Continuing Education for Technical Professionals

   THE LEARNING PROFESSIONAL

           Project Performance and Career Advancement Tips

                                                                                                      Volume 4, Issue 3

In This Issue:

AuxTips^TM

Teamwork: Are Your Teams High-Performing or Dysfunctional?

Seven Steps to Effective Teamwork

The Negotiation Mentor

Tips from Preston Michie about planning before negotiating.

Featured Course

Stand and Deliver: Effective Technical Presentations

QuickQuotes

News Briefs

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AuxTips^TM

Quick tips you can start implementing immediately.

Teambuilding Tips

Tip1

Designate one or more team members to be the "teamwork leader" or "team builder."  They don't need to be team/project leaders or managers.  Any enthusiastic person who understands teambuilding concepts can be focused on teambuilding and lead the effort to maximize team performance.

Tip2

When a new project is started, the team has an opportunity to define how they will operate.  Avoid getting caught up in how everyone else does things if there is room for improvement.  Each project has unique circumstances and team dynamics.  Don't let negative aspects of organizational culture interfere with your team's performance.  Create a "constitution" for your team that defines major aspects of how you will function.

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Teamwork: Are Your Teams High-Performing or Dysfunctional?

by Gary C. Hinkle, President, Auxilium, Inc.                   Read Full Text

If you are part of a high-performing team, the correct answer is "both."  All teams are somewhat dysfunctional, and when we're lucky enough or skilled enough to be associated with an outstanding team, the degree of dysfunction is minimal. 

Patrick Lencioni's best-selling books on the five dysfunctions of teams explain in detail five major elements of teamwork and how to eliminate dysfunctions in each of those areas.  Here, we build off of Patrick's concepts and offer seven straightforward steps to achieving consistently high team performance. 

Seven Steps to Effective Teamwork

#1 - Try to build the level of trust associated with families and friendships

Trust is a function of credibility, risk, and intimacy:

Trust = ƒ{(Credibility)*(Intimacy)/Risk}

It's intuitive that when credibility is high and risk is low, that the level of trust should be high.  But what's the "intimacy" factor?  This is one of those soft, touchy-feely words that many of us prefer not to use, understand, or deal with.

Lack of intimacy is the number one barrier that prevents teams from reaching their full potential.  Teams need to build intimacy to maximize trust.  Without a high degree of trust, teams are crippled.

Project managers work on minimizing risk.  Credibility is high when managers put the right people on project teams.  Intimacy doesn't come so easily.

Here's a simple example of how intimacy affects trust.  Would most people let a total stranger with no credentials live in their home while on vacation?  No.  Would they hire a house sitter with a good track record and references?  Maybe.  Would they let a responsible, trusted, friend or family member stay in their home?  Probably.

What makes this close friend or family member highly trusted?  Intimacy.  With friends and family, we've interacted enough to know things about them that others don't - and they know things about us.  Things we don't share with strangers.

Look at each of your coworkers who are part of your project team and ask yourself if you'd let that person live in your home while you're gone.  If the answer is no, what would it take to achieve that?  You won't build that level of trust overnight, and you may never accomplish this (and may not want to), but taking steps in that direction is the most important thing individuals can do to help their teams become more successful.

Building trust takes commitment.  Take time to get to know people on your team, and most importantly - let them know you!  When people open up to others it inspires peers to reciprocate with information about themselves.

Click here to read steps 2-7.

Courses that build teamwork:

Teambuilding Skills for Individual Contributors

Conflict Resolution Skills for Technical Staff

Essential Skills for Technical Professionals

Applying Emotional Intelligence to Critical Business Projects

Commitment and Enthusiasm: Every Leader's Challenge

The Negotiation Mentor

Tips from Preston Michie, Principal, Team Soup, LLC

Planning Your Negotiation

General Dwight D. Eisenhower once said something like, “Planning is everything.  Plans are garbage.”  The same principle applies to negotiations.

Skilled negotiators plan their negotiations carefully.  They establish clear objectives.  They research facts.  They decide in advance whether they should open first, and their purpose in doing so (e.g., to gain information, get things going, signal a willingness to negotiate, anchor the other side in their price range).  They plan their concession strategy (timing, sequence, and relative size of concessions).  They identify their walking point. 

They analyze how the other side is likely to approach these issues.  They identify options to explore with the other side that may add value to the deal.  In sum, they focus on the process to increase the odds of a obtaining a better deal.  From preparation comes power.

Having crafted a carefully designed plan, skilled negotiators might be expected to stick to their plan.  Not so.  Skilled negotiations know that plans must change in response to the other side’s strategy and tactics.  No matter how well thought out your plan is, the other side has a nasty habit of not doing what they are supposed to do—according to your plan. 

Your plan called for the other side to bargain hard on price.  Instead, they are reasonable on price, but push hard on terms.  Or they want to change the scope of the deal. 

Skilled negotiators listen to the other side to gain information so they can retool their strategy if necessary to close the deal.  They ask open-ended questions designed to gain information.  Questions like, “Why?”  “Why not?” or “What’s wrong with this approach?”  They know that persuasion, while part of every negotiation, is no substitute for listening, reacting to what your opponent says, reframing your proposal in their terms, and revising your proposal to accommodate the other side’s interests as well as yours.  They patiently persevere to achieve their objectives, but are flexible in achieving them. 

Just like skilled generals, skilled negotiators modify their plans as necessary to achieve their strategic objectives.

Courses that build negotiation skills:

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Effective Technical Presentations is a one-day workshop focused on the specific challenges faced by professionals who prepare and deliver presentations on technical subjects.  Primarily aimed at engineers and IT professionals, the class is built around a three step approach:  “Engage, Prepare and Deliver.” 

Engage – Establish your objective; define what success means (“How will you know when you’re done that you’ve been successful?”)

Prepare – About preparing yourself and your materials; most important ingredient = Practice! (Why we don’t, why we should)

Deliver – Projecting yourself, your message; stagecraft (when you’re on a stage) or message leadership (when you’re in a smaller setting)

Within each of these steps, the particular concerns and pitfalls of technical material are explored in-depth.  Some examples of points covered are:

• How to summon and deliver genuine enthusiasm for your topic (a proven effective ingredient for effective presentations)

• How to handle difficult situations – e.g., when no one asks a question; hecklers; “stage fright”

• How to avoid “TMI” (Too Much Information)

• How to represent technical material graphically that is both accurate and digestible (not overwhelming)

• How to augment presentations with PowerPoint slides that are effective guides through a discussion, not full-detail research papers in and of themselves

The class alternates between instruction, discussion, and Practice Opportunities.  Although many “Presentations” classes use video technology to film presenters “in action,” this class does not – for two reasons:  (1) engineers and technical people often resist the camera; it’s not in their “comfort zone, and the instructor, in 25 years of managing tech professionals, said that many of them resisted attending such a class for just that reason; and (2) feedback to presenters in the real world comes from people, not cameras, so the class enlists feedback from participants in ways that prepare presenters in the future to solicit exactly the same feedback – a basis for continuous improvement.

In Practice Opportunities, real-world technical situations are written in story format (e.g., how to tell company leadership that it’s time to venture outside our rigid technical standards to meet this design goal).  Students read them and divide into teams.  Then one person volunteers to deliver the presentation, and the rest of his/her team coaches the presenter based on material covered in the class so far.  There are several presentations, each more difficult than the previous one, to build on material covered in class.  The last Practice Opportunity deals with virtual teams, how to deliver information effectively from a remote location, with no visual contact.

Click here for more information about Stand and Deliver: Effective Technical Presentations.

QuickQuotes

"Strength lies in differences, not in similarities."
~Stephen Covey

"The best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses."
~Napoleon Hill

"It is amazing how much you can accomplish when it doesn't matter who gets the credit."
~Unknown

News Briefs

Auxilium Offers Performance Improvement Consultative Services

May 24, 2006 - Portland, Oregon - Through alliances with a network of Human Resources professionals, Auxilium now offers services that help clients link training and professional development to measurable performance improvements.

"Two major issues are stated as being obstacles for effective training by many of our clients and associates through professional organizations," said Gary C. Hinkle, President and Founder of Auxilium, Inc.  "First is getting support for training in general.  Many executives don't focus their attention to training because of more immediate priorities and also lack of evidence that training is effective.  Often, HR/OD professionals struggle to 'get a seat at the table' and have little opportunity to make a case for training with the decision-makers."

"The other common obstacle is non-existent structure for supporting training events, which is necessary for training to be effective.   The most successful training programs require work to be done before and after the 'event.'  A one-day seminar requires about 3 weeks for the instructor and client to discuss desired behavior change, tailor the class to meet the needs, and follow up to ensure successful implementation."

Auxilium's HR services help resolve both of these issues.  Consultants are available to help HR/OD staff build their case for training and get appropriate funding for performance improvement initiatives.  Typically, Auxilium instructors can facilitate the support needed before and after course delivery, but often this is difficult because of unavailable client resources.  HR consultants assist clients with pre-course and post-course work in these situations.

Call Auxilium at 503-293-3557 to learn more about these new services.

Local Representatives Now Serving Austin, Denver, and Puget Sound Areas

May 22, 2006 - Portland, Oregon - Clients in the Austin, Denver and Seattle metropolitan areas now have access to local support from Auxilium representatives.  Local account representatives are available to help with pre-course needs assessments, post-course follow-up, and customized services to meet specific needs.

Support directly from Auxilium headquarters will continue to be available to all clients.  For a face-to-face conversation and local service, please contact local representatives directly to discuss your needs for training and consultative services.

Austin: Bill Schraer, 512-301-8350 or 512-922-6296 (mobile), email

Denver: Linda Lundborg, 303-697-1716, email

Portland/Salem: Jerry DeFoe, 503-851-7842, email

San Diego: Ty Hamilton, 619-303-7472 or 619-203-1303 (mobile), email

San Francisco: Dan Ruble, 707-319-3953, email

Seattle: Dave Harris, 206-937-0657 or 206-423-1479 (mobile), email

Project Culture Draws SRO Audience at PMI Conference

April 25, 2006 – Portland, Oregon – Last week’s annual Project Management Institute (Great Lakes Chapter) conference in Sterling Heights, Michigan featured Susan de la Vergne’s presentation “Project Culture: How Organization Culture Helps and Hinders Projects.”  To a standing-room-only crowd in the conference’s largest venue, Susan outlined what the sometimes-barely-visible forces are at work every day in organizations that directly influence the success or failure of project work.

Conference organizer Jan Kobak was surprised by the large turnout for “Project Culture,” but said later he wasn’t surprised it was a topic that generated such interest as it’s an area many project leaders find challenging.

“Project Culture” helps organizations characterize their own cultural influences – how well communications practices are working, how successfully matrixed teams operate, how clear peer-to-peer accountabilities are, and more.  The goal isn’t to overhaul project culture where you work but instead to have clarity about what it is where you work, to influence change where possible and always to optimize working within it. 

Auxilium’s two-day class on Project Culture, Applying Emotional Intelligence to Critical Business Projects, helps participants characterize their own environments and adopt practices that take advantage of strengths while compensating for weaknesses in the culture that hinder project progress – with a focus on the very practical application of these recommendations to complex projects.  A one-day introductory class is also offered: Understanding and Improving Project Culture.

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