by Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, CAL, CPD, RYT
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Since 2001, we have been helping people get and stay Project Management Professional (PMP) certified.  Many of these folks stay in touch with us – especially those who continue to take Cheetah Learning professional development courses to maintain their PMP certification or earn new PM certs through Cheetah Learning.

Sometimes we hear from folks who are not yet PMP certified who are disillusioned with the PMP certification overall as they don’t see PMP’s around them making that much of a difference as Project Managers.  While I can’t speak for other’s experiences,  what I have noticed is there are two camps of people who become PMP certified:

Those who see becoming a PMP as an endpoint and they then rest on their laurels.

vs.

Those who see becoming a PMP as a starting point where they then start to up the ante on their impact as a project manager...

By Mark Engelberg
CEO, TimeLinx Software, Inc.
Project & Service Automation

Let's consider this situation from a couple of perspectives. It could be that the corporate project manager who you thought was helping land a large project decided not to choose you. Or maybe you were working with a consultant trying to land a client for a one-off project, and the client who initially seemed very interested walked away away after a few rounds of negotiations. You're thinking "they are walking away from a great opportunity over $2500... What cheapskates!". I just had that happen to me about 5 minutes ago for the umpteenth time, and every time you want to yell back at them "your loss!". But you don't, of course. You realize that somewhere along the line you failed to show that the return on investment of your offering was best. Ultimately, that's on you.
So what do you do? Here are a few ways you can try to earn back that potential project or the client that went away. I've used these to successfully... and you can as well.

Show them proven success. Show them how you've managed similar project budgets before. Show them the task and time management tools you used to capture critical data on projects accurately and efficiently and how that translates to good project management and high percentages of project success. Customers are always - ALWAYS - concerned about the financial side of the project. Show them you are "on it."

Give them something of noticeable value for free. Anyone can toss in a meaningless freebie. But you're reading this because you're interested in getting back a client of importance. So give them something good such as a valuable deliverable, an assessment, a review of the project plan for free. Put some thought and effort into what would be appreciated by the client and demonstrate your skills at the same time. Just don't give away so much that your project proposal is now not profitable. This should not be articulated as a discount, either, or they will ask for price consideration every time thereafter.

Be persistent. You must walk the fine line between persistence and annoyance. Know and recognize the difference and look for signs of irritation. Back off if you see that getting them onboard for this project will never happen. But I've had several project customers tell me that they liked and admired my persistence and eventually chose my project management skills or consulting services because they knew I was out there and could handle what they needed right away. Keeping in touch with newsletters, helpful tips, or forwarded articles show your interested in working with them in the future.

Always follow through. Beyond persistence and the freebies is the follow through. If you said you were going to get a revised proposal to them by next Tuesday, don't miss that date. Missing a meaningful date will reinforce their original position to bypass your offer. Give them no new or additional reasons to reject you – make your promptness, persistence and accuracy make them want to do business with you.

Summary / call for input

The bottom line is this... you can't make a client choose you. But if you offer enough and show enough value, it's likely that they will eventually give your services or project expertise a go. The effort may have outweighed the value of the agreement you eventually enter into so you have to be careful there and know when to walk away. It's always your call.

Readers – what's your take? What measures have you taken to gain or win back a lost client? Please share and discuss.

If you do need the “best of the best”, then what skills or characteristics are you looking for?  What defines the best for your organization’s project needs?  While BAs are not project managers, the most successful BAs manage the entire business analysis effort. This means that the BA is proactive and dependency-aware. It also means they manage themselves well, the stay on track with respect to commitments and deadlines and can handle task delegation, decision making and issue management as needed on the project.
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I’ve thought about the overall skill set and characteristics needed to pull this role off efficiently and productively and coupled it with my experience leading projects, working in combined project manager and business analyst roles I’ve come up with my list of a few characteristics of an awesome business analyst.  As you are reading through these, please be thinking of your own personal experiences and comment with your additions to this list…

We are making major technological advances every year...every month...every day even. Some affect just a few of us while some have a lasting effect on a large portion of the population.
​Looking at needs from my work and consulting perspective, there are always some “nice to haves” out there think I think should eventually be in place to make our lives, careers, and project successes better and more frequent. What's on your list? Please read mine – these seven for now... and probably later – and share your thoughts and lists...

1 - I Call This One The Tupac

Holographic imaging should be huge over the next 5-10 years. If it isn't, then someone is doing something wrong. I cover this in my 3D Project Management topics, but at its basic level we should be able to conduct interactive meetings and conferences without flying across the country to meet face to face. And I'm not just talking about a head image in a box. I'm talking about project meetings where everyone is sitting at the same table and also using whiteboards or whatever in full body presence. If Tupac can perform posthumously at the huge Coachella music festival as a holograph and dance and sing then I would like to think we can figure out a way to put 10 bodies in one room from 7 different locations and save all the airline, hotel, cab and meal costs. Millions in savings every year and possibly a few lives not having your CEO on a plane when it falls from the sky.

Ok, so maybe you would't be taking project management training and certification classes if you were stranded on a desert island. This is basically a take off of those arguments people go through like... “If you were stranded on a desert island what 10 albums would you want to have with you?” (of course, Cheap Trick at Budokan would have to be one of them, right?)

But now I'm talking in terms of project management training and project management professional (PMP) certification training and testing. Who is the best? Who would you want to have as your one provider if you were stranded but still somewhat managing projects and trying to become a better project manager? Wow... talk about remote project management and managing virtual teams. Desert island project management would be remote project management on steroids I guess. I'd try it!

Cheetah Learning was the first company to offer Accelerated PMP Exam Prep over 15 years ago. Cheetah Learning has a consistent 98% pass rate and 95% of their business is referrals from their large and very successful alumni base. Cheetah Learning students and the companies they serve become the top performers in their industries. They offer PMP, PMI-ACP, CAPM, and CCPM prep courses as well as continuing education classes in a variety of project management, negotiations, and accelerated learning topics. Oh, and you WILL pass the PMP - it's guaranteed by Cheetah!

Cheetah Learning is not like the other training and certification programs or organizations. What they give you is more of a full life plan. It will seriously change the way you live in other aspects of your life. You will find yourself approaching, planning, living and succeeding differently than you ever have before. You won't be Superman, but you will accomplish more in a more efficient and effective manner and you will see it as it's happening - and others will, too.

Awww perfection. We usually strive for it but never attain it.The perfect project? That's never going to happen. There are just too many variables on every project. There perfect project manager? The right training may help you get there but all the way to perfection? I'm skeptic. The perfect project customer? What do you think? The perfect project team? How is that possible? The perfect project meeting? Now... A project meeting is something with very few or mostly no variables and it can be perfected. I am going to discuss how this can be a reality for you every time and it isn't that hard. Let's discuss my 4 step process for planning for, assembling and pulling off the perfect project meeting... Hold your comments till the end please...

Plan well. First off, great project meetings have a specific purpose and they accomplish that purpose. And it all starts with proper planning. Plan out an agenda and identify key project status updates that make sense to go along with it. Why not get things done, decisions made AND keep everyone up to date on current project status and what's hot all at the same time? And plan for an hour or less whenever possible. Your attendance will always be highest if people know you aren't planning to take up their whole mornings or afternoons.

Send out materials in advance. The most productive participants will be the ones who know exactly what the meeting is going to be about and have advance materials so that they can come prepared to contribute and offer their own materials and participate efficiently and effectively in appropriate decision making.
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​Facilitate a timely and well orchestrated meeting. Start on time, end on time and stay on topic. If you gain the reputation as the meeting facilitator who always accomplishes those three things at every meeting then your attendance and participation will be high and your meetings will always be productive.

Followup. What is our goal every day on our projects? To have everyone on the same page with the same understanding of focus and direction. You can help ensure that after each meeting by following up with meeting notes and requesting feedback and updates within 24 hours. Then, resend any revisions to all participants to ensure everyone stays on the same page.

Summary / final tips / call for input

Communication is always Job One for the project manager and it remains the cornerstone to overall project success. And project meetings are a huge part of that communication on every project engagement. Training and certification help, but these other steps are necessary as well in order to be a great leader and meeting manager.

A few more tips to make your project meetings the best they can be...

• Aim for morning meeting times. People get sleepy and less productive after lunch and some don't come back from lunch.
• Don't be the guy who brings doughnuts. Food is not the reason for the meeting. And they make people sleepy.
  
  
• Never cancel standing meetings. If you don't have much to cover just go around the room looking for updates. You never know when you'll catch something that could have otherwise fallen through the cracks. Also, if you start to cancel to many standing meetings, people will stop coming.
  
  
• Consider banning laptops and tablets. Many people appear to be taking notes but may be doing their own “other” work or just surfing. It happens... I do it during long boring meetings.

Readers - what's your take? Do you agree?What are your tricks to make meetings more successful?