August and Your PMO

What comes to mind when you think of the month of August? Many of us may associate August with summer holidays, warm weather, and a “quiet” time of year for work. Although August is a few months away, we’re looking at helping you getting set-up so you are able to take advantage of the less hectic period, and be in a great position for the new year.

August gives us a gift we rarely get in our day-to-day = time!

Compile and complete an August to-do list

We all have jobs, plans and projects that we’d love to get around to when we have the time. We often forget about them, don’t get round to setting deadlines, or are so busy in our day-to-day that we don’t even get to write them down – meaning we have a whole host of items on a to-do-list that we never get around to doing.

Starting now, we can identify our non-urgent tasks, and let August be the month we complete jobs we haven’t yet had the chance to do.

These could be simple things – organising a file system, following up with clients, connecting with people you know on LinkedIn etc. to bigger projects. For example, if you run a clothing company, August might be a great time to create some new designs, or work on marketing – ready for when you have less time during the rest of the year.

In doing so, you may be able to work with your team on something different than their day-to-day responsibilities, preventing yourself from feeling overwhelmed during busier periods, and start the new year feeling accomplished. Who knows – ticking off these tasks may lead to new and exciting opportunities in the future!

Update your CV

This is a job we are all guilty of avoiding – keeping your CV up-to-date can be tedious, but it is not only good practice, it can also give us a great opportunity to reflect on the year. Have we changed job role? How do our current responsibilities differ from last year? What projects have we worked on over the past 12 months?

If you’re looking to create a personal summary that gets read, showcase your skills and experience throughout and develop the skills you need to write your own CV throughout your career, why not take a look at our CV Development for PMO Professionals?

Even better – the short course covers the six modules over a two week time period via email, so you can learn at your own pace, with lifetime access to your materials.

This is perfect for August – spending a short amount of time each day for two weeks can completely transform your CV, and future you will thank yourself!

Identify areas for improvement

By reflecting on the year, and updating our CV we can set our goals for the year ahead, and identify areas that we can improve on.

A great place to start is the PMO Competency Framework – you can assess your skills against the framework, and follow the Select, Reflect, Assess and Evidence process, which you can read more about here.

Your initial assessment shoud take a few hours to complete – take the time during the quieter period of the year to establish you current competency. Set goals and understand how you can fill gaps in your knowledge and skills – in a year you will be able reflect on how you have developed (and update your CV accordingly!

Train your team

If your whole team has a quiet August – why not complete some team training?

You can advance knowledge of a specialist subject, or even get the whole team certified – allowing a base level of knowledge to be established within a team can be particularly beneficial in situations in which there are a mix of newer and more experienced members of staff.

In-house courses can also be one of the most cost-effective and personalised way to train your team. At PMO Learning, we are able to develop our in-house courses so that they are customised to your organisation, team, and way of working.

If you’d like to find out more, talk about training options, or organise some in-house training, get in touch!

To conclude, August doesn’t have to be a quiet month – whether it’s training, personal development, checking off items on your to-do-list, or planning for the year ahead, let’s take advantage of the gift of more time.

Let us know what you have planned for August below!

Enjoying Our Blog?

Sign up and receive all our articles (we’ll send you an update once a week!) plus special offers and events:

This post contains affiliate ad links.

Share: Linkedin Logo Facebook Logo Twitter Logo

Leave your thoughts

House of PMO Essentials

Essentials for PMO Administrators

Essentials for PMO Analysts

Essentials for PMO Managers

Essentials for PMO Directors

P3O® Certifications

MoP® Certifications

Stay in Touch

Archives