Are you a T.W.A.T?
Hi everyone! It’s the start of the new year and I wanted to discuss the role of being a hybrid worker and what this looks like for many people returning to work after the new year. The Times recently released an article about a really popular way of working. It’s working from home: Monday and…
Interview advice and tips
I was asked on Twitter to provide a list of questions for interviews. So, if you’re preparing for an interview, it is a good idea to prepare for the interview itself and what questions could you potentially ask during the interview. Interviews: I am of the opinion that an interview is a two way discussion…
The call for a 4 day work week
In recent months/years, there has been a lot of news about companies and countries trialling a 4 day work week and what this has done for productivity and how this has affected the workplace. I wanted to spend some time discussing my own experience and what i’ve found. I like to believe that the COVID…
Let’s make a mistake!
One thing that i always try to inspire my kids to do is to make a mistake. I actively encourage them to try whatever they’re doing (within reason, of course!) and make as many mistakes as possible. Why? Do i want them to fail? No. I want them to learn that failure is something to…
Creating the right culture in your teams.
I was inspired by a conversation that i recently had around what is important for teams and building the right culture in the current environment where things are hybrid/not quite back to normal and are incredibly competitive. For a recent posting, there were over 200+ applicants to the role. What made this organisation stand out?…
How to help new hires feel at home
What are your best tips for hiring a new colleague? Here’s my top tips.
KISS (Keep It Short and Simple)
KISS is such a simple method for sharing knowledge and gathering information that it’s a useful tactic in consulting.
Why a Project Manager is NOT a Scrum Master
What’s the difference between the Project Manager and a Scrum Master? do you know why they’re different. Check out this blog for more information
The role of the Project Manager
What is the role of the Project Manager? During this blog, I explore two skills that are often forgotten
Developing Project Management Skills with a limited budget
Being an Ambassador for Projectmanagement.com and TheDigitalProjectManager, I’m often asked how people can develop their Project Management Skills when they may have a very limited budget /allowance from their organisation or are trying to fund their own development. I wanted to spend some time during today’s Blog to discuss what you can do if you…
Dealing with difficult people
In a recent coaching conversation, the coachee brought up a topic that they are struggling with and wanted to work on. With their permission, I’ve been able to share this knowledge with you today. Please note that names, and certain examples have been altered for privacy. Background: They have been working with their new colleague…
Toxic Positivity
What are the signs of toxic positivity? Why do you need to learn how to manage your emotions effectively
Increase your Emotional Intelligence
What is Emotional Intelligence? How can you improve your skills? Learn more in this blog
Coaching your team
If you are onboarding new team members, what should you be aware of? What coaching tips are best
Lessons from me… Advice part 2
Continuing from last weeks blog, I discuss some of the lessons learned from my career.
Learn from me… Some advice from my career.
These next few blogs are inspired by The GIFTD PM who asked to have more Blogs that don’t just detail best practice but talk about how you got to an end solution or action. So, I wanted to spend a few blogs going through some issues I’ve had during my career and how I managed…
Trends for 2022
what trends might we expect to see in 2022? check out what i think is coming up for the year
Do you need to constantly be looking for a new job?
Has the Great Resignation meant that you’re really looking for a new job?
Are you part of the Great Resignation?
what does the great resignation mean for you? is it really as big as some make out? during this blog we discuss all about it
Navigating your end of year review
What are you doing to prepare for your end of year review? Read this blog to help you prepare
How much are you worth?
What are the ways that you want to be valued and appreciated at work? How can you identify the value that you want to see?
Becoming an effective leader
what are the essential skills for leaders? check out this blog below to find out more
Soft Skills
Soft skills are so important for being a successful leader. learn more in this blog about what you can do to improve your soft skills
How to give and receive feedback
If you have ever struggled with giving feedback, this blog will give you advice for making feedback, timely and well received.
Business Dress
what changes have you noticed since returning to the office? has your business wear changed?
Mental Health Day
Today is Mental Health Day. I often get a little disillusioned with all of the different days that we have but this is a day that especially after the last two years that we have all had, I take really seriously and means a lot. For me, mental health used to be a ‘dirty’ word.…
How to get into Project Management
If you’re thinking about transitioning to Project Management, read this blog to find out more
A lifetime of learning
Are you a lifetime learner? or do you only learn because you have to? Come and read today’s blog on making learning fun
HBO Max and supporting their teams
Learning fast after failure is critical for success. More organisations could learn from HBO MAXs attitude
Nike: Mental Health closure
Nike recently announced they were closing their offices for 1 week for mental health leave. what’s your take on this?
Autumn recalibration: time to update those CVs!
As summer draws to a close, are you updating your CV to highlight your current skillset?
Gold plating in Project Management
Have you been a victim of gold plating? learn the difference in this blog
What are the factors towards client success?
During a recent discussion with a colleague of mine, we were trying to work out a list of what are the biggest factors towards client success and therefore a successful project and outcome. We came up with the following list and I’d love to hear what you think: 1) Clear, known requirements upfront It is…
Difficult conversations
How do you manage difficult conversations in your team? Find out some hints in this blog post
Learning more about Teamwork Skills
an overview of my first course on TeamWork Skills to be published on Pluralsight
Egg Donation: My story
This is a little off topic from my normal blog posts! So, I hope you don’t mind me posting this! Today, closed off the main activities for my role as an egg donor. What is an egg donor? An egg donor is someone who donates some of her eggs to another woman in order for…
Returning to the Workplace. Are you ready?
are you ready to return to the workplace? get some advice in this blog post
Nemawashi: The art of laying the groundwork for change
Learn more about what Nemawashi is and how you can use it your projects.
PMBOK 7th Edition. What’s new
Are you interested in learning what is new in PMBOK Version 7? Read more here
Coaching – Training summary
Today’s blog is all about my recent experience of formal coaching training.
Why you really need to take your paid vacation
This week’s blog is all about why it is so important to take your vacation every year
Developer Weekly Podcast: Stress and Burnout
This week I spoke to AzureBarry on his Podcast “Developer Weekly” about Burnout and mental health
Techorama – Lessons learned from managing teams during a pandemic
This is my summary from my recent presentation at Techorama
“There’s something you ought to know”… Things a Project Manager needs to hear.
Check out this blog showing the things that can make your heart sink during team calls. “There’s something you ought to know”
CIDM Conference: Managing change in a VUCA World
Read my summary of the CIDM conference and my presentation on VUCA
Workshops: How to keep your participants motivated
It’s hard. Don’t get me wrong. Facilitating a workshop in itself can be very draining in itself as not only are.you trying to gather information /share knowledge but you’re also trying to make sure that people are in the right “mindset” to be able to be contribute productively to your workshop. Over my years of…
How to minimise Turnover in your teams
Since PMXPO, I’ve been receiving a lot of emails from Project Managers asking for advice about issues they’re having in their projects. This theme has appeared in several emails so I wanted to bring it out on my Blog in case it can help others. I have been trying to work out a “magic formula”…
Change Management Virtually
During the PMXPO, another common question that I was asked both during and after the conference was around how to handle and manage Change with virtual teams / virtual environments. This can really be a different to manage and one thing to definitely consider when you are starting or working with virtual teams. Let’s take…
Creating a team manifesto with customers/clients
One item that I have had a lot of emails about since my presentation at PMXPO was around ground rules/ deciding on working arrangements with clients. I briefly touched on this topic in a previous blog but wanted to extend it here. I wanted to answer some of the core questions that I have received.…
PMXPO: Speaking summary
PMXPO is one of the most established virtual conferences and has been around for several years. This year it has been brought into the #ExperiencePMI conference series and has some great highlights and speakers. There were over 60,000 registered attendees. Last year, I took part in the Twitter Takeover of the @PMIevents twitter handle to…
PMI – Megatrends
PMI recently published a report on: “How to Incorporate 5 Global Megatrends into Long-Term Business Strategy”. This report which has the byline of: Healing Fractures, building bridges was one that intrigued me. I reached out to: Stephen Townsend, Network Engagement Facilitator, at PMI to ask his thoughts on the report and some of the main…
What matters?
I saw this interesting diagram on Twitter and it really inspired me to think about my own perceptions around success and what really matters. What’s the first thing that you see or identify with? I admit that when I was starting out in my career, I was very clearly focused on the top image with…
Time Management Tips
If you’re like me, you have a lot of things on your to-do list and this may not just be your work. Appointments, schedules, visits to friends and family… all of this is a lot for someone to manage. Sometimes you can think that you’ve got it under control and other times it can feel…
Ground rules
One key aspect for success in any project is around Expectation Management and a key factor in Expectation Management are having clear ground rules. What are ground rules? Ground rules set clear expectations for how you’ll work during the project. This can include everything around: Respect (e.g. respecting your teams time)Working time (e.g. core working…
Soft Skills: your essential tool for leadership
One of the recent topics that I’ve been working on with the people I coach is around Soft Skills and improving their own soft skills. In the people that i’ve been working with, Soft Skills is one area which is often the weakest link in their Professional abilities. What are soft skills? Soft Skills are…
Monozukuri:
I am always trying to learn new ways of working and potential improvements that I can bring to my projects and teams. In the past year, I have been working a lot in the manufacturing sector and this term has come up a few times. Monozukuri is the japanese term for manufacturing or “making things”…
Project Management tips that I’m teaching my children
Whether consciously or unconsciously, I am giving a few lessons on Project Management to my children. I think that it’s very important to look at some of our most valuable skills that we can give and share with others. Here’s a few of the most important skills that I’m trying to teach: Listening Skills: As…
What volunteering brings me
I’m a passionate and regular volunteer with several different organisations. I contribute my time, skills, expertise and energy in various roles to add and share knowledge with the wider community. Within my career, being a volunteer gives me a lot of skills that I can apply and gives a great added value to my role…
Questions to ask yourself as a Manager
Claire L Jew published an article about the 4 most important questions that she asks herself and I took this as an opportunity to think about the 4 most important questions that I ask myself as a leader. This blog has been quite difficult for me to write as I’ve struggled to limit the questions…
Keeping in touch whilst Working from Home
One of the things that I have been asked about recently has been how to keep in touch with your team and colleagues whilst you’re working from home/ working remotely for extended periods of time. As it currently stands, in the Netherlands we are looking at another 4 weeks of lockdown at a minimum and…
PMI – 50 most influential projects: Part 2
In my previous Blog, I spoke to PMI Executive Mike DePrisco about the list that PMI released around the 50 most influential projects and the impact that they were hoping this would have on the wider Project Management Industry. During this blog, I want to discuss my own personal reflections on this list, which ones…
PMI – 50 Most Influential Projects
In the past few months, PMI has released a list of their 50 most influential projects of the year. I was given the opportunity to speak to PMI’s Vice President, Global Experience and Solutions, Mike DePrisco about the list, their motivations for creating this list and what PMI is hoping to bring to the wider…
2020 round up
2020 has been one of the most challenging years for a lot of people, most certainly for me! I was talking to a colleague recently and they said: Just when we thought we saw the light at the end of tunnel, we now realise that it wasn’t a light at all… it was just a…
Celebrating virtually
Normally, at this time of year, we spend hours with our colleagues having a christmas get together and it can be very difficult to get together when we’re all located remotely/in lockdown. During December, I’ve been capturing what I’ve seen friends doing with their work to celebrate the festive period. There has definitely be a…
PMSummit: Online Conference
Today was a great online conference delivered by the team at PM Summit. I was presenting my topic about being a Chameleon Leader but I was also given access to the rest of the days presentation to be able to see and learn more about various Project Management and leadership topics. Before this conference started,…
Presenting at PMINL – Leading virtual teams
After my last presentation in November, the PMINL Chapter reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in presenting another session on leading virtual teams. This is a topic that I am finding a lot of people are really interested in and it was great to see such active participation from the group.…
Setting personal objectives
As a mentor, one of the first things that we do during our sessions is to discuss what you want to achieve from our sessions but more importantly, from your career. Personal objectives are not the same as the objectives from work that you fill out on a yearly basis and have to achieve to…
Teambuilding virtually
Earlier this year, I published a blog on the topic of teambuilding events. Over the past few webinars and presentations that I’ve given, the topic of teambuilding virtually has come up and I wanted to provide a concise list of ideas that might help and inspire you with your own teambuilding activities. Why bother? As…
Onboarding new team members – virtually
One of the biggest questions I’m getting asked at the moment is how people/Managers are onboarding teams virtually and this topic is definitely something that will remain relevant in the coming months and year(s) as virtual working becomes a normal part of our working life. Case Study: 1 A friend of mine got a new…
Supporting a work/life balance virtually
This topic has been raised quite a lot in the past few weeks/months when I’ve been presenting webinars and keynotes on the subject of Leadership, so I wanted to take some time to share my experience and more importantly give some advice for encouraging your teams to switch off and embrace a healthy work/life balance.…
Presenting at 2020 Pittsburgh PMI – PittAgile Gathering
This year has opened a wealth of speaking opportunities to me. I was informed about this conference by Bruce Gay who is heavily involved in the PMI Pittsburgh chapter and someone who I am very proud to call a friend. PittAgile is normally a day’s conference, but this year they did something different and combined…
Little steps towards Personal Development
Personal development can seem like an extremely difficult task to undertake. Where do you start? How do you make progress? Recently, I have been making my own personal development journey and I wanted to give you an insight into my journey. As a Leader, I think it’s my responsibility to always look for the improvements…
Loading…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
EmThePM 