Mentoring Circles – Better Leveraging a Mentor’s Time by Kimberly Wiefling (Wiefling Consulting)

Circle-of-Heads-300x199(This article was originally published on www.svprojectmanagement.com)

Having a mentor all to yourself might seem like the ideal, but it can get a little awkward sitting across the table from a person whose experience greatly surpasses your own. Sometimes having one mentor meet with several people at the same time can be very effective way to leverage the precious time of a highly experienced person. While you might like to keep them all to yourself, having a bigger audience could increase your chances of landing a highly skillful mentor, make the experience less awkward, and you might also learn a lot from the other people in your mentoring circle. Try group mentoring! Continue reading

Being Great Project Leader with a Mortgage and Kids in College by Kimberly Wiefling, M.S.

Happy Family w older children by photostock (Originally posted on ProjectConnections.com)
Image courtesy of photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One of the strong beliefs that I have about effective project leadership is that it cannot be done by someone who has a mortgage, kids in college, or a spouse who doesn’t work. I don’t have kids, my spouse does work, and I am totally open to living in my car, if necessary. In my experience, a project leader must often operate in an environment where the very people who sign their paychecks are also the biggest obstacles to success. That’s why I developed Scrappy Project Management, a take-no-prisoners approach to getting the job done no matter what, with little or no regard for your own professional future beyond the end of the project.Continue reading