People Management Skills: Tip 7 - Document, document, document.

When it comes to managing people, all key conversations, both good and bad, should be documented. Little, if anything, should be only verbally exchanged. Managers are, and need to be, accountable for their assessments, decisions, and actions, especially when it comes to people management. In good times, this will demonstrate good people management and keep the momentum going. In bad times, it will best serve and protect all in involved; the manager, the employee, and the company.

People Management Skills: Tip 6 - Coach, counsel, then discipline.

Most project managers are high value employees that require very little management. In fact, many project managers manage their bosses more than their bosses manage them. When you are managing your team, whether project managers or others, seek to first coach, followed by counseling and finally descipline. Coaching is proactive encouragement to achieve agreed to goals. Counseling entails a closer attention to a problem identified by you with a specific request for change. And, discipline is the use of punishment as an incentive for the change that you have previously requested. Discipline should only be considered after having coached and counseled.

People Management Skills: Tip 5 - Acknowledge end results achieved.

At a psychological level, employees value and need acknowledgement of their work, both good and bad. Acknowledgement should not interfere with the employee manager relationship, rather it should enhance it. Seek to understand and acknowledge both the effort as well as the end result achieved of the employee. As always, the end result achieved should be the basis of the employee's performance appraisal.

People Management Skills: Tip 4 - Find the right span to manage from.

Most employees do not like micro managers as they manage to close resulting in a employee disempowerment, lack of trust, and reduction of motivation. Absentee managers are no better as they provide insufficient guidance, control reporting, and often are not even there. The optimal span is somewhere in between where you can provide direction and guidance, management review, and regularly two way communication.

People Management Skills: Tip 3 - Make the career of your employee a priority.

The better your employees perform, the better you as manager will have performed. Ensure your direct reports have career goals and a career path and seek to establish and confirm those areas of assistance and facilitation that you can provide. Your actions on the behalf of the careers of your direct reports is the truest measure of priority you have made.

People Management Skills: Tip 2 - Think of people management as a role.

Some people think of people management as being a boss of some kind. Being a good boss doesn't necessarily mean being a your employee's friend. Rather, it entails providing direction and feedback and then doing all that you can to make sure that your employees can, and are allowed, to do their jobs.

People Management Skills: Tip 1 - Acknowledge people management as a skill.

Are you good at People Management? Surprisingly, most managers respond in the positive, yet survey after survey provides quantitative and qualitative data suggesting otherwise. As a first step, acknowledge that people management is a skill unto itself and it is different from your core technical skills. If you are not good at it, work at getting better.

Project Portfolio Management: Tip 10 - Remember who the boss is.

Project portfolio management can be a tremendous discipline for management and the leadership team. It will facilitate the strategic alignment of projects and programs to the priorities of the business. However, there will come times when the business intuition and market instinct of the CEO and the top tier executives will seemingly compromise the portfolio management process and available metrics. Hence, there always needs to be a certain degree of flexibility and understanding that no matter how regimented the process is made to be, certain data points and judgments might very well fall outside of the process to no discredit of all those involved.

Project Portfolio Management: Tip 9 - Anticipate business opportunities and constraints.

Economic cycles and business issues can impact the project portfolio both positively and negatively. Many of these new business opportunities and constraints can be identified and acted upon early to manage the portfolio and to confirm the integrity of the programs and projects of the portfolio. Being continually aware of and acting upon these business opportunities and constraints will ensure the project portfolio is balanced and optimized.

Project Portfolio Management: Tip 8 - Be open to project failures.

Most project management methodologies anticipate project difficulties and provide monitoring and controlling processes for change, issues, and problem management. However, the resulting mindset for the project effort can often be singularly focused on getting the project back on track to the exclusion of any real consideration given to the fact that the project may very well be failing. Be open to the possibility that the project effort could be failing and should be scrubbed from the portfolio.

Project Portfolio Management: Tip 7 - Use executive dashboards.

Few executives will take the time to login to your PPM tool much less navigate through reports or search through data. They will no doubt want the PMO to have and use and master the PPM tool and its capabilities, but they themselves may or may not be so inclined. Whether within your PPM tool or external to it, maintain high-level executive summary dashboards that serve to both provide an executive overview of the status of the top projects of the portfolio and to provide direct access to the appropriate area of the PPM tool where useful reports and data can be immediately accessed.

Project Portfolio Management: Tip 6 - Use the tool in your operations reviews.

Use the capabilities and outputs of the PPM tool to make decisions. If different tools, reports, and data is being used for management and review, it won't take long for the support for the PPM tool to dissipate. Conversely, if the PPM tool is used as the driver of portfolio management operations, then all involved will get and stay on board.

Project Portfolio Management: Tip 5 - Forgive human errors, but not process errors.

Don’t assume things will automatically play or can run on auto-pilot. Business dynamics and changing conditions prevail and require portfolio agility, the ability to stay current with your investment status and respond to changes. Also prevalent can be legacy attitudes, behaviors, and quiet dissension from those that fared well under the old system. Expect human errors and execution difficulties. In fact, embrace them, as they can lead to an understanding and resolution of those things in the process that led to the problem in the first place.

Project Portfolio Management: Tip 4 - Use a proven PPM tool.

PPM involves tradeoffs of value, cost, resources, and risk. This can quickly become complex and requires software that can mathematically weight, balance, and optimize a portfolio in a seamless manner. In selecting PPM tools, organizations should look not only at the breadth of functionality the tools offer, but also at the vendor’s experience in PPM. With the evolving market for PPM tools and solutions, vendors who have the most implementation experience are the ones who are likely to have the most sophisticated and scalable solutions.

Project Portfolio Management: Tip 3 - Develop a governance process.

PPM implementations with a strong governance structure will be more likely to be accepted and to work. Things to consider include: timing, decision style, organizational level, thresholds, decision criteria, and decision making. Understanding each of these areas will help structure an effective governance process for the organization.

Project Portfolio Management: Tip 2 - Avoid the "Big Bang".

Don’t overwhelm the organization with a “big bang” approach. Each organization is different in terms of its level of maturity and ability to handle change. A phased approach should be used based on an assessment of the company’s abilities. In implementing PPM, seek to identify your strengths and weaknesses, use a proof of concept, rollout PPM with a toleration for information thath is not perfect. And whatever approach and tools are selected, don't go too long without showing results.

Project Portfolio Management: Tip 1 - Start at the top.

Start at the top with senior management buy-in and participation. Senior management buy-in is required to achieve consensus, motivate, and to ensure adherence to the processes, tasks, and activities required to manage the project portfolio. Without senior management participation, project portfolio management doesn't work and you are likely to end up with, or return to, a squeaky wheel gets the grease mindset for those involved.

Software as a Service: Tip 10 - Low cost of exit.

SaaS solutions are just as easy to terminate as they are to start. Often times, a key issue that internal information technology organizations have to deal with and manage to is how best to replace a solution or technoloyg. And, in addition to the technical and application transistion considerations are the people considerations such as no longer needing or being able use resources that were dedicated to supporting the solution. With SaaS, these resources work for the vendor, not customer, making it much easier for the customer make solution decisions without having to worry able staffing consequences.

Software as a Service: Tip 9 - Meeting short term solution needs.

Often times, business units within a company have interim solution needs such as product launches, new office openings, organizational transitions, and business development initiatives. Typically, the application solution needs of such short term endeavors cannot be easily met by the IT department or even focused on due to other priorities. SaaS provides an easy and flexible alternative to meeting short term solution needs as SaaS offerings can be easily acquired, used, and terminated when no longer needed.

Software as a Service: Tip 8 - Reducing capital expense.

In addition to technology and operational benefits, SaaS offers many companies the financial benefit of eliminating the capital expense associated with new application deployments. This not only is attractive to the CFO, but can also result in an acceleration of the project approval process because SaaS solutions are typically treated as operating expenses and simplify the corporate review process.