No one will argue that the Charlottesville protests weren't a tragic series of events that could have been handled so much better. At the very least, the protests should never have led to someone's death. No protest ever should. and our own President of the United States, for reasons only he really knows, showed much less emotion and compassion than most of his other communications and was even silent for 2 days concerning the tragic events taking place in Virginia.

In the business world that can't happen. It shouldn't in the presidential realm either, but I don't have any influence there. But in the business world I can speak to how this affects employees, customers, neighbors and friends and everyone we interact with. Two days of silence over the biggest national issue at that moment. Should not happen.

So how does this translate to the business world? What can business owners take from this tragic event and our president's reaction to it as they consider how to deal with their own critical issues and unfortunate customer situations? Let's consider...

Be swift when responding to negative issues. Don't disappear. No true leader hides his head in the sand when things go bad. React quickly and decisively. Be bold. If something is wrong with a product or service, do not be passive or dismissive or try to blame others. Take ownership and take corrective action quickly. You'll be respected for it. Trust me.

Be honest and open in your responses. No BS. People can see through that. When the chips are down most people know when you are being sincere. If your opinion is unpopular, you still need to go with that - at least it's showing leadership and control of the situation. But hiding and failing to respond or giving a wimpy response is worse than no response at all. If a customer wants something for free and you know it's going to cost them $5,000 then tell them. Better to get the train moving forward than to string them along with false hope. I've dealt with enough clients who have wanted my services but couldn't really afford to pull the trigger. It would have been far better to clarify that upfront to me than to string me along for six months wasting my time providing them with information, samples and phone calls. It happened just today with a customer I've been negotiating with off and on for 13 months. Today the CEO – with invoice in hand – says they don't have budget available for the work after coming to an agreement on price offerings and services at least five times in the past year. That's a year I can't get back.

Extended silence only causes growing concern. When something is big, respond. Consider things carefully of course, but two days for something big is far too long. You need to take in as much information as possible but when the most powerful man in the free world says he was taking time to collect and consider the facts that is BS. It was an unfortunate situation where someone died at the hands of a crazy man terrorist. That's an easy and quick response. If a customer, employee or investor or whatever has something big - no matter if it's your fault or within your control or if you don't even hardly know or like the person - respond with concern and interest. Respond. Communication is key and the lack of it shows no leadership at all.

Summary

The bottom line is this - how we respond to bad issues, negative information or tragedy often defines who we are - at least in the eyes of others. And when you are a small business owner that can affect you negatively or positively for a long time to come. Especially in this day of real time news and feedback. People expect 24/7 awareness so you will never get yourself off the hook saying you were collecting facts for two days. It just won't work.

The first thing we all want is for our work – our project efforts – to be successful. But at the end of the day we must also show profitability for those project efforts. The last thing anyone wants is to get caught up in a consulting or PM engagement that costs them lots of time and effort and in the end makes them very little money. It’s frustrating, it’s counter-productive, and it almost certainly ensures you won’t have return business with that particular customer.

The key is to safeguard your efforts – safeguard the profitability of the engagement. To do that, there are many things to keep in mind when you’re discussing the project with the customer, scoping and pricing the project, and then executing on the project through to completion. I've selected five to consider...

Stay on plan. This may be the most important concept of the five and it probably overlaps, to some degree, with most of the other four. What is meant by “stick to the plan” is this...having the ability to do most or all of the following:

• Say no to the customer when necessary
• Stand firm for what you believe to be the necessary tasks
• Be confident and unwavering when directing the activities of others
• Stand firm to prices quoted and stand behind your estimate and the work involved

Customers in all lines of work and in every industry want something for less. Stand firm. Stay true to your expertise. Be confident. In the end, you’ll be more profitable for it and you’ll have customers who truly need your expertise and are willing to trust you and pay you for it.

Know what the work really costs you to perform. In order to be a profitable on the project, you must – and this is critical but many stumble here – know your cost of doing business. Be real – figure in your overhead expenses in the equation and look forward to things like driving, potential air travel, phone time, supplies, some wiggle room in the scope that you know you may need to give away without putting up a fight, etc. After looking at all those things and probably more, you’ll know your cost of doing business. You’ll know what you need to bring in per hour to make a particular engagement possible. Unless you’re practice is new, you should be able to come up with this fairly quickly and even ballpark an estimate on the spot for a potential client in order to get the quick ‘in’ on the possible work that is laying before you.

Know the the value of your work and price it right. Understand what the project services should bring in and go with that. No one is going to pay $200,000 for what you are offering if similar services can be had from other organizations for $150,000. That applies to IT projects in the same way. We have to understand what the ceiling we’re going to get in terms of rate, or price, or contract. We have to understand our earnings limitations within our main client base and work with those limitations. If we fail to understand all of that, then we risk alienating current and new clients and decreasing our earning potential and profitability.

Remember that scope management is critical to profitability. Scope management is always an issue when managing a customer or a consulting engagement. You document the work as ‘x’ in the estimate and then likely in a signed contract. However, throughout the project the customer may insert some other ‘needs’ that he just has to have and he may try to convince you that they are really part of other requirements – assumptions that are being turned into real work requests. Be careful. Don’t let that line in the sand move too much. This goes back to also sticking to the plan and being stubborn. Be ready to discuss these changes that you are perceiving that are coming from the customer. Analyze them carefully and if they are truly outside of the original scope of the agreement, let the customer decide if it’s something they need and are willing to pay for or if it’s something they can do without.

Strategically advertise. Practice strategic advertising. Word of mouth works great. Testimonials from satisfied customers posted prominently on your website are great ways to show potential customers that you’ve been busy and you’ve been successful. Write press releases about your offerings and post them to free press release sites on a regular basis. Write white papers and articles on the subject matter that you are an expert in post them on your own blog or guest post them somewhere. All of these can be huge boosts to your project management and professional services businesses.

Summary / call for input

Project managers and independent consultants must understand their customer base, their area, and their customers habits and needs in order to fully realize the best profitability on the projects and consulting engagements they are leading. When profit margins are tight, every effort counts and that means detailed scope management, creative advertising, careful cost control, and planning...planning...planning.

Readers – whether you are a project manager, project team member or consultant, what measures do you take to help ensure lower costs and overall project profitability. What would you add to this list. Please share and discuss.  

Becoming a certified project manager through the Project Management Institute (PMI) and coming out with your project management professional (PMP) certification in hand requires time, money, commitment, and dedication to your profession. Plus an agreement and understanding that such a certification makes a difference in your career, your advancement within the profession and how you will perform going forward as a project manager.

I, personally, believe that pursuing and obtaining PMP certification will help you in your career, will make you a better project manager, and is worth the time and effort it takes to get there. Do you have it in you? Yes, you do. Can you get there alone? I don't know. But I do know that an organization like PPM Global Services can help you get there. Plus, they take the worries out of many things associated with the PMP exam process...

You are guaranteed to pass. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. While not everyone passes the first time around when taking the PMP exam, with PPM Global Services you can rest assured that you will get there without paying for more training. If you fail to pass on your first try, you can continue to attend any of their public 3-day PMP Boot Camp classes until you do pass. So no more training dollars. Time, yes, but no more money.

The training time commitment is minimized. Most of us lead pretty busy lives – both personally and professionally. And they are always mixing and affecting each other. So when you must train for something like this, the last thing you want to do expensive traveling somewhere to take a two week training course. There just aren't enough hours in the day or days in the week. With the boot camp process they offer, PPM Global Services gives you a thorough training in 3 days. It's live, instructor led and in your own home or place of work...yes, online and not in person. Welcome to the 21st century. They get it – you need the right training, you need it fast, and you need it where you are...not where they are.

Provides you with necessary education hours required by PMI for certification. You come out of the boot camp with your training certificate in hand. But beyond that, it provides you with education hours you need to satisfy PMI's requirement for PMP certification. When finished, you'll have 35 hours of training. Through 27 hours of live instruction and 8 hours of online courses, you will have 35 approved hours of training and education you need for PMI certification.

Summary / call for input

You're a dedicated project manager. Do you need to be certified? No, it's not required. You can certainly be a project manager and perform professionally and successful without certification. But PMP certification can help you in several ways: career advancement, PM confidence, potentially a more successful PM career going forward, a common understanding of the details of the profession and best practices, and the readiness to apply for and obtain many desirable project management positions that are preferring PMP certification. Yes, it takes time, dedication and dollars. But if you're looking for great training with a guarantee without an extensive timeframe added on, you'll get that with PPM Global Services.

Readers – what are your thoughts? Are you thinking about pursuing certification but have been less than confident about passing and what it's going to take to get there?Or perhaps you have your PMP certification now and can share how it's helped you in your career and on your project engagements.

2017 PMP Classes:
September:  3-Day PMP Boot Camp (Sept. 18-20)
November:  3-Day PMP Boot Camp (Nov. 6-8)
Note: Using the the discount code BRAD500 will allow for $500 off any of their 2017 classes. 

​Each project resource on your very talented project team has his or her own unique talents that they bring to the engagement. Managing that team should have to be too hard. However, they do each come to the table with their own unique experiences, behaviors, attitudes, egos, and beliefs about how things should be done...

All you current, future, past, aspiring, and one-off project managers out there...to certify or not to certify? Where do you stand on the topic of project management certification as a way to be the best, show you're the best, and give yourself the best chance at project success and project customer satisfaction?

Is PMP certification a career goal of yours? Do you think it is necessary for your PM career advancement? Or perhaps you are searching for a new PM gig and you think it will help you land a lucrative PM role or contract. Whatever the potential reasoning...will it help? Yes. Will it make you a better project manager? Yes. Is it absolutely necessary and would I only hire certified project managers. No. I know too many extremely successful project managers who aren't certified. I couldn't bypass a great PM with lots of project successes under his or her belt if I was looking to hire. And I have created PMOs and hired project managers along the way. But certification gives a validation you can't easily show in any other way – there is no question about that. So let's consider 5 advantages to obtaining PMP certification...

The PMP gives you the advantage. All things being equal, the PMP doesn't necessarily make someone a project manager. That said, if you have two people of equal qualifications and demonstrated capabilities - the project manager who has gone the extra yard to earn the PMP is likely going to show more consistent project success on an ongoing basis.

Certification shows a commitment to the profession. You can definitely manage projects – and succeed at managing projects – without PMP certification. However, the certified PM has demonstrated a different level of commitment to the profession of project management by making the effort to earn the industry standard certification.

PMP certification shows that you have demonstrated yourself to have the requisite knowledge for the globally accepted standards of project management. This is not a minor demonstration in today's global economy. Being aligned with the global standard of project management can significantly reduce mis-understandings in how to do the work of project management. In a profession like project management where communication and common understanding can mean the difference between success and failure, this is critical.

Certification shows a willingness to accept the requirements of leadership with respect to projects. PMP certification shows the person has the maturity to accommodate the global standards for project management even though they themselves may in fact have their own best practices they prefer. Again this is a significant demonstration that they can also accommodate others' different ideas in how to get the job done. No man is an island - being able to work together with others improves success of an organization.

Certification shows dedication to a course of study to a level of discipline and rigor to pass a difficult certification exam. Do you want project managers who aren't willing to go the extra mile to ensure your projects will succeed? Do you want project managers who have shown that they are willing to go through a training and testing process to certify themselves in their chosen field.  Probably.  Some or all may not have the time to prep, study and take the exam due to current workloads. But if it's also important to the employer, they will make the time for their PM resources – possibly even offer bonus or promotion or salary increase offers as incentives to get certified. One of my employers offered a large boost in salary for PMP certification.

Summary / call to action

The bottom line is this – is it important enough to you and to your customer and to your employer and for your career to get certified in project management? If it matters to you, then stop making excuses and do it. It will only help you become a better project manager. Certification will open many options for the newer project manager and open new options for the more experienced project managers out there. Recruiters and companies seem to not be “requiring” certification much anymore, but most are still listing it as “preferred” and my guess is that the underlying theme is that they are basically requiring it. Do it – you won't regret it.

Readers - please share your thoughts and experiences on the needs and benefits of PMP certification?  Do you think it's necessary?  If you are certified, how have you benefited and why do you think it's important? 

​A high turnover rate is always an unwelcome sign, especially for project managers who rely on a committed team. The scouting and rehiring process costs precious money and time, resources that could be better used on completing company projects. Fortunately, there are ways to retain your workforce that don’t just rely on giving raises. Here are eight organic strategies that can improve your employee retention rate...