Identifying Your Project Management Angels

Identifying Your Project Management ‚“Angels ‚½

Broadway producers call their financial backers ‚“angels, ‚½ patrons who believe in the potential for the planned production and who are willing to provide support and act as benevolent guiding influences. In your project management training effort, you too will need a few angels ‚ some to sponsor and fund the undertaking and some to provide a benevolent guiding influence and mentor you as you prepare to roll out your first workshop. Angels show up in unexpected places, so don ‚ t be surprised to find some of your most valuable sources of ideas and guidance outside the normal lines of the org chart. Of course, start by looking for angels in a few of the most likely spots:

• Your HR department. HR staff are likely to find additional audiences for your training, share findings from earlier training needs analysis surveys, and provide you with access to tools and products that you might otherwise have to obtain on your own.

• The project office. These people will certainly be key supporters of your effort and can help bring you into contact with other members of the organization who can lend support and offer suggestions.

• Departmental directors. They may already feel such a great need for your planned offerings that they may be willing to help fund the project or at least commit to enrolling their staff in your workshops once they are available.

• Star project managers. They know how to do it and most likely can help you better communicate how to do it. If you don ‚ t have a project office, project managers are setting the de facto standards for best practices and can share some of their best ideas to incorporate in your project management training.

• Training associates outside the organization. At first you may think that these individuals would be limited in their roles to those of mentors for your projects. But don ‚ t overlook the possibility that they too may have an interest in your undertaking and might even contribute funding, time, and talent.

• Prior workshop participants . These individuals can be vital sources of information about what kinds of training have worked best in your organization. Their input can be revelatory; some may be candid enough to let you know the things they haven ‚ t liked . Getting feedback from a representative sampling of previous workshop participants almost always gives you useful perspectives on how to plan your next training initiatives.

• Potential new workshop participants. This group will have their own ideas about what they expect from project management training. Because they are going to be your frontline audience, understanding, managing, and ‚ when possible ‚ meeting their expectations should always be a primary consideration in planning your training. Learn all you can about their preferred learning styles (for example, lecture, hands-on exercises and simulations, offline reading, online interactive) and try to find a blend of delivery approaches that will be compatible with the majority of the group ‚ s preferences. When there are wide discrepancies in preferences, you may even want to consider alternative delivery methods for different types of learners.