Preface

Interpersonal issues tend to be the most frustrating aspect of the work portfolio managers, program managers, and project managers do. For the project manager, interpersonal issues can hinder project success, especially in terms of meeting the project‧s schedule and budget. They can also jeopardize achieving customer satisfaction with the project‧s scope and quality requirements. In program management, interpersonal issues can get in the way of the delivery of benefits not only from the individual projects that constitute the program but also more importantly, from the program as a whole. They can also interfere with governance approval and the ability to meet and manage stakeholder expectations. The overall value of the program‧s deliverables can diminish. In portfolio management, interpersonal issues can impede the development of a portfolio management process that is followed consistently throughout the organization and can delay and even prevent communication about the programs and projects and their priorities to others in the organization.

This book is dedicated to giving you, the project professional—whether at the portfolio, program, or individual project level—professional, tangible, and tested interpersonal skills that will help you address the many people issues you encounter in your work and with your team, while also helping you manage your own career direction. The differences in working with people at the various levels—portfolio, program, and project—are stressed, as are the differences (and similarities) in working on virtual and co-located teams. This book presents a set of specific, practical skills that you can use to resolve the difficult people issues managers so often encounter and to turn them from challenges and problems into opportunities.

The interpersonal skills addressed in the chapters of this book include:

The ability to provide strong leadership and to comfortably implement four key leadership roles critical to success

Different strategies for building effective and high-performing teams, whether the teams are virtual or co-located

Proven methods for motivating your team as well as understanding your own motivation style

Best practices for communicating, with an emphasis on developing concrete communications skills and recognizing what not to do

Approaches for building and maintaining relationships with stakeholders at all levels, both internal and external

Decision-making approaches and managing relationships with people who have dominant sources of power

Proven methods for handling stress and responding to unexpected critical incidents

Best practices for resolving conflict in the most productive and effective manner, along with ways to manage agreement to avoid groupthink

Specific career management skills and approaches to follow in light of the complexities inherent in our working environment.

Why are interpersonal skills so critical? We are under extreme pressure to complete programs and projects faster than ever before and to achieve ever higher levels of customer satisfaction. We also are under pressure to select programs and projects that truly will make a difference to our organization in an environment of limited resources and necessary capacity planning. Our work is increasingly complex, often relying on new and unproven technologies and requiring greater interaction with an increasingly large number of stakeholders, many of whom may not be identified until the later stages of our work. In addition, we often perform our work in a global environment, with some of our teams never meeting face-to-face during the course of their work. It is also rare for most people to work on only a single program or project, so effective time management is essential.

Interpersonal Skills for Portfolio, Program, and Project Managers is based on two earlier books, Essential People Skills for Project Managers (2005) and People Skills for Project Managers (2001), both coauthored with Steven Flannes, Ph.D., and published by Management Concepts. This book incorporates some of the key ideas presented in the two earlier books, broadening the focus to include portfolio and program managers and to discuss work with virtual teams. Additionally, this book includes some new techniques developed to meet challenges that were not common in 2005. Like the two earlier books, this book recognizes that portfolio, program, and project managers need information they can grasp quickly and apply immediately to their work. The discussion questions at the end of the first nine chapters can be used in universities or in organizational seminars addressing interpersonal skills.

Parts of this book, plus those of the other two books, have been presented at conferences in the United States, Canada, Europe, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia at Project Management Institute (PMI) chapters, during workshops for various organizations, and at PMI Congresses and International Project Management Association (IPMA) conferences. In these and similar settings, project professionals note how much more attention is being paid throughout the world to the interpersonal aspects of portfolio, program, and project work; this emphasis is also evident in the 2008 PMI standards in these three areas.

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I would like to express sincere thanks to the staff at Management Concepts for working with me for over a decade and especially to Myra Strauss, Mary Cowell, and Courtney Chiaparas for their tremendous assistance to me in publishing this book.

Ginger Levin
September 2010