How to thrive in a recession? 10 tips to keep your job in growth trajectory!

The current recession is tougher and longer compare to the 2002 recession. We are seeing companies either goes out of business or acquired by competitors. In either case, the negative impact on employment opportunities are inevitable, it leads to fewer jobs and much tougher competition.

How to survive? It may not be difficult but needs some level of discipline and planning required personally and professionally.

1. Organizations rely on people who are capable of delivering the set target goals with constraints, we must be ready to embrace those challenges

2. Ability to do multi-tasking and multi-skills are key for survival

3. Always remember the three key traits: Offer your Flexibility, Availability and Unconditional support to your colleagues, direct reports, supervisor(s) and to your organization

4. Keep innovate to increase your productivity. It can be a better process to get your work done at faster rate, or new technique to do multiple tasks at parallel to reduce time and cost

5. Knowledge is wealth, that’s what it matters to businesses. New skills open a window of new opportunities and new opportunities creates a new platform for the growth. Help yourself by adding one new skill per year; you can make your job a recession proof, I can bet on it.

6. When businesses run at tighter budgets, the speed and accuracy of your job is critical. Must be in a position to balance these by delivering projects on time, may be that’s the way to do all the time?

7. Show your enthusiasm, honesty, dedication, audacity, and professionalism. The businesses knew that the employees who possess these traits are asset to their organization; you will not let go even at difficult times.

8. Avoid late office arrivals, non-business phone calls, frequent breaks, and any non-productive tasks. In normal business circumstances, these can be subjective and may be tolerable to an extent but not when business is at difficult economic times

9. Believe in your contribution to the organization, take a great pride, keep high spirits and positive attitude. If you have these, you will stand out in your organization because you are different.

10. Take the ownership and help your colleagues, help your team, and help your organization in whatever form you can to increase the bottom-line for your organization. By doing so, you would be taking a great advantage of the recession and making your position much stronger in the organization.

What's new in PMBOK fourth edition?

PMI has a revised edition of PMBOK released on January 1st, 2009. The new book is a 4th edition of PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) and has a numerous changes to the knowledge areas.

PMI will have the current 3rd edition of PMBOK for the PMP exam until June 30th, 2009 and those who take the exam later must follow the 4th edition of PMBOK

My top picks to look at it in the 4th edition of PMBOK

#1 Consistency & Clarifications

PMI has provided enhanced version of the process diagrams across all the process areas. It is used a standardized version of the process description in all the process areas. PMI has provided a better data flow diagrams to clarify the input sources and output destination of each process

PMI has provided a better clarity between 'project charter' and 'scope statement' by eliminating the redundancy. The process of 'Preliminary Scope Statement' was completely removed, because the fair amounts of preliminary scope details were documented in the 'Project Charter' document.

PMI has combined ‘corrective action, preventive action, defect repair, and requested changes’ as part of the 'change requests' process. By doing so, PMI has attempted to remove the redundancy and at the same time increasing the clarity of each sub-categories

#2 Close Project or Phase:

PMI has changed the process from 'Close Project' to 'Close Project or Phase'. Many big projects are carried out by phases, so project manager need to ensure all the required closure activities completed for that phase before move to the next phase or a new project. I guess, PMI wanted to ensure the project manager considers all the closure activities for each phase or project before move to the next phase or project.

#3 Project Scope Management changes:

Scope planning was replaced with collect requirements. Who defines the project scope? Project stakeholders, right! Then why scope planning? Collect requirements is the process of defining and documenting stakeholder's interest.

The stakeholder register is used to identify those with interest in the project, so PMI completely eliminated the scope planning so the same information can be obtained from charter document, and stakeholder register.

#4 Manage project team:

It is the process of tracking the team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and managing changes to optimize the project performance. The 4th edition of PMBOK moved this process from controlling to execution, since the activities are more proactive to assure the project performance. This is one of the most important parts of the project execution process. Team management involves a special emphasis on communication, conflict management, negotiation and leadership

To read more about this, refer PMBOK 4th edition, page# 236, section 9.4

#5 Stakeholder management in project communications

The new edition has given lot of emphasis on stakeholder management, two important changes identified in the 4th version of PMBOK, they are: 1. Identify stakeholders 2. Manage stakeholder expectations.

What is most important in project communications? Identify, collect, storage, retrieval, and distribute the project information to all the stakeholders. PMBOK has added a new process called ‘Identify Stakeholders’ in the communication management; it is primarily to ensure all the important stakeholders are intact required for the project.

How to identify stakeholders? As per PMI’s definition, it is the process of identifying all people or organizations impacted by the project, and documenting relevant information regarding their interests, involvement, and impact on project success.

PMI has also moved the process 'Manage stakeholder expectations' from controlling to execution phase, why? It is more appropriate to be in the execution phase so that the projects won't run out schedules, cost, and quality. It is more about doing upfront than later reporting or recording.

For more information, read the chapter #10, Project Communications Management plan.

#6 Project procurement management

PMI has consolidated the 6 procurement processes to 4 process areas (Plan, Conduct, Administer, and Close procurements). The processes 'Plan Purchase Acquisitions, and Plan Contracting' combined to Plan Procurements. The new process 'Plan Procurement' covers the process of documenting purchasing decisions, approaches, and identifying the potential sellers.

The other two processes that PMI has combined was 'Requesting seller responses, and select sellers' to 'Conduct Procurements'. It is the process of obtaining seller responses, selecting a seller, and awarding the contract.

In the current 4^th edition of PMBOK, PMI has made a lateral attempt to simplify the processes so that project managers and teams can better apply these principles to wide range of projects and industries.

#7 Interpersonal skills:

PMI has identified the 8 most important interpersonal skills required for a successful project manager, the follows:

Leadership, Team building, Motivation, Communication, Influencing, Decision Making, Political and cultural awareness, and Negotiation

I must ask every project manager go through those important traits of interpersonal skills and gauge yourself where you are....good luck....keep reading

Note: The source of this information is from the 4th edition of PMBOK, with my own narration of each change described above. Let me know what you think?