Project Managers and Powerful Presentations: The "Secret Ingredient" in Presentation Success

Great project managers define issues, remove barriers to performance, resolve resource issues, and empower team members to do their best work.  Not coincidentally, these very skills that make some project managers exceptional at managing projects, clients, and teams can be brought to bear in the development and implementation of winning short-list interviews. 

I recently coached a presentation team with 12 presenters in a 25 minute presentation.  While certainly larger than an ideal number of presenters, this presentation was flawless, with detailed and compelling technical content, carefully choreographed primary speakers, lean-ins, and transitions.  No ego took over the preparation and team members worked together seamlessly to achieve an incredibly interesting, technically rich, and well-coordinated performance. What was particularly remarkable about this team is that the entire presentation was conceived and implemented within a 48-hour period after the notice from the client about interview specifications.

While I’d like to say this presentation came together because of strong coaching, I’m humble enough to recognize the value of incredible leadership from the senior project manager as a catalyst for team excellence.  As a coach, being able to partner with the project manager enabled more creativity, the ability to help individual team members, and a singular focus on crafting the right message for this client and this project.

This project manager held himself to the highest standard of performance. While he was certainly stressed by the demands of the situation, he put the needs of the team first, while making sure his parts of the presentation were well executed in a timely fashion.  This enabled both of us to manage the presentation preparation like a project, moving quickly through initiating and planning activities to executing the interview, monitoring team performance, and closing out our “project” with an exceptional interview.  Treating the presentation like a project enabled the team to work through a large volume of tasks in a very short period of time.  Not only did they develop and rehearse a solid prepared interview, but they also responded to some questions in written form, developed and rehearsed oral answers to other questions, and prepared for impromptu questions from the owner.  I am confident that without a streamlined approach to the process and the leadership of our project manager, the team would not have been able to perform so brilliantly in such a short period of time.

There are two important takeaways from this experience:  First, complex presentations can and should be managed like projects, and second, complex presentations require a strong partnership between project manager and presentation coach. 

From a project management perspective, our project manager brought his team together before the short-list, anticipating an interview and getting the team ready for future success.  By initiating the process early and being able to start presentation planning, he reduced future stress on the team and enabled a focus on the complexity of client requests once the short-list was announced and the specifications articulated.  Project execution was divided into phases. As a coach, because the team was so well managed, I was able to move the team quickly through the phases of presentation development:  alignment, strategy, choreography, and rehearsal.  We were able to significantly reduce the amount of time required in each phase, essentially fast-tracking the project in order to deliver the highest quality presentation in a very short overall project duration.  In fact, we were able to collapse strategy, choreography, and rehearsal, enabling the team to practice movement and flow in the presentation as they continued to develop content.   And, even the normal VE of the interview content (cutting good material to get the presentation completed on time) wasn’t as painful as it usually is; team members gave up things they wanted to say for the greater good of the presentation with no complaints and no late team member drama.

The lesson learned for me as a coach is to lean on strong project managers to lead their teams. This enables me as the coach to develop and lead a strong presentation.  When the project manager leads his team in the presentation preparation, I can focus on the message and the choreography.  For this team, our senior project manager was the glue that held the large team together, enabling highly technical professionals to deliver their best performances.  Agreeing with him on the structure of the coaching and the clear milestones of the presentation preparation process freed me to help individual speakers, monitor messaging from a mock-client perspective, and ensure all of the details were handled before the team left for the interview.  In fact, the team was so well managed that we finished rehearsing early, enabling team members to relax for an hour before they left for the actual interview.  In 25 years, this has unfortunately been a rare occurrence and reminds me how valuable managing “float” in my coaching schedule can be.

Working with a strong project manager took some getting used to.  The combination of two strong personalities can be challenging in the best of times and even more so under an almost impossible schedule.  But, it worked – and I’ve come away from this experience humbled and grateful, reminding myself of the value of listening to and collaborating with other smart professionals and grateful for the opportunity to learn from such an exceptional manager in a truly impressive interview performance.

In the future, I’m looking to work with project managers as partners in the presentation process and I’m committed to partnering with them as we lead teams to successful interviews.  Unfortunately, however, this experience is not the norm. Too often, project managers are working on multiple responsibilities and are only too happy to delegate the presentation to a marketing or coaching resource.  While happy to step in, I’m reminded of the value of partnership:  this particular project manager believed so strongly in his team and in the importance of this pursuit that nothing else he was doing took  precedence over his team’s success.  And, the team felt it and delivered to his highest expectations.  I suspect each of his teams give him this level of performance because, quite simply, he expects it of himself and inspires it in others.  In the future, I’m going to ask for this level of dedication of all project managers with whom I work.

This experience has given me a renewed interest in using my own knowledge as a project manager to continue to streamline the coaching process so we can deliver better interviews – faster.  That’s been the crux of my coaching efforts at Communication Resources and it’s always nice to see that it works – with the help of strong project managers and dedicated teams.

Short-list interviews are themselves projects that require strong project plans, milestone schedules, change management, focus on stakeholder needs and interests, and most of all, strong leadership.  We won’t hear for a bit if this particular team won or lost in the final interview.  But, even without the verdict, to my project manager on this pursuit, thank you for partnering with me and reminding me of the power of focused leadership and unwavering commitment to the success of your team.

Three Resolutions Your Organization Can't Afford to Miss

I’ve taken a break from writing over the holidays to catch up on projects (and bake lots of pies) – and it’s been restful. The down time has enabled me to start the New Year with fresh ideas and energy.  This naturally makes me think of how we manage our time and energy in business development and marketing with the thought that perhaps sometimes taking a break to review, reassess, and re-energize might be a wise investment for many firms.

The tendency for many of us in the New Year is to frantically try to catch up from the past year and start the New Year with a frenzy of activity. While sometimes project commitments make this a necessity, spending time in January to determine direction for the coming year would be a wise investment for all of us.  And, instead of broad resolutions, we should consider each of the core areas of our business and determine both reasonable and stretch goals for the coming year.

I’d like to propose three specific resolutions to guide our first quarter planning – ones that I’m implementing in-house and recommending to my clients. 

Make Better Go/No Go Decisions.  As I’ve found in the past couple of months, sometimes not writing is the best choice.  This is not only because I’ve enjoyed the self-imposed break from the blog, but also because of three recent projects on which we’ve been asked to consult in which teams worked hard to win projects they probably shouldn’t have pursued in the first place.  These firms spent thousands on beautiful proposals that had little impact on the final selection because the firms in question weren’t positioned to either make the short-list or achieve the win.

We’ve all been “sucked in” to the RFP response for projects that sound great on paper and for which we know our firms/teams could succeed.  Even though most of us know that the likelihood of selection without relationship and reputation is extremely low, we spend thousands of dollars chasing seductive projects.  Quite simply, in this market, firms can’t afford the luxury of expensive proposals – no matter how well written or designed – for projects we have little chance of winning.

Making the No Go decision is extremely difficult in the moment.  As a result, now is the time, before the next sexy RFP, to develop a clear, quantifiable Go/No Go metric that requires rigor in the analysis and accountability for the decision.  Numerous samples exist in the industry – start with a standard template and adapt/tailor it to your business and client type. 

One good question I ask my clients is “If it were your checkbook from which we had to write the check to pay for this pursuit, would you still pursue this project?”  In this way, making the Go decision becomes personal – and people start thinking about accountability for their decisions.  This doesn’t mean our firms should be scared to make Go decisions, but that we should be more thoughtful in the process, making sure we have done the pre-sell work necessary to increase the likelihood of a win.

Develop a robust QA/QC program.  In most of the RFPs I’ve reviewed in the past six months, clients are asking for proof of a QA/QC program.  As a result, the leadership of forward-thinking firms will spend some time this quarter developing and documenting a robust program, then implementing it in their organizations.  And, the Marketing/BD staffs of these leading firms will spend time developing the collateral materials we’ll need for RFP responses and short-list interviews.

Most firms have a QA/QC program, but I’ve found that few of my clients have well-documented programs that can be shown to a client.  While documented programs were once only required of larger firms, even moderate-sized and small firms are now being asked to produce QA/QC plans for client review.  Not only is having such a program good business, but our clients are now demanding that we do so and that we be able to talk about these plans in the marketing process.

Over the years, I’ve read a lot of proposal sections and heard numerous presentations on quality.  In each, I typically hear about three step programs, usually involving some level of peer review, a dedicated quality committee (usually labeled with a creative acronym), and checkpoints throughout a proposed project schedule. In each, I’ve found little competitive value – and, in fact – I’ve found little evidence that the firms in question have really addressed quality in the way our clients need us to.

It’s time for a different dialog about QA/QC, and it’s time to rethink how we present and train these programs.  In the 2012 version of a company’s QA/QC program, I’d like to see clear flow diagrams that illustrate how QA staff are integrated into the design and/or preconstruction process, tasked not with checking work, but with resolving issues before they become problems.  For dedicated quality committees made up of experienced principles, we need clarity on what these professionals do and how they are integrated into the team beyond occupying a northern space on the organization chart.

And, because of their clear link to final product quality, there needs to be sections in quality plans devoted to relationship/ communication management in addition to the sections on review process.  Project debriefs clearly show that the nature and frequency of team/client communication prevents quality problems, results in increased clarity of expectations, and helps resolve issues.  As a result, our quality plans need to address communication in very specific, planned, and measurable ways – including timelines, checklists, agendas, and metrics.

Invest in Strategic Training and Development. In the past several years, the budget item that’s taken the most significant hit for both the public and the private sector is Training.  While eliminating waste and cutting non-essential programs are certainly a good idea, cutting all training for staff is fundamentally a bad one.  Training is essential not only for staff growth, but essential to staff retention.  Well-trained staff members respond to challenges with greater success and feel less work-related stress as they know their company is willing to invest in their future.

Three essential programs that should be brought back across the industry include performance management, customer service, and the suite of communication skills essential to business success (interpersonal communication, writing, presentations). 

A firm’s employees are its most important, and most expensive, asset.  Having supervisors who understand both their responsibilities and opportunities for effective performance management is essential to any organization.  Effective performance management training covers the full gamut of supervisory responsibilities, beyond performance appraisal, to include performance planning, resolving problems, feedback, coaching and mentoring, and the requisite legal issues.

Without customers, firms cease to exist.  Unfortunately and paradoxically in this economy, the leadership of many firms forgot the link between employees and customers.  Customer service is not just important to firm leadership; rank and file employees have far more day-to-day contact with customers and as a result, need training in how to anticipate, resolve, and manage customer issues across a range of situations.

Finally, across our businesses, we live or die by communication.  Effective interpersonal skills drive quality, project management, and client relationships.  Having staff with strong writing skills not only improves our firms’ documents, but makes the whole production process much easier, enabling us to spend more time in creative pursuits vs. rewriting and editing.  And, I’ll say it again, “Losing in the presentation is the most expensive place to lose.”  Training staff in communication skills pays off across the marketing and the management lifecycle and is a wise investment overall.

So, those are my three resolutions – proposed to all of us for 2012.  For my own firm, I’m not only making resolutions, but I’m scheduling time to talk about them, creating work breakdowns to implement them, and creating metrics to evaluate our performance on