ICPM

A top de-motivator at work is lack of recognition or lack of appreciation. This is not a new fact nor should it be surprising to you. It surfaces time and time again employees who feel under appreciated experience low morale and many move on.  Even in a difficult economy when in theory it is an employers market, people are not just hanging around thanking their lucky stars that they have a paycheck. If they feel truly under appreciated they are already looking for their next opportunity.

One way or another, this topic does surface during the time I spend with clients, students and with other groups who share their time with me.  In fact in one group discussion about manners and communication styles, I conducted an informal survey.

First I asked: “How many of you would like your management to say please when they ask you to do something?”  Surprisingly (to me anyway) only a few hands shot up in the air.

Next I asked: “How many of you would like to be sincerely thanked for the work you perform?” Almost every hand in the room was raised.

My final question was: “How many of you remember to thank your teams and to let them know you appreciate their work?” Maybe half of the room raised their hands. OUCH

Scientific? No.

You understand that as a leader it is important to sincerely appreciate your team and to recognize them for their contributions. Either you do this or you do not. What about you? YOU probably want to be appreciated too. When you do not feel appreciated I bet your morale lags too. The trouble is some people seem to think that leaders are different. Leaders do not need appreciation for their efforts. In fact some people take a very harsh view on this, something along the lines of “Well that is why you get paid the big bucks” or “If you don’t want the hassles, then don’t take the job.” 

I do not suggest that as a leader you should tell your team how lucky they are to have you or keep reminding them of everything you have done for them. I am asking you to think about how you behave when you do not receive appreciation or recognition. Because you are at level of increased responsibility, more is expected of you. This means you need to find ways to manage your morale during those times when you work your tail off and you feel like nobody is noticing.

What do YOU do to satisfy YOUR need for recognition and appreciation? I want to learn your tips for managing your own morale, when the thanks just don’t come your way.

Motivation is the most important determinant for individual performance; yet, it is also the most difficult to analyze and define. Though behavior can be observed, motivational impact cannot be studied directly. The conceptual nature of motivation has given rise to the need for theories and models to help organizations better understand motivation. These theories have been divided into two categories: Content and Process.

With the blurring of the lines between coaching and learning, learning professionals may soon be asked to don the coach’s hat! While they may go around without the actual title of a coach the learning curricula of most organizations includes coaching as a part of their program design. The need to merge the two functions (learning and coaching) stems from the fact that often even the best of learning sessions fails to create as much of an impact as coaching. This is not to say that one should be sacrificed for the other. However, as learning and coaching grow inseparable, learning professionals need to polish their coaching skills to leverage learning.

All managers especially project managers are faced with risk at one time or another as the future cannot be  predicted accurately managers have to take a position when facing risk.  I looked at some real life situations from the past and found that the examples set by these persons is very similar to the responsibilities that project managers are faced with.

Motivation begins with setting goals for improved team performance. Often, five or more team members must strive to achieve similar goals.

Recap of Green Project Management: Green Project Management (GreenPM) integrates environmental thinking into all of the project management decisions. It is a way to ingrain "greenthink™" into every project management process. The point about green project management is not that you make every decision in favor of the one that is most environmentally friendly. The point is that you start to take the environment into account during the decision-making process. You might make most decisions the same as you do today. But there might be some decisions you would make differently.

Whether its building new IT infrastructure, coordinating remote employee teams or delivering a new product line, companies understand that project management is mission critical to their success.

This article is about "The Roles PMOs can Play in IT Modernization" according to recent research from Gartner Inc.

“Effective IT modernization requires organization, and we believe that the concept of a project management office (PMO) or multiple project management offices is crucial to organize for, and facilitate IT modernization.”  That's the conclusion of recent research from Gartner Inc., which argues that -- in addition to working hard and tackling challenges -- IT should think about establishing project management offices (PMO) and embracing cutting-edge project management technologies and methodologies.

Many companies are finding that they must build project management capability if they are going to meet the business challenges in the future. PMOs are increasingly being viewed as an essential component that enable the success of projects, and hence, the future success of the entire organization.

I always thought that writing a good spec before programming is mandatory.

I like short but frequent discussions where a project spec is being written. I found out that having a spec (Agile, or not) is something mandatory. Ever since I understood I have to demand a spec from the customer, even if I have to sit down with him and write it together (frequently), programming became a much faster and easier task to commit.