PM POWER Moves: Breaking INTO Project Management - Vol 009: Question SEEKER

Welcome back to the PM POWER Moves newsletter! If you missed any of the other iterations, check my profile to read!

I've been actively engaged on LinkedIn since April of 2022. In that time, I've developed a niche of aspiring project managers looking to translate their existing experience (like I did) to gain new opportunities in the project management field. My desire for my content (and this newsletter) is to be able to help YOU do that!

I will be publishing this newsletter every other Sunday and covering a wide variety of content to leverage in your own experience and career to help provide you opportunity!

This week's topic: Question SEEKER

An essential part of project management in the initiation phase is project discovery.?It’s also one of the hardest areas because our natural inclination is to focus on 1 specific problem rather than zooming out to identify the larger problem and work our way down to a proper solution.

This is where asking better questions becomes essential, which is something all project managers should strive toward.

An easy example to begin becoming a better question-asker (or question SEEKER) is using the “5 Whys” technique.

It’s outlined in an example below but the basics of it are to assemble a team to ID the problem, ask Why to get to the secondary cause, ask Why again to go further into why the secondary cause has led to the problem.?Eventually you will come to the root of the problem and can now identify options for how to solve the root cause.

Why is this important to project managers??

Because often in initial discovery for a project, your key stakeholders don’t know the root cause of their problem that the project is tasked with fixing.?They’re too far away from it and only seeing the view from 100,000 feet, collating issues voiced by their team to ID a generic issue.

As the project manager, it’s your responsibility to the project and its overall outcomes to dig deeper into the root cause.?If you don’t, you’ll likely develop an incomplete scope (as the actual root cause will eventually reveal itself, but might not have been accounted for), leading to scope creep which can lead to delays, lost revenue/resources, and potentially a failed project.

Consider implementing the “5 Whys” in your next project and continue to develop skills for asking better questions as you build your PM experience.

Source: https://www.mindtools.com/a3mi00v/5-whys

LinkedIn “Hack of the Week”

If you've been on LinkedIn for any amount of time, you know that there are many ways to use it for professional development. I stumble upon these often and would like to share a relevant one with you when I can.

I’ve spoken on this before but never outlined how to do it.?What’s one networking tactic that is an immediate, specific commonality that can open a cold conversation?

Leveraging your alumni network

Here’s how you do it:

1. Search “project manager” in your LinkedIn Search bar (or whatever title you’re pursuing)
2. Choose People
3. In All filters, go down to School and search/select the school you attended
4. At the bottom, type “project manager” (or career of choice) in Title under Keyword to filter further

You now have a list of alumni that you can connect with and leverage for insights, education, jobs, etc. in your desired field.?Make sure to check their profile and choose those that are actively engaged on LinkedIn.

Reach out via DM and reference your college experience or something specific to people who attended that particular college (ie: the food at the commons was so bad!) to intro into an active relationship.

In my own network for the small private Midwest college I attended, there are almost 200 PMs.?If you attended a larger/state school, there will be many more.

If you want to drill down further to an industry, current company, etc., you can narrow that list even further (via filters/All filters).

Thank you for reading! Hopefully this week's newsletter has resonated. I'd love to hear your feedback and any suggestions for future topics that you'd like me to cover. Please let me know in the comments below or DM me!