Our workgroup leadership course for project managers provides project managers with essential training on a wide range of project management workgroup issues. New and refreshed skills include team building, workshop design and management, decision-making, conflict management, assignments, collaboration, and remote teaming.

The course delivers training in facilitation skills, presentation skills, project management, event and workshop management, creativity, and applying several project management tools with workgroups.

This course is intended for individuals that are not considering a career where group facilitation is essential. If you are, we recommend the five-day FAST class, and then take this course as speciality training when acting as project manager.

This course provides a mix of basic facilitation training, including workshop management, teaming, and an introduction to personal style development. The class spends approximately sixty percent of the time on workgroup skills specific to project management. Project management is distinguished from general facilitation (typically) by:

• Typically, a longer life of the workgroup
• Significant non-workshop activities in addition to workshop activities
• Remote collaboration
• Specific project management tasks completed with team members in group settings
• Project managers with multiple projects or part-time project management responsibilities

COURSE GOAL

Our goal is to make the “soft stuff” easy. Graduates can immediately apply SMART rules and preparation plans to their project management activities. Tasks with your team that once seemed daunting are made significantly easier. You can expect to improve your team leader or facilitation skills, while delivering better project results. Our intense, three-day curriculum teaches project managers how to:

• Decide when to involve the team in individual or group activities and communications
• Structure group activities to be more efficient AND effective
• Increase project member enthusiasm for workgroup activities
• Shift responsibilities from you to team members for more effective and lively team meetings
• Manage out-of-control meetings and learn to recognize signs of loss-of-control earlier
• Manage group conflict and "problem people"
• Learn techniques for reaching team decisions
• Review pros and cons of collaboration tools

While this course expands the capability of a project manager, it is not a substitute for basic project management skills. We presume basic competence in project management concepts such as time scheduling tools such as Gantt charts, PERT/CPM, milestones.

BENEFITS

• Improve your ability to manage and work on projects while you´re juggling your regular job responsibilities
• Improve your team's enthusiasm and contribution during group meetings
• Resolve conflicts before they arise
• Turn workshops from grueling, time-consuming, low productivity exercises into vibrant, creative, and on-point time well spent
• Recognize team members that can best contribute within workshops from those that cannot
• Earn the respect of senior managers for your ability to effectively manage workgroups in workshop settings

OUTLINE

The following is an outline for a typical presentation of this course. Actual content may vary due to our effort to continuously update course content and/or the specific requirements (and characteristics) of course participants.

DAY ONE

Group Basics

• Projects and project management with groups
• Group characteristics and their impact
• The 5 criteria to use to decide when to use groups
• The 8 factors that inhibit effective group work

Workshop Basics

• The 7 characteristics of the ideal workshop
• Explicit and implicit roles in group (workshop) settings
• Deciding whether to "team build" or not, and why (and how)
• The basics of successful workshop design
• The 10 most common failure modes (and what to do about them)
• When workshops are a waste of time
• Why meeting location matters (and why "off-sites" may work)

DAY TWO

You As Group (Workshop) Leader

• Common group activities within projects
• Characteristics of effective workgroup leaders (and whether you possess them, and what to do if not)
• The 3 criteria to use to decide whether to lead your own meetings
• Why do you do not have to do all of the group management and why
• Your role as cop:
  • Time
  • Content
  • Attitude
  • Process
  • Quality
  • Conflict

Designing A Successful Workshop

• Scheduling the proper time and setting for group meetings
• Team member assignments
• Training your team members to participate effectively
• Designing meeting rules
• Energy boosters (when, why, and what to do)
• The 4 essential follow-up activities for you as team leader
• The 7 invisible but essential tools of a successful meeting

Decisions Within Project Groups

• What is and is not a decision and when they occur
• The basics of decision-making
• Group decision-making behavior
• Tools for group decision-making
• What to absolutely avoid when making group decisions
• Is consensus a valid decision tool?
• Traceability in decisions (how to know what and how it happened)

DAY THREE

Practicalities

• Ten ways to make any meeting fail
• Preventing meeting sabatoge
• When to cancel a project meeting and why
• The top 5 time wasters in managing team meetings
• Adding and removing members of groups
• What to do when the boss invites him/herself into your meetings
• The top 4 contingencies to manage
• What to do if the team cannot agree or a decision is unclear

Assuring Successful Group Activities

• Building project schedules
• Group discussions about team progress and reviews
• Open discussions about conflict
• Deciding to decide
• Team communication before, during, and after group meetings

"New Age" Teams

• Face-to-face versus synthetic groups
• Message boards, blogs, and email communication
• Ideating and brainstorming tools
• Virtual white boards
• Managing side-band/out-of-band communications
• Integrating electronic communications into workshops

SCHEDULE

This course is scheduled on-demand for private classes. We hold public courses occassionally based on apparent demand. If you are interested in this course, please contact us.

Public classes are held quarterly or semi-annually. Class dates are subject to change. Please check back here for the most current class schedule.

COST

Public: The cost for this course is $2000 per participant and includes course materials and refreshments.

Private: The cost for this course is $1800 per participant and includes course materials. Maximum private class size is twelve; minimum is five.