Facilitating The Project Lifecycle: Skills & Tools To Accelerate Progress For Project Managers,Facilitators, And Six Sigma Project Teams

Step by step, Facilitating the Project Lifecycle guides the project manager/facilitator in making smart choices about when and how to pull key talent together to spell success for the project and ultimately the organization. The authors will help you understand the benefits of using facilitated group work sessions to get real work done during a project and get it done better and more efficiently than more traditional individual work approaches. In addition, the book includes:

• Recommendations for capitalizing on group knowledge to accelerate the building of key project deliverables and ensure their quality as they are built
• A work session structure for planning, delivering, and following up facilitated work sessions
• Guides for building key project deliverables
• Sample agendas
• Proven techniques for managing the group dynamics

Janet A. Means is cofounder of Resource Advantage, Inc., a consulting and training firm specializing in business process innovation, organizational productivity improvement, and information technology planning and design. She is a certified professional facilitator with the International Association of Facilitators.

Tammy Adams is the managing partner of Chaosity LLC, a consulting firm specializing in collaborative techniques for business process improvement and project acceleration. She is a certified professional facilitator and certified quality manager.

Tables, Figures, and Exhibits.

Acknowledgments.

The Authors.

Introduction.

PART 1: THE POWER OF THE PARTNERSHIP: PROJECTS AND FACILITATION.

Section 1: The Commitment to Perform.

1. Old Dogs and New Tricks.

2. Facilitation Within the Project Lifecycle.

Section 2: The Ability to Perform.

3. Who’s on First?

4. What Effective Facilitation Is and Is Not.

PART 2: THE PARTNERSHIP IN PRACTICE: MAKING FACILITATED WORK SESSIONS WORK.

Section 3: Work Session Basics.

5. Making Work Sessions Work.

6. The Work Session Tightrope.

7. Preparing for the Work Session.

8. Conducting the Work Session.

9. Wrapping Up the Work Session.

Section 4: Facilitating the Deliverable.

10. Establishing the Project Charter.

11. Analyzing and Designing Business Processes.

12. Defining Business Requirements.

13. Assessing Risks.

14. Convening Work-in-Progress Reviews.

PART 3: THE TECHNIQUES.

Section 5: General Facilitation Techniques: Engaging the Group.

15. It’s All About Communication.

16. Flip-Charting.

17. Brainstorming.

18. Facilitated Dialogue.

19. Nominal Group and Affinity Analysis.

20. Prioritization Techniques.

21. Breakout Groups.

22. Staying On Track: Agendas, Action Items, and Other Focusing Techniques.

Section 6: Specialized Facilitation Techniques: Building the Deliverables.

23. Creating a Purpose Statement.

24. Defining Objectives and Targets.

25. Scope Framing.

26. Guiding Factors: Assumptions, Constraints, Dependencies, and Touch Points.

27. Discovering Impacts.

28. Risk Analysis Matrices.

29. Process Decomposition.

30. Process Mapping.

31. Process Detail Table.

32. Context Diagramming.

33. Requirements Table.

34. Developing a Timeline.

PART 4: RESOURCES.

A. Cross-Reference Tables for Tools and Techniques.

B. Recommended Books and Journals.

C. Recommended Web Sites.

D. Recommended Organizations.

References.

Index.

Templates on CD-ROM.

How to Use the Accompanying CD-ROM.