PROJECT IGNITION: When project leaders inherit or initiate a project, they start by positioning it within organizational priorities, and by identifying key stakeholders whose support is vital to project success.

PROJECT LAUNCH: Project leaders dedicate their early meetings with team members and key stakeholders to building project momentum. A participatory process clearly defines the project in a strategic context, builds commitment to projects success, shapes initial roles, assigns responsibilities, sets project timetables, and fleshes out action plans.

PROJECT SUSTAINABILITY: Project leaders then exercise organizational savvy and apply an array of interpersonal skills to drive their projects through the obstacles their projects will inevitably face, including scope creep, personnel or role changes, budget and time constraints, progress to plan, and alignment of deliverables.

PROJECT CLOSURE: Successful projects unmistakably arrive at their destinations. Project leaders ensure that their teams conduct a thorough post-project analysis, capture key findings, document project outcomes for sponsors and other key stakeholders, celebrate the work, and explicitly transfer ongoing accountability to the end users.

SELF-ASSESSMENT: Prior to the program, participants collect data from associates via a 360-degree feedback instrument. This data is used in conjunction with taped simulation, in-program feedback, and exercises in other skills areas to clearly identify which project leadership skills each participant tends to use, and to highlight their opportunities to become more complete project leaders.

ORGANIZATIONAL “STREET SMARTS”: Participants learn how to state their goals most effectively, identify both personal and professional sources of power, use a map to understand what makes their organization “TICK” and define stakeholder strategies. They apply these learning’s to their own project analysis.

STAGES OF NEGOTIATION: Participants learn the stages of negotiation and how to use appropriate influence skills in each stage. They apply these learnings to their own project analysis.

CREATING AND SUSTAINING TEAMWORK: Participants learn the nine essential attributes of effective teams and use the Team Performance Indicator to access their own teams.

INFLUENCE: influence behaviors are imbedded in each phase of the program as they are vital to each and every relationship a team leader has throughout the life of a project.

APPLICATION PLANNING: Last and most important, participants prepare to apply what they have learned to a real-life influence project using tailored simulation and intensive feedback from peers and training staff.