The Project Management Coaching Workbook (Book Review)

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Susanne Madsen’s Project Management Coaching Workbook is a book that teaches you how to use a coaching style in a project setting.
Susanne Madsen, Project Management Coaching Workbook says that it is not your ability manage tasks and resources that will make you stand out. It is your ability to manage relationships, and lead the team to success through vision and engagement. Your drive, confidence, determination, and attitude will help you get your projects done.
Madsen has created a practical and unique book for project managers looking to improve their craft or those who are aspiring to be project managers coaches.
These checklists and exercises can be used to evaluate yourself and improve your skills. This workbook can be used to guide your coaching efforts if you are working with others in a coaching capacity.
6 steps to self-coaching
Madsen gives six steps to help you work through in a self-coaching exercise.
Your vision is yours
Benchmark current skills
Get feedback
Make an action plan
Check out the guiding practices
Review progress
This book will guide you through the six steps to become your own coach. It will identify areas where you are lacking in proficiency and help you improve these areas.
This involves determining where you are starting from. This requires both self-assessment as well as feedback from your colleagues.
Feedback is a tool to improve skills
It is a workbook, and there are spider diagrams that can be filled in about each project management dimension. These include time management, quality control, stakeholder management, and more.
This exercise will give you an instant rating of your project management skills against 80 areas.
The exercise can then be repeated with customers, your manager, and team members to get a complete picture about perceptions of your performance. You can also record all of this in the workbook. However, you may want to photocopy the pages to get feedback from multiple people.
This is the point where you can identify areas that need improvement. This assessment can also be used to coach a member of your project team using Madsen’s book.
For success, keep going
Madsen writes:
“One of the main differences between successful and ordinary people is that successful people don’t give up when faced with a challenge or obstacle. They get to the root of the problem and then change their approach accordingly. They are able to overcome any roadblocks that they encounter, but instead of blaming others, they adopt a proactive approach and take action. They are proactive and continue to try new ways.
She suggests that you form a support group of project managers who can act as a sounding board for your day. This could be useful, especially for those who don’t have a mentor or coach and are trying to improve themselves.
You could join an external group like the APM or project management organization if you don’t have any real-life connections in your company. You can also connect to online networks like LinkedIn groups or Project Management Cafe: my Facebook Group (come join us! ).
Madsen provided the framework and forms needed for a coaching assessment. She also gave tips and hints to help you in specific areas. I especially enjoyed the advice to make sure you understand what red, amber, and green mean so your reports are meaningful.
Although I tend to favor books that use the Oxford Comma, I found this book to be well-structured and useful.
I would like to be able to download the worksheet pages as a digital file.