June 15 – 19 SAPM Stanford Courses at Stanford Campus

Converting Strategy Into Action (CSIA)  June 15 – 17

Managing Without Authority (MWA) June 15 – 17

Leading Effective Teams (LET) June 17 – 19

Build Winning Stakeholder Commitments (BWSC) formerly called Leveraging the Customer Relationship (LCR) June 17 – 19

SAVE over $250! Register by May 6th to take advantage of the Early Registration discount.

Call 1-866-802-1152 or visit SAPM online.

Recent post from Harvard had three key items for teams  that are facing changes:

Team-building exercises can be a helpful way to regroup after layoffs or restructuring. Create a productive exercise for your team with these three tips:
1. Acknowledge tough times. Recognize the difficulties but don’t let things devolve into a gripe session. Instead, refocus on the path ahead.
2. Keep it relevant. The best exercises involve real-world problems, not just fun activities. Have your team solve an immediate or pressing business issue and be sure they can build on what they’ve learned when they return to work.
3. Customize the program to your team. Don’t use an off-the-shelf model for your team-building activity. Use an approach that fits your company and team culture.

APPLICATION (for Project-based Work (PBW) Teams):

For distributed teams, also include “touching base” with each team member virtually with web cams. Focus  not just on the team’s work but also on:

• how the individual is coping
• support for innovative ideas and approaches
• what’s working
• what you can do as a leader to enhance their work environment
• future PBW that may be appealing to the member’s skills, experience, and aspirations

This is a great resource with comprehensive links that cover the entire field.  Periodically updated as well.  Software Project Management Respources-Columbia University

If your work in China or lead project-based work involving China, its citizens, its business, place a recent McKinsey Global Institute study on Chinese cities, Preparing for China’s Urban Billion, on your reading list.  The Executive Summary (37 pages) is good place to start.

Executive summary

If current trends hold, nearly one billion people will live in urban centers by 2025, bringing enormous pressure points to many cities, including the challenges of securing sufficient public funding for the provision of social services and dealing with demand and supply pressures on land, energy, water, and the environment. MGI finds that a more concentrated pattern of urbanization is most likely to mitigate pressures and increase the overall productivity of the urban system, while encouraging “urban productivity” initiatives at the city level could also generate substantial positive outcomes in all scenarios.