ISSUE #11

Welcome to the + 2 newsletter from The PPM Academy

Each month, I’ll send you two quick and simple approaches to improve your Productivity and Project Management that you can try, test, and adapt to work and everyday life.

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Retrospectives are a powerful tool to improve performance, team morale and the overall quality of your project or product. Unfortunately, they either don’t happen often enough or, in some cases, not at all. In this Project Management tip, I’ll share an alternative way to gather feedback without needing an entire team meeting. 2 minutes, 8 seconds reading time.

We all have tasks we don’t want to do every day, and we’ll often put them off to the detriment of our performance. In this edition’s Productivity tip, I’ll share a simple trick to help you reprogram these habits so you can make them positive and do them repeatedly without fail. 1 minute 30 seconds reading time.

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Project Management Tip: Dynamic Retrospectives

Getting feedback is critical for project performance; if you don't learn and listen to your team and clients, frustrations can build up, mistakes are repeated, and the quality of your work is reduced.

Not gathering feedback and improving how you work, communicate, and every other aspect of a project also increases your workload, as you need more time to solve problems, whether that's an unhappy teammate or a mistake made due to a process that wasn't understood.

Often retrospectives are an afterthought, and in some cases, never held at all as the team is too busy or has moved on to another project.

If you're in a busy agency with lots of clients, new projects and pitches, the harsh reality is retrospectives are hard to organise as they're not seen as paid work.

Dynamic retrospectives can really help.

A dynamic retrospective is an always-on feedback loop for the team.

Feedback - Prioritise - Action

You create an accessible board that the team can access, e.g. Trello, and add three swim lanes with titles like Feedback, In Progress and Done.

At any point during the week, the team can add feedback to a viewable card for the group.

At regular points, the team are then encouraged to review the feedback added, vote on their top three, and appoint an owner where it makes sense, or in most cases, a team member volunteers.

The approach is asynchronous, so you don't need to schedule an entire team meeting to discuss it, but the team can see change happening regularly.

The responsibility of the PM in this approach is to facilitate the board and the process. For example, at the end of stand-ups or a weekly status meeting, give the team quick little reminders like;

"Have you reviewed the board this week?"

"Have you voted on any of the feedback added this week?"

"We need an owner for X action; any volunteers?"

It's simple, low effort and provides the team a place to regularly share their thoughts, so frustrations don't build up.

Every week, the highest-voted feedback gets actioned and the owner assigned, so there is no reason to share that you're not being heard or changes are slow.

So try it; it takes a few minutes to set up; let the team know how it works and adapt and improve it as you go.

Productivity Tip: How to reprogram the habits you don’t enjoy

Every day we have habits or tasks we have to do that don’t we don’t enjoy, or they’re boring, but we have to do them.

What these habits or tasks are are different for everyone, but at home this could be something simple like making the bed, putting the bins out or cooking dinner for the family

At work, these habits or tasks could a daily report you need to create for your boss, writing a proposal, reviewing a budget or making that first sales call of the day.

By moaning or internally telling yourself you hate this, I’m bored, why me etc.. you’re immediately making it harder for yourself to complete them as you’ll more likely take longer to complete the task, procrastinate it, or if it’s a daily habit, take longer to complete it, or not do it well.

There is a way to trick

Getting out of bed, making that first sales call, cooking dinner for the family, but there is a way to trick your brain into thinking these are habits you enjoy.

MAKE THEM POSITIVE

Associate them with a positive experience by changing just one word.

You don’t “have” to, you “get” to.

You get to wake up early for work. You get to cook dinner for your family

Turn them into opportunities

Both realities are true, you have to do those things, but you also get to do them as well.

By moving from seeing these habits as burdens, you can actually change them into opportunities.

It’s simply a mindset shift.

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PS: If you like these tips, did you know I have a programme where I develop PMs on their Project Management skills, Productivity and Mindset to become high-performing Project Managers and Leaders? If you would like to learn more about working with me, you can book a free discovery call here. ​

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