In Solving the Project Manager‘s Social Dilemma – Part 1, I talked about three shifts that I was making to solve the problem that many of us delivery people have of being so busy DOING, that there is no time to embrace social media.  I accepted that I had to change some of my business/management processes, especially as it related to collaboration and knowledge sharing, that I had to be open to new ways of communicating with my team and my stakeholders, and, finally, that I needed to accept that change takes time.

Making The Shift To Social

1.  Be Business Social.  Think of your use of social media not as an extra task in your project,  but as a way to empower your team and get your work done in a more collaborative and integrated way.

Think how efficient you would be if you had an up-to-date stream of information regarding your project (or client situation); keeping you informed and aligned with your team in real-time.  Could you be a better manager if you knew your project status daily: including what was done today, what tasks were behind, and what the issues and  risks were? Think of the time you would save if problems were fixed while you were sleeping. How expedient it would be to wake up to suggestions from experts, maybe in your company maybe outside, solving a tricky issue that has been stumping the team for days. This is what can happen when you work collaboratively and in the open.  This is working social. And, this is the basis of Social Project Management.

Different than the concept called, PROJECT MANAGEMENT 2.0 (which focuses on the collaboration of the project team among themselves using social media), SOCIAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT sees teams as part of a larger organization (enterprise), and through leveraging the collective intelligence of the organization, the limitations of the project team are removed, and the collective knowledge of the organization comes to bear on solutions. (See the Infographic at the bottom of this post for the 5 Laws of Social Project Management.)

The benefit to me of using Social Project Management is more time to focus on priorities, more up-to-date project status, and a supportive and integrated use of the collective knowledge of my company to solve problems.

I am not advocating getting rid of good project management principles, on the contrary, things like strong scheduling and time management techniques are still critical, but open communications, can reduce significant meeting and status reporting time, can showcase issues and focus on resolutions with the power of the collective enterprise behind you, and can bring to a project team, an awareness, and engagement, that has been lacking since the days of collocation.

The benefit of social communications for your projects comes from what social scientists call “ambient awareness.‘   When you, and your team, are getting constant communication feeds (ambient updates) of short status messages, like you see on Tweeter or Facebook, you are able to quickly assess the important information, throw out the not important, and rather than overload your brain (as many of us fear), it is actually creating greater understanding of subject matter.  And, unlike email, you don’t have to open or respond to anything.

“Social Business software creates context specific ambient awareness, which because of the broad set of information provided to the team makes the work visible in “surprisingly sophisticated” ways.” (New York Times, Brave New World of Digital Intimacy).  You can look down a full-page of little status’, and read some, and skip others.  In a short time of actively reading your project stream, you could not only have a very comprehensive idea of what is going on, but you have the ability for real-time active participation by others, solving business issues on the fly.”

Think about all the time you could save if you could have fewer status meetings?  If your teams were keeping you updated as things happened?  Teams are reporting great efficiencies through leveraging micro-blogging status updates on mediums like Twitter or IBM Connections. “We need far fewer status reporting sessions, because everyone is being made aware of things as they happen. We develop a sense of “knowing” amongst the project team, and we can focus more of our time on getting the work done, and less time performing work about work.” (The Project Wall, Social Project Management – Narrating the project as it happens.)

Social Business is simply about doing business in a different way.  I think it is critical that project leaders start adapting the good stuff that we are learning from social business and create a best of bread for ourselves.  I know I am.     .

2.  Be Personally Social.  Once you have started becoming social every day on your projects, adding an insightful comment or two on your personal status (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), or commenting on someone’s post from your own expertise, will become second nature; you will already be online, communicating, and being social.  You digital eminence will rise from there.

To solve the Project Manager’s Social Dilemma – take the leap and start moving your team and your projects into the future with social communications.

Keep up the good attitude. See you next blog.

– Lorian

(All the Social Butterfly’s views are her own)

Related articles

• 5 Laws of Social Project Management (feedproxy.google.com)