Bonnie Biafore

I am a big believer in win-win or no-deal. Do your homework to understand what an optimistic/realistic deal is. Identify the items you are willing to negotiate on, what items you don't care much about, the ones that are the most important. During negotiation, try to find out what items aren't important to the vendor or what their incentives are. That way you can compromise while giving up as little of the important stuff as possible. If the other side isn't interested in win-win, walk away. These aren't the types of people or organizations you want to work with.

People with high power want to know what the benefits are to them (sometimes even more than the benefits to the organization). Explain to them how the project will benefit them and the organization. Also, come up with a plan for how you can minimize the effort these stakeholders contribute to the project. You still need their input as stakeholders, but you don't have to dominate their time. If a stakeholder is hostile to the project, work with other supportive high-power stakeholders to help you manage their impact.

Key point here: specific and constructive. Don't be vague and don't point blame at people. The goal is to improve. Just like with lessons learned, provide some positive feedback -- what people did well along with some constructive feedback -- what they could do better.

A fun way to celebrate success is to use a funny hat or other object that you award to a person or team each week. For example, a firefighter's hat for the person or team who resolved the most challenging issue or a pair of running shoes for whoever made the most progress. Schedule a break during an afternoon each week to transfer the award from the previous recipient to the new recipient.

There is always a lot of work to be done and some of it is important but isn't that much fun. Offering to offload those efforts is likely to result in getting the assignment. It gives you the chance to show off your skills and gain an ally. Bring strategic and offering to help with work that involves project stakeholders is another way to build your network in the organization. Plus you can be mentored and build your leadership, mgt, negotiation and persuasion skills

Think about breaking long tasks into smaller pieces. With long tasks, dependencies can make a schedule longer duration than it needs to be. Look at breaking longer duration tasks into pieces. That way, you might be able to complete work that depends on a small chunk of work partway through the original long task. It also makes it easier to manage tasks that use resources who are in high demand.