If you were left alone to do a task, the chances are that you’d show up with exemplary performance. It’s working with others that cause problems. Most people usually have no experience – at least in the beginning – in working with others.
According to Kevin Evers of Harvard Blogs, research indicates that project managers are the real moneymakers for a company. They help boost any company’s bottom-line. They take care of all other teams that are instrumental in delivering products and services.
We believe that project managers are the last-mile connectivity for businesses. Without them, the traditional agency problem – where every individual does work to suit personal interests and goals – could exacerbate to a crippling situation.
But then, management isn’t sexy. It just is.
It’s an important role but a thankless job. It’s one of those vocations where you don’t ask for a lot of what you have to do. Your actual job description as a project management doesn’t even begin to do justice to the multi-varied, multi-skilled role that project management and team handling is.
Online or virtual, small or big business, project management is likely to take up most of your day. As a project manager, you have tools at your disposal. The industry wants you to deliver projects as well as you possibly can. You also have a team of people ready to work and shine in their own light. Yet, project management isn’t as easy as it might seem to look at first glance. You can, however, make it easier on you. Here are a few tips for you to get started:
Project management isn’t a popularity contest
Every project manager or team leader has to understand this: The work you do there with a team of talented individuals all working together to achieve a common goal isn’t a frat party. It’s no popularity contest either. You don’t get paid big money because you are the most sociable person on the floor or for being the smartest, or cleverest, or the most humorous. You could be the life of the team but that’s useless if you can pull your own socks – and make others pull up theirs – to get things done.
For project managers, it’s always about getting results. It’s about making sure that results are obtained over long periods of time.
Create a Road Map
Most managers have two approaches to project management and handling teams: either they leave their team to do everything on their own assuming that individual team members are self-sufficient. Or managers will micro-manage or handholds until team members deliver results.
Both of these approaches actually require you to do more work than needed. Jerry Hauser, CEO of Washington-based The Management Center recommends guiding more doing less in a post for Business Insider. He refers to this balanced approach as “delegation cycle” consisting of 4 steps:
• Agreeing on expectations
• Staying engaged
• Creating accountability and learning, and
• Adapting to fit the context.
Understand Delegation
Delegation isn’t about giving instructions and waiting for the work to get done. Instead, it’s about giving instructions, standing by to support team members, connecting the dots, building a streamlined process, and then repeating all of the above. While managing teams, debrief team members after they complete their work.
Work on your feedback system
Team members dread feedback, especially if it’s given the wrong way. Yet, they won’t learn without feedback (and that applies to project managers as well). Get used to giving out constructive feedback – positive and negative – on a regular basis so that your team gets used to this feedback loop. Don’t wait for things to go wrong. There is such a thing as being pro-active, and you do know about it, don’t you?
Don’t be afraid to give feedback. Letting others know how they work and getting to know how you work gives insights no book can teach you about. It tells you things you never knew about yourself and it allows you to see things you’d otherwise overlook.
Jason Westland of Project Manager has a few tips on how to provide feedback for your team. He suggests taking personality out of feedback. He also adds that being honest, timely, appropriate, and giving praise for work well done also adds to the effectiveness of feedback.
Build your team, one project at a time
Give too much information and it’ll be too much to handle. Give too less and you aren’t doing much then. It’s best to go with the flow and build your team’s effectiveness, one project at a time. Delegation, workflow, and circumstances change for every project and that’s why a cookie-cutter approach to team management never works. Get hands-on sometimes, leave the team members alone to work all by themselves sometimes. Be there when you ought to be; leave them room for the rest of the time.
Taking time to build your team also gives you many insights on your project management capabilities. It allows you to see through each team member and find out what each of them is good at, and isn’t.
It’s relatively slower than a blanket-approach, but it’s effective. It’s worth it.
Make good use of tools available
There are project management guides, courses, and numerous tools to help you manage your team better. The Internet is full of information on project management best practices.
There are helpful project management guides available. You can tap into the goodness of project management software such as WorkZone or many other tools available to bring protocol to your project management. Put productivity tips and mind hacks to good use.
Project management is multi-tasking
Project management isn’t just a job; it’s multiple jobs rolled into one. You have your job to do, and then you’d have to inspire, train, teach, educate, inform, give feedback, help others, be a leader, and multi-task on a whole lot of things – all in a day’s work. There’ll be meetings, briefs, training sessions, designing work processes, creating systems, planning, de-briefing, check-ins, one-on-one sessions, evaluation work, and tons more.
How easy or hard is it for you to manage projects? How do you handle your team? Share your expertise with us.
