by Elizabeth on 2/09/2010
Last night I spent the evening at the Remote Worker Awards which was held at The Grand Connaught Rooms in London. My business writing practice, The Otobos Group, was a finalist in the freelancing category. I didn’t win, but it was a good event.
I met some really interesting people including the CEO of YuuGuu, a web conferencing tool. I’m also excited to see the new laptop bags from Girlstravelclub.co.uk which are coming in next month. I came straight home and went on to their website, and am particularly taken with the Reisenthel suspended travel washbag. OK, it’s not like I would use it for camping, but when I’m travelling for work a girl can never be too organised. Becci, the company’s founder, won the BT Home Business Award too.
It was very telling that all the winners were women – although it was a gender-neutral awards event open to all. Women are in the majority when it comes to grasping the opportunity for flexible working, because we are still the primary carers for children and ageing parents. Remote and flexible working provide the opportunity to combine employment with other commitments and contribute to a good work/life balance.
However, when flexible working is on offer everyone benefits, don’t you think?
by Elizabeth on 1/09/2010
The Inside PRINCE2 series continues with this look at pm4success.
Exam rooms for APMG exams like PRINCE2 can be daunting. The desks are clear apart from the papers you need. And somewhere on the desk is likely to be a leaflet for pm4success, the APMG’s website for exam candidates. In the stress of the exam, you could overlook the leaflet and forget to fill in the blanks to ensure you get access to the website. However, with over 1000 pages of content aimed at project and programme managers, it is worth remembering that you have free access to this site for 12 months after your exam.
Here are 6 reasons why you should log on to pm4success.
1: Ask an Expert
You can Ask an Expert, or browse the questions that have already been asked. Those asked in the last 30 days are flagged as ‘new’ so you can see what’s been recently added. Questions are answered by people like the chief examiner, so you know you are getting a good quality reply. Some of the answers include templates or sample documents, so you get more than just a stock answer – you get a tailored response with useful additional material if they have something extra to share.
2: Alchemy for Managers
You get a year’s subscription to Alchemy for Managers – which is very useful. Project management is also about good management, so brush up on all your basic (and some more advanced) general management topics. The year starts from the day you sign up to Alchemy, so it doesn’t run concurrent with your pm4success membership. This alone is worth logging on to pm4success for.
3: OGC Resource Toolkit
There’s a guide to the OGC Resource Toolkit. The OGC website is extensive and difficult to navigate. pm4success provides direct links to the most useful entry points, documentation and briefings, which saves you time. It’s in flux at the moment as the OGC website is being updated.
4: Mind Maps
There are Mind Maps to download for M_o_R, MSP and PRINCE2. You need to download Thoughtograph, a mindmap viewing tool to be able to view them. It’s not how I think or structure my notes, but for graphically-minded people it’s an aid to not having to build your own.
5: Sample papers
There are sample exam papers available for PRINCE2, MSP, M_ o_R. Sample papers are a highly valuable resource. In order to get access to pm4success, you will have had to take one of those exams, but if you are thinking of taking another, you can get some exam practice in advance as part of your pre-course learning.
6: Free
It’s free! There are over 1000 pages of content. While I found that some of it is not helpful at all (although it might be helpful to people at different stages of their career), there has to be something here you can use!
Will I renew my subscription?
No. Much of the content on pm4success is static, and while they do add new articles on a regular basis, it’s not enough to encourage me to pay the annual fee. The Ask an Expert feature is excellent, but the newsgroup is not very active and I’ll get the same benefit of discussion with my peers from forums on Gantthead or LinkedIn groups. Overall, it is a useful perk to have for a year, but not worth continuing after that.
Have you used pm4success? What do you think?
by Elizabeth on 30/08/2010
The Summer of Books 2010 continues with this review of Business Etiquette.
This book has a rather long subtitle: 101 Ways to Conduct Business with Charm and Savvy. I flicked straight to the back to read what Ann Marie Sabath had to say about working with Brits. I thought it was funny that she advises using ‘How do you do?’ I haven’t heard that for ages, but I can’t deny that it’s still used. She also has some good advice about not using the term English to describe people. You can do untold damage to business and personal relationships by calling someone from Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales ‘English’. Apart from the snapshots of working abroad, the book has advice on using the phone, business writing, conducting meetings, dealing with VIPs and even how to manage saying grace at business meals and use the toilet facilities appropriately.
Honestly, the things some people need advice on.
It’s a small book and it’s quick to read. You can flip forward to the bits that are relevant to you at any one time (wondering how to take your medication in the middle of a meeting? Turn to tip 100!) or you can read it cover to cover. Each section is broken down into short tips, and it ends with a summary of the key points in that chapter.
You could worry a lot about this type of thing. Are you addressing everyone with their proper titles and have you followed The Elements of Style for formatting your emails? Or you could just get on with being a good project manager. If you are new to an office environment, or a clown, this would be a good book to read. It’s not that the tips are basic – who knew that there was a sneezing etiquette? It’s just that if you haven’t picked up good office habits you’re not going to get them from reading. You’ll need constant reinforcement of your new habits, and that means leaving this book on your desk so you can refer to it in a pinch, like when you’re worried about how to tell a colleague they used the wrong fork at dinner (tip 96). If your colleagues see this book on your desk, they’re going to hold you to a higher standard, so you better be ready!
Buy on Amazon.co.uk
Buy on Amazon.com
by Elizabeth on 27/08/2010
The Summer of Books 2010 continues with this review of Fast Track Networking.
Lots of books talk about how to ‘do’ networking, and I’ve written about it in the past. The thing I liked best about Lucy Rosen’s Fast Track Networking: Turning Conversations Into Contacts
book is that it does actually tell you the answers to the things that really matter like:
- Where to stand in a room (near the door to greet newcomers)
- Who to talk to (get the attendee list in advance and target people)
- How to start a conversation (with a compliment or any one of five other conversation starters)
- When to hand out business cards (only if asked)
It’s very practical – and I like practical. It also goes beyond what you’d expect in an article and manages to fill a whole book on the subject by including topics like setting up your own networking group if you can’t find one that suits your needs.
Rosen hasn’t aimed her book solely at women, and she quotes the experiences of many men. She has tried hard to be inclusive but as she is founder and president of Women on the Fast Track, a women’s networking group, there is a bias in the text (almost by default) towards helping women network more effectively.
As women, we also tend to downplay our abilities and we’re not quite as comfortable as men in talking about our skills. We may be uneasy about highlighting our talents and when first starting the networking process, we may undermine what we have to give, thinking we aren’t valuable enough, we don’t know enough, and we just aren’t enough. That’s far from the truth, of course. But because women often operation on an emotional level, this is how we often feel about our capabilities and skills.
It’s fine by me that Rosen’s implied reader is female. I’m female, after all. Male readers will get a lot out of the book, but their experience of reading it will be different to mine.
There are lots of topics in here that both sexes will find of use, like networking when unemployed, a short bit on social media and online profiles, and how to organise all your contacts and business cards. Importantly, there is also a section on what to do once you’ve met a really great person that you want to follow up with. Too often people focus on the initial contact and forget about the long term goal which is to find people with whom you can work. This book explains what makes a successful follow up and how to make sure you choose to develop relationships with only the people who are good choices for you.
Finally, there’s a good resources section at the back. Many of the websites have global reach, but as you would expect with a U.S. published book, there’s a heavy focus on U.S. sites and groups.
Buy on Amazon.co.uk
Buy on Amazon.com
by Elizabeth on 25/08/2010
The Summer of Books 2010 continues with this review of Why Women Mean Business.
There’s a skills shortage. If you haven’t noticed it yet you will do when the baby boom generation starts to retire. There just aren’t enough people entering the workforce to keep up with demand, and meet the needs of my generation’s pension funds. Why Women Mean Business: Understanding the Emergence of our Next Economic Revolution
by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland has the answer: women. We have better educational results but are under-represented in the workplace, especially at senior levels.
This book looks at the issues facing businesses today and presents ‘womenomics’ as a solution. It’s a book full of facts, research and real-life case studies based on extensive interviews, but it doesn’t rely on trotting out the old arguments. The authors say that in order to make the most of the talent that women represent companies need to understand the business imperatives of including them. It’s not about a slap-dash diversity programme and paying lip service to equality. It’s about bottom line financial results, and the customer and employee satisfaction that contributes to those results.
There’s plenty of analysis to back that up: women in the US will control $22 trillion by 2010, and retailers missed out on £600m in 2007 by “failing to connect” with female customers. It’s in every company’s interest to make sure that a group with that much purchasing power is represented on the Board and at every level of management: you can’t serve your customers unless you know who they are.
It’s not about a slap-dash diversity programme and paying lip service to equality. It’s about bottom line financial results, and the customer and employee satisfaction that contributes to those results.
The authors say that companies need to become ‘gender-bilingual’ in order to succeed in challenging times, and that doing so will be better for men and women. Why Women Mean Business offers some practical guidelines for turning a company into a gender-bilingual organisation. For example, it talks about how recruiting practices unintentionally discriminate: roles that require an MBA are in the main filled by men because MBA courses need several years business experience, and by the time a women has that experience she could well be taking a career break to raise a family.
That said, countries have a role to play too in supporting women at work through public policy. Wittenberg-Cox and Maitland dedicate a chapter to cultural differences and what countries can do to help businesses win the talent battle and retain women. Women are not offered paid maternity leave in the US, for example.
The first step to becoming bilingual is for companies to recognise that women are equal but different, and that the existing status quo might not be as unbiased as everyone thought. Recognising that men are a key part of addressing the leadership and business issues created by not using women’s talent in the workplace is also important. By doing this, companies will become employers of choice, be more successful and win a bigger slice of the pie.
This is an easy and interesting read, that will challenge your assumptions and open your eyes to differences in the workplace, as well as give you some practical tips for how to deploy successful gender initiatives in your company – or, if you aren’t responsible for that kind of thing, allow you to comment more effectively on what’s going on within your own organisation. It’s full of compelling arguments – let’s hope that the people who make policies are listening and that we start to see some gender initiatives with teeth.
Buy on Amazon.co.uk
Buy on Amazon.com
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