Achieve More, the High Performance Transformation Podcast

What if I told you there was a really simple tool that you could use that could help you predict project success every time? And that this tool works on mega big projects as well as small projects? And that you can complete it in 10 minutes or less? In this week's podcast, I introduce this simple tool and tell you how to use it.

How can you be consistently more productive, yet also happier, less stressed, and more rewarded over the long term? And how do you achieve all that while maintaining your focus, your energy, and your balance in life? Research shows that high performers are more productive: they constantly look to find new ways to improve their productivity, and are very deliberate in how they approach planning and undertaking their days, projects and tasks. But Neuroscience research also shows that this is all ridiculously easier if you understand some basic principles about how the brain works. These principles hold true for individuals in any setting, as well as for teams. These principles help you: Understand how your brain approaches work How you focus How your brain uses energy How you can cut down on boredom to achieve more In this podcast, I will briefly explain the important characteristics of productivity, and 10 principles based on neuroscience. I also provide tactical ideas so that you can apply these principles to improve your productivity today.

Today's Topic Achieving high performance requires planning, launching and managing projects. Most projects live or die on how well the people on your team do. But what do you do if your people fall of track on the project? This is more important for non project managers who aren't used to managing people, but really anyone will benefit from this The principles and ideas in this episode works for smaller projects with 1 or 2 people reporting into you for the project, especially if they don't report into you regularly. Reason This is so Important: Project success is really based on people more than process or tools Principles: What do they want out of it, what do you want Plan Make them accountable Set process to hold feet to fire Communicate Action Steps Get visible senior approval and visibility Share the Load and Be Transparent Use Project plan Regular Project meetings Keep things regular and consistent Help your team succeed Work together when things go wrong Communicate often Want Some Powerful Tools and Tips to Reduce Costs and Improve Services? Sign up for our weekly email blast to get the latest podcasts, blogs, and surprise content that helps community and broader public sector staff to plan and manage change and do more with what you have. If you sign up now, you will receive our free resource on the 4 main ways to improve services, cut costs, and improve service effectiveness.

Just about every project goes off the rails at some point in time. Maybe its due to technology issues, or your team isn't clicking, or you end up taking longer than expected to reach milestones. But what do you do once you realize the project has fallen off track? Throw up your hands in despair? Grin and bear it? Dig in? I n this episode, we will give you the 4 main principles to think about when dealing with out-of-control projects, plus 7 steps you can take to get them back on track, in gear and humming along like a well oiled machine. These tips and tricks will work for any size project in any industry! Want Some Powerful Tools and Tips to Reduce Costs and Improve Services? Sign up for our weekly email blast to get the latest podcasts, blogs, and surprise content that helps community and broader public sector staff to plan and manage change and do more with what you have. If you sign up now, you will receive our free resource on the 4 main ways to improve services, cut costs, and improve service effectiveness.

I have found most community orgs can improve processes by up to 20%. But what does it really mean when you break it down? I have found 3 main ways to improve processes. You can use Lean Six Sigma for at least one of them, but you don't have to. You can mix and match to some degree, but any way you slice you have to do at least one of these to get results. In this episode, I walk through the 3 main ways you can improve services in your organization. These 3 ways aren't very sexy, but they work regardless of size of the service or what it is you do. Want Some Powerful Tools and Tips to Reduce Costs and Improve Services? Sign up for our weekly email blast to get the latest podcasts, blogs, and surprise content that helps community and broader public sector staff to plan and manage change and do more with what you have. If you sign up now, you will receive our free resource on the 4 main ways to improve services, cut costs, and improve service effectiveness.

Transformation projects exist on a continuum of increasing change: from service improvement, to optimization, to introducing a whole new service model to the queen bee herself, a transformation project that completely rewrites how you deliver services. On the surface, it sounds hard. But over the last 22+ years I have come to realize that there are really only 4 areas where you can improve, optimize, or transform your operations or services. Each of these areas can give you from 12% to 20% improvement. Today I am going to tell you about each of them. These are the places where you can start looking now, to improve performance. Want Some Powerful Tools and Tips to Reduce Costs and Improve Services? Sign up for our weekly email blast to get the latest podcasts, blogs, and surprise content that helps community and broader public sector staff to plan and manage change and do more with what you have. If you sign up now, you will receive our free resource on the 4 main ways to improve services, cut costs, and improve service effectiveness.

There is a very good reason why I spend so much time talking to Community organization staff about project management. Good project management skills help lead to successful projects, which in turn has direct and indirect benefits to your clients. Listen in to this week's episode to learn the 6 main reasons why and how project management skills are so important for organizations. Want Some Powerful Tools and Tips to Reduce Costs and Improve Services? Sign up for our weekly email blast to get the latest podcasts, blogs, and surprise content that helps community and broader public sector staff to plan and manage change and do more with what you have. If you sign up now, you will receive our free resource on the 4 main ways to improve services, cut costs, and improve service effectiveness.

In this episode we go over how to start your project off with a bang. It is important to take a moment or two and set things up properly so that your project can run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. To achieve this, I start every project – regardless of size – with a “Project Foundations” stage. In this episode, we describe what this first phase is, and give you five really solid reasons why you should start with this preparation stage versus starting off with the fun project work you are dying to get to. We also make suggestions on the main activities in this stage, and we talk about the main outcomes you should be achieving. Want Some Powerful Tools and Tips to Reduce Costs and Improve Services? Sign up for our weekly email blast to get the latest podcasts, blogs, and surprise content that helps community and broader public sector staff to plan and manage change and do more with what you have. If you sign up now, you will receive our free resource on the 4 main ways to improve services, cut costs, and improve service effectiveness.

In this weeks episode, I provide a little magic fairy dust. I help you find time to work on your project! This is typically one of the biggest constraints that busy people have when taking on projects. I go through the main reasons why you don't have time, but more importantly I provide 5 tried and tested ways to make managing project work take less time. Want Some Powerful Tools and Tips to Reduce Costs and Improve Services? Sign up for our weekly email blast to get the latest podcasts, blogs, and surprise content that helps community and broader public sector staff to plan and manage change and do more with what you have. If you sign up now, you will receive our free resource on the 4 main ways to improve services, cut costs, and improve service effectiveness.

Did you know there is one tool that can help you succeed at projects more so than just about any other? This unsung approach and tool is one of the least talked about control tools in project management circles, but is one of the most important reasons any of my projects have succeeded or failed. I am talking about a stakeholder analysis and engagement tool. It is simple to build, easy to use, but oh so highly effective. In this episode we dive into what it is, why it is so important, and how to use it.

In this episode we will teach you how to create a checklist from the factors that lead to successful projects. These factors are pretty consistent across small and large projects; in this episode we will teach you what they are and how to use them to make sure you are setting up your project for success every time.

Most organizations have many projects on the go, and most of the time they don't have the time or the budget to hire an external consultant to do the work. I recently read a stat that said that 46% of organizations admit to not fully understanding the value of project management, and even fewer actually have organized project management practices, but more than 90% are pretty sure they need more. Yet, one the “joys” of working in the community sector is that there is constant change in terms of expectations, service models and funding, and that means There is a constant need for many small, medium or large complex projects to help review, revise, improve or transform your organization and service delivery models In my experience, most of the time the EA or CEO will need to turn to the management team or staff to figure out how to do the project – whether it is small or large and complex. That's just life. So if you are asked to run a project, but you aren't a trained project manager what do you do? You don't have time to get certified in project management or to learn business skills, and besides you probably don't need to learn that much. Here are 4 ways that a non-trained or non-experienced person can set things up to make sure they are successful. I actually use most of these myself on my projects to this day. Use a trusted Framework Use a framework that you trust that models for you the phases and steps in a project This is actually how the big consulting firms teach their consultants how to manage projects Frameworks are useful because they give you guidance on phases, milestones, activities, and potential deliverables You start with the framework and then you can add, delete, reivse and adjust Industry standard tools Similar to the framework, if you can find tools that help you with setting up and managing your project processes it can really help There are tools and templates out there for project plans, risk plans, quality plans and a whole bunch of other project controls Use a checklist for setting up a successful project One of the most useful tricks you can do is to use a successful project checklist – make a checklist of what makes a project successful, and make sure you have those components in your project There are so many different studies out there all covering the topic of successful projects. The trick for community and BPS Organizations is that the context of your projects is kind of different than for private sector ones, so you have to be aware of those If you still aren't sure about that, then tune in next week and I will give you one! Learn from others One way that works super well is to learn from others I do this on a lot of my projects, even though I am experienced Find another organization similar to yours that completed a similar project, and contact them. Ask them how they did it, what was successful for them and why, what challenges they faced and how they overcame them I can sometimes get their sample deliverables or project controls to help use to build my own Sometimes they will also act as advisors So that is it for today's episode. If you like this content, or think someone else can use, please share it with them wherever you consume your podcasts. Or you can share a link for our podcast or blog page off of our website at www.scg.team

This episode introduces 5 steps to creating a project plan for just about any kind of project. You can use these steps for small projects or for big projects, and you don't have to have any sort of project management training to use this approach.

Have you ever struggled with figuring out how to plan and manage a transformation project? No idea of what to include? Uncertain if you are arranging things correctly? Well then today's episode is for you. I introduce you to a seriously useful 5-Step framework that you can use to plan and manage just about any transformation project. You can use this framework on large, complex projects just as easily as smaller projects. It lays out the main phases you can use to organize all of your activities. And it has been battled tested on literally hundreds of projects.

In our first episode, we are starting at the beginning! This episode is about the key things you need to focus on when you are planning out a transformation project of any kind. We go over the 3 main things to focus on when planning a project; these are the things you think about right at the beginning before you do anything else. We also review the 7 main questions you can ask yourself that will help you figure out all the information you need to plan and manage any project. In fact, the answers to those 7 questions will help you create your project charter, a project plan, a communication plan, a risk plan and any other project management planning tool you want to use. Finally, in this episode we will give you 5 steps you can take to implement this approach every time, regardless of the size of the project.