SIGUCCS 2019 Conference Takeaway – Project Manager Tools

Communication Skills and Training are a Project Managers Best Tools

In this session, we learned about Teaming (the verb). No, not a regular work team… so, what is teaming?

Teaming is a dynamic activity. It is focused and time limited. It is action oriented. There is a single goal defined. Teams last about 6 months (generally) and they split off and new teams are created. Teams should be empowered to make decisions, or at least make recommendations to a decision-making body.

The second half of the session was about communication skills. Team communications have set and managed expectations: style, frequency, methods. They are also directed UP (steering committee, sponsor, executives), OUT (stakeholders, community), DOWN (team members).

Communications should always be transparent!

Takeaways:

Targeted communications to stakeholders and community should have ONE key takeaway per message – Laurie Fox.

See their presentation materials at: https://static.sched.com/hosted_files/siguccs2019/b5/Communications%20%26%20Teaming%20for%20Project%20Success.pptx

Read their paper in the digital library: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/3360000/3357219/p36-lenz.pdf?ip=128.151.98.14&id=3357219&acc=ACTIVE%20SERVICE&key=7777116298C9657D%2EDC6AD36C640314EC%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35&acm=1577481745_6f669ad230bbdd5d24bf3a7e19ec2a1f#URLTOKEN#

About SIGUCCS Editor

The Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS) is an association of professionals who support and manage the diverse aspects of information technology services at higher education institutions. SIGUCCS is one of 36 special interest groups of ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, the world's largest educational and scientific computing society. SIGUCCS focuses on issues surrounding the support, delivery, and management of those services, and provides professional development opportunities for its members and the other individuals in the field.