.
• Praise and compliment.
• Set clear expectations. .
• Don’t over commit your team. .
• Win some small battles.

These are some ideas for turning the project around. Make sure you try to identify as many team problems as you can, as well as the root causes if possible. Then, put together an action plan based on how much work and time is remaining on the project. If there is not a lot of time remaining, focus on the schedule. If a lot of time is remaining, focus on repairing the project team, as well as completing the sched

Many teams have some personality conflicts among team members. This is a typical human resource problem. However, on some teams the personal animosity is so great that the team has a hard time functioning together. When this problem is recognized by the sponsor or the functional manager, the project manager is often replaced (this is usually an easier option than trying to replace the entire project team).

If you are a project manager that takes over a dysfunctional project team, there are a number of areas that require your attention.

. Any plan is going to include the following items: 

• Communicate well.  that may impact the project team.
• Praise and compliment.
• Set clear expectations. .
• Don’t over commit your team. .
• Win some small battles.

These are some ideas for turning the project around. Make sure you try to identify as many team problems as you can, as well as the root causes if possible. Then, put together an action plan based on how much work and time is remaining on the project. If there is not a lot of time remaining, focus on the schedule. If a lot of time is remaining, focus on repairing the project team, as well as completing the sched

When the Agile movement gained steam in the early 2000’s the conventional wisdom was that Agile worked well on smaller projects but did not scale well for larger ones. This seemed to make sense because as projects get larger and team size increases, the team needs more coordination, more structure, more documentation, etc.

It is true that running a 50-person Agile project will not work if you use the same processes that you use for a 10-person project. But this is true for conventional  projects as well. As projects get larger, it is important to change your approach to be able to deal with the complexities. For an Agile project, the first and primary technique is to break the large project into a number of smaller Agile teams. For example, a 50-person Agile project team may be too complex to manage. (Any 50-person team would be complex to manage.) But what if the 50-person Agile team can be reorganized into five 10-person Agile teams (or four 12-person teams)? Each of these teams can be run more effectively using Agile techniques. Each Agile team is not split by role (analysts, designers, coders). Each team has a full staff and is able to work as a “normal” Agile team

Metrics are needed to make more fact-based decisions about the nature of the project. However, metrics are tough and require work to implement successfully. Here are two tips to ensure that you can be successful. 

Tip #1. Beware Unintended Consequences When Establishing Metrics

Tip #2. Gather a Baseline if no Target is Available