Interpersonal skills

INTERPERSONAL AND TEAM SKILLS

Summary version:

• Conflict  management.  Ensure  that  conflicts  are  resolved in a timely manner.
• Cultural  awareness.  Communicate effectively by considering cultural differences.
• Negotiation. Used to achieve support for project and to resolve conflicts.
• Observation/conversation. To stay in touch with the work and attitudes of stakeholders.
• Political awareness. Understanding the power relationships within and around the project.
• Active listening. Reduces misunderstandings, improves communication and knowledge sharing.
• Facilitation. Guide a group to a successful decision, solution, or conclusion.
• Leadership. Communicate the vision and inspire the project team to focus on the appropriate objectives.
• Networking. Allows informal connections and relations to share information.

Detail version:
Conflict management. Conflict management can be used to help bring stakeholders into alignment on the objectives, success criteria, high-level requirements, project description, summary milestones, and other elements of the charter.

Facilitation. Facilitation is the ability to effectively guide a group event to a successful decision, solution, or conclusion. A facilitator ensures that there is effective participation, that participants achieve a mutual understanding, that all contributions are considered, that conclusions or results have full buy-in according to the decision process established for the project, and that the actions and agreements achieved are appropriately dealt with afterward.

E.g. Workshops  Can build trust, foster relationships, better communication & early issue discovery can lead  to  increased  stakeholder  consensus. Examples:

• Joint  application  design/development  (JAD).  Used  in  the  S/W  industry.  Focus  on  bringing  business  subject  matter  experts  and  the  development  team  together to gather requirements and improve the software development process.
• Quality function deployment (QFD). Used in the manufacturing industry, helps  determine  critical  characteristics  for  new  product  development.  QFD  starts  by  collecting  customer  needs, also known as voice of the customer (VOC). These needs are then objectively sorted and prioritized, and goals are set for achieving them.
• User stories. Describe the stakeholder role, who benefits from the feature (role), what the stakeholder needs to accomplish (goal), and the benefit to the stakeholder (motivation). As an Editor, I want to review content before it is published, so that I can assure it is optimized with correct grammar and tone.

Meeting management. Meeting management includes preparing the agenda, ensuring that a representative for each key stakeholder group is invited, and preparing and sending the follow-up minutes and actions.

Active listening.  Active listening helps reduce misunderstandings and improves
communication and knowledge sharing.

Leadership. Leadership is used to communicate the vision and inspire the project team to focus on the appropriate knowledge and knowledge objectives.

Networking. Networking allows informal connections and relations among project stakeholders to be established and creates the conditions to share tacit and explicit knowledge.
Networking is interacting with others to exchange information and develop contacts. Networks provide project managers and their teams with access to informal organizations to solve problems, influence actions of their stakeholders, and increase stakeholder support for the work and outcomes of the project, thus improving performance.

Political awareness. Political awareness helps the project manager to plan communications based on the project environment as well as the organization’s political environment.

Conflict management.

Influencing. An influencing skill used in this process is gathering relevant and critical information to address important issues and reach agreements while maintaining mutual trust.

Motivation. Motivation is providing a reason for someone to act. Teams are motivated by empowering them to participate in decision making and encouraging them to work independently.

Negotiation. Negotiation among team members is used to reach consensus on project needs. Negotiation can build trust and harmony among the team members.

Team building. Team building is conducting activities that enhance the team’s social relations and build a collaborative and cooperative working environment. Team building activities can vary from a 5-minute agenda item in a status review meeting to an offsite, professionally facilitated event designed to improve interpersonal relationships. The objective of team-building activities is to help individual team members work together effectively.

Communication styles assessment. A technique used to assess communication styles and identify the preferred communication method, format, and content for planned communication activities. Often used with unsupportive stakeholders, this assessment may follow a stakeholder engagement assessment to identify gaps in stakeholder engagement that require additional tailored communication
activities and artifacts.

Cultural awareness. Cultural awareness is an understanding of the differences between individuals, groups, and organizations and adapting the project’s communication strategy in the context of these differences. This awareness and any consequent actions minimize misunderstandings and miscommunication that may result from cultural differences within the project’s stakeholder community. Cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity help the project manager to plan communications based on the cultural differences and requirements of stakeholders and team members.

Meeting management. Meeting management is taking steps to ensure meetings meet their intended objectives effectively and efficiently. The following steps should be used for meeting planning:

• Prepare and distribute the agenda stating the objectives of the meeting.
• Ensure that the meetings start and finish at the published time.
• Ensure the appropriate participants are invited and attend.
• Stay on topic.
• Manage expectations, issues, and conflicts during the meeting.
• Record all actions and those who have been allocated the responsibility for completing the action.

Observation/conversation. Observation/conversation is used to stay in touch with the work and attitudes of project team members and other stakeholders. AKA job shadowing.