Giving constructive feedback is key to building a team. Here are 5 easy steps to get it right.
Many managers are uncomfortable giving feedback, especially when it’s negative. This discomfort often turns into anxiety and avoiding it altogether. As a result, a problem that’s fixable when addressed early can become a huge problem when the right feedback is never given. With a little bit of training, you can fix this destructive behavior and […]
Read MoreNew to Project Management? Here’s the Complete Manual on Running Projects of all Kinds
Why did we collect all of these project management tips? Approximately 66% of the people who manage projects in any given organization have no training of any kind in project management. This can result in a lot of challenges for organizations, for teams, and for the people who are managing projects without formal training. We’ve […]
Read MoreThe Top 10 Skills For Leading Millennials
Millennials have grown to be the largest population of working adults in the last few years. That means managers need to have some key skills to be able to work with them. Leading Millennials entails understanding that they’re mobile first, not especially tied to traditional models of work, and want to have a say in […]
Read MoreThe 5 Project Management Skills Every PM Needs to Master
Project management is a job that’s easy to underestimate, with project managers themselves often inaccurately lowballing how much coffee they’ll need to get through to project completion. With the wide array of workload that falls on a PM, it becomes important to master several key skills to help you manage it all. So without further […]
Read MoreHow to Lead (and Survive) a Cross Functional Team Project
Running a project is hard enough when you’re managing just one team. Now imagine running several together. Welcome to a cross functional team manager’s life… Running a multi-team project is no easy task. The more people from various departments and functions come together to work on a collective goal, the messier things get. Not to […]
Read MoreThe Top 5 Tips for Building a Project Plan
Coming up with a project plan is a big undertaking. There can be a lot of moving parts to keep track of, and through it all, you’ve got to stay focused on the ultimate goal of getting to the finish line. There are always plenty of nitty-gritty details to work out but take some time […]
Read MoreThe Practical Guide to Team Goal Mapping
Project managers can increase productivity and team cohesion with team goal mapping, but for it to be effective it has to be properly developed and documented. Fortunately, there is a constant flow of new tools and updates to existing tools that can make this process easier and more effective. Here are 2018’s top tips for […]
Read MoreWhat Bad Team Collaboration is Costing You, and How to Fix it
Anybody can run a team, but few people know how to run an efficient team. The difference between the two are obvious; like two sailing ships racing on the open sea. A ship whose crew is constantly at odds and doesn’t cooperate will always lag behind the ship with the more united and coordinated crew. […]
Read More5 Organizational Skills Every Manager Must Know
Try to picture the perfect manager. What do they do, and how do they act? Different companies call for different management styles, but some things are universal. You probably imagine a manager that has a clear and consistent vision for the project they’re overseeing, who knows how to pinpoint specific problems, while still keeping their […]
Read MoreDoes Your Upper Management Suck? Here’s What to Do About It.
Imagine you’re part of a crew on a large ship. You sail toward your destination, maintaining the ship to the best of your ability. Suddenly, the ship leans to a side, and you almost lose your footing. You look to the helm to see the captain yanking the wheel, announcing a new direction for no […]
Read MoreUse Agile Methodology to Better Lead Your Team
A lot of teams talk about how they’re going to “do agile” or how they’re undertaking “agile transformation”. They hire consultants to teach them “One True Way” to manage a project team with Agile methodology, yet still find themselves easily screwing up their agile processes. There is a lot of information spread across thousands of […]
Read MoreHow to Build a Practice of Efficient Communication Across Your Team
Teams only perform as well as they communicate. If you have smooth and efficient communication, then tasks flow easily from person to person. However if communication is problematic, the process gets muddled, deadlines are missed and work quality is poor. These bad communication practices will hurt your team morale and culture if left to languish. […]
Read MoreHow to Choose the Right Leadership Styles For Your Team’s Needs
As a team leader, you probably noticed that it’s not easy always to choose the right leadership styles. For example, encouraging your team to participate in decision-making and overachieve are great ways to keep them motivated and effective. However there may be a couple people in your team who just can’t seem to catch up […]
Read MoreThe Modern Guide to Hiring Millennials
Fun fact: the majority of workers in the US and Canada are now Millennials. Everyone who works at Unito, other than our three co-founders, is a Millennial. A lot of what we do in our hiring millennials process is super different from the traditional one, and given the popularity of our article on how to […]
Read MoreHow To Take Constructive Criticism Well (And Why Leaders Should Embrace It)
As Comedy Central’s Walter Levitt says, “criticism comes with the contract when you become a leader”. Nobody’s perfect, and sometimes we all need someone to tell us when we aren’t reaching our full potential. Constructive criticism is in fact necessary for everyone’s development. However this is especially true for leaders, who will use that development […]
Read MoreImplementing Performance Management In 4 Steps
If you want to improve your team’s motivation, competency, and engagement, a performance management system can definitely do the trick. It’ll help your team members understand their objectives and expectations, and improve their relationship with you – their manager. However the key is to implement it properly. If you’ve never used performance management with your team before, […]
Read More9 Signs You’re a Terrible Manager
It’s such a fact of life that it’s an accepted rule of work: in large organizations, employees rise to the level of their incompetence. Many people are in management roles who have no training or natural inclination to the job. If you’re wondering if that’s you, here are some sure-fire signs that you could level […]
Read MoreRemote Management 101: How To Empower Your Remote Team With Digital Tools
There are many advantages to allowing employees work remotely. Cost savings; access to a broader talent pool without concern for geographic location; and granting workers the flexibility, convenience, and comfort of working from home are just a few. However, a remote team that doesn’t have the online remote management tools necessary to communicate, organize, structure, […]
Read MoreCollaborating with Developers? Here’s Why You Should Build A Growth Marketing Team
Most of the time, a company’s website is owned by both the marketing and development teams. Marketing creates the content and design, while the dev team owns the coding. However this this joint ownership often results in divergent priorities, inefficient communication, and issues in cross-team collaboration. The developers may plan their sprints separately, and marketing’s […]
Read MoreHow To Nail Team Leadership By Adopting a Growth Mindset
Managing a big project can be overwhelming. Yet many of the obstacles and team leadership issues project managers face stem from the way they respond to challenges, mistakes, and constructive criticism from their team. Psychologist Carol Dweck explained that people respond to hardships with either a growth mindset or a fixed one. The former consistently outperform […]
Read MoreMarketers, Here’s How To Collaborate With Web Developers
If you are managing a marketing team, you are probably familiar with the experience of working with developers on certain projects. Joint projects between marketing and developers can be challenging for both teams, since they have different work processes and styles. As a result, the two teams often clash. One of the challenges you likely […]
Read MoreHow To Maximize Cross-Functional Team Productivity In 3 Steps
Are you a leader who is determined to run a successful cross-functional team (CFT)? Managing such teams and ensuring they are productive is not always easy. However with proper planning, CFTs have the potential to execute complex projects and achieve huge company goals. While the idea of a high-functioning dynamic team is well understood, many […]
Read MoreHow To Manage Your Cross-Functional Team With Agile
You’ve probably heard of the term “agile” being tossed around but probably aren’t familiar of what exactly agile does or why it’s an important workflow, especially when it comes to managing a cross-functional team. Wait, a cross-functional what? A cross-functional team by definition is a team that includes specialists from all different areas of a […]
Read MoreWhy Transparency Is Vital To Engaging Millennial Employees
Workplace transparency is very important to millennials, much more so than to most other generational cohorts. This generation which consists of people born between the year 1980 and 2000, tends to look for more honesty, meaning, and flexibility in the teams they work for. Honest, transparent leadership is one of the main leadership traits they […]
Read More5 Essential Steps To Leading A Remote Team
Leadership is challenging in any context. Yet when you mix in factors associated with a remote team, such as limited communication, disengagement, and different time-zones, it becomes even more so. Unlike traditional work environments, leading a remote team tends to be more disorienting, time-consuming, and complex. In today’s world, technology changed the way people do […]
Read More4 Easy Steps To Master Project Management
Managing a project is not an easy journey. There are several roads you can take to nailing project management, and of course the same path won’t work for everyone. Yet something that will make any PM’s journey easier, is following a few tried and tested tips. We’ve done the research (so you don’t have to) […]
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