60 Insights About Project Management Leadership, Mindset, Communication, Productivity and Tools [Curated List]
A mini-course to become great at managing your projects.
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Happy New Year!
I wish you all the best for 2025 and beyond and hope you have had a great start into the new year.
In today’s newsletter, I’m sharing my best articles I wrote about project management in the last year.
This way you not only get an overview of my writing about project management in one place but also can re-read and dive deeper into the topics that will help you the most to get a head-start in 2025.
At this point, thank you for reading The Stoic Project Manager. I am happy to receive feedback anytime, just e-mail me at alex@stoicvlaue.com.
There is much in store for this year, about project management (e.g. I will share my PM framework with you), business consulting and I will also be revisiting investment research.
Stay tuned!
So, here we go:
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Project & Team Leadership
Lessons About Leadership: 5 Lessons 2 Dogs Taught Me About Leadership And How You Can Apply Them Yourself To Lead With Calm Assertiveness
Calm assertiveness wins the race.
A leader walks ahead, aka leads by example.
Your (physical) presence is how you show your priorities.
Setting boundaries isn’t a sign of ignorance; it’s a way to clearly communicate the decisions you made.
Understanding your team: Stoic Leadership: Managing 4 Different Personality Types On Your Team - And How To Go About Developing Them
Teach the eager learners and invest in their development.
Challenge the "difficult" but support them and help them rise.
Lead the strong with humility and outwork them without making them feel small.
Empower competent and cooperative individuals to lead.
Team Building Exercise: The 20-Minute Exercise To Improve Your Team’s Empathy And Helping You Beat Self-Doubt - Start your next team meeting with this simple team-bonding technique
More appreciation and empathy will make working in a team easier and more enjoyable.
Writing what you appreciate about others will put you in a positive mindset.
Having a list of traits other people like about you will make it easier to get into a positive mood when you are stuck in negative thoughts.
Key Skills for PMs: The key skills every project manager needs to have. It's more than just knowing about Kanban boards
Project management is change management. And to foster change, communication is key.
Be inherently curious and want to drive change in the world.
Have an interest in other human beings and the ability to lead them.
Be an excellent communicator and strive to leave each meeting with a clear plan on how to move forward - and help the meeting participants to see the path in front of them more clearly.
Change Management: Master The Art Of Change Management With Lewin's Unfreeze-Change-Refreeze Model
Unfreeze, change and refreeze are the three steps to bring about effective and lasting change.
Clear, honest and timely communication plays a major role in the successful implementation of change initiatives.
Change management is about making sure no one is left behind and all fears about the uncertain future are addressed.
Mindset, Psychology & Philosophy
Jump-starting new projects: 3 Things That Will Ease Your Start In A New Job Or Project Role. Giving a f**k about making a great first impression isn't one of them
Introduce yourself individually to your team members and people you are going to work with in your first few weeks by setting up short coffee meetings.
Introduce change gradually, respect what others have built.
Gain the respect of the people in our organisation by helping them solve their challenges.
Self-Empowerment: Drop The Victim’s Mentality: Readjusting Expectations To Solve “Problems” In Project Management
What is, is - accepting reality is the first step of not being against it.
The attention from others when you pity yourself, feels good - but self-pity doesn't help you to tackle the challenge in front of you.
There are 146 different solutions to your "problem" - there is always a way.
Stress Reduction: Closing Open Loops And Reducing Stress With The Stressor Mind Map
Mapping out what concerns you will give you peace of mind and brings you closer to getting things done.
You can do a Stressor Mind Map in as little as 15 minutes.
This technique will also help you to figure out if there are specific themes that worry you at the moment, that you were not fully aware of.
Beating procrastination: Stress, Procrastination and Productivity Tips for a more successful implementation of your tasks
Stress occurs because of unclear expectations, an unclear approach, limited resources or because we don’t know if it’s worthwhile.
Our brain will always take the path of least resistance and try to produce coherence with minimal energy expenditure.
Baby steps, time pressure, an accountability partner, turned-off notifications and the “focus traffic light” can help us focus and get things done.
Communication & Feedback
Effective E-Mails: A Military Approach On How To Write Effective Emails That Will Be Read And Understood
Write clear subject lines by using keywords or references that help the reader to grasp instantly what your email is about.
Start your message with the most important piece of information - don’t burry it in the fine print.
Great communication is a skill that can be learned. Stand out and become a more effective project manager with crafting effective emails.
Constructive Feedback: How To Use This Simple, 3-Step Feedback Method To Supercharge Your Project Management
Ask for feedback by having people start their sentences with “I like, I wish, I wonder”.
Foster an open, collaborative yet structured feedback culture in your projects.
It’s a simple enough, yet powerful technique to not only get to what could be improved but also to understand what went well and learn what other topics could be addressed in the future.
Efficient Meetings: 11 Tips To Keep Your Meetings Efficient And Impactful
Meetings are the collaboration tool #1 and the most expensive activity companies regularly participate in.
Take an active role in meetings where you think your perspective could help find a solution.
To make every meeting effective and a success, make sure everyone is on the same page and that the meeting produces a tangible output.
Digitalisation, IT & Productivity Skills
MS Excel Hacks: The 10 Commandments Of Excel
When keeping certain best practices in mind, working and collaborating with Excel will become a breeze.
Efficient use of MS Excel most often does not come from knowing all the formulas - but from structuring the file properly.
Answer the question at the end and get access to a free 10-days e-mail course about MS Excel.
IT-System-Map: How IT-System Mapping Helped Our Project Team To Get From Chaos To Clarity
An IT-System-Map gives you clarity about the tools your organisation uses and how their dependencies are.
Identify inefficiencies, potential for process automatisation and use it as a communication tool.
Keep it simple: Use Excel to quickly draft your IT-System-Map.
A Framework For Project Success: 4 Success Factors In Any Digitalisation Project
Great digital project management is more than managing time, cost and scope.
It's about employees, processes, data and applications.
Being aware of those four success factors will help you to improve your rate of successfully implementing digital solutions.
A Framework For Project Productivity: How To Get Things Done In The Workplace
Short weekly project meetings can serve as the heart beat of your project and keep things moving forward.
Project management is actually less about tasks and to-dos, and more about addressing and dealing with uncertainty.
If you want to get things done, schedule it, structure it & succeed.
The 3-2-1-Post-It-Hack: An Entire Productivity Framework in 3 Minutes: Get Things Done Today The Guaranteed But Old-School Way
In a nutshell: The three easiest or most important or urgent tasks, two minutes per task of effort, all on one post-it.
The important thing is to get moving, to start building momentum towards completing tasks.
Sometimes it’s the most basic and old-school ways to approach things that work.
Project Management Tools
Template For RASCI Matrix: A Quick Guide On How To Clarify Responsibilities In Processes & Projects
Productivity comes from clarity about who does what.
By defining roles and responsibilities, you counter misunderstandings and inaction.
A RASCI matrix is a tool for project as well as process management.
Digital PM Toolkit: Don’t Lose Oversight Of Your Project Tasks: How To Integrate Microsoft’s Toolkit For Effective Project Management
Integrating the different tools Microsoft offers us for project and task management can be difficult to figure out.
Know which tools to use for what and leverage six of the most used MS platforms.
Find what works for you and your team and re-iterate constantly to improve your tool set-up.
I hope you found some interesting insights, tools, tips or framework for your project work.
It would go a long way, if you could share this with someone who could equally benefit from learning what you have just learned.
Happy 2025.
PS: What’s your new year’s resolution for your projects?
Wow! This was a great read. Very powerful insights for PMs. Thank you for this content.