Each month Mindavation will offer a template from our Project Templates CD free of charge. Don't miss out on this opportunity!

This month's download is the Meeting Agenda Template. A key to successful meetings is planning them appropriately and keeping them on track. This template can help you start off on the right foot, provide you with a framework to organize your project meetings and assist you with staying on topic. It is a Word format, so it can be modified to suit your specific project and meeting needs.

Death by Meeting by By Patrick Lencioni

If you like the movies, you'll love this book! That's right; the premise of "Death by Meeting" uses the analogy of film making to make better and more productive meetings.

Although the book begins with a business fictional fable, Lencioni uses the story to teach valuable lessons about how to turn bad meetings into effective and efficient use of everyone's time. The story revolves around the main character who owns a very successful software company that produces a life-like golf video program. However, things are going from bad to worse when an advisor enters the picture and suggests a very unconventional approach to solving the company's problems by improving the way that meetings are run.

The meetings in the story have two very distinct problems, lack of drama and lack of contextual structure. These problems lead into the new movie themed model consisting of daily headline news, weekly sitcom and crime drams, the movie and the mini-series. It may sound a little different and in this case different is just what is needed.

We as project managers and team members spend a great deal of time in meetings and many of us know exactly what it's like to feel the "Death by Meeting" anxiety. This book provides a great model that can be applied directly to our project meetings bringing structure, meaning and a little fun to the otherwise dull and boring encounters we all have experienced. This is a book that is definitely worth your time - it's a short read and one you can apply right away.

April 11 Denver, Colorado "How to Turn Project Meeting Disasters into Motivating Opportunities" Breakout session at 2008 Rocky Mountain Project Management Symposium

April 29-30 Regina, SK, Canada "Effective Software Testing Techniques - A Guide for Project Managers" at the PMI Regina South Saskatchewan Chapter's Professional Development Conference.

June 3-5 Denver, Colorado "The Hard Truth About Soft Skills"

Looking for a class to attend? Would you like to meet us face to face? If we are in your area, feel free to contact us to schedule a meeting.

By Denise DeCarlo, PMP

If you are like most project managers around the world, many of your resources are part-time to your project. Assuming you can't get them full time, this article with 12 tips will help you achieve efficiencies from the part-time resources you do have and assist with the delicate balance of scheduling part-time resources effectively.

Let's go through a scenario to provide the business context of a potential situation regarding a part-time resource. Let's assume Sally has been assigned to your project at 25% allocation as a business subject matter expert in payroll. This resource is critical to your project since the existing payroll system is being replaced. Sally is the most senior payroll person in the Payroll Department.

Tip #1 - Determine how much time you need from each resource and attempt to obtain that percentage of time allocation accordingly. If the manager of a part- time resource says you'll get them "as much as you need them". Let the manager know you will schedule the resource for 25% per week for 10 hours (or whatever you need). The more specific you can be, the better. Setting specific time commitments up front with the part-time resource and the manager is essential. Ensure the start and end dates are also discussed and finalize any time off the part-time resource may have (more on time off later in this article) throughout the project lifecycle.

Mindavation offers more than 30 customizable project templates and tools to make your life easier! The CD includes full project lifecycle templates and tools.

Documents are in MS Word, MS Excel, MS Project 2003 (and Adobe). Modify each template to suit YOUR business and project needs.

Price (including shipping & handling): USD$100