Mindfulness is a meditation technique that focuses not on achieving a state of calm, but on observing thoughts and emotions as they are. The practice originates from Buddhism, but doesn’t require any spiritual inclination, and has been proven to have incredibly positive effects on mental health and wellbeing. What we’re interested in exploring however, is how being mindful can improve our leadership skills.

This month’s blog entry comes from guest blogger and PRINCE2 certified Project Manager, Phil Doyle. Phil has a strong interest in metrics and process improvement and has worked in a variety of project management roles, particularly in the IT sector. He’s also passionate about what he describes as the ‘fusion of the theoretical and the actual’: how best practice methodologies could have helped real-life projects. To see more of Phil’s work, visit his website ‘Project Health Check’, where he writes a number of blog posts. 

The Six Nations Championship is underway, which has us thinking about project management (of course). Dr Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber actually invented a rugby-inspired management process named Scrum back in 1995. Like a rugby scrum, its short meetings offer a chance for project team members to reset and regroup.

It’s Super Bowl weekend, so (naturally) we’re thinking about project management. We’re not, however, going to discuss the processes and logistics that go into organising an event like this. We’re going to outline why a football game is just like a project.

Not all projects are created equal. Some are fundamentally flawed, and they usually display at least one of these warning signs. If you can spot any of these five red flags early enough, you’ll be better prepared to stamp them out, or avoid managing a doomed project altogether.

Project Management guides often refer to six different leadership styles from Daniel Goleman’s 2000 article, “Leadership That Gets Results”. We could list and define these, like many before us, but we thought it’d be much more worthwhile (and fun) to take leadership to the movies.

Roll up roll up!

We have recently added a great selection of classic games with a project management twist. Race around to collect jewels in Inca Treasure, or see who can make it to the end of the Snakes and Ladders board.

You’ve just earned your PRINCE2 Foundation certificate and your first job is to manage Brexit. Not for a company, I mean for the whole country. Yep, you’re just that good at job interviews. And maybe all the Practitioners were busy on other projects. Either way, here are the key tasks you need to organise.

Projects are often very complex endeavours, but PRINCE2 is a project management method proven to deliver them successfully. Projects can vary greatly in their nature. The activities carried out by the project manager at any one time can be quite diverse. They depend on the exact nature of the project and where it is in its lifecycle. However, there are certain common activities that a PRINCE2 Certified Project Manager will carry out almost every day. Below we’ve highlighted a few key daily activities, these have been drawn from the PRINCE2 2017 A3 Process Map, which is available for free download.

Project Managers often have chameleon-like adaptability, infallible common sense and unmatched efficiency. The best PMs combine these traits with relevant training for even better results. Do you watch people tackle tasks and think “Why would they go about it that way?” Does it baffle you when others can’t multitask? Are you rarely surprised by so-called “unexpected” events at work? You sound like a Project Manager.