Showing posts with label career. Show all posts
Showing posts with label career. Show all posts

Ready for a new job? Heres the hows and whys?

Your chances of accepting an offer are statistically significant 2.6% to 6.6% higher if you were referred by a current employee than if you weren’t, mentions  Glassdoor. 

So, what do you think- does knowing the right person get you a job?

It clearly does.  So, how do you find the right person, the question is what are you doing when looking for the job.

How do you know you are ready to find your next job?

People don’t quit their job, they leave their bosses- I find it true in a lot of cases including my own and Harvard Business review confirms

Richard Branson believes that “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough that they don’t want to”. 

While a lot is said about bosses and managers, its also your responsibility to let them know what you are looking for and who you are. Sometimes opinions about you are formed in your absence, so its important to discuss your goals and interests with your manager as well. Bringing it up politely once in awhile ensure your boss hasn’t forgotten about it and when the right opening comes up, he or she might let you in. 

To ensure your boss is helping you, don’t forget to do your work. If that doesn’t work and things seem real stagnant or bad and you are tired, see lack of advancement and opportunities- it might be time to start looking at the market.


Career Fulfilment- Its said that when you have the right combination of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose in your work you are fulfilled (Read Drive by Daniel Pink ). 

Culture plays a crucial role as well and how you fit in matters.  

Tony Hsieh of Zappos  known to hire based on the social/cultural fit of candidates mentions   “We’ve actually passed on a lot of really smart, talented people that we know can make an immediate impact on our top or bottom line, but if they’re not good for the company culture, we won’t hire them for that reason alone”. 

To buy the book "Delivering Happiness" click here .To know more about their hiring process, click here .

If you find yourself not fitting in and constantly feeling the need to not be yourself but someone else to impress, it can be an indicator to move on. 

How to look for a job?
Well, simply put you have to put a plan in place. Knowing the right person matters, now you have to look for one.

Eye on the Market- Look at the current market situation and asses your own skills, you should know where you want to be and the role you are eyeing by now (thats why you are ready to quit). Find out who’s hiring in the market and then look up your contacts in Linkedin and other social platforms you are part of. Platforms like Meetup (based on similar interests) could also be a great source for knowing openings. List out the desired companies and then get to work. Find either contacts inside or email people in the role (similar) about the work, advancement opportunities and the company in general. If everything seems to go well and you feel positive about it- ask for a referral. 

Work with you mentor/sponsor- Hopefully you already have one by now, they can always use their contacts or expertise to redirect you the right person or openings. Incase you haven’t been lucky enough to find a mentor, sign up where you have mentors waiting to work with you , you don’t have to engage in cold calls or random emails anymore, thats a thing of the past.


Find out about the Prospective Company
Even before applying for an open position, consider if the move is right for you. Moving from one job to another to move again in a years time is not a good idea. So ensure you know the company, the culture and the feedback before you decide to invest your time there. Glassdoor is a great way to get the reviews and then get it validated with direct questions with your contact within the organization. 

Nail the Interview
Where do you see yourself in 5 years? There are multiple resources that share the tentative insider scoops on interviews. You can find some of them listed below.


Negotiate
30% of women don't bother to negotiate at all, while 46% of men negotiate,” according to Katie Donovan, founder of Equal Pay Negotiations. So, you decide what its that you really want to go for and at what point you would like to close the discussion. 


Good Luck!


(Pic courtesy: Google Images)

July | Article Round Up

What you read, is what your interests are and I can clearly see from my reading list. 

I have tried to categorise them better this time around, so let me know if this is something that you guys are enjoying as well. 

Career:
  1. All about Goal Setting
  2. 10 Steps to Achieve any Goal
  3. 4 Tips to achieve your goals (Ted talks)
  4. Your career best effort ( again from one of my newly found blogger James Clear)


 Books:
  1. Brene Brown's Digital Library
  2. Books to read if you are suffering from Imposter Syndrome

Overcoming Challenges:

  1. To know that you can actually do what you put your mind to, the writer tells it all how he photographed the Royal wedding.

Agile:
  1. Spotify's health check model
  2. Levels of Agile Maturity 
  3. Success by being Agile

Working Moms:
  1. Kids of working moms turn into happy adults
  2. 6 Women share their return to work stories after maternity leave

Others:
I couldn't really find a category for it and I am generally interested in a lot of stuff when I read, here are some of the selected reads I thought might be interesting to this blogs audience.
  1. Why you can focus more in coffee shops than open plan offices
  2.  What the experiment of employees working 4 days a week found out
  3. open plan offices reduce face to face communications
  4. why liberal arts and humanities is as important as engineering
  5. New York Stock Exchange gets it first women chief 
  6. Only 25% of workforce is female in India 
  7. Lauren Powell and her story of inventing her brand
  8. 6 Pillars of Creativity
  9. When a stress expert and author battles mental illness 
  10. Surprising facts of why Women CEO's don't expect much support at home or work.
My favourite tweet for this month:





If you enjoyed this, you might want to look at the Article Round up for June.

Exciting News| Relaunching- Connect

Today, I want to share some exciting news with you all.

This goes long back, few years after I started the blog. I felt it was wonderful meeting amazing project management professionals from all over the world and learning from them and being mentored. 

I also knew that this is something that might be difficult for a lot of people to do, because you might not know whom to reach out to, or lot of times people are busy and perhaps don’t reply back to a mail of a newbie. I knew I felt very strongly about sharing the luck I had and how much I learnt just by talking to amazing people. And if I had the chance, so should so many others.  This is specially true for introverts, who might not be as comfortable meeting up people over coffee or cold calling them for a chance to be mentored or learning about the profession. 

Hence the “Connectwas born. It was free and the idea was to create an interactive design so you felt like you were at your work desk and had the freedom to be connected to newbies or experts from around the globe. 

The best part was you didn’t have to find them and figure out how to communicate with them, we did all that work for you. When the PMOT community signed up and amongst them lots of senior folks who were happy to mentor newbies. You could choose virtual mentorship or in your city mentorship, where you select from your domain of choice (media, IT, construction etc) and the city/country incase you want to have face to face conversations and not limit yourself to emails/skype calls. 

The site was launched because me and my two friends sat down and were super proud to get this done. It did well, lots of people signed up and it was still free. 

For me it was important that the purpose of creation stayed, for anyone to help themselves move forward in their career. You didn’t have to shell out on subscriptions or payments to get the opportunity.  

Paid completely with my own money, and encouraged and supported by many thats how it stayed, small tiny and humble. There was no marketing done except by word of mouth by people who used it or who wrote about it in there blogs. You could mentor here and probably claim PDU or SEU, saving you more money (if anyone had done it, can you please email us your story)

The site went down few months ago and honestly I didn’t even notice it initially and when I did, I had to take the time to decide if I wanted to bring the site back or let it go. There were people who had signed up (existing users),  communications happening and I just thought its really a good website, and even if it helps one student every month, one newbie every day to figure out their career I should bring it back. 

So, here it is- the site back and working. Yay!! The site stays as it is for now with new features coming soon. 

If you have ever used the site or benefitted from it, please don’t hesitate to tell your friends. If you or someone you know would like to collaborate or may be sponsor for the day or put ads in the site that would be wonderful because then we can bring in more amazing features to the site and keep on paying it forward. 

We are re-launching and yes it is still free. Thank you for your support. 

(Pic courtesy:https://burst.shopify.com) 




Goal Setting Framework

Jun 4, 2018 | | 0 comments |
This is a Guest Post by Madhavi Ledalla.
Many of us have goals, and I’m sure we would like to work towards them and achieve them.  Sometimes the goals that are set are lost somewhere or are mostly subjectively set without any objective stats to support their perusal.
Here are some steps that could guide the goal setting journey-
Start with the why, the purpose of doing something. What is my goal? What do I want to achieve and How. Simon Sinek’s framework could help here as a starting point.   
Write your goals on “Goal Definition” canvas.
GD1
Depending on number of goals you set for yourself, you may have those many goal definition canvases. Once the “Goal Definition Canvas” is filled, next step is to come up with a the priority of which goal is  most important to you. This leads to “Goal Prioritization” exercise. The below “Prioritization” Canvas can be  used.
GD2
Depending on the NS, you pick one goal that you want to work on. Once the goal is selected, the next steps are planning to achieve the goal. For this we can use the “Goal Planning Canvas”.
List down the activities that are required for you to meet the goal.
Arrange them in this way based on the impact and learning of working on the goal. Put them on the canvas and 1,2, 3 is the order of working.
GD3
One the order has been obtained from the “Planning” canvas, lay down these activities on a “Goal-Visualization-Board” and move the activities through each stage to visualize the progress.

GD4


The opinion and content expressed here is of the author and not SIPM.

Scrum Master: 5 Kinds

Whether you are in an organization that follows Agile or not chances are you already have pre-determined notions about Scrum Masters- their roles and responsibilities.

In my experience of working within the Agile domain in India, there are five kinds of Scrum Masters I have come across:

  • Managers- This specially happens when the organization is moving into Agile initially. Reasons are often genuine and till a scrum master is identified in a team, the team manager in some cases will volunteer for the role. Also, managers who like to know what exactly is happening in the team so they step up into this role which always might not be a very good sign.
      • Pros- Understanding the role will eventually help the manager better appreciate the role. Boosts positive communication within the team and change in process.
      • Cons- it shouldn’t be the case where micro management is the agenda and so why not take up the role and still be the decision maker instead of allowing the team to self-organize
  • Tech Leads- Some organization focus on having adequate experience required for the role of the Scrum Master, the focus is on people who have considerable domain knowledge and its mostly been in the industry ten years or more.  
      • Pros-The vast experience of a lead could help the team manage the domain and deliver work with better quality. 
      • Cons-It shouldn’t end up being a practice that others don’t speak up because the lead is always right. 
  • Project Manager- The team project manager takes up the role as natural transition in a lot of cases. While the project will definitely be delivered with this one in charge, being a servant leader might not be something that will be easy to adopt to; where team calls the shots.
      • Pros- Communication, delivery and milestones will always be in check.
      • Cons- unless the right mindset has been achieved, you don’t want to encourage/continue with the command and control situation.
  • Functional Team Members- This happens commonly as a core team member is either assigned or volunteers to take on the role. This means a split of hours for being a Scrum Master and performing the core competency work.
      • Pros- Buy in within team is easier
      • Cons- Time management during deadlines; the time split doesn’t mean when extra hours are required you drop the scrum master responsibility and take in more hours to finish for example testing.
  • Full Time Scrum Master- Very few organizations will go ahead and hire full time members into this role. When it does happen one Scrum Master is assigned to at least two teams and the unit is very confident of the them working within Agile methodologies. 
      • Pros- Someone available and accountable to ensure the process is in places and problems are looked into and resolved immediately.
      • Cons- Dedicated scrum masters don’t mean they are administrators for the team, filling out details (like in the agile tool) that should be done by everyone themselves. Also, lack of discussion on what the role is about and the responsibilities are by management can create misunderstanding within team members. 

What have you experienced or observed?

(Pic courtesy: Google images)

Relearning: The Gadget Habits (5 simple tips)

If you spend all your time slouching in the couch and complaining life isn’t taking you anywhere, well you already know nothing will happen.

An average person will usually complaint 15-30 times day. The chronic complainer falls into a perpetual cycle of finding fault, feeling negative, and then being unable to face the next situation with an open mind.  

Instead of picking ourselves and working on our list, we are busy with the Gadget Browsing. We use it every day- new fancy phones, laptops, tablets... hundreds of apps crammed in it. We wake up with the mindless chatter of browsing and we wrap up our day by telling the world we are ready for bed. Does information overload or mindless browsing help your creativity- perhaps not. We are way too occupied with our gadgets (that's where the free times heads to) till we need a mental day off .

Here are 5 ways to re-think about your habits:

  1. Stop all the notifications- this includes your emails, social media and news channels. When you need something (info/news) you can open the app and it’s always better to have a fixed time to do it. Don’t use it as a cure for boredom instead pick a book or go for a walk or meet a real friend.
  2. Delete apps- you don’t need so many apps, delete them. Free yourself from the urge to constantly monitor your behavior, deleting helps. Once done you can decide to login to your Facebook or Instagram once a week or month and check for updates (in case you forgot they also have a website), you really don’t need to prove anything to anyone here. 
  3. Use apps to develop the growth mindset -don’t stop learning because you are out of college, keep that fire in you alive. Use your gadgets instead to learn a new domain, or pick up a interest or a certification. Download the content and you can even use it while you commute even with a shaky wifi. this includes paid and free stuff- read a blog, take up a course and get a certification that will actually help you to move to your new role.
  4. Shake up your timeline- make the time spent meaningful, there’s no point in giving up your time and feeling worthless. If you think browsing through social media is giving you all the negative vibes then just get out of it. Use apps to create real connections, meet your mentor once a month over Skype or use Google hangout to teach... the possibilities are endless as long as you use them correctly.
  5. Positive vibes only- use gadgets to create the life you want, not the life your social timeline dictates you to live by and crib about. Use apps to meditate or write or create amazing headspace that takes you through the day. 

Stop the mindless browsing and create the positive road-map you have always wanted and see how it feels to stop complaining for once.

(Pic courtesy: Google images)

Top 3 Books for 2016

If you have been with me reading the blog or checking tweets and watching the occasional pop ups in Instagram, you will know that I read for work and pleasure. This year has seen me get back to it more than the last two years. 

So, if you like to red or looking for a last minute gift idea, you can check out these 3 books which I think have had the most impact on me. 



·    The 193 pg book focuses on the benefits of maintaining a checklist through various industries. 
·      A surgeon from NY, the book The Checklist is not about just to do lists. It’s a brief list that helps critical decision making in sensitive situations like the operating room by saving lives or during investment decisions or in aeronautical situation (mid air crisis).
·        
The reason I liked the book is because:
§  It’s a simple idea that’s so well researched that it makes you think that we should all implement more checklists in our work places and homes to save ourselves from complications.
§  He talks about how the checklist that was created in John Hopkins hospital that raised a possibility that people talking to each other  a minute before starting the operation was a strategy to foster team work which lead to higher success rates. 
§  It made me think that the basics of any project management should be about certain checklist like its focused a lot in Agile with the ceremonies and DOD (definition of done) and exit criteria’s all set to actually ensure that everything is in its place and chances to miss it is reduced thereby ensuring the quality of the potentially shippable product.
§  It’s a book that will make you think and has take away's that you can actually implement in your work. It also provides you with enough case studies that will allow you to make a strong case with the right set of data that you will need to get buy in from your team or management to get the checklists implemented. 

If you need an awakening of your mind and soul, if you want to grow more, need a way to organize your thoughts and dreams, want to be happier....this is what you should be reading. It shook me up literally. ·It’s a must read and will be my staple on the bedside table for the next few month definitely.          

  • 223 pages excluding the glossary and others, this book will help you understand your expectation from life and how to get them. Book talks a lot about the realities that the author faced as he tried to build his own business that thrives successfully now.
  • He gives example from his own life and multitude of other people like Dalai Lama, Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington and Tony Robbins on how they look at success.
  • My favorite in the book is chapter 5- where he talks about the structure that’s split into 8 sets of qualities that we need from life and for me thinking the way he has laid it down was life changing. I really knew the actions I had to take to grow more personally and professionally.
  • This is a book that helps you look inside you, fix it... so you can fulfill your dreams outside.

·         This was an impulsive buy in airport because I was looking to read something while I was on vacation for my son’s 2 birthday this August. I don’t think I have ever thought of sleep so much in my life till I started reading this book. I will be honest, I am not much of a sleeper, I like to stay awake more than I like sleeping. I have in the recent years also been very sleep deprived; I call it the Rio Effect. The book surprised me with the health benefits and the link to better decision making and yes now that I try to sleep more I do see the payback myself.  

  • ·We all know sleeps important, but the author breaks the modern myth of going sleepless and how cool it is especially for youngsters and showing why and how it’s important to achieve our goals.
  • It talks about medications, health issues, and extra cost to government dealing with health crisis that can all be reduced just by sleeping.
  •  It also talks about how from Warren Buffet to Satya Nadella all emphasize about sleeping and its bond to good decision making and the effectiveness and efficiency.
  • If you like informative and well researched book like I do and the topic is something you can relate to- it’s a good read.
For me I can connect the dots of the take away of the 3 books- I think resting the mind to work and function better in a structured way through checklists will make me happier and give me better value for the time invested in doing it. And happiness will ensure I work through my challenges better and have the capacity to fulfill the dreams.

Pic courtesy: Google and Soma Bhattacharya
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How to keep your life in control?

Overwhelmed with the to do list, promises, unending schedule and no time for you?  It’s true for many...Sometimes you have to be make smart choices and know what makes a difference for you. 

Here are few that can help you re-think:
  • Procrastinate to make decisions- Sometimes you can make the best of decisions when you have all the information you need. A hurried decision in most cases is always the wrong one. A study from Columbia University says, delaying can filter distractions. Now this is something that we aren't thought to think about, in fact procrastination has always been considered a negative aspect in our lives. Want to know how  a mind of a procrastinator works, try watching this TED talk.

  • Try to be happy
      • Create lists- Having a list takes your mind off the stress of constantly having to remember things and working on it. For example- there have been numerous occasions when I have come up with an idea for the blog and by next day I have completely forgotten it, which means I had to take another hour reading through things trying to come up with a topic or stress about how I ended up forgetting it. Only if I had written it down, I would save myself not only the hours but the worry. 
      • Meditate- 15 minutes of meditation can actually help people make better, more profitable decisions, “Most people have trouble admitting they were wrong when their initial decisions lead to undesirable outcomes,” says researcher Andrew Hafenbrack.  MRI scans show that after an eight-week course of mindfulness practice, the brain’s “fight or flight” center, the amygdala, appears to shrink. This primal region of the brain, associated with fear and emotion, is involved in the initiation of the body’s response to stress. As the amygdala shrinks, the pre-frontal cortex – associated with higher order brain functions such as awareness, concentration and decision-making – becomes thicker.
      • Accept you can’t avoid stress in entirety- A little bit of stress is not only okay but is beneficial (watch the TED talk below).

  • Practice positive vibes- Create a routine and wake up doing something that makes you happy. You can listen to the same music every morning or go for a walk, water your plants, look at happy pictures- anything that resets your mood or gives a good head-start . A lot of successful people have created routines that allow them to practice positive vibes that translate into a better day for them and hence trick their minds in being happy or successful. When you start your day on a positive note, small glitches which you would otherwise allow your spirit to be dampened with, won’t set you back anymore. They will be smaller incidents that you can walk past by and still look forward in having a good day.
  • Know when to move on- Ask for a raise, ask for more responsibilities, ask for more learning and if at some point you see nothing’s working- you know it’s time to leave. Be clear about your objectives when you start looking for the next job, don’t be afraid to ask more questions, request to meet your manager you will be reporting to or find out the career and growth path in the organization you are interviewing at. It will only help you make better comparative decisions.

  • Look at the larger picture- Finding something new isn’t easy. It’s also difficult to start something new and perhaps looking for a new job is not something you feel like. Sometimes you have to look at what you want to do in the next 2 years and is being with your current organization, team or manager helping you attain those?  

Interview with Jeff Furman


This is a very special interview where I have the honor to interview Jeff Furman PMP who has a dual background as an IT Project Manager and Corporate Trainer, and is the author of “The Project Management Answer Book” (©2011, Management Concepts). 

As a PM he has led many successful IT projects for Fortune 500 companies in the NYC area, specializing in: new product evaluation and implementation, development tool support, and managing a mission-critical IT change management system used by more than 1,000 application developers 24x7. He currently teaches several project management classes for NYU in Manhattan, as well as PMP Prep for NetCom Learning and on-base for the US Army.

You can contact Jeff directly at @PMAnswerBook or at www.Jeff-Furman.com


How did you become a project manager? Did u plan for it?

Not exactly! My journey was what is referred to nowadays as an “Accidental PM!”              

For several years, I had been the primary in-house IT technical trainer for a large brokerage in New York City.  In this role, I was creating and teaching quick-start courses on the development tools the IT coders were using to create the apps that ran the business.

What happened is I started getting called-upon more and more to provide technical support for the tools I was teaching the developers.

Eventually the need emerged for a full-time Technical PM to handle various new projects that were popping up, most importantly the roll-out of an IT Change Management System for the Developers.   And so I was asked to manage the project of customizing the IT Change Management system, getting the department to use it, and then supporting the system.

I hadn't planned for it, but I had become very hands-on with the many software products that made up the company’s unique environment. And so I was tapped for this role, partly for my technical knowledge, partly for my communication and influencing skills, and also because I had already developed such a strong rapport with hundreds of the developers as their trainer.

I read that you are working with the U.S. army and training them in project management- how is that going? How different is it from training corporate professionals?

Teaching PMP for the Army has been one of the best successes I’ve ever had, and one of the most gratifying projects.  So far, I’ve taught 12 weeks on-site at Army bases, traveling to Georgia, Kentucky, and Texas.  It’s been very satisfying, because they are such motivated students.

One big difference between training Army vs. Corporate is that the senior leaders in the Army fully commit to take part in the training along with their people, no matter how busy they are.  This sets a great leadership example for their people, because they attend every session, participate and share their knowledge freely, and especially because the senior leaders are usually the first to take their PMP tests after the training!

This motivates the PMs they are leading to push themselves hard and to pass their exams also.

Many people don’t realize that PMs in the Army manage a lot of the same kind of projects as PMs in private industry, especially IT projects.

But imagine doing your projects in a war-zone, literally!  (compared to us here in NYC holding status meetings in our air-conditioned “war rooms”)

And the soldiers tell me about all kinds of unusual constraints they need to deal with. One Army PM told me about a project he led where he was required to gain approval on all key decisions from a rep in every single country that is part of NATO – talk about politics!

And an extra plus about teaching for the Army is the feeling of “giving back.”  I very much like knowing that my classes have helped make many of the soldiers more productive on their projects, and also more promotable.  When they get their CAPM or PMP, it helps them advance within the Army (I just got a thank-you note from one of my students who got his PMP and was promoted soon after, both in rank and responsibility).

And I enjoy knowing that the certifications will also make the soldiers and officers more marketable when they return to civilian life. Several of my Army students have let me know that their PMP cert attained from my class helped them land PM jobs later in private industry, after they retired from the service.

What's the secret of your success?

In my PM work, I have always tried to stand up for what I believed was right. I’ve had to take unpopular positions at times. But I very often prevailed, partly because I am good at making a case, but mainly because I was trying to do what I believed was truly in the best interest of BOTH my customers and my company (something I go into in detail in the Ethics chapter in my book, part of what I call the “Triple Constraint for Ethics.”)  So even when I’ve gone up against senior managers, they could see I was trying to go for the best long-term solution, which made them willing to listen.

Also, my strong communication skills (writing, speaking, and teaching) have helped me as a manager in many ways.  When my teams would work with new software products, I would occasionally write an article about our findings and it would be published in one of the IT industry magazines.  This helped bring good exposure, and helped all our careers. And a couple of times I involved my team-members in co-writing the articles, which they liked a lot, and which helped in team-building.

My experience as a trainer helped me learn to work well with people of many different titles, levels, and backgrounds.  Corporate training gave me experience in a lot of PM skill areas: Requirements gathering,Influencing skills, Consensus-building, Goal-setting, Team-building, CustSat, Quality management, Scope management & Time-management.

Another part of my success was again the word “accidental” - The training company where I first applied to teach PMP likes to put their potential trainers through a rigorous Train-the-Trainer / Presentation Skills class. The class improves the potential trainer’s skills, but it’s also an opportunity for the company to evaluate each candidate’s training abilities.  I took advantage of this course as an opportunity, and earned a certification from it: CompTIA’s CTT+ (Certified Technical Trainer).

This enabled me to start teaching the Train-the-Trainer class as well as PMP for this company.  And I've been able to apply many of the skills covered in the Presentation Skills class toward making my PMP classes as engaging and interactive as possible (not just blasting through a lot of PowerPoint slides).

Today's generation has so much help that they get over the web, how do you think they should prepare in trying to become a project manager?

As valuable as the many web resources are, and I use them a great deal myself, I think it’s important for certain topics to tap into the “deep dive” that a) classes, b) hands-on experience, and c) books can provide.

For example, before you would lend someone your car, you wouldn't want them to learn to drive by an online simulation only!  And in training departments in the business world, activity-based training methods such as “Action Learning” are very popular nowadays.

For complex ideas, I think a book is still often best.  For example, in “The Goal,” by Eliyahu Goldratt, he presented original and powerful ideas about project management in an entertaining and very accessible novel. He used metaphor and a dramatic story-line to introduce his PM theories (Critical Chain Theory and Theory of Constraints.  This made the book fun to read, and easy to absorb and remember.

And many people still prefer live classes over online, partly for the classroom experience and the networking opportunities they provide.

That said, here are two recommended web resources I think your followers might benefit greatly from:

1) PMI offers an online “New Practitioners” CoP (Community of Practice)
    which is free for members and is in a similar spirit as “Stepping Into PM”
2) And there are several CAPM related LinkedIn groups where a lot of
    good information-sharing and networking take place.  They are easy to
    find: just go into LinkedIn  Select “Groups,” and then key in “CAPM”        
    in the search box, and join whichever groups catch your eye.

Three qualities any newbie venturing into project management should have.


  • Long Term Results-Oriented- Project success is tied to profit, but long-term profit is what counts. You want successes that your clients will want to share with their colleagues, and ideally bring your company repeat business, new business and referrals (versus “here today, gone tomorrow”)


  • Strong Ethics- People like to work with managers who make ethical decisions and  perform with professionalism. If a stakeholder perceives someone on  a project as “ethically-challenged” (even if they are otherwise good)  it is almost impossible to change their mind or ever win them back. 


  • Life-Long Learner  – There are so many new methods and tools emerging all the time that it’s key to be willing to keep learning and embracing change. Today’s most successful PMs keep up with blogs and podcasts, attend PM seminars, read books in their field, participate and network in social media groups, attain new certifications, and share their knowledge with their teams. 

Tell us something about your project management book and where can we find it?

Many readers tell me that my book, “The Project Management Answer Book,” made the PMBOK very easy and accessible for them, and helped them a great deal with their PMP and CAPM exams because of its short and clear Q&A format.  It contains all the best test tips and study aids
from the thousands of hours I taught PMP before I wrote it.

And it’s a double book, because it’s a PMP book but also a “hands-on” practitioner’s guide, with many templates of key PM documents and best practices, plus Top 10 Lists to help PMs in many areas.

And Soma, since your blog is very international, my book is popular with international readers - my Facebook fan page has “Likes” from PMs in 12 different countries so far! It’s available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle at www.PMAnswerBook.com or PMI members can use their membership discount to buy it from PMI Marketplace.

Thank you so much Jeff!

(Pic Courtesy: Jeff Furman)



To read more about project management and know how to get into the domain, read my book Stepping into Project Management (Welcome to the #PMOT World). To connect with experienced Project Manager's from all over the world, get mentored or shadow for a day see the SIPM Community.