3 Skills to Help Your Team Complete Key Projects

Project management is a must-have skill if you want to run a successful business. Use these 3 strategies to plan ahead, stay on task and finish strong.

How is work most often accomplished at your small business? If yours is like most companies, you and your managers create projects to complete a task—developing a website, designing a marketing piece, creating a new product or service, and the other activities that are critical to the success of your business.

And while it's critical to have some type of organized method to get those tasks completed, many small-business owners don’t use a standard system for accomplishing work tasks. The problem with that approach? It can cost you money—if you're consistently reinventing the wheel to get work done in your business, it will definitely impact your bottom line.

Using project management skills to get your projects done will help you create effective systems so you can more easily achieve your goals. The good news is, you don’t need to have formal project management certification to create a system that works for you. Being proficient in the following three key skills will take you a long way to success.

1. Project Planning

Planning is key to successfully completing the objective at hand. You need to be clear about the expected outcome and the tasks that need to be accomplished to get it done. The first step is to identify the scope of the project. How big is it? What are the boundaries? Who is it for? I like to call this "creating your box." You're literally identifying how big your project will be, along with what’s in (and out) of the box.

Then you need to make sure you brainstorm every single task that needs to be accomplished to get from idea stage to the final outcome. Don’t worry about putting the tasks in order—just brainstorm what you think needs to happen. Once you’re done brainstorming, arrange the tasks in the most logical sequence for getting your project completed. As you put them in order, it’s possible you may think of additional tasks—that's OK, just add them in.

You’ll also want to include your estimated budget for the project. Be realistic when creating your budget—erring on the conservative side can be detrimental to your bottom line. While this may flex one way or another during completion, having an initial budget will help you stay within your budget.

2. Team Management

Whether you use employees or contract staff, you want to make sure to include every team member who has a part in the completion of your project. Determining whom you need with what type of skills before you begin will help you more realistically plan your project. Take a look at all your project tasks to determine exactly what type of talent you need to complete each task.

Once you have your team together, define who will do what and when. Make sure you clearly identify those tasks that have dependencies between different team members.

Having one team member fall behind on a task that others are waiting for can put your entire project in jeopardy, so be sure to clearly designate roles and responsibilities for each team member. It’s a good idea to create a spreadsheet or tracking form that includes task, team member and timeline to use for the duration of the project.

3. Communication

There's no such thing as communicating too much when you’re working on a project with multiple people. So, when planning your project, be sure to designate topics, people and timelines for communication of a specific nature, such as team meetings or weekly emails.

In addition to general, day-to-day communication about the project, you should include both short-term and long-term ways that people should stay in contact. You want to stay on top of what’s happening in the short term and solve any problems that could be stumbling blocks, but you also don’t want to lose sight of the long-term goal.

The best way to do this is to set up a schedule of communication activities. These will include both individual and team meetings. In order not to waste your team’s time spinning their wheels with inefficiency, plan what will be covered in each meeting in advance—this will help your project run more smoothly.

Also plan to have regular check-ins with your entire team. These should be held at least weekly for a project that has a long duration and as often as daily for a project that has a shorter timeline. You should discuss both the general health and status of the project as well as address any immediate issues that need to be resolved.

Make sure your team understands when to communicate what information and what constitutes a “show stopper” situation. Nothing is worse than moving along blindly thinking everything is going fine with your project when it’s not.

Following a few key project management activities will help you and your team successfully pull off any work project, no matter how big.

By Denise O'Berry, Author, Small Business Cash Flow: Strategies for Making Your Business A Financial Success

Yes, You are Creative -- Here's How to Find the Spark!

It still hurts to think about it. It was early in my career and I was facing a big challenge. How do we involve a large group of manufacturing employees in a new and unpopular strategy? People were counting on me, and I had nothing. My boss said “Come on Gretch, just be creative.” I smiled but my stomach turned another notch.

The truth was we were trying to be creative. We had already rejected a lot of ideas because they seemed too far out, too much work, too bold. We were running out of time and corporate kept asking, “What’s your plan?”

Finally during one of those long team conversations, someone said the word “passport.” Believe it or not, with that one word, everything changed. We riffed around the idea of a passport being a way to get to somewhere new and exciting. The thought of multiple stamps generated the idea to create special events tied to the coming changes. From there grew a program that was a little far out, a lot of work and definitely bold. When we rolled it out, employees embraced the approach and over time accepted the new strategy. Looking back, I see why our plan was a success. It was novel, engaging and hands-on.

Like everyone, I’ve had my share of hits and misses in the creativity department, but I’ve learned that creativity generally doesn’t arrive like a gift from the sky. Most of the time it takes work, patience, and the belief that with persistence, you will find the right idea you need to make something better than expected.

In this blog post, I’d like to share a few tips I’ve learned that may spark your creative juices.

First, let’s start with the questions you should ask yourself.

1. What has worked before and why? Think about a time when you developed a creative approach to anything. Let that experience come back to you. How did you arrive at your successful idea? Did it come during a jog or driving into work? Was it an idea that came after a series of other thoughts? Did you put it away for a while and then return to it? Take a step back and observe neutrally. How did this idea come about? How did you build on it? Who else did you involve? What made it successful?
2. What didn’t work and why? On the flip side, think even harder about ideas that didn’t work the way you thought they would. What feedback did you get? What did you observe that indicated your plan or approach didn’t have the desired impact? What would you do differently knowing what you know today? Did your gut tell you all along it wasn’t quite on target? Did you listen?

Now consider the things that inspire you and how you react
Write down some things you really like — they can be a travel experience, book, movie, piece of art, time in history etc. Think why they leave an impression on you or how they help you think about something in a new way. My best ideas are sparked by something that captivates me — a blog, a line from a song, a story I can’t forget. I’ve learned that when my antennae go up, I need to pay attention — there’s something interesting here and I don’t want to lose it.

Once you’ve written the elements that spark your thinking, consider the following.

1. What do I like about this (music, movie, app etc.)?
2. What about it challenges my thinking?
3. What about it makes me feel uncomfortable? Is there something I can learn from?
4. What ideas, visuals or concepts in it bring up new ideas? Why?
5. How can I learn from that (the interesting idea)?
6. How can I apply this to my current situation/life/challenge?
7. How does this inform my thinking going forward?

This process allows you to make connections between interesting ideas and your current challenge. I highly recommend Mark Levy’s “Accidental Genius – Revolutionize Your Thinking through Private Writing” for step-by-step instructions on how private writing can help you draw out new thinking on just about any problem or opportunity you’re facing.

Putting it to use
Once you’ve started “noticing” what sparks your brain to think of new ideas, capitalize on it. Here are my suggestions to capture and build your creativity:

1. Keep an idea book. Get a notebook and keep it close to you at home and work. When you have an idea or something grabs your attention, write it down. Definitely include those stray thoughts that seem may seem innocuous. I promise you won’t remember it tomorrow if you don’t take a minute to write it down today. Discipline in this practice is your number one way to make sure your good ideas have the chance to flourish.
2.  Sit with it. Once you’ve written your idea down, put a reminder in front of you. For me, it’s the white board in my office. I refer to the white board each day and make it a point of including those random thoughts. I’m not memorizing exactly, I’m just planting them in the background for future use. After that I let them simmer in my brain. Generally once or twice a week, I will set aside a few minutes to think more deeply about each of these thoughts. Eventually they are transferred to my idea book or erased from the white board.
3.  Ask for help. Have a buddy — or two or three – to bounce your ideas off of. See what they think, listen to their reactions and watch their expressions. Maybe they can build upon your ideas or bring a new one altogether. These sessions can be very fruitful ways to generate good ideas that started with just a kernel of a thought. (Think “passport.” ) Be sure to invite people into conversations that think differently than you. The clashes of style can bring about exciting, disruptive ideas.
4.  Take a walk. Another great way to let your mind go is to take a walk. Just 10 minutes away from your work or office can improve your thinking and bring new perspective.
5.  Expose yourself to new experiences. Novel experiences can create new thought patterns that lead to new ideas. Seek out something different to give your mind new things to think about.

Everyone can be creative. Developing this practice has brought me exciting, successful ideas and increased my enthusiasm for my professional work and personal interests. Try a few of these tips or come up with your own; you may be surprised by how creative you really are.

Written by Gretchen Rosswurm is the vice president of global corporate communications and corporate social responsibility at Celanese, a global chemical company in Dallas. Throughout her career, she has advised leaders on communication strategies to enhance employee engagement and improve business results.

8 Ways To Energize Your Next Meeting

Tired of boring, soul sucking meetings? The truth is, they’re not only monotonous and tiring—they’re sapping your resiliency. We are all under pressure at work—and these stresses ignite our prehistoric "fight or flight" response. This means a rush of cortisol, adrenaline, and other stress hormones are coursing through our bodies. Unfortunately, we’re not doing anything to burn those hormones off and release the "bliss molecules" that intense fighting or fleeing would generate.

But there’s a solution. By including more physical activity in our lives, we can condition how our bodies respond to stress. In other words, we can build our resiliency—enabling us to recover from stress faster, and create a higher threshold before the stress response kicks in. In order to achieve this increased resiliency—as well as to get more energy, focus, and productivity—follow these eight simple strategies during the many meetings you attend every day:

1. Set An Expiration Date 

Make it a rule that meetings don’t go longer than two hours without taking a break. Often times the tendency is to try and "push through" in order to get things done, but the truth is that after two hours people have checked out. Allowing participants 10 to 15 minutes to get recovery will make your meeting more productive over the long run as they’ll come back refreshed and ready to focus.

2. Take A Stand

Make it okay for people to stand up whenever they need to. Some people become uncomfortable sitting for long periods or they may need to move a bit to keep their energy up. They can stand at the back or sides of the room and still participate.

3. Make A Game Of Musical Chairs No One Can Win

Remove the chairs from the room so everyone stands for the duration of the meeting. Not only will it keep everyone from multitasking or getting tired and zoning out, it will also most likely shorten the duration of the meeting!

4. Take It To Go

If you’re only meeting with one or two other people, make it a walking meeting. Walking increases blood circulation to the body and brain, delivering more energy for physical and mental performance. If it’s not conducive to walk outside, find a route within your building or take it to the stairwell.

5. Go Low

Serving sweets, chips, and soda during meetings may seem like a good idea, but in reality all of these things lead to an energy crash. These foods are high glycemic, which means they get broken down into glucose (energy) and released into the blood stream very quickly. Within about 30 minutes a precipitous drop follows this rush in blood glucose—leaving people low on energy. Serving low glycemic foods high in fiber, protein, and healthy fats slows the release of glucose in the bloodstream, resulting in more sustained energy.

6. Lose 15 Minutes

Make your meetings 45 minutes instead of an hour. If you schedule meetings for an hour, they’ll always take at least that long. I’ve had many corporate clients shorten their meetings and manage to accomplish just as much as longer ones. Some of them have even gone to 30-minute meetings, are getting the same amount of work done and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

7. No Multitasking Allowed

Nothing kills the energy and productivity of a meeting like people not paying attention. At the outset of every meeting ask for everyone’s full attention and make a pact that no one will multitask. Have everyone set their phones and electronic devices on a separate table.

8. Get Moving

Studies have shown the longer we sit, the more our energy, focus, and productivity wanes. Set a timer and pause every 30 to 45 minutes to lead everyone through a brief series of stretches and small movements—they don’t even have to stand up.
Have them reach both arms forward to stretch their backs, then instruct them to clasp their hands behind their backs and lift their arms to stretch their chests. Shoulder rolls, neck rotations, spinal twists and straightening the legs several times are a few other options for small movements to get the blood and energy flowing. Stress isn’t going away, but we can build our resiliency, increase our energy, and improve our performance.

Jenny C. Evans is the author of The Resiliency Revolution: Your Stress Solution For Life 60 Seconds at a Time (Wise Ink Creative Publishing; November 2014). She is also founder and CEO of PowerHouse Performance, where she works with thousands of C-suite executives, leaders, and employees worldwide to help them improve their resilience, performance, and productivity, while enhancing their health.