December 2011 Issue: Coaching & Feedback

Welcome to Our December Issue

In this issue, we’ll be taking a look at coaching and feedback. The skill set for these activities should be part of every project manager’s repertoire. Starting in 2012, we will be addressing a wide spectrum of PM subjects in each issue, rather than highlighting a single topic. We hope you’ll enjoy this change in format.

Included in this issue:

• Special Workshop: Project Management Fundamentals for Life Sciences
• The Importance of Effective Coaching
• Project Management Q&A
• Coaching Checklist
• The Path to Quality Feedback
• Does Coaching= Mentoring?
• Coaching and Feedback Tips

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pmPractitioner is published as a service to the project management community. Each issue provides practical project management solutions and tips adapted from a variety of business publications and resources.

Special Workshop: Project Management Fundamentals for Life Science

We’re partnering with the Biotech Employee Development Coalition (BEDC) in San Diego to offer a unique opportunity to gain life sciences industry-specific project management skills. Learn best practices and share project experiences with other industry practitioners!

Biotech projects, by their nature, are high risk, costly and lengthy. Project management creates predictability in the midst of this uncertain environment and provides a framework for understanding and managing risk. This specially priced 2-day workshop is designed to equip project team members in biotech and pharmaceutical environments with the practical knowledge and skills needed to successfully initiate, plan, manage and complete projects. It is customized to address the level of complexity encountered in typical life science projects and the connection between project management and the product development life cycle will be addressed.

Contact us for complete details or register here.

From Action for Results, Inc.

The Importance of Effective Coaching

As a project manager or team leader, you will be called upon to act as a coach or mentor on occasion. Becoming a good coach takes time and effort – it doesn’t just happen. It means learning how to establish rapport and develop a trusting relationship with those you are coaching. You’ll have to practice active listening, including hearing, reflecting and clarifying during your conversations. An effective coach also provides helpful and meaningful feedback, aiding in problem solving and working with the individual to form an action plan for the future.

Opportunities to coach can be found informally as well as through dedicated sessions. Interactions that casually occur during the course of the work day can provide reinforcement, encouragement or perspective for employees and enable them to perform more effectively.

While coaching does take your time and effort, the results are positive, helping to:

• Achieve/maintain positive work relationships.
• Identify and resolve problems proactively.
• Take greater accountability for one’s own actions and results.
• Instill a positive change in performance and renew commitment to a high level of performance.
• Create a more positive, open and trusting working environment.

Adapted from Coaching & Feedback, Action for Results, Inc.

December Project Management Q&A

Test your project management knowledge with these questions or use them as an exercise to help prepare for your PMP certification exam.

1. As a new project manager you have been asked to provide earned value metrics for your project. Of great concern is the fact that the project has fallen behind schedule. Schedule variance is a measure of schedule performance on a project and you choose to use that metric to report. Schedule variance is equal to:

2. Scope verification is one of the most important processes you can do as a project manager. This process concerns itself with what action?

Answers appear at the end of the newsletter.

Coaching Checklist

Here’s a quick checklist for you to use to ensure you “cover all the bases” in your coaching sessions.

• As the coach, have you clearly stated the objectives of the initial coaching session and checked understanding by both parties?
• Has the employee participated in defining the nature of the problem or an opportunity for growth?
• Has the employee’s perception about the performance problem or opportunities for improvement received full consideration?
• Is the employee involved in researching his or her own options for how to take advantage of an opportunity or solve the problem?
• Has the employee helped to determine his or her own learning goals and the appropriate activities to support the achievement of those goals?
• Has a clear process been set up to carry out the coaching activities and to measure progress along the way?
• As a coach, have you asked for feedback regarding the effectiveness of the coaching process?

Adapted from Coaching & Feedback, Action for Results, Inc.

The Path to Quality Feedback

Everyone wants feedback and an honest assessment of their behavior to help them improve their work. They know that if they listen to, and take action on, clear and constructive feedback, their overall performance will improve. And so will their job satisfaction.

Listed below are steps along the path to quality feedback:

Be positive.
Highlight what the person is doing well when giving feedback (and not just what they can improve upon).

Focus on the behavior, not the person.
When discussing a problem with performance, keep your emotions in check. Focus on the actions of the individual, not the person.

Be timely and specific.
Don’t wait – the closer feedback is tied to the behavior in question (good or bad), the more powerful it will be. Provide tangible examples of the behavior in question, not vague criticism.

Make sure you are clear on why you are delivering the feedback.
It’s important to pause and think about where the feedback is coming from and how can you deliver it in a way that will be received positively.

Provide feedback from a neutral place – no judgment.
Feedback is really a piece of information or observation you are sharing. Once a person receives the feedback from a neutral space, the person can decide to change or not.

Make it a two-way conversation.
Take time to engage the person and check for understanding. Focus on “partnership,” not “this is what you’re doing wrong” or “this is what you need to change.”

Follow up.
If your feedback concerns a problem, look for opportunities to “catch them doing it right.” Reinforce positive behavior.

Make sure you have these three qualities before delivering feedback.
Feedback can best be received when you have the authority, credibility and trust already established in the relationship. Without these three things, it makes it more difficult to receive the feedback.

Adapted from Ten Ways to Provide Quality Feedback, Joel A. Garfinkle

Does Coaching = Mentoring?

The thought that coaching might take up too much of their time often scares off managers who might otherwise like to offer it to members of their team. However, the reality is that mentoring is a long-term relationship, while coaching is time-limited.

“Mentoring is . . . an open-ended, nonspecific contract,” says James Waldroop of the Harvard Business School. “It’s saying, ‘I’m going to be your big brother (or sister) and I’m going to be around for an uncertain amount of time – usually quite a long period – to serve this role, to take whatever issue you want and work with it.’ That is not a coaching contract. A coaching contract is for a specified period of time, to work on specific issues with measurable outcomes that we measure every step of the way.”

Coaching relationships should take at most 30-45 minutes a week. The time is spent checking on what someone has done since you last spoke and figuring out what steps he or she should take next.

Adapted from Coaching: The Ten Killer Myths, Harvard Management Update

Coaching and Feedback Tips

Clarify the Objectives of Coaching

For a coaching process to be successful, it’s important to have a shared understanding between the individuals of what will be discussed at each meeting and the expected outcomes. At each meeting, explain its primary purpose and then clarify the specific objectives. For example, “There are three key steps in the new quality assurance process. I would like to make sure that you understand them before we finish today.”

From Guide to Performance Management, Action for Results, Inc.

How to Give Negative Feedback

At times, it is necessary to give negative feedback to others. When you have to do it, remember that individuals accept this type of feedback more readily when:

• The source is viewed as reliable.
• The receiver trusts the intentions of the source.
• The receiver perceives the process by which the feedback was developed as fair.
• The receiver perceives the process by which the feedback is communicated as fair.

From The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome, Jean-Francois Manzoni and Jean-Louis Barsoux, Harvard Business School Publishing

How to SOAR

As you give feedback to others, you should also ask for it in return. Remember to SOAR:

Seek feedback from others regularly.
Own your emotions when you get feedback.
Act on it as appropriate.
Reflect on your learnings for next time.

From Action for Results, Inc.

Responding Well to Feedback

Some people do not respond well to receiving feedback – even positive feedback! They may deflect it, not believe it or even ignore it.  Constructive feedback is precious and extremely rare. Not everybody cares enough to take the time, or risk, in providing us with information we may not want to hear.  It’s helpful to anticipate the kinds of traps we fall into when we receive feedback.

Ask yourself these questions:

How do I react when people give me positive feedback?
How do I react when people give me negative feedback?
How does feedback from others affect my self-esteem and mood?

From Action for Results, Inc.

Answers to December Q&A

1. The correct answer is ‘c’ (EV-PV).

This is a straight calculation and indicates that schedule variance is equal to Earned Value minus Planned Value.

[Planning] PMBOK Fourth Edition p. 182

2. The correct answer is ‘c’ (Checking for product acceptance).

Verify Scope is where you (or the customer) inspect deliverables to make sure they satisfy requirements. Don’t confuse it with Quality Control where you check for product correctness.

[Planning], PMBOK Guide, Fourth Edition p. 123