This book is about project success and the secret to achieving this success, effective project leadership. Filled with samples, templates, and guidelines, it covers the five principles of effective project leadership: building vision, nurturing collaboration, promoting performance, cultivating learning, and ensuring results. Using nontechnical language, this practical guide explains how to integrate these principles into daily work to help you effectively set up, manage, and align your projects for success.
Praise for:
… a great leadership book with five sound leadership principles. … any project manager or leader would benefit from this book. ... filled with common sense suggestions on how to start new projects using the five principles and what to do to bring troubled projects back into alignment.
—Patrick S. Durkin, Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel in PM World Today, December 2010, Vol. XII, Issue XII
I love this book. … fun and interesting to read …on my short list of recommended readings and references for an effective leader’s toolbox.
—Neal Whitten, PMP, Best Selling Project Management Author
… a great resource for not only projects, but for success in life in general.
—Lee Cockerell, Former Executive V.P., Walt Disney World Resort
… an essential step-by-step reference for the professional project manager.
—Robert Urwiler, CIO, Vail Resorts Inc.
Thomas Juli has drawn on his substantial experience in project management to show the way to success.
—Murray Weidenbaum, Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan
... contains many helpful suggestions for creating ‘Wow Projects’: i.e. projects that surprise and delight their clients.
—Stephen Denning, Author of The Leader's Guide to Radical Management and The Secret Language of Leadership
… provides an excellent range of tools and advice to elevate your project role from manager to leader.
—Peter Taylor, Accomplished Leader, Professional Speaker, and Author of The Lazy Project Manager
… provides the reader with solid leadership concepts that are supported with a clear understanding of how to apply them specifically in the project environment.
—Michael O'Brochta, PMP, President, Zozer, Inc., Former Senior Project Manager at the CIA, Thought Leader, Author, Lecturer, and Trainer
… practical examples and templates enhance the quality of this exceptional book.
—Ginger Levin, Ph.D., PMP, PgMP, Project Management Consultant, and Lecturer, University of Wisconsin-Platteville
The World of Projects
The Nature of Projects
Project Management as a Cornerstone of Project Success
A Common Theme: Projects in Trouble
Leadership and Project Success
Application Suggestions
THE PROJECT LEADERSHIP PYRAMID
Introducing the Project Leadership Pyramid
The Difference Between Management and Leadership
The Power of Simplicity
Common Themes of Leadership
The Five Principles of Effective Project Leadership
The Metaphor of the Pyramid
Structure of Part I
Application Suggestions
Principle 1: Build Vision
Vision
Project Objectives
Vision vs. Project Objectives
Building Vision: First Steps
The Person Who Builds Vision
Characteristics of Vision Builder
It Takes a Project Leader — and a Team
Timing of Building Vision
Value of Building Vision
Application Suggestions
Principle 2: Nurture Collaboration
The Heart and Soul of a Project
Team Building
The Juice of Teamwork
The Project Leader and the Team
Self-Organizing Teams
The Project Team as the Power Base of the Project Leader
Collaboration Beyond Team Boundaries
Nurturing Collaboration — First Steps
The Value of Collaboration
Application Suggestions
Principle 3: Promote Performance
The Performing Project Team
Rule 1: Be a Role Model
Rule 2: Create the Right Environment
Rule 3: Empower Your Team
Rule 4: Develop a Solution-and-Results Orientation
Toward Problems and Risks
Rule 5: Invite Productive Competition
Rule 6: Let It Happen
Rule 7: Celebrate Performance
The Extended Project Team
The Right Timing
Value of Performance
Application Suggestions
Principle 4: Cultivate Learning
Certainty in an Uncertain World: Change and Mistakes
The Status Report
Review Sessions
Regularity
Focused Lessons Learned
Rotate Positions
Vary Locations
Training
Timing: It Is Never Too Late to Learn, Unless
Banning Learning
Invite External Project Reviews
Extended Team Learning
Learning and Innovation
The Value of Learning
Application Suggestions
Principle 5: Ensure Results
Project Success Is Not Measured Solely by Results
Responsibility for Results: Project Leader and Team
Critical Success Factors of Results
Interim Results
Timing of Results
The Value of Ensuring Results
Application Suggestions
The Dynamic Pyramid
Five Principles, One Project Leadership Pyramid
The Resulting 5×5 Pyramid
8.2.1 Principle 1: Building Vision
8.2.2 Principle 2: Nurturing Collaboration
8.2.3 Principle 3: Promoting Performance
8.2.4 Principle 4: Cultivating Learning
8.2.5 Principle 5: Ensuring Results
A New Definition of Project Success
Simple and Yet Complex: The Five Principles of Effective Leadership
Application Suggestions
THE PROJECT LEADERSHIP PYRAMID IN PRACTICE
Practicing the Principles
Purpose and Objective of Part II
Returning "Power" Exercises
9.2.1 Guided Brainstorming
9.2.2 Power Workshop: Breakouts and Plenum
9.2.3 Questionnaires
Project Initiation and Set-Up
Identifying and Defining Your Playing Field
10.1.1 Your Own Role
10.1.2 Organizational Project Environment
10.1.3 Stakeholders
10.1.4 Project Charter: Summarizing Your Understanding of the Project
Vision-Building Workshop
10.2.1 Presentation of Official Project Charter
10.2.2 Project Motivation Statement
10.2.3 Project Vision Statement
10.2.4 SMART Project Objectives Statement
10.2.5 Critical Success Factors
10.2.6 Next Steps
10.2.7 Practical Tips for a Vision-Building Workshop
Team Norming Workshop
10.3.1 Project Motivation, Vision, Objectives, and Scope
10.3.2 Roles, Responsibilities, Expectations, and Motivations
10.3.3 Engagement Rules on Individual and Team Level)
10.3.4 Next Steps
10.3.5 The Value of a Team Norming Workshop
Scoping
10.4.1 Part 1: Gathering Requirements
10.4.2 Part 2: Prioritizing Requirements
10.4.3 Part 3: Building the Plan
10.4.4 A Word on Documentation
10.4.5 Timing
Project Execution
Empower Your Team and Let It Deliver
Involve and Add Value to the Extended Team
Project Reviews
Status Reporting
Project Pyramid Assessment Guidelines
Secure Ongoing Learning and Promote Innovation
Coping with Challenges to the Project Leadership Pyramid
11.7.1 Challenges to Principle 1: Build Vision
11.7.2 Challenges to Principle 2: Nurture Collaboration
11.7.3 Challenges to Principle 3: Promote Performance
11.7.4 Challenges to Principle 4: Cultivate Learning
11.7.5 Challenges to Principle 5: Ensure Results
Projects in Trouble
Expect the Unexpected
Realigning Project Objectives and Stakeholders’ Expectations in a Project Behind Schedule and Over Budget
12.2.1 Workshop Set-Up
12.2.2 Breakouts
12.2.3 Prioritization
12.2.4 Workshop Benefits
12.2.5 Practical Tips
Realignment with Team Involvement
12.3.1 Workshop Set-Up
12.3.2 Workshop Step 1: Revisiting the Past
12.3.3 Workshop Step 2: Assessing the Present
12.3.4 Workshop Step 3: Building the Future
12.3.5 Lessons Learned from Project Realignments
External Project Rescue
Canceling a Project
Working on a Troubled Project — Without Being in Control
Closing a Project
Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Project Success and Closure
Delivering Results and Making Sure They Arrive at Their Right Destination
Conducting and Sharing Sunset Reviews
Celebrating and Giving Out Rewards
Summary
Key Exercises of the Project Leadership Pyramid
14.1.1 Key Exercise of Principle 1 (Building Vision): Vision-Building Workshops
14.1.2 Key Exercises of Principle 2 (Nurturing Collaboration): Team Norming Workshops and Team-Building Activities
14.1.3 Key Exercise of Principle 3 (Promoting Performance): Team Empowerment
14.1.4 Key Exercise of Principle 4 (Cultivating Learning): Regular Project Reviews and Continuous Learning and Self-Improvement
14.1.5 Key Exercise of Principle 5 (Ensuring Results): Regular, Interim Results
A Call for Action and Creativity
THE PERSONAL LEADERSHIP PYRAMID
How to Become an Effective Project Leader
Leadership Perspectives
Top-Down Leadership
Bottom-Up Leadership
The Lonely Warrior Leadership
Follow the Principles of the Project Leadership Pyramid
Appendices
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Thomas Juli is an experienced, enthusiastic, and results-driven manager. He provides leading-edge program and operational management, offering more than 12 years of progressive leadership and management experience in various functions including project and program management, management consulting, business analysis, professional training, and academic teaching. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP©) by the Project Management Institute and a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) by the Scrum Alliance.
He is managing director of Thomas Juli Empowerment Partners, a professional service organization for innovative empowerment, consulting, and interim management. Prior to starting his own consulting business, Juli worked for SAP and two leading management and IT consultancies, Sapient and Cambridge Technology Partners. He consulted for various companies in telecommunications, energy, manufacturing banking and the public sector. He has spoken at conferences on project management and customer relationship management and has written articles on project management for professional journals.
Before entering business, Juli was engaged in research in the fields of economics and U.S. foreign policy. He holds a doctorate with distinction in international studies from the University of Miami, and a masters degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis.
... a timely and welcome guide for business leaders who are under increased pressure to do more with less. Juli points out that traditional project management tools are insufficient to handle today’s new business challenges. Leadership Principles for Project Success contains numerous practical examples of how project leaders can use tools, such as Guided Brainstorming, Vision-Building Workshops, and Team-Norming Workshops to create predictable project success within their organizations. If you want to improve the odds that your projects will deliver results on time and on budget, this book is your pathway to project success.
—Rod Collins, wiki-management.com, July 11, 2011Project leadership is a hot topic at the moment and this book is part of the cultural evolution about what a project manger does. It's peppered with examples and Juli's personal experiences. Everyone loves a good story. And there are plenty in here. … Being a lover of all things practical. I found the appendices to be the best bit. There are sample documents and templates for you to use. all in the name of clear communication and setting a common level of understanding amongst the project stakeholders.
—Book review in árras People, March 2011... a great resource for not only projects, but for success in life in general. Start everything of importance with a clear vision and you will end with success.
—Lee Cockerell, Former Executive V.P., Walt Disney World ResortThe book’s appendices include numerous project templates. … a great leadership book with five sound leadership principles. … provides practical advice and techniques for initiation, execution, and closing phases. … establishes a thought provoking two-way conversation with the reader with application suggestions. One reoccurring application suggestion asks the reader to consider how the leadership principles presence or absence impact on reader’s projects. …any project manager or leader would benefit from this book. … an enjoyable book to read. … filled with common sense suggestions on how to start new projects using the five principles and what to do to bring troubled projects back into alignment. Personally, I would love to work for a person like the author.
—Patrick S. Durkin, Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel in PM World Today, December 2010, Vol. XII, Issue XIII love this book. ... takes what could be a tedious and laborious subject and makes it fun and interesting to read ... full of anecdotal examples. ... a real-world book for practitioners. ... on my short list of recommended readings and references for an effective leader’s toolbox.
—Neal Whitten, PMP, Bestselling Author... a superb job bringing together a practical guide to project management. ... an essential step-by-step reference for the professional project manager. ... a valuable addition to any project manager's toolkit.
—Robert Urwiler, CIO, Vail Resorts Inc.It is refreshing that, rather than emphasizing the role of any single project member, Juli shows the importance of developing an effectively working team.
—Murray Weidenbaum, Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan
... a simple yet powerful model, along with personal stories, that motivate and guide people along a path to greater project success.
—Randall L. Englund, co-author of Creating an Environment for Successful Projects, Creating the Project Office, and Project SponsorshipI especially like the five principles and their graphic presentation as a pyramid. This makes them much easier to internalize and apply. A very practical book.
—Dr. Gregory T Haugan, PMP, Bestselling Author... provides the reader with an excellent range of tools and advice to elevate your project role from manager to leader.
—Peter Taylor, accomplished leader, professional speaker, and author of The Lazy Project Manager
... contains many helpful suggestions for creating ‘Wow Projects’.
—Stephen Denning. Author of The Leader's Guide to Radical Management & The Secret Language of LeadershipThe leadership concepts struck me as solid and quite applicable; the pyramid should be a useful way to communicate these concepts. Well done. ... provides the reader with solid leadership concepts that are supported with a clear understanding of how to apply them specifically in the project environment.
—Mike O'Brochta, PMP, President, Zozer, Inc.... practical examples and templates enhance the quality of this exceptional book.
—Dr. Ginger Levin, PMP, PgMP. Project Management Consultant, Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, & Bestselling Author... an interesting and pragmatic perspective on project leadership.
—Dr. Marco Sampietro, Professor at SDA Bocconi, ItalyThe reader benefits from the author's holistic view on the topic and many hands-on suggestions that professionals can easily put into practice throughout the entire project lifecycle.
—Peter Miez-Mangold, PMP, President PMI Frankfurt Chapter, Managing Director STS Deutschland... very useful and practical.
—Alfonso Bucero, founder and managing partner of BUCERO PM Consulting, President of PMI Madrid Spain Chapter... offers a practical framework to project leadership ... a valuable guide that covers all important areas and factors necessary to successfully lead projects. ... bridges the gap between traditional project management practices and modern concepts like agile and virtual teams.
—Stanislav Yanakiev, PMP, Founder of Semanit... takes the reader along a journey of easy-to-apply but effective leadership and team working principles. Leadership and working teams are now given the level of attention they deserve, independent from a particular approach to project management.
—Robert Misch, ScrumMaster