Manage People – the Prized Assets

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‘When dealing with people remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic but creatures of emotions – Dale Carnegie'

What is People Management? Why do we need to manage People?

Are people’s emotions, attitude or behaviour expected to be managed? Though directly not, we are expected to handle/manage them such that it doesn’t impact our project goals and objectives; influence the people in such a way team is collaborative and working as team in all situations; to nurture the positive team spirit and harness it for high yield.

As we read in 7 Habits of Highly effective People by Stephen R Covey, ‘focus on what is in our control more than what is not in our control’.

Assuming my current team comprises of the people as stated below categories using which we can analyze the possible ways in dealing with such ‘types’. One is not fixed to any particular type – No, there is no stereotype (which should be stricken as an exception) but circumstances make one fall in one of the type enumerated.

1. Leads -#1: Good Subject Knowledge (Functional & Technical) and focuses on Management related stuff

2. Leads- #2: Having good clarity on big picture and good technical knowledge but not aggressive

3. Technical Members-#3: Good Subject Knowledge (Functional & Technical) and focuses only on assigned work

4.   Technical Members-#4: Average Knowledge (Functional & Technical) – passive participation in delivery (They don’t care/worry much about final delivery and they do their work on their own pace irrespective of customer commitment)

5. Technical Members-#5: Self-motivated, aggressive people (Highly ambitious)

6.     Leads- #6: Work based on what manager says (Manager pleasing leads)

What type of skills should be applied with the above type of people in a team?

#1 Direction & Clear Objectives & Goals

• To increase the productivity of the team, we should study the KRAs and encourage the people to work on their strengths
•  Need to define clear KPIs to regain their focus on their core strengths

#2 100% Utilization

• Mostly this type is non-engaged or non-motivated people. We need to understand their goals in life and their interests and help to them to align it with organization needs.

#3 Presentation of the Big Picture

• In most cases due to their lack of visibility this pool of people restrict themselves into what is been assigned to them only and mostly they may be introverts. Therefore we should help them to get better visibility so that we can get the best out of them.

#4 Clear SLAs and Smaller Milestones with Guidance

• We need to guide all along with this type of people for them to achieve their smaller milestones. We need to give them smaller duration milestones to be in the track else they might stray or slip from the path (Project) easily

#5 Challenging work; Raising the Bar

• The ones with energy bursting their seams should be funneled and channeled through challenges by lifting the bar and make the revision of bar progressively upwards. Stretch till they can be stretched. There is a break point and that’s when stretched beyond the endurance.

#6 Enablers of decision and empowerment to function independently

• Once enabled and empowered identified employees should be able to engage with minimal intervention and to a large extent function independently – thereby there is a sense of ownership accounting for any accomplishment or allowance.

The Prized asset: Note that the most performing employee is an asset while the under-performer is a liability. Given the context and limitation, its left to you to manage the situation masterfully.

PMP Certification – do You have IT?

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There are currently 658,523 active PMP certified individuals. In the year 2010, there were roughly about 360000 plus. So in 5 years the number almost has doubled. Surely the demand in the market too has surged with projects on the rise and technology taking off to unknown horizons. Mobile is the device now – clearly wasn’t so 5 years back. Tabs just touched the table [iPad was released in 2010] and became a novelty.

A PMP certification was certainly niche a decade ago. Experience was given more weightage and with that the accrued skills and services. When the need for quality managers proved to be vital and critical, recognition of some sorts that underpins one’s prowess professionally became the most sought out factor in filtering the fine from the grainer like sifting stones from wheat. Positions high up in the ladder are few and far in between and hence in the rat-race to reach to the top, there is a scurry amongst qualified to find a seat in the front. And by virtue of? Apparently, meeting the requirement for the Job – vide education, and experience [as applicable]. In the context of Project Manager, many aspirants couldn’t just sneak through or gate-crash but cut teeth in the grinding many project before positing a claim for the position. A justification for the coronation ought to be proved by data points. And it was conventional wisdom that weighs experience prima facie in plucking the ripe fruit in filling a slot, and never the low hanging ones.

As the number of PMPs  soared in numbers, the de facto certification in Project Management seems, experience proved vital a component to be COMPLEMENTED. To be fair, PMP is no walk in the park. To appear for a PMP exam, it mandates both education and experience as prerequisite on top of which 35 Professional Development Units (PDU) is imposed. The PDUs cover the 10 knowledge areas especially scope, cost, time and other core management of risk, human resources, communication, stakeholders. It’s a complete nine-yard drill packed with ‘all you need to know about project management’ with scintillating depth. Thus passing the exam proves the possession of collective wisdom. Thus PMP exam equates education, experience and expertise. More so, the Project Managers with hands-on experience gain to understand the science behind the learning making them more ‘informed and learned’. Well, if the odds are so heavy and certification makes you the elite amongst the eligible, does the rise in certified professionals raises your eyebrows?

Admirably the numbers lends credibility to the claim. With more certification as supply, the demand too is growing steady as forecasts reveal. The perk associated with the certification is the key differentiator amongst the crowd to make your profile stand out.  Besides, HR uses sophisticated software in filtering to weed out potential candidates without certification based on key words, namely PMP. So non-PMP holders are denied an opportunity to be short-listed and decided at face value as ‘knowledge deficit’ (contentious one right?). And it’s been proved more than once the PMP holders are ‘pick of the lot’ as PMI raises the bar in clearing the certification which by now is the benchmark. The question posed to the professionals is: Do you have IT?

We would love to listen to your comments…..

Project Management Professional (PMP®) Training (Oct-Nov 2015)

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Course Kit * 4 Days of intense classroom training provided by our highly qualified in-house Trainer * 100% Money-back Assurance * 2 full length Practice Tests * 35 PDUs Certificate will be given to all participants * PMI approved course material * 3 months Online Exam Simulator for exam preparation * 98.6%_first-time pass rate	Upcoming Workshops Location Batch:1 Batch:2 Bangalore 17 – 18 & 24 - 25 Oct'15 14 – 15 & 28 - 29 Nov'15 Mumbai 26 – 27 Sep & 10 - 11 Oct'15 17 – 18 & 24 - 25 Oct'15 Gurgaon 26 – 27 Sep & 10 - 11 Oct'15 17 – 18 & 24 - 25 Oct'15
Corporate/Group Discounts                      We also offer Corporate / Group discounts for 3 or more participants.	Our Other Courses  PRINCE2 | ITIL® | Six Sigma
Note: If you are unable to attend classroom training, attend our Live Virtual Classroom (LVC) Session from your home or workplace or any location. For More Details: Call Us @ 088 6739 9673 or info@icertglobal.com

WHICH IS THE BEST WAY TO PASS THE PMP EXAM?

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This is a very common question heard in the corridors tread too often by the Information Technology professionals, to be the most significant, while other verticals and domains are following suit. And the common answer heard or offered would be:

Enrol for Project Management Professional (PMP) with a reputed education provider to earn 35 Contact Hours which is mandatory as prerequisite for taking up the PMP exam. The 4-day program will enable you to become proficient with the Principles of Project Management, mainly the 47 project management processes and 10 knowledge areas – this will be the curriculum or syllabus. The trainer, at best, can take you through the topics by apportioning time required to spend on modules as careful analysis has defined the hours to be dedicated to a particular module and they greatly differ from one to another.

The basic training must be supplemented through self-study by diving deep into the 10 knowledge areas as detailed in   ‘PMBOK Guide- A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge’ as key reference and the course materials provided by the education provider. It’s to be noted that PMBOK will be offered by the PMI (Project Management Institute). as part of your registration exam fees as a soft copy.

How the 4-day training can be taken is matter of choice and convenience, be it classroom or virtual classroom or e-Learning. End of the day, much depends about your competency and capability in cracking the PMP certification examination.  So far the answer is academic. Now from a practical perspective, your performance in the final exam boils down to the preparation. The better prepared you are, best are chances of making it big at the first attempt. Every institution’s bet is to equip their participants to pass PMP, and this is the differentiator for iCertGlobal to be one of the most sought after destination in preparing for professional certification.

We offer, in addition to the well-planned and well-structured schedule classroom or LVC training, other notables that prove to be the key ingredients to our immense success and popularity:

Exemplary course materials prepared by Industry experts who are PMP certified with hands-on experience in project management and training. Hence they bring tremendous inputs in terms of experience and expertise in carving out the course related resources like Books, Quiz, Practice Questionnaire, Case Studies, and real-time scenario analysis.

Exam Simulator with more than 6000 questions. The questions are created in the same complexity as it would be in the final PMP exam. The pattern and population of questions drawn for various modules will be of the same density as expected in the PMP exam.

Refreshing sessions are for those, on request, to brush up the lessons already learnt to brace for the final race.

Participants are encouraged to stay in touch and maintain contact through the 24x7 support to enhance improved communication.

Create as many opportunities at every turn to learn in as many forms to sharpen the skills in gaining the edge. A repository of resources is available for online access anytime, more as a supplementary link.

Moreover, we follow-up with every participant to sense their progress understand and offer services wherever struggle is detected or discovered.

Of course, the growing testimonies speak for itself!!

The new PMP Exam will be available after 1 November 2015 11 January 2016.

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There seems to be some misconception or misleading news in the market about the changes announced by PMI with regard to PMP and PMI-ACP.

First, the date as published by some REPs is not 1 November 2015. Its 11 January 2016.

Second, the changes are particularly in Exam Outline. The Domain still follows the Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and controlling, Closing and the changes injected are the inclusion of tasks in these domains.

Here’s an overview of the newly added content:

Domain	Changes
Initiating the Project	3 tasks added – task 2, task 7, task 8
Planning the Project	1 task added – task 13
Executing the Project	2 tasks added – task 6, task 7
Monitoring and controlling the project	2 tasks added – task 6, task 7
Closing the project	No new tasks added

The current exam (aligned to the existing exam content outline) will remain active until 11 January 2016.

After 11 January 2016, only the new version of the PMP exam will be administered.

So the aspirants prepared to take the exam can go ahead but stand advised of  11 January 2016 activation. All other prerequisites remain the same with the only exception in the Tasks added in the Domains.

Some might wonder why this change?

Study reveals that PMI® updates the PMP Examination Content Outline every 5 years or so in order to reflect the latest changes in the project management world. The 2005 version was upgraded to 2010, and this change follows more on the heels of the changing business needs and adapting to the project management demands. 

Every 3-5 years, PMI carries out role delineation studies (RDS) for each PMI Certifications to ensure relevancy to the current environments. If you wonder what is RDS? The Role Delineation Study (RDS) examines the role of project managers to determine key competency areas (including domains, tasks, knowledge, skills, etc.)

“The RDS captures perspectives of project management practitioners from all industries, work settings, and regions. It serves as the foundation for the PMP exam and ensures its validity and relevance.” [courtesy: www.pmi.org]

The obvious question next would be ‘Why was this New Content Included’?

The acceptance and applicability is always vetted for validity and relevance and hence the new content in PMP Exam will

§  Map the business strategy with its benefits

§  Highlight the takeaway of the lessons learnt at a granular level

§  Describes clearly the accountability as captured in project charter

§  Improve stakeholder relationships

Finally, What’s expected in the RDS Update?

§  RDS Update:

• Results in new/updated PMP exam content outline
• Shifts the weighting of the PMP Exam
• Introduces 8 new topics to the PMP Exam

Well, you might want to know What’s Not Changed in the PMP Exam?

The PMP Exam eligibility requirements remain the same

·         4,500 – 7,500 hours of project management working experience; and

·         35 hours of formal project management education (i.e. 35 contact hours)

Overall structure of the PMP Exam

·         200 questions (175 questions to be scored) in 4 hours

·         All questions are multiple-choice type questions with 1 correct answer

·         Many of the questions are “scenario based questions”

 

You are strongly advised to read the FAQs prepared in this context by PMI : 

https://www.pmi.org/certification/exam-changes/faqs.aspx