Facilitating the Project Lifecycle: The Skills & Tools to Accelerate Progress for Project Managers, Facilitators, and Six Sigma Project Teams / Edition 1

by Janet A. Means, Tammy Adams

Overview

Step by step, Facilitating the Project Lifecycle guides the project manager/facilitator in making smart choices about when and how to pull key talent together to spell success for the project and ultimately the organization. The authors will help you understand the benefits of using facilitated group work sessions to get real work done during a project and get it done better and more efficiently than more traditional individual work approaches. In addition, the book includes:

• Recommendations for capitalizing on group knowledge to accelerate the building of key project deliverables and ensure their quality as they are built
• A work session structure for planning, delivering, and following up facilitated work sessions
• Guides for building key project deliverables
• Sample agendas
• Proven techniques for managing the group dynamics

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780787978754
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	08/26/2005
Series:	Jossey-Bass Business and Management (Pap
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	8.54(w) x 11.04(h) x 1.19(d)

About the Author

Janet A. Means is cofounder of Resource Advantage, Inc., a consulting and training firm specializing in business process innovation, organizational productivity improvement, and information technology planning and design. She is a certified professional facilitator with the International Association of Facilitators.

Tammy Adams is the managing partner of Chaosity LLC, a consulting firm specializing in collaborative techniques for business process improvement and project acceleration. She is a certified professional facilitator and certified quality manager.

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Table of Contents

Tables, Figures, and Exhibits.

Acknowledgments.

The Authors.

Introduction.

PART 1: THE POWER OF THE PARTNERSHIP: PROJECTS AND FACILITATION.

Section 1: The Commitment to Perform.

1. Old Dogs and New Tricks.

2. Facilitation Within the Project Lifecycle.

Section 2: The Ability to Perform.

3. Who’s on First?

4. What Effective Facilitation Is and Is Not.

PART 2: THE PARTNERSHIP IN PRACTICE: MAKING FACILITATED WORK SESSIONS WORK.

Section 3: Work Session Basics.

5. Making Work Sessions Work.

6. The Work Session Tightrope.

7. Preparing for the Work Session.

8. Conducting the Work Session.

9. Wrapping Up the Work Session.

Section 4: Facilitating the Deliverable.

10. Establishing the Project Charter.

11. Analyzing and Designing Business Processes.

12. Defining Business Requirements.

13. Assessing Risks.

14. Convening Work-in-Progress Reviews.

PART 3: THE TECHNIQUES.

Section 5: General Facilitation Techniques: Engaging the Group.

15. It’s All About Communication.

16. Flip-Charting.

17. Brainstorming.

18. Facilitated Dialogue.

19. Nominal Group and Affinity Analysis.

20. Prioritization Techniques.

21. Breakout Groups.

22. Staying On Track: Agendas, Action Items, and Other Focusing Techniques.

Section 6: Specialized Facilitation Techniques: Building the Deliverables.

23. Creating a Purpose Statement.

24. Defining Objectives and Targets.

25. Scope Framing.

26. Guiding Factors: Assumptions, Constraints, Dependencies, and Touch Points.

27. Discovering Impacts.

28. Risk Analysis Matrices.

29. Process Decomposition.

30. Process Mapping.

31. Process Detail Table.

32. Context Diagramming.

33. Requirements Table.

34. Developing a Timeline.

PART 4: RESOURCES.

A. Cross-Reference Tables for Tools and Techniques.

B. Recommended Books and Journals.

C. Recommended Web Sites.

D. Recommended Organizations.

References.

Index.

Templates on CD-ROM.

How to Use the Accompanying CD-ROM.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Chock-full of helpful session templates, guidelines, and resources.”
—Ellen Gottesdiener, EBG Consulting, Inc., author, Requirements by Collaboration: Workshops for Defining Needs

“This book is a road map to successful facilitation of teams to realize business improvements and change through projects.”
—Wes Hopmans, director of IT, Crane & Co., Inc.

“Jan Means and Tammy Adams open their notebooks, sharing hard-won procedures, session designs, and tips that would take years to acquire on your own.”
—Maureen Jenkins, chair, International Association of Facilitators

“Anyone who runs projects effectively knows that project success is rooted in people. Facilitating the Project Lifecycle puts people on center stage, which makes it exceptional among project management books.”
—J. Davidson Frame, academic dean, University of Management and Technology

“This book does an amazing job of applying facilitation to the complexities of project management. I can’t imagine a project leader who wouldn’t want to keep this resource handy!”
—Ingrid Bens, author, Facilitating with Ease!

“Jan Means and Tammy Adams give us a toolkit of skills, templates, and techniques essential for success on any project.”
—Doug DeCarlo, author, eXtreme Project Management

“The real roadblock to a successful project is invariably people. This book tackles this challenge head on by leveraging group dynamics to bring teams to consensus and break down barriers to successful project delivery.”
—William M. Ulrich, president, Tactical Strategy Group, Inc., author, Legacy Systems: Transformation Strategies