I totally agree with the point of "Team members who understand project management make the entire project run smoother. They make the project manager more effective because they make better estimates, identify risks, and participate in planning and problem solving."
As I mentioned before, I am working at a start-up Chinese newspaper firm which is having no more than 10 employees. The team is small, even though we performs our duties differently, we are required to participate meetings and have a free say to the project. I think it's smart to have all us understand the project and involved in planning, because participation will make us more responsible to the project. Once we have sense of ownership, we are willing to pay extra effort to make the project achieve the goal. Let employee feel themselves important to the project is a key!!
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On the chapter 1, it mentions that every technique in the book is a communication technique, designed to improve the formal and informal ways we communicate critical project information.
We are individual person who grow in different environment, so even though we receive the same message, we might come out different thought. I was watching the movie "up in the air" the other day and totally saw that communication is important theory.
To lay off people is difficult, but to tell the person who gets laid off is even tougher. How to make the person feel not so bad truly needs some communication skill, and I think that skill applies to everything.
I can relate to the points you have addressed in your entry. When a project is involved, it is very essential to have all the participants involved to be on the same page and understand what the goal is. Much like a sports team, if everyone just does his/her own thing, the team would eventually lose to another team that knows and exercises the meaning of teamwork.
ReplyDeleteI am working on a small startup too. Similar feeling as you have. We have daily conference call every weekdays. Even you may not have anything special to say, at least you feel you have a "seat" in the whole team. Quite different feeling than traditional large corp where you always execute whatever upper management decided.
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