Project management toolkit_manual

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

Project Management Toolkit Manual

A guide through project management within AIESEC

Dear reader,

This document is the written version of the Project Management Toolkit Wiki, which can be found on

MyAIESEC.net. You will find this document not being an exact copy of the wiki page, since certain

documents linked to in the wiki page, are already processed in this manual. The reason for this, is to keep the wiki page well-organized and clear.

The aim of this Project Management Toolkit is to collect a series of planning and team management

tools, in order for team leaders ( and members ) to carefully plan and track their activities. By offering

a virtual platform on MyAIESEC.net and a printable version of the toolkit, I hope to reach as many team leaders as possible and learn them how to use these tools to extend their efficiency, time

management and tracking skills…

When referred to certain files, these can be found in the Attached Documents folder or downloaded

directly from MyAIESEC.net.

Enjoy!

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

Table of content

1. The Natural planning model .............................................................................................. 3

2. The idea ............................................................................................................................... 3

3. Brainstorming ..................................................................................................................... 4

Envision the outcome ........................................................................................................... 4

External brainstorming ......................................................................................................... 4

Mind-mapping ...................................................................................................................... 4

4. Organizing & tracking projects in time ............................................................................. 5

GANTT ................................................................................................................................ 5

SWOT analyses .................................................................................................................... 5

Weekly priorities .................................................................................................................. 6

5. Market segmentation and target messaging .................................................................... 6

6. Goal setting & Strategy development ............................................................................... 7

Advantages of goal setting ................................................................................................... 7

Balanced Scorecard .............................................................................................................. 7

7. Action plan .......................................................................................................................... 8

Next action list ..................................................................................................................... 8

Waiting for list ..................................................................................................................... 9

8. Feedback ............................................................................................................................10

The Feedback Process .........................................................................................................11

Tips for giving and receiving feedback ..................................................................................11

Advantages of personal feedback .........................................................................................12

360° feedback ....................................................................................................................12

9. Internal and External Communication .............................................................................12

10. Effective Team Meetings ...................................................................................................13

Preparation and Announcement ...........................................................................................13

The location .......................................................................................................................13

The agenda ........................................................................................................................14

The meeting starts ..............................................................................................................14

During the meeting .............................................................................................................14

At the end of the meeting ...................................................................................................14

The output .........................................................................................................................14

11. And always remember that… ............................................................................................15

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

1. The Natural planning model Many books are written on project management and ways to organize meetings, brainstorming

sessions and action plans. Each of these models will have its advantages and will be preferred by certain writers, management gurus or corporate executives. The natural planning model is one of

these models, trying to find a way to structure random thoughts on a certain issue / project. The

reason why I chose this model, is not because it is better than other models, but because it is easy in use and it structures ideas in the way our brain naturally works.

The Natural Planning Model consists of a 5-step phase:

Define purpose and principles

Outcome visioning

Brainstorming

Organizing

Indentifying next actions

The basic idea is that once you have envisioned your outcome, your brain will automatically start

filling in the missing pieces. In other words, you will start thinking about those things you still have to

do in order to get the project realized. This will be your brainstorming session, afterwards you can organize all of these thoughts in a structured way and you can start thinking about your first actions…

This is however only the beginning of a project… there’s a lot more to it, than merely organizing your

ideas… let’s go through a normal project flow from beginning to the end, introducing

some useful tools and tips that may be of any use for you.

2. The idea

Every project starts with an idea, a vision or a challenge. As a project manager it is important to

understand where this idea is coming from. As mentioned above, you will have to define the purpose of the project:

Why is it relevant for us?

Why do I want to organize this event?

What is the added value for my stakeholders ( LC, Alumni, Partners, Trainees,… )

Is the project based upon needs of society?

It is your task as a project manager to make your team understand all

these reasons and make them understand your idea, make them see your vision! Your team will be more motivated if they understand why they are

putting their time and effort in this, if they are on the same line as you are… it defines success and clarifies focus.

If you explain your project to others, always start with why you are doing this… it will be easier for someone to accept an idea as relevant, if

they know your motivation.

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

The value of defining purpose

It defines success

It creates decision-making criteria It aligns resources

It motivates It clarifies focus

It expands options

It enhances creativity It brings clarity to your ideas

It helps visioning the outcome

3. Brainstorming: The best way to start a brainstorm session is by asking yourself how the project will look after

execution; envision the outcome ! What do I want the project to look like?

What feeling do I want people to have when to look back on it?

What message do I want to get across?

What should be the main goal of the project?

Tips for outcome envisioning: View the project from beyond completion date

Envision wild success Capture features, aspects, qualities

Yes, AND instead of Yes, but

Once you have decided how the project should look like, you will have a mental picture that is different from your current reality and you can start filling in the gabs through a brainstorm session…

Ideas will pop up in your mind in a somehow random and unstructured order. Mostly this process will

happen in your mind, but for bigger and more complex matters, it might be valuable to use the

technique of external brainstorming. The idea of external brainstorming capitalizes on writing

down keywords in a structured way, so that every idea can be considered a trigger to another – sometimes even better – idea, resulting in a tremendous boost of your productive output.

Many techniques have been developed over the past decades, however Tony Buzan’s Mind-mapping is considered to be most famous. A mind-map is a diagram which holds the central core

idea in the middle, and associated items, ideas, tasks branching off of it.

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

There are however some rules, which you need to take into consideration:

Don’t judge, challenge, evaluate or criticize

Go for quantity, not quality

Put analyses and organization to background

You can also use software programs to digitalize your mind-maps and to integrate them within other software programs. Programs like iMindMap or MindManager are well known for their user-friendly

interface.

4. Organizing & tracking projects in time

Once you’ve put all your ideas on a external medium, you can start organizing them… This can be

done in several ways, on different levels or in whatever order may be most useful to you. Personally, I

think that every project should be outlined on a time-based level, in other words by making a GANTT chart. GANTT charts display every phase of a project related to its start and end date, allowing the

reader to have a clear overview.

You can create GANTT charts easily by using Microsoft Excel or project management software such as Microsoft

Projects. You can find some planning templates in the Project Planning file.

The main advantage of GANTT charts is that it easily

allows you to track your project by showing which tasks

have to be realized by which deadlines, by who and with which resources. But even more important, it also

visualizes the implications when the deadline isn’t met. Therefore it seems useful to me to check your

timetable before every meeting, to keep track of

your team and adjust them when needed.

Another tool that could help you while drawing up your project plan is a SWOT analyses; it accounts the developments, occurrences and influences to which the project is liable, both on an

internal as external level:

Strengths and Weaknesses: internal influence ( circumstances can be adapted by the team )

Opportunities and Threats: external influence ( circumstances cannot be adapted by the team

f.e. overall decrease in governmental grants )

SWOT analyses are usually made of a similar or preceding project, in order to give the new team something to start with. Therefore they are often composed in a final wrap-up meeting, where the

entire team gathers and shares their opinion about the project. This is often a valuable moment for the team leader as well, because he/she has the opportunity to introduce a final feedback round ( see

later ).

However, SWOT analyses can also be drawn up before or during a project, as they will provide you

important information on your project’s boundaries and opportunities. The information gather out of the analyses will allow you to better comprehend your environment. Therefore it is advisable to

draw up your SWOT analyses with the entire team, getting as much input as possible.

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

One can also decide to work with weekly priorities… Using this technique, you will have to create

a clear detailed picture of every aspect of your project. Personally I’m not a fan of this weekly

priorities because of two reasons: You can easily lose track

It limits your perspective

Many people tend to pin these priorities to certain moment in time ( a week, month, certain day ) and therefore writing them down in their agenda. When unforeseen circumstances arrive, you will have to

deal with these first, before getting back to your priority-list. Once the day is passes, you will easily

forget about the things you’ve planned for this day. Furthermore it limits your perspective and creative thinking, because you will tend to deal with these things first, and you’ll put other aspects to the

background. If however, you would decide to work with priorities, do not write them down in your agenda, but make a separate action list of them.

5. Market segmentation and target messaging

Now you got your information organized, you might want to think about the message you want to get

across… Since every projects brings people with different backgrounds together, the first thing you

want to do is to figure out which stakeholders will be involved. Stakeholders are people that might be affected by your projects, they can be internal stakeholders ( OC, EB, LC… ) or external

stakeholders ( partners, media, students at university, NGO’s ). The degree of defining your stakeholders depends on the project itself. You can for example categorize the students at your

university per faculty, per year of graduation, per gender, or per combination of the previous… The

degree of categorization will depend on the number of different key messages you want to get across to students.

Once you got your stakeholders into subgroups, you will start to delineate the key messages you

want to deliver to these people. Your project will have its general message, mostly being its relevance to society, your purpose ( see above ), however this is the reason why YOU would want to

organize it.

At this moment the stakeholders come into play and you will define a clear and detailed key

message to each of your subcategories. This key message should hold the following things: Why would the stakeholder want to cooperate in this project?

What are the benefits for the stakeholder?

What can you offer that no-one else can deliver?

What is your impact?

Finally you will have to find a way to

communicate your message, in other words; you will define the different media

infrastructures you will use… some ideas: aula speeches, posters & flyers, presentations,

clipboards, promotional movies, teaser campaigns, awareness event, …

You can find the template for key messaging attached.

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

6. Goal setting & Strategy development At this point you got your plan straight, you know why you are running this project ( cf. defining

purpose ) and you know how you want your project to look after the expiration date ( cf. envisioning outcome ). In other words, you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve.

However, a vision is a rather broad conception of a desirable future state… It is not specific or

detailed, it is merely a common outcome desired by every member of the team. Goals on the other

hand, are aligned with our vision, they represent the state of affairs an action plan attends to achieve. f.e. AIESEC’s vision is peace and fulfillment of humankind’s potential, while a goal can be realizing 1000 Xs within an educational traineeship.

A goal is much more specific and time-related than a vision or an objective; it needs to be

measurable. In this perspective goals are often defined according to the SMART-principles; they are thought to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-related.

6.1. Advantages of goal setting

The first advantage of defining goals is its motivational character:

it might be useful to differentiate two types of goals; the ones that make your project succeed –

project goals – and the ones that make the experience successful for your team members – personal goals. This way you keep a balance between output and input, between production and

production means, between numbers and people… Keeping these goals by hand during meetings, or hanging them up the wall can be a great motivator for your team.

Another advantage lies in the tracking of your activities: apart from your GANTT-chart, a regular review of the current status of your goals will help you in

tracking the success of your project. If you would notice any inefficiencies or bottlenecks, it might be necessary to adapt your strategy.

6.2. Balanced Scorecard

In order to define your goals in a more structured and well-considered way, you can make use of

the Balanced Scorecard. The BSC is a performance management tool that is used to analyze a

multilayer organization / project by taking all the stakeholders and business perspectives into account. When using the tool properly, you should be able to identify your:

Critical Success Factors ( CSF ): things you should be good at in order to make the project succeed

Key Performance Indicators ( KPI ): quantitative indicators to measure the CSFs

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

The BSC is a widely used tool in AIESEC to identify every year’s strategy, but it can also be used on

other layers of the organization or as a effective planning tool. For more information have a look at

the BSC 2010 PowerPoint or read the Balances Scorecard 2010 – Introduction Extended document.

You can find the Balance Scorecard template in the Attached Documents folder

7. Action plan

The final step is defining your next actions… you need to break down your organized

thoughts you prepared in the brainstorming session into executable actions. The best way

to capture all these actions, is to review the entire mind-map and define every next action that you

need to undertake to achieve your goals… also check your GANTT chart, because this will show which actions need to be done first.

After a while you will be faced with hundreds of next actions that need to be done, and you will often

find your mind wondering off from one action to another, trying to remember which mails you need to

send once you get home, which documents to read, etc. In order to structure you thoughts and allow you to think more effective, we will introduce David Allen’s Getting Things Done system.

What’s written underneath is part of a bigger model that allows you to create structure in your

everyday life and helps you with your time management. We will merely deal with the small part of

creating action list. In order to comprehend the entire system of Getting Things Done, I strongly advise everyone who wants to expand his level of focus, to read David Allen’s book.

Basically it comes down to this; you need to capture all your ideas, all your next actions on to

an external medium in order to clear your head and think more effective. Your mind will focus more on the opportunities and the content of the action, instead of thinking about the action itself. To this

end, we will introduce two major lists: a Next action list and a Waiting for list. You can make

these lists on your computer or use a simple notebook.

Next action list: You next action list is the list where you write down your next actions, being executable dealings

that you need to undertake as soon as you have time for it. Time-related actions ( that need to be

done on a certain moment in time ) do not go on your actions list, you will list them in a personal agenda. According to David Allen, your next action list is best organized according to its context:

Anywhere: Action can be executed anywhere at any time f.e. think about how to involve sponsors in

our project

Calls

At computer

At office

At home

Errands: all the actions that require you to move around f.e. go pick up the promotional material at

Lindsay’s place

Read/Review: all the materials you still have to read. It might be useful to have a basket at

your desk where you can put magazines and papers in.

People: everything you have to discuss with a certain person use the filter to select one

person at time, you get a quick overview on what to talk about with whom.

Meetings

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

The advantage of organizing your list according to context is that you can f.e. have a quick glance at

your call list when you have a 5min time interval between two meetings, you can easily do something

that doesn’t take long, nor takes a lot of your attention.

It is important to remember that the things are on this list need to be exact, executable actions! In other words, the real next step that you should undertake to achieve what you want. Writing

down have dinner with friends isn’t an next action, it consists of a series of next actions you need to

do in order to achieve having dinner; you need to look for a restaurant, call your friends, you need to book the restaurant etc.

In other words, the intellectual work of defining what you are willing to do with the item,

has already happened before putting it on your list. When you recall upon your lists itself, you only need to execute the action, without requiring any thinking.

Waiting for list: In this list you will write down all the things you expect someone else to do. The advantage of

creating your waiting for list on a computer, is the usage of filters in MS Excel… they allow you to filter one name and automatically see which actions need to be done by this person. This is done by

clicking on the arrow above the “who column”; you can now select one or more persons and the

program will now generate a new list with only those people that you selected…

This way you can easily create worklists ( list which contain a number of tasks that needed to be executed by certain people ). These lists can be printed and brought to every meeting, offering the project manager a quick overview of who is responsible for what. He will also be able to locate bottlenecks much faster.

These lists need to be reviewed at a regular basis ( weekly ) to remain operational!

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

You can find the next action template and the waiting for template attached. If you are interested in David Allen’s complete action management system, I recommend you to read

his book Getting Things Done or take a look at this summary ( click ) and have a look at the promotional video ( click )

8. Feedback

Another important element in project management is the concept of feedback. Feedback is given in

order to guide your project members through their experience; their performance will depend on your input. In other words, feedback serves two purposes:

Improvement of attitudes and behavior

Reinforcement of current behavior

Everyone can give valid and worthwhile feedback, regardless of

their level of experience, as long as the feedback is given on the actions and behavior of a person, and not the person himself.

Often feedback holds negative points, therefore it may seem

difficult for you to give it.

However feedback is considered of high importance to most managers; it aligns the expectations of both the project

manager and his subordinates or team members. Find out more

about how to give and interpreter feedback underneath;

Example: You have a vague idea of a project you want to start, but you still need to define what and how, so you write down brainstorm on project X on your Anywhere list. After a while you will have a clear idea and you will start to break down your plan into next actions:

Write business plan goes on your At computer list Contact company X for sponsoring goes on your Call list Read legislation on ASBL organizations goes on your Read-Review list Send mail to Tom and ask for contacts of National Project Team goes your At computer list

After a while you have a time window and you are on your computer, you open your At computer list and decide to send the email to Tom. Now you can erase this item of your list, but you will put Answer Tom about contacts for Project X (ref. 009381) on your Waiting for list. A couple of days later, you open your inbox and you see this email with the contacts. You decide on calling them later, so you put the number on your Call list and you erase the item of your Waiting for list.

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

The Feedback Process

1. Start with the positive points Praise the person’s strong points by emphasizing them and explaining how they helped you or the

organization. This way the person will feel good about himself and he will repeat this behavior in the future. A positive environment has been created… Use phrases such as I admire the way you, I am impressed by the way you, Every was pleased with your work regarding, …

2. Point out the negative points

Address the points that may be of any concern to you or that hold any room for improvement. Always include an example and give him/her suggestions on how to overcome this weakness. Try to make

sure that he understands what you are trying to say and explain that you are trying to help him grow. Avoid phrases such as You did, You should have, You weren’t allowed, Yes but, Your work was great however and try not to talk in term of Do’s and Don’ts or Wright and Wrongs. Instead use personal statements such as I felt, It seemed to me that, I wonder if, I sense. Conclude with tactic, but honest and helpful suggestions; There might be a missed opportunity here, It is a small thing but be aware of, One thing you might look for is, …

3. Always end with a positive remark I really admire your courage in stepping up for this demonstration. Overall, I very much enjoyed… We are very pleased and lucky to have you as a member of our team… You have some wonderful …natural coaching skills …and with practicing and learning new skills, you will be a masterful coach.

Tips for giving and receiving feedback

The person who receives feedback Try to understand that your observer is trying to help you

Seek for patterns or similar recommendations

Don’t allow yourself to become defensive

Feedback is an opportunity to change

Ask questions to clarify the feedback

Focus on the areas of improvement

Listen actively

The person who gives feedback

Chose a calm and neutral environment to give the feedback

Keep your tone neutral; maintain positive and objective

Evaluate the person’s work, not his/her personality

Ask for his/her point of view on this matter

Always give the feedback in private

If necessary, give examples

Show them that you care

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

Advantages of personal feedback

It increases self-awareness

It prevents unnecessary conflict

It will motivate your team members if done properly

It tightens the band between you and your subordinate

Can be linked to a personal mentoring program

360° feedback Finally we’ll point out the importance of 360° feedback; 360° feedback differs from regular feedback

because it is done in a group. It starts from the idea that feedback will be more valuable when

received from every person that is involved in your professional occupation; colleagues, partners, subordinates, representatives, directors, etc.

Feedback rounds are usually organized at the end of a meeting and can be organized in two ways.

In the first possibility; you will be asked to give two positive and

two negative characteristics about every person attending, this can be oral or written on a piece of paper. The other possibility

exists in making a questionnaire with several questions and ask someone to chair the meeting for you.

The main difference with “normal” feedback, is that you cannot react on this, otherwise it will resort in a group discussion. Also

try not to repeat everything that has already been said before.

Main advantages:

Can be done anonymously (f.e. using pieces of paper)

Stimulates open communications and group spirit

Input from every team member

It avoids unnecessary conflict

Increases self-consciousness

Supports development

Fast and effective

I thoroughly recommend to do this 360° feedback on a monthly basis, you will see that it

will be a great learning experience! Read more about feedback on this e-learning website ( http://www.faculty.londondeanery.ac.uk/e-learning/feedback )

9. Internal and External Communication

When organizing a project you want your team members to stay up-to-date at all time; you want them to have access to all project related material, you want them to know about latest changes, you

expect them to be fully informed about everything that’s going on… in other words, you want to have a good internal communication.

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

Several virtual tools, such as MS Groove and Dropbox, can be used to support your internal

communication. Both programs allow you to create virtual workspaces where you can upload

documents and presentations. These documents can be seen and/or edited by all users connected to the workspace. If a file is edited, this is automatically synchronized

amongst all users. It needs no further explanation that these tools are extremely useful when working in big teams who are willing to share their

project documents.

The main advantage of MS Groove over Dropbox, is that the space of

your workspace is unlimited and that you also have the ability to access instant chat, leave notes, draw diagrams and share agenda’s. You can

also integrate it with the entire MS Office package. Learn more about MS Groove ( click - video is only accessible with Internet Explorer ) and Dropbox ( click )

Another aspect is called external communication; once the project is in place, you want to promote it to your stakeholders according to your compiled messages ( see above ). You have several

media tools to do this, do however make sure that your material is always brand aligned! Therefore

check the AIESEC Branding wiki. You can also find attached a collection of templates for PowerPoint and Word that will help you presenting your project.

When involving partners in your project, it might be useful to write a business plan. A business plan is

a formal document used to present the project to potential ( financial ) partners, in order to convince

them to cooperate / sponsor the project. It should consist of: Background information on the organizing organization ( AIESEC )

The purpose and impact of the project

The goals of the project ( = measurable goals )

The project plan ( how to achieve the goals )

Benefits for the partnering organization

10. Effective Team Meetings

Until now we have been describing a series of planning tools and instruments which will help you

managing your project. As mentioned before, the best way to plan and track your project, is by involving the entire team in the strategy you’re willing to apply. This will make them feel responsible

for the project, hence empowered and motivated to bring the project to a good end. Underneath you’ll find a series of tips in order to make your team meetings effective.

Preparation and Announcement Always announce your meeting min one week in advance

Mention the purpose of the meeting

Keep the announcement short ( location, date, time, required readings )

Include the agenda of the meeting and mention the expected duration

Assign meeting preparation to reduce actual meeting duration or background question

The location Go for a familiar but calm environment, try to diversify

Provide drinks and cups, this will set a more comfortable atmosphere

Make sure the logistics are in place ( number of sockets, beamer, projection screen )

Provide sufficient blank paper and ballpoints for the participants to take notes

Try to create natural light, but prevent windows that can cause distraction

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

The agenda

Mention location, date and time of the meeting

Mention topics, allocated time and speaker of discussion

Design the agenda in a well organized way

It’s better to plan a 50min lasting meeting with an expected duration of 1 hour

The meeting starts Start on time, even if some participants are late!

Welcome everyone, even when they’re late, make them feel appreciated

Mention the purpose of the meeting and set expectations

Appoint someone who is willing to take notes of the meeting

Go over the agenda

During the meeting Stick to the agenda and the anticipated time-limit

Encourage group discussions and feedback, involve timid persons by asking their opinion

Be your own role-model; listen to understand, not to reply

Appoint speakers one by one, prevent people from talking without being asked

Keep the conversation on-topic, stick to the purpose of the meeting

Summarize agreements and use hedging-techniques

Spice up the meeting by visual material ( graphs, ppt’s, video’s, articles, … )

At the end of the meeting Always close a meeting by defining which actions ought to be taken by who and by when

Thank everyone for their attendance and set a deadline to send the output

Ask if anyone still has questions, if yes, let them approach you afterwards

Thank the secretary for making notes

The output

Find a balance between details and length of the output

Send the output of the meeting asap

Conclude a worklist ( see above )

AIESEC UA – Room ABC.203 - Prinsstraat 13 – 2000 Antwerp – Belgium

www.aiesecua.be - +32 3 220 40 25

11. And always remember that… Well, now you’ve got the basic tools and knowledge to start working on your project, there’s nothing

that can hold you back from success! And always remember that…

… success is a choice and that it starts by yourself! As long as you keep these basic planning tools close at hand, and keep your team motivated and briefed at all times, your project will be an unique experience for all of you. But it will always require a certain believe in yourself and in those around you…

… the biggest lessons are drawn from our mistakes Even if you don’t make it to your organizational goals, there’s still a team of people behind you that learned something from this happening, maybe even from you… a team that has been motivated and inspired by your leadership. Share these feelings with your team and you will find that you’ve learned more than you would initially thought.

… learn by doing; practice makes perfect Whatever you do, do not let any setback break you down! There’s a first time for everything and one must learn how to walk, before he can start to run. And yes you will fall, but mistakes are made in order to learn from them. Ask yourself what went wrong, think it through and start again! Rome wasn’t build in one day either!

… the sky is the limit! Chase your dreams, live and lead by your vision… You can accomplish anything you want, as long as you keep believing in it, as long as you keep striving to get it, as long as you NEVER GIVE UP! Because the people who are crazy enough to think that they change the world, are usually the ones who do...

The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand,

as in what direction we are moving