Building Leadership Skills: Developing and Leading Projects

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How is your track record for leading library projects that finish on time, under budget, at an agreed-upon level of quality, and with everyone still speaking to one another? In this course you will learn how to

  • assign the right people to the right project roles,
  • communicate sufficient information,
  • design and apply appropriate checkpoints and benchmarks,
  • set realistic expectations based on time, resources and levels of quality,
  • evaluate your library’s ability to complete projects successfully, and
  • identify what might have to change to improve your project readiness.

You will also learn how to avoid common leadership mistakes that can threaten the success of any project. At the end of this course, you will be prepared to improve the performance of your project team and lead them towards agreeing on goals, meeting deadlines, resolving conflicts, and fulfilling your library’s mission, vision, and strategic plan.

Workshop Description: This one-day workshop uses written evaluations, lecture, small and large group discussions, and case studies, with opportunities for you to think, write and discuss your library’s projects and your role as a leader in running them. A reproducible handout with exercises, cheat sheets, and a bibliography will help you share the class information with members of your staff and, specifically, with your project teams.

Pre-workshop assignment (optional): You are invited to bring documents from current projects, including printouts of planning calendars, memos, job descriptions, timetables, etc., to evaluate during class.

Preliminary Course Outline

  • The Organization Map
    • Leadership, management, and task roles
    • Time as a tool for leading projects
    • Project leadership skills: risk, influence, vision and character
  • The Project Planning Model
    • Planning to plan
    • Transparent governance: Who makes decisions? What decisions do they make? How do they make them?
    • Creating timelines and checkpoints
  • Benchmarks for Success
    • Descriptive benchmarks: physical evidence and behavior
    • Measurable benchmarks: time, money and quality
    • Strategic benchmarks: mission and vision
  • Why Projects Fail
    • Project readiness scorecards
    • Twelve reasons projects fail
    • Your next step

Who Should Attend: Anyone from the California library community who needs to develop and lead a library workplace project. This is one of the workshops in Phase 2 of the Eureka! Leadership Program, and is recommended for those who are interested in being considered for the Phase 3 Leadership Institute, but is also an open registration workshop that can be taken by itself.

Prerequisites: An MLS or at least three years of supervisory experience.

Check-in: 8:30 to 9 AM Instruction: 9 AM to 4:30 PM

Available for contracting: 
No