A Project Management Rule: Collaborate

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By S. Maurer

Really collaborate. Make it your rule to plan with those people who will be the performers of the plan. Don’t wait ’til the project has gone south to get their help. Start out that way. Continue collaborating as the usual way you work through the project.

Do your workplans, resources, and performance metrics offer a solid readout of what is going on with your projects’ performance? Do you Plan your Work then Work your Plan, or are you simply envious of those who do?

Are we using project management as a data repository for tasks or are we using it as our monitoring and control tool? Hopefully, project managers are using their project management for both.

Students who master Project Management PM learn to lead improvement initiatives that result in measurable growth in return on investment ROI, economic value added, sales growth, customer satisfaction and retention, market share, time to market, employee satisfaction, and employee motivation.

When you think of a business manager, typically, you’ll think of someone who oversees a specific functional business area—for instance, a sales team manager, or the manager of the accounting department. These folks tend to manage ongoing or frequently repeated processes such as ensuring that the sales team meets its monthly quota of cold calls to prospective clients, in the case of the sales manager.