People Skills for Project Managers Training Class

1. Roles and Responsibilities of a Project Manager

• Communication and human resources knowledge areas
  
• Skills required of a good project manager
  
• Role of the project manager and key stakeholders
  
• Politics and protecting your project
  

2. Building an Effective Communication Plan

• Creating your project communication plan
  
• Information distribution and communication methods
  
• Interpersonal communications loop
  
• Listening skills
  
• Balancing stakeholder interests
  
• Performance reporting
  

3. Setting Stakeholder Expectations and Matrix Management

• Strong and weak matrix organizations
  
• Role of the expeditor, coordinator, and project manager
  
• Role of stakeholders
  
• Stakeholder identification
  
• Negotiating for and keeping resources
  
• Playing the "who owns the problem" game
  
• Setting stakeholder expectations and getting buy-in
  

4. Influencing and Negotiating Skills for Project Managers

• Definition
  
• Power bases
  
• Influence styles
  
• When and how does the project manager negotiate?
  
• Skills required for influencing and negotiating
  
• Types and kinds of negotiations
  
• Planning for a negotiation
  

5. Cross-cultural and Remote Teams

• Characteristics of effective and ineffective project teams
  
• Advantages and disadvantages of teams
  
• The six successful project team processes
  
• Stages of team development
  
• Developing cultural competence
  
• Global business thinking
  
• Communicating across cultures
  
• Working across cultures
  
• Managing remote project teams
  

6. Leadership

• Popular theories
  
• The leader's window
  
• Four styles of effective project leaders
  
• When to use different styles
  
• Leadership and decision making
  

7. Conflict on the Team

• The role of the project manager in conflict
  
• Changing views of conflict
  
• Signs and symptoms of conflict on project teams
  
• Usual causes of conflict
  
• Five conflict resolution techniques
  
• Handling angry team members
  

8. Setting Stakeholder Priorities

• Conflicting priorities within the project and across multiple projects
  
• Setting constraint priorities with stakeholders
  
• Resource conflicts
  
• Daily priority setting for the project manager
  
• Workload histograms
  
• Urgency vs importance
  
• Shifting corporate priorities and your project
  

9. Problem Solving and Decision Making

• Common barriers and mistakes
  
• Seven-step model
  
• Assumptions and facts
  
• Generating alternatives
  
• Planning for implementation
  

10. Motivation

• Definition
  
• Popular theories
  
• Role of the project manager
  
• How to create a motivating team environment
  

11. Delegation Skills for the Project Manager

• Why we don't delegate
  
• Advantages and disadvantages of delegation
  
• Delegating easy jobs
  
• Delegating challenging jobs
  

12. Running Effective Project Meetings

• Setting the purpose and tone
  
• Best practices for running efficient meetings
  
• Running brainstorming or planning meetings
  
• Difficult people in meetings
  
• Running remote team meetings
  

13. Stress and the Project Team

• Signs and symptoms of stress
  
• Causes of stress
  
• Seven stress keys
  
• Coping strategies
  
• Create your personal stress control checklist
  

Case Studies

During this course you will be given an evolving case study where you will be
placed in charge of a large, international project. This case study involves
working with staff from four countries and a team of 360 members and includes:

• Identifying your stakeholder communication plan and your plan for managing
  expectations for all involved.
  
• Investigating how to manage a cross-functional matrix team.
  
• Interpersonal communication and listening skills required to manage this
  project
  
• Influencing key stakeholders
  
• Planning and conducting a negotiation between a project manager and
  customer around scope creep
  
• Creating a motivation plan for a team with morale problems
  
• Considering an appropriate leadership style when dealing with a team
  conflict
  
• Dealing with a dysfunctional project team
  
• How to deal with a cross-cultural team in different time zones
  
• Use of a systematic problem-solving and decision-making model to make an
  important project decision
  
• Setting clear project priorities
  
• Conducting a conflict role-play
  
• Creating a project meetings management plan and dealing with the most
  difficult people in team meetings
  
• Learning how to delegate effectively with onsite or remote team members
  
• Creating a relief plan for a stressed-out team
  

Associate project managers, project managers, IT project managers, project
coordinators, project