How to foster cross-departmental communication in medical device companies
If you have ever worked in a medium or large size company, you know how the communication process can sometimes resemble a high-stakes game of ‘telephone’ where the message gets lost in translation. Different departments often continue in silo mode and don’t have very open communication with other departments. It doesn’t take a project management expert to realize how damaging that is for your projects and the company as a whole. So what do you do to break down these silos and foster cross-departmental communication? To complete a project on…
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Negotiation: what needs to be done, who will do it, and by when
In any industry, effective negotiations play a pivotal role in ensuring tasks are completed on time and within budget, without compromising team dynamics. This stands doubly true for the medical device industry. Medical devices must meet strict safety and quality standards, and any mistakes or delays can be costly. On top of that, it involves multiple stakeholders, including manufacturers, suppliers, and healthcare professionals. This article takes a deep dive into the intricacies of negotiation, providing project leaders with a roadmap to navigate the complexities of team dynamics, diverse projects, and…
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Communication is the currency of leadership
Medical device project management often involves cross-functional teams and people with different skill sets, experience levels, and talents. Plus external stakeholders and a peer network to manage. A skilled medical device project leader needs to know how to get the most out of everyone while benefiting the project, team, and the medical device company as a whole. That’s where communication comes into play. For, a large part of project management and leadership is to understand the intent of the project and communicate it with the necessary stakeholders while clarifying: Their…
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Project Management Leadership: Removing team members from a medical device project
A member of your project team is not coming up to scratch. You’ve done everything in your power to help them be the right fit for the medical device project and the team. But you do not see any significant changes. While challenging, sometimes the only choice you can make as a medical device project manager is to remove them from the project team. But before you take that irreversible step of removing team members from your project, you need to be clear on these three things: 1. Determine if removing…
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Is your project management style what your medical device project needs?
When we talk about project leadership or team leadership, everyone has a unique approach and style. You develop a certain project management style based on your personality, experiences, and company culture. After 25+ years as project management consultants, we have broadly grouped project management styles into seven different categories. What are the 7 different project management styles? How do you know what your default project management style is? Is your default project management style what your medical device project needs from you? What do you do if one of your…
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The challenge of keeping your high-performance talent
Keeping your high performing employees is always important and has gained even more importance this year. Many have dubbed this period starting in 2021 (and lasting until who knows when) as “the great resignation”. More of the US work force are actively looking at what’s next for them than any other time. A recent Microsoft survey of over 30,000 workers found that 41% of employees are considering quitting (Inc. Magazine, The Great Resignation is Here and It’s Real, Aug 26, 2021). Reasons cited in multiple articles included covid burnout,…
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Leadership in the Realm of Employee Motivation
Lots of people talk about leadership – including us if you review other blog posts we’ve made on www.Waddellgrp.com. People talk about how you get your team members to do what you need them to do. How closely should you manage? How should you give difficult feedback? This article will approach leadership from a different perspective: What motivates your team members to do their best? We’ll start by going down a historical lane and examining what one ancient general believed motivated people to go to war. While not the whole…
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Project Management in the World of Trump
For a bit of fun, we took a look at our current President and his project management prowess in light of our previous work on hierarchies of teams… i.e., would he be a great project manager???? Different leadership styles, creating high energy and success President Trump is known for his confrontational style of negotiation and high energy. As a business leader who enjoys competition and a need to win, he emulates another President, Teddy Roosevelt. Both men are marked by wanting to do great things and leave their mark on…
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Being a Great Team Member
October 30, 2017 Leadership Development, Project Management/Leadership There are multitudes of articles and books that contain advice on how to be a great leader. But what if you’re like most of us and not at the top of the food chain? In most teams, there is one leader and a team of people doing the work. While we like to place the responsibility for a project’s success or failure on the leader, every team member has ownership and influence on how a project turns out. Your contribution to the project must…
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How do you know when a Project Manager is not managing a project well?
In previous blog posts we talked about how projects can go off the rails and also how to prevent them from going off the rails. But those only apply if you are actively involved in the project. If you have Project Managers who report to you, what should you be looking for to know when their / your project is having trouble. Key Indicators The big “E” on any Project Management eye chart is always whether the project is on time and on budget. The other issues tend to revolve…
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