Are You Looking to Drive a Successful Project?🎈

If you work in a corporate environment and are eager to lead a high-impact project, this is for you.

Perhaps you aspire to form a business transformation team and spearhead change within your organization. To do so, you need to demonstrate project leadership in a way that earns the respect and admiration of your colleagues. In this article, I will share techniques that will make people say, “Wow, that’s impressive.”

I have led over 70 business transformation projects as a consultant at IBM. After retiring from IBM, I independently conducted 20 additional consulting engagements and have been running seminars on "Project Leadership Development" for 12 years.

From these experiences, I’ve developed a set of techniques that consistently impress stakeholders and drive results.

#Project Leadership Techniques That Will Leave an Impression

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⏩Technique 1: Deliver Meeting Minutes Instantly

Projects require frequent cross-functional meetings. Imagine attending a meeting and receiving a complete, well-structured summary just 10 minutes after the session ends. Wouldn’t that make you think, “Wow”?

And if the minutes accurately capture key discussions and decisions, that’s another “Wow.”

If you are selected to be on a project team, why not challenge yourself to become an expert in delivering meeting minutes within 10 minutes?

Read More : **English version will be soon published

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⏩Technique 2: Structuring a Meeting with Precision

Imagine you are the facilitator of a two-hour project strategy meeting.

Ten internal stakeholders and eight representatives from two supplier companies are in attendance, discussing how to deliver products to customers more efficiently.

As the meeting nears its end, how do you structure the discussion to ensure alignment among the three organizations involved?

What Makes a Meeting Summary “Impressive”?

In September 2024, I facilitated such a meeting. The result?

• The meeting ended precisely on time.

• Key points from the discussion were summarized effectively.

• Everyone agreed on the summary and next steps.

• We secured consensus on holding a focused follow-up workshop in two weeks, where all parties would come prepared with specific deliverables.

This is how you turn a complex discussion into an actionable plan.

How to Achieve This?

1. Summarize Key Points in Real-Time:

   • Capture key insights in bullet points during the discussion.

   • Ideally, project them onto a screen using a single PowerPoint slide for everyone to see.

2. Ensure Accuracy & Engagement:

   • Ask the participants: “Did we miss anything?”

   • This fosters engagement and ensures completeness.

3. Turn Your Notes into an Actionable Summary:

   • These bullet points become the de facto summary of the meeting and the foundation for future discussions.

Pre-requisites for Success:

• Understand the Business Context: Familiarize yourself with the topics being discussed.

• Clarify Terminology: If unfamiliar jargon or acronyms arise, ask questions immediately.

• Have Relevant Case Studies & Solutions Ready: Bringing in external examples enhances credibility.

• Think in “Key Takeaways”: Continuously ask yourself, “How would someone understand this if they read it later?”

By the end of the meeting, display your structured summary on a PowerPoint slide and ask: “Did we capture all key discussion points?”

This approach ensures alignment and fosters a sense of ownership among participants. It’s not about perfection—it’s about creating a collaborative opportunity to refine the conclusions together.

Facilitating a meeting while simultaneously summarizing key points may seem daunting at first. However, with practice—such as utilizing the Post-it Note Meeting Method—it becomes second nature.

Learn More : ** this article is in Japanese, and will be tranlated in English soon

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Summary

Today, we discussed how to develop project leadership by mastering techniques that leave a lasting impact.

The key takeaway: When you consistently impress your project team, you gain trust, making it easier to drive initiatives forward.

We covered two fundamental techniques:

⏩1 Delivering meeting minutes instantly
⏩2 Structuring meetings effectively

However, project leadership is much broader. If you’re interested in further enhancing your skills, explore these topics:

• Post-it Note Meeting Method

• Creating a Vision in One Hour

• Hypothesis-Driven Problem Solving

• Six Key Conditions for Successful Transformation (Change Management)

• Win-Win Negotiation Techniques

Thank you for reading, and I encourage you to continue developing your project leadership skills!