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Team Transitions: Moving from Heroic to Self-Organized and Resource-Networked Project Teams

The design of a project team has a major impact on predictability and results. I propose that this subject is vital for any team-based organization. This presentation is based on both academic work and on my 30 years of experience with project teams.

Many Project teams are formed based on the organizational model of the parent organization yet there is strong evidence that Self-Organizing and Resource-Networked teams deliver results to better meet the customers’ needs. This presentation covers the transitions from the Heroic organizations of old to contemporary high-performance teams as they move through Post-Heroic and Hub-and-Spoke models into Self-Organized and Networked teams. It includes ideas on how to make the transition, pitfalls to avoid, and a model of how the ultimate high-performing team organization should look and feel.

"Team Transitions" has evolved from the speaker’s articles published in many magazines including People on Projects, Projects@Work, Mass High Tech, and Machine Design over the past 18 months and is the subject of the speaker’s upcoming book.
 

Executive Project Leadership

This workshop provides practical tools for CEOs and other C-level executives to improve the predictability and results of their businesses' projects. It is focused on leadership and clearly makes the distinction between the roles of the executive leader, project manager, and project team. It draws from Dennis Smith's 30 years of experience as Marketing Director, Engineering VP, and General Manager.

This fast paced workshop has clear take-away value that is reinforced by specific recommendations on roles, interactions, and what to look for in a well run project. It also includes a pocket guide which summarizes the key roles and responsibilities along with critical 'what to look for' best-practices guidance.

ROI Debunked

Leaders that use ROI as the basis of their project screening process are surely missing many opportunities. And they probably miss the big ones that could propel them to the top of their industry. Conventional processes yield conventional results. The business press is full of success stories with unconventional beginnings. This fast paced session provides reasons for downplaying ROI and ideas for what to do instead.

First presented at the Project Leadership Conference in Boston in June of 2003, this 45 minute presentation is suitable for lunch and dinner meetings.

New Business Tool Opportunities

While people have always collaborated, new tools combined with Internet applications are changing how we work together. We have identified 20 critical opportunities for businesses to use, provide, or partner to leverage services to reduce costs, reduce cycle time, and improve customer service.

New tools for collaboration affect businesses in two different ways. First, collaboration is an essential feature of many new products or services you build or provide. Second, as you look for tools for your company and teams to use, you should opt for tools that provide collaborative solutions to accelerate your business and projects. Collaborative tools are solving business problems in new and unique ways.

Previous attendees said: "Amazing! I had no idea that these tools were available"

View more information on this exciting workshop! [PDF]

Project Management & Reporting for Small Business

Your small project team has the advantages of flexibility and responsiveness, but there are too many unexpected events affecting project and company performance.

You understand the need for ‘process’ but believe that most formal processes carry too much overhead for your size of organization. The CompanySmith small business project planning and reporting workshop provides a pragmatic process for project teams of 10 to 30 people and businesses with 30 to 150 employees. [more info]

Improving the Predictability of Technical Projects

The purpose of this workshop is to teach participants to take the steps that lead to more predictable product development results. The core practice used for improving predictability is risk management. 

Product development projects are rarely completed when expected. There are varieties of reasons for delayed schedules, dropped features, overrun budgets and staffing shortages. There are common circumstances that tie these together; things that go wrong in too many projects.

Most of these issues can be avoided by taking proactive steps at the beginning and during a project. These steps include providing clear goals, specific deliverables, addressing the projects’ risks, and building the teams’ relationships with stakeholders.

One previous attendee said: "Great stuff. Good ideas on the people issues, good analysis. I loved the case study."

Introduction to Project Leadership

This interactive workshop covers the basic skills and tasks that are needed to lead product development projects from the time the product idea is discovered through the first year of use. It focuses on necessary skills and tasks, best practices, and avoiding common mistakes. It is taught from a balanced perspective of engineering, project management, and product management.

Previous attendees said: "I liked the real world examples mentioned during the course."   "Excellent seminar."

For more information on these workshops and how they can be configured to meet your needs, please contact CompanySmith

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