In each issue, Cheetah News features an individual who shares his or her ideas, insight, and experience with Cheetah Learning's Methodology.

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PM Lessons Learned Turn into PMI's Literature Award

Editor’s note: The success story of this month’s Featured PMP^® goes way past getting his certification in 2005; last year he published a book on Global Project Management… And last month he was awarded PMI’s literature award.  Here’s the story of part of his journey from PMP to program manager, and to published author.

When Jean Binder accepted a Project Management assignment as an independent contractor in a small town in England, he was already experienced in leading cohesive teams where members met face-to-face on a regular basis.  Even though he accepted the job without knowing about the project teams he would be leading, he was ready. “I was expecting to meet my team when I reported for my first day of work,” Jean says, “only to discover that most of the team was based in Switzerland, and the key customers were in London, more than three hours away from my office.”

“My first reaction was to panic, thinking about all the hours I would spend on the road and away from my family,” he explains. “My second reaction was even worse, when I was told my mission was to reduce travel to a minimum and use audio and videoconferencing instead. I will never forget hearing a colleague say, "You have a modern video-conferencing room, good audio-conferencing bridges; face-to-face meetings are not really important."

Determined to make this scenario work, Jean calmed himself down and started looking for research and books to help him develop a plan; the problem was, there wasn’t much. “I discovered several disconnected pieces of information, with recommendations more suited for virtual teams where the manager has hierarchical power. I saw a big gap in Project Management knowledge and decided to create a holistic framework, at first by academic research, and then by writing a textbook.”

Over the next several years, through his team-leadership experience, research, education, Cheetah Exam Prep^® for PMP^® exam class, and PMP certification, Jean wrote “Global Project Management: Communication, Collaboration and Management Across Borders.” Jean says it’s a book that “provides a comprehensive framework covering the challenges most people face in real projects and key recommendations from academic studies, textbooks, and practitioners. Readers don’t have to spend time surfing the web and online bookstores for information. The framework provides solid recommendations and references other sources of information for readers who want a deeper understanding of selected topics.”

While the idea of writing this book was really to help others, it’s helped Jean in his approach to managing global teams, too: “Besides knowing the challenges of global projects, now I also understand how global teams can increase creativity and collaboration. I also learned – and use – many techniques that help avoid misunderstanding and reduce the time I spend on communication and administrative tasks.

“One very powerful technique is the use of mind maps to capture the ideas exchanged during brainstorming sessions over distance,” Jean says.  His mind-map theory and other ideas in his book percolated from his Cheetah Exam Prep for the PMP exam class. “The Cheetah classes confirmed for me the power of mind maps to explain Project Management concepts,” says Jean.

Why would someone so experienced – even to the point of working on his own textbook – decide to pursue the PMP certification? “All project managers in my company follow a career and training path, and in 2005 the PMP certification became mandatory to manage medium-to-large programs and projects.”

But more than that, furthering his education, and helping others do the same – especially those working on global projects – is something inherently important to Jean. “I believe global project managers can learn to see the positive side of the challenges from cross-cultural and virtual teams, and use innovative techniques to help improve their work-life balance and reduce the level of conflict and stress in their projects.”