Saving Time by Setting Goals
When goals and targets seem to shift daily and there’s never enough time to get everything done, it’s hard to achieve goals consistently. Good time management will help you work smarter – not harder – so that you get more of the important things done in less time.
The first step in working smarter is making sure you’re going in the right direction. In this course, you’ll learn how to accomplish more through effective time management. You’ll learn why it’s important to align your goals with your company’s goals, and how to do it.
You’ll also learn how to differentiate between urgent and important tasks, how to pivot between conflicting priorities, and how taking the time to make improvements can save you time in the long run.
0.4 Hours
- Recognize the time management benefits of aligning your work with your manager’s goals for you
- Identify elements of a tactical plan to ensure your activities are aligned with the goals that have been set for you
- Identify how to use a matrix to prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance
- Recognize strategies to help you effectively pivot between competing priorities
- Identify strategies for long-term time management
- Knowledge Check: Assessing Your Skills in Aligning Goals and Priorities
Managing Your Time So It Doesn’t Manage You
No one can add an extra hour to the day to get more done. But anyone can make better use of the 24 hours you do have by becoming more effective at time management. All it takes is deciding to seize control of your own time, and then taking small steps in the right direction.
In this course, you’ll consider how you’re spending your time now and what techniques you can use to spend it more wisely and productively.
You’ll learn to block the time stealers that interfere with your productivity, use to-do lists and schedules to organize your time and tasks, and develop a regular habit of checking in with your plans to make sure you’re getting them done.
0.3 Hours
- Apply techniques to be a successful collaborator
- Identify characteristics of collaboration
- Recognize characteristics that help you be a better collaborator
- Recognize characteristics of good team members
- Identify the characteristics of teaming
- Recognize the different work styles of collaborators
- Knowledge Check: Becoming a Successful Collaborator
Sharpening Your Focus to Stay on Track
Even when you know your priorities and have an organized time management routine, you’ll still be challenged every day by distractions, temptations, interruptions, and procrastination. To avoid causing internal time management detours, you have to develop ways to stay focused, and this often means using personal and interpersonal skills in very specific ways.
In this course, you’ll learn strategies to manage challenges to your personal focus, techniques to help you shut out distractions and manage time conflicts, and ways to regain focus and develop mental resilience when faced with change
0.4 Hours
- Recognize tactics for managing personal focus challenges
- Identify techniques to manage distractions so you can focus better
- Identify strategies for managing time conflicts so you can focus on your work
- Identify best practices for regular maintenance of your time management system to keep your focus
- Recognize mental resilience techniques for regaining focus
- Knowledge Check: Reviewing Your Time Management Focusing Skills
Being an Effective Team Member
Making a real, positive difference on a team is not necessarily about showing team leadership. Even if your role doesn’t involve managing teams, you can still make an important contribution by being a strong team member.
This course covers strategies and techniques to help you become a more effective and valued team member. You’ll explore ways to adopt a positive mindset toward teamwork, so that you can make a significant contribution.
Because your success when working on a team depends on pulling together with other people, you’ll also learn constructive ways to acknowledge differences and show respect for teams, and specific strategies for team collaboration.
0.5 Hours
- Recognize the effects that having a good attitude can have on a team
- Identify strategies for adopting a positive mindset about working on a team
- Identify the characteristics of a team member who has a proactive attitude
- Recognize how to be a proactive team member
- Recognize how to acknowledge team members’ rights to have differing opinions
- Recognize strategies for demonstrating tolerance and treating teammates with respect
- Recognize strategies for working collaboratively with others
- Use strategies for being an effective team member
Strategies for Building a Cohesive Team
Team cohesion, or the strength of the links between team members, determines how effective teams will be, especially in responding to outside pressures. A team has to be cohesive if its members are to function as a unit, working closely and efficiently to achieve common goals.
In this course, you’ll learn methods for effectively building and managing teams that focus on improvements in three areas: communication, cooperation, and trust.
You’ll learn specific strategies for improving communication and promoting collaboration among staff members working on a team. You’ll also learn what signs suggest a lack of trust on a team, and how you can show team leadership by using the right techniques to build trust and improve teamwork.
0.5 Hours
- Recognize guidelines for responding positively to team members to promote effective team communication
- Recognize ways of creating a sense of partnership among team members to promote effective communication
- Identify methods of encouraging team members to talk to each other
- Recognize strategies for promoting cooperation among team members, including putting the team’s needs first and accepting unpleasant tasks
- Recognize strategies for discouraging competition among team members to promote effective communication
- Recognize indicators of a lack of trust in teams
- Recognize strategies for building trust
- Recognize strategies for building team cohesion
Effective Team Communication
It’s vital to maintain open, effective communication when working on a team. However, it’s all too easy for teams to adopt bad habits. Without realizing how badly it affects your team, you or another team member may communicate in ways that lead to misunderstandings in teamwork, cause unnecessary conflict, keep others from having their say, and prevent collaboration.
In this course, you’ll learn about different verbal barriers to effective team communication and strategies for overcoming them. But speaking is only one part of communication; effective team leadership is about listening too. So you’ll also learn about some active listening techniques that can help you be a better listener when managing teams.
0.5 Hours
- Recognize examples of jargon and bluffing as verbal barriers to effective communication
- Recognize examples of polarizing a team, screening ideas, and crushing ideas as verbal barriers to communication
- Identify strategies for maintaining open communication during team meetings
- Match strategies to the types of communication barriers they can help you overcome in team meetings
- Recognize why active listening is important for healthy team communication
- Recognize examples of inquiring and acknowledging as techniques for active listening in a team setting
- Recognize examples of reflecting and suspending judgment as techniques for active listening in a team setting
- Use strategies for improving team communication and active listening
Establishing Team Goals and Responsibilities, and Using Feedback Effectively
Everyone working on a team has particular strengths. To get teams to perform at their best, these strengths have to be recognized, reflected in the roles and responsibilities assigned to team members, and directed toward achieving suitable goals.
In this course, you’ll learn techniques for building and managing teams, including how to set effective team goals, identify roles, assess team members’ competencies, and assign roles based on these competencies. You’ll also learn how to give and receive feedback effectively to improve teamwork, so that it strengthens your team leadership and the collaboration between your team members
0.5 Hours
- Identify examples of team goals that are aligned with corporate goals and that are clear and measurable
- Identify roles on a team
- Assess the competencies of team members
- Match competencies to related team member roles
- Identify ways to clarify expectations about the responsibilities of team members
- Recognize examples of effective feedback
- Recognize examples of constructive ways to receive feedback from team members
- Use techniques to work effectively with a team and give and receive feedback
Building the Foundation for an Effective Team
The way in which teams are built is an important factor in determining a project’s success. Effective team management requires strong team leadership that clearly outlines your goals and standards of behavior.
In this course, you’ll learn about the five stages of team development and strategies for selecting high-performing team members most suited for collaboration.
You’ll also learn some foundations for managing teams successfully, including how to set team goals, assign roles to individuals working on a team, and define specific guidelines for how team members should behave to minimize conflict and optimize teamwork.
0.5 Hours
- List the stages of team development
- Match personal qualities that team members should have with indicators of their presence
- Recognize the rewards derived from a collaborative approach to establishing team goals
- Sequence the steps that a given team should take to establish team goals
- Sequence examples of the steps for assigning team members to appropriate roles
- Recognize examples of effectively written guidelines for team conduct
- Identify examples of each category of team conduct guidelines
- Recognize strategies for forming a team and establishing its goals, roles, and guidelines
Developing a Successful Team
Anyone who is responsible for managing teams will tell you that team dynamics make a huge difference in the working environment. Developing effective project teams is one of the primary aspects of team leadership.
In this course, you’ll learn how to develop a team culture early on by establishing team member competencies and working to improve team dynamics.
You’ll also learn about methods used to encourage team participation and motivation and increase teamwork and commitment. Finally, you’ll learn about the importance of assessing and improving team performance.
0.5 Hours
- Sequence the steps used to perform a training gap analysis
- Recall factors that directly influence team dynamics
- Match indicators of poor team dynamics with team-building activities that could be used to correct them
- Match strategies that encourage team participation with examples
- Recognize the effective use of rewards and recognition
- Recognize strategies for gaining commitment from team members in a given scenario
- Recall the steps in the GROW method for improving team performance
- Use strategies for improving a team’s dynamics, strength, and performance
Encouraging Team Communication and Collaboration
Managing teams successfully involves ensuring that team members can communicate with you and with one another and that they will collaborate effectively as a team. To achieve this, clear channels of communication are required for both on-site and virtual teams.
In this course, you’ll learn how to demonstrate team leadership by encouraging effective communication and overcoming communication problems. You’ll explore strategies for encouraging team collaboration. Finally, you’ll learn about tools and technologies that are commonly used for virtual teamwork and key considerations for establishing virtual communication guidelines.
0.6 Hours
- Match characteristics of healthy team communication with examples
- Recognize strategies for overcoming the team communication issues of overcriticism and groupthink
- Recall strategies for dealing with interrupters and noncontributors
- Identify examples of strategies for fostering collaboration through team-oriented assignments
- Recognize strategies for using team-oriented messages to foster collaboration in action
- Classify examples of virtual team technologies as being for communication or conferencing
- Identify key areas for consideration when setting guidelines for virtual teams
- Recognize techniques for improving team collaboration through communication
Handling Team Conflict
Successful teams are characterized by having a clear direction, trust among team members, effective communication, and a clear process for managing team conflict. The survival of a team depends on a leader who can quickly recognize team conflict, diagnose its cause, and implement conflict resolution strategies.
In this course, you’ll learn about what causes conflict on a team and the important role of healthy communication in handling conflict. You’ll discover best practice approaches to dealing with conflict. You’ll also explore the tenets of principled negotiation in managing conflict. Finally, you’ll learn guidelines for resolving conflict that address one specific type of conflict: lack of trust.
0.5 Hours
- Match causes of conflict with examples of the effect each has on a team
- Recognize examples of resolving conflict through improved communication
- Match conflict resolution techniques with circumstances in which they would be used
- Identify which collaborative conflict resolution technique should be used in a given scenario
- Recognize examples of the rules of principled negotiation
- Recall techniques for resolving trust issues in a team meeting
- Identify the recommended contents of a guideline for maintaining trust on a team
- Use techniques to resolve conflict among members of your team
Leading a Cross-functional Team
Many organizations have discovered the advantages of using cross-functional teams, such as diversity of skills, perspectives, and experience, to accomplish their goals. While the diversity inherent to these teams can present certain challenges, successfully managing teams is worth the reward.
In this course, you’ll learn about the benefits of cross-functional teams. You’ll also learn about the various development stages of cross-functional teams and the risks at each stage. Finally, you’ll learn about the team leadership skills and abilities a cross-functional team leader should have and best practices for the related teamwork.
0.5 Hours
- Recall advantages of a cross-functional team
- Sequence examples of stages in the life of a cross-functional team
- Match examples of problems at the creation and formation and launch stages of cross-functional team development with the corresponding stages
- Identify problems encountered at the development and initial success stages of cross-functional team development
- Recognize examples of issues that occur at the cynicism and zone stages of cross-functional team development
- Identify characteristics of a successful cross-functional team leader
- Recognize examples of how to manage cross-functional teams successfully
- Recognize issues that arise in cross-functional teams and strategies for successful team management
Getting Your Pitch Heard
Innovation, disruption, and revolutionary ideas are the stuff of business success. But unless you can get those ideas across to the people in your organization how matter, they’re destined to remain pipe dreams.
Bland business presentations aren’t doing your ideas justice and boring PowerPoint presentations are blunting your message.
But effective verbal communication, public speaking and presentation skills can be cultivated and improved.
This course looks at methods for presenting your ideas in a convincing, succinct, and confident manner that will get them heard and given the attention they deserve.
0.3 Hours
- Identify statements that describe the attributes of a good idea
- Recognize the elements that can hinder a successful pitch
- Identify the needs of your target audience
- Identify the essential elements of a convincing pitch
- Identify techniques for maximizing the impact of your pitch in a group setting
- Knowledge Check: Making a Pitch
Contributing as a Virtual Team Member
Companies often opt to create virtual teams in place of on-site teams. This allows employees to work from home or remote locations. However, if not managed appropriately, remote working may cause breakdowns in communication, collaboration, and teamwork.
In this course, you’ll learn how to develop the skills you need to show team leadership and be an effective member of a virtual team. You’ll explore personal traits that are useful when working on a team remotely.
You’ll also learn strategies to stay connected with other team members, and ways to manage your time and overcome the challenges associated with managing teams remotely.
0.3 Hours
- Identify the traits that a good virtual team member should possess
- Identify ways of staying connected and communicating successfully with your team
- Identify some of the challenges associated with working remotely
- Identify some of the challenges and considerations associated with managing your time as a virtual team member
- Knowledge Check: Contributing as a Virtual Team Member