1st Edition

The Influential Project Manager Winning Over Team Members and Stakeholders

    219 Pages 23 B/W Illustrations
    by Auerbach Publications

    219 Pages
    by Auerbach Publications

    If you want to be a successful project manager, you need to become a person of influence. Without influence, there can be no success as a project manager. And, although all key success criteria point to the importance of developing soft skills as a project manager, few books exist about how to develop the power of influence for achieving better project and business results.

    Filling this need, The Influential Project Manager: Winning Over Team Members and Stakeholders supplies detailed guidance on how to improve your influence skills to achieve better business results. It explains how to set and meet ambitious goals for you, your team, and your stakeholders.

    The book describes how to listen actively to influence others and details how you can build partnerships that can pay dividends for a lifetime. Each chapter highlights real-world scenarios about a particular subject linked to the influencing skill being covered. Each chapter also includes practical forms, templates, helpful tips, and best practices to help you develop and refine your skills of influence.

    • Details the ten keys to influencing others to support you and your ideas
    • Outlines techniques for improving your listening skills
    • Includes a trust assessment for determining your level of influence and if others see you as trustworthy
    • Demonstrates how to build a network of informal alliances to achieve success

    Supplying you with the vision of influence from an experienced project manager’s perspective, this book will help you procure the informal power required to become a successful influencer. After reading the text and performing the trust assessment, you will gain the understanding required to lead project members down the path to project success.

    Part I: Training a Better Horse

    Ten Keys to Influence
    Dialogue
    Persuasive Conversations
         Preparation
         Alignment
         Situation Review
         So, What’s in It for Me?
         Your Idea 
         Overcome Objections and Obstacles: The Art of Persuasion 
         Next Steps
    Emotional Flow
    Classic Mistakes
    Summary
    Influence Assessment

    Practice Active Listening
    Practice Active Listening 
         Open and Purposeful Questions 
         Reinforcement
         Paraphrasing 
         Contradiction
         Disclosure
    Active Listening: A Case Study
    Summary
    Active Listening Assessment

    Develop Trust
    Sharing Common Values
    Credibility
    Risk and Opportunity
    Distance 
         What We Say and What We Mean 
         What We Say and What Is Heard 
         My Interests and Your Interests 
         My Background and Your Background
    Summary
    Trust Assessment

    Practice Your Integrity
    Integrity Is Needed to Succeed as a Project Manager
    Integrity Is an Inside Job
    How to Measure Your Integrity
    Become a Person of Integrity
    Importance of Integrity
    Project Management Integrity
    Summary
    Influence Checklist

    Influence to Win
    Achieving a Win–Win Discussion 
         Focus on Interests 
         Offer Options 
         Craft a Story 
         Agree in Public, Argue in Private
    The Winners
    Why Do Winning Streaks End?
    Persistence
    How to Break Out and Master a Turnaround
    Summary
    Winning Checklist

    Practice Your Generosity
    Customized Generosity
    Earned Generosity
    Measured Generosity
    Requested Help
    Five Characteristics of the Generous Project Manager
         Altruism
         Optimism
         Trust 
         Energy
         Ability to Lead
    Philosophy and Principles of Generosity
    Summary
    Generosity Assessment

    Understanding People
    Why People Fail to Understand Others 
         Fear 
         Self-Centeredness 
         Not Appreciating Differences
         Not Acknowledging Similarities
    How Do People React to Your Style?
    Some Things Everybody Needs to Understand about People 
         Everybody Wants to Be Somebody 
         Nobody Cares How Much You Know until He or She Knows How Much You Care 
         Everybody Needs Somebody 
         Everybody Can Be Somebody 
         Anybody Who Helps Somebody Influences a Lot of People 
    The Ability to Understand People 
         The Other Person’s Perspective 
         Personal Empathy 
         Positive Attitude about People
    Projecting Warmth
    Projecting Strength
    Summary
    Understanding People Checklist

    Develop Commitment
    The Hook 
         Personal Introductions
         The Teaser 
         Ask for Advice
    Making Commitment a Two-Way Street
    Using Territory Well
    Building a Tribe: Belonging, Meaning, and Recognition
         Belonging and Meaning 
         Recognition
    Gaining Commitment by Giving Control
    Public Commitment, Private Challenge 
         Manage Conflict in Private
         Publicize Agreements
    Summary
    Commitment Assessment

    Cultivate Your Informal Power
    The Power of the Informal
    Four Ways to Build Your Informal Power in a Project
    Project Manager Feelings
    Informal Power
    How to Increase Your Informal Power as a Project Manager
    Summary
    Power Assessment

    Understand How to Convert Your Project Vision into Reality
    The IRM (Idea, Resources, and Money) Principle 
         The Idea 
         Human Resources 
         Money
    Have a Plan B
    Crisis and Opportunities
    Summary
    Vision Assessment

    Part II: Sell Your Horse

    Develop and Sustain Your Influence
    The Selling Model
    The Right Assignment
         Having the Right Experience 
         Being Successful 
         Enjoy What You Do
    Taking over a New Team or Role
         Having an Idea
         People 
         Having the Money 
              Budgets
    Influencing Decisions
    Meetings
    Presentations 
         Style 
         Substance
    Conflicts 
         Only Fight When There Is a Prize Worth Fighting For 
         Only Fight When You Know That You Will Win
         Only Fight When There Is No Other Way of Achieving Your Goals
    Summary
    Getting Buy-In and Making It Happen

    Part III: Ride Your Horse

    The Myths of Influencing
    Mistakes and Myths
    Main Mistakes 
         Lack of Trust
    The Influence Myths 
         Myth 1 
         Myth 2
         Myth 3
         Myth 4
    Monitor and Control Your Horse
    Summary

    Summary and Conclusions
    Bibliography

    Index

    Biography

    Alfonso Bucero , MSc, PMP, PMI-RMP, PMI Fellow, is the founder and managing partner of BUCERO PM Consulting (www.abucero.com). He managed IIL Spain for almost two years, and he was a senior project manager at Hewlett-Packard Spain (Madrid Office) for more than thirteen years.Bucero is a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI), ALI (Asociacion de Licenciados, Ingenieros y Doctores en Informatica) and AEIPRO (IPMA member). Bucero was the founder, sponsor, and president of PMI Barcelona, Spain Chapter, and he is an IPMA Assessor. He was a member of the Congress Project Action Team of PMI EMEA's Congresses in Edinburgh (2005), Madrid (2006), and Budapest (2007). He graduated from PMI's Leadership Institute Master Class 2007 in Atlanta at the PMI NA Global Congress. He was president of the PMI Madrid Spain Chapter for two years and has served as Component Mentor for Region 8 Southwest since 2011. He received the PMI Distinguished Contribution Award in 2010 for his long and varied body of work, and the PMI Fellow Award in 2011 from the PMI for his sustained contribution to the development of the profession internationally. Bucero has a computer science engineering degree from Universidad Politecnica (Madrid), and is a PhD candidate in project management at the University of Mondragon in Spain. He has 31 years of practical experience and 25 of them in project management worldwide. He has managed and consulted on projects in various countries across Europe. Since 1992, Bucero has been a frequent speaker at international PMI Congresses, IPMA Congresses, and PMI SeminarsWorld. He has been a keynote speaker in several congresses worldwide. He delivers project management training and consulting services in several countries worldwide. As a project management believer, he defends passion, persistence, and patience as vital keys for project success. Bucero has been a professor for MEDIP (Master in Construction and Proj