Publisher's Synopsis
Finally! A book for project leaders to help you prepare yourself to direct your project, your epic endeavor, from an idea to being real, the IDEAL approach. An elegant mix of how to think and what to do, Lead the IDEAL Project is YOUR notebook, designed to help you live up to YOUR aspirations to be a truly effective project team leader, one who sees beyond the spreadsheets and schedule keeping aspects, and wants to be more effective at the broad spectrum of elements and components that it takes to lead a human endeavor that transforms an idea into a reality.Like the director of a movie, you are in charge of how the human dynamics and the project lifecycle will play out. The IDEAL approach is centered on enabling joy for those doing the project in order to delight the customers. The IDEAL approach elevates the tasks of minding the project elements of cost, schedule, quality, scope, risk, and supplies so as to engage excellence, and to integrate these necessities of project life with what is really important - leading the project team. This book helps you to prepare to lead, to direct that epic so that you are the proactive force rather than being left to react to the various whims and woes of what typically happens in project life. By first understanding the components of enabling joy and the components of engaging excellence, along with how they are bonded together with communication, you will then have a basis upon which to direct the lifecycle epic of your project. The IDEAL approach reveals how to weave those components into the junctures of every typical project lifecycle. IDEAL is both a description and an acronym; yes, you want the IDEAL project, with both an ideal experience in it accomplishment and an ideal outcome in its achievement. You also need to approach it in an IDEAL way. IDEAL is the acronym for the approach, starting with the "I" elements to Invite, Initiate and Indoctrinate, and closing out with the "L" elements of Lift-up, Learn and Let-go, the IDEAL approach provides a way for you to reflect on how to prepare your mind and your team to direct your way through the inevitable twists and turns of project life. Built on sound principles from experts ranging from W. Edwards Deming to Daniel Kahnemann, and learned over twenty years by working alongside great and not so great project leaders, the IDEAL approach is not Paul Armstrong's way; it is what Paul Armstrong has learned from project teams, respected academics and his own research on what differentiated ideal and not so ideal projects.Lead the IDEAL Project integrates these sound principles with discrete practices, the last chapter being a Toolbox of techniques and templates so that you can put into practical application these principles in the daily life of your project. Lead the IDEAL Project is designed to be learned and adopted into habit with the help of a coach or an accountability peer, someone who can help you truly reflect on and prepare mentally for the demanding responsibilities of leading a project. While you will gain insights just by reading, having a trusted coach truly challenge you on your preparation for the IDEAL approach will translate insights into impact with which you can lead an IDEAL project.Along the way, you will see that the very typical word used in the project world is intentionally not used in the IDEAL approach. You won't see manage, manager, management. But the IDEAL approach is way more than that. Because leading a project is not best defined by the overused term manage, because being in charge of a project really isn't about managing. It's about enabling, engaging. It's about leading. And, most importantly, it's personal.Get your copy and start personally preparing to enable joy and engage excellence for your IDEAL project.
