Business Accent

The art of project management

Project management is all about managing people. Here are a few dos and don’ts for successfully managing a project and the people involved.

Mohanakrishnan U

Project management is primarily about managing a project and its implicit goals with a specific set of resources. It is achieved through interaction with customers, team members and external supporting functions/teams. This being the case, I feel it’s appropriate to mention that the prime function of project management is managing people. I’ve heard many managers say, “I’ve got to manage my project and I don’t have enough time to manage the people on my project.” I was surprised because it is only these people who can achieve the goals of the project, and if you do not manage them well how do you intend to manage the project?

There are many facets to project management, including client management, requirements and scope management, planning and scheduling, risks management and people management. Your people-handling capabilities will be the critical aspect of a project, and it is this quality that will differentiate a successful leader from a not-so-successful one.

The present article will lead you through some useful tips for managing teams, and suggest a few dos and don’ts while leading a team towards a goal. These tips have been divided into various aspects of people management such as communication process/methods, morale building and managing expectations.

DOS

Setting goals and objectives

• Set objectives. Make sure that you set a vision and mission for the project. Ensure that every person on the project understands these goals. It is important to reinforce this at frequent intervals and revisit them to ensure that they remain relevant to the project.
• Define roles. Clearly define the various roles of the people working on the project, and never have any hidden agenda/roles chalked out for a smaller group. Explain roles even for non-billable/shadow members of your team. Discuss the responsibilities of the role with the person to ensure that there is consensus and a common understanding.

Managing expectations

• Listen. Make sure that you understand and give attention to the aspirations of each member of your team. Every person makes a difference to the project, and giving personal attention to each one of them makes them feel wanted and attended to, improves their confidence levels, and helps you to understand their capabilities so that you can utilise them better on the project.
• Appraise periodically. Keep a catalogue of employee performance/improvements over a period of time, and have periodic meetings to appraise them about it. When you give individuals a detailed and periodic appraisal they get recognised or corrected, and in turn become more productive in the project.
• Give opportunities, take chances. Ensure that individuals entering the project get to learn something new before moving out of the project. Make them learn new things, provide them with new opportunities, and see that they get benefited by being part of the project.
• Ensure learning. Make sure people learn from their experiences. Always provide a knowledge/learning dimension to the work they do. This will motivate people to do better.

Motivation

• Appreciate performance. Have regular team meetings; recognise and appreciate people during these meetings.
• Give visibility. Give team members exposure to the top management and customers. Remember, your growth is linked with theirs.
• Recognise success. Create a fund (from your pocket, if not available as a company policy) and encourage people periodically by openly giving them rewards out of this fund. Never wait for a mail from a customer in order to reward a person. A job well-done internally should also earn a reward. Remember, the team members success is the project’s success—and ultimately your success.

Morale boosters

• Organise outings. Go for periodic outings or lunches, and encourage new team members to organise and run the event during such outings.
• Lend support. While providing morale support, ensure that you build a strong, confident and self-reliant team of individuals. Give more responsibilities and lend enough support so that they grow confident.

Communication process

• Encourage an open culture. Have an open culture in the project. Sit with an open door and encourage members to drop by anytime and talk to you. Make yourself available at all times.
• Be honest. Always be honest and transparent in your communication. This will go a long way in developing team spirit.
• Interact regularly. Have occasional informal sessions with your team members. This improves the interaction with your team; they become open while discussing issues with you.
• Flat reporting hierarchy. Ensure that the reporting hierarchy is as flat as possible, and ensure that there are no more than two levels of reporting.

Work environment

• Give importance to teamwork. While there are different styles of encouraging teamwork and collaboration, have your own style of promoting teamwork. Remember that a champion team is always better than a team of champions.
• Create a stimulating environment. Promote knowledge-sharing and innovation. Apart from increasing the level of awareness across the team, it will fire up high-energy individuals.

Disciplining self

• Manage your time. Make sure that, as much as possible, you come in time to the office and leave on time. This provides a omfortable feeling to the team members; they will know that they can do the same as long as their individual work is completed. Ensure that people on the project learn skills such as time management, and are able to run meetings effectively.
• Be meticulous. Keep a planner/organiser handy and note down the issues/risks being discussed in meetings. Encourage the practice among other members too.
• Correct & improve. Correct and improve yourself periodically, and take regular feedback (360-degree feedback) from all the team members.

DON’TS

Rewards

• Criticism. Never criticise any person openly; instead, criticise them individually and only the wrong process the person is following. Be objective and never become personal while criticising.

Opportunities

• Never deny opportunities. Never take work away from a person because he/she is not doing it well. Instead, put a competent person along with him/her so that he/she can learn the job and perform better next time.
• Do not misuse resources. Never use team members for your career aspirations by assigning them work that they are not interested in.

Communication methods

• Think and delegate. Never delegate/outsource people management work to any other member (like tech leads/module leads in the project) unless there are reasons to believe that the person to whom the work is being delegated is capable of performing the job well and that it will help him/her grow career-wise.

Self-discipline

• Keep away from bias. Every person is different. Never try judging someone based on previous experiences. Start with a clean slate every time you move onto a new project. Analyse individuals objectively.
• Promises are to be kept. Never break promises made to team members; if you do so once, you have lost their confidence forever. But in case you break a promise, at least admit it openly and attempt to keep your other promises.
• Giving excuses. Never give an excuse for your mistakes. Admit them openly and apologise in front of everyone.
• Do not be late. Never go late to office and expect others to stay back since you’ve some pending work to be done.
• Have trust. Finally, never distrust the team. Trust all the members uniformly, never suspect them on any issue. Show trust in them by assigning responsibilities, and encourage them to work together to achieve their goals.

The author is Project Manager, MindTree Consulting. He can be reached at mohanakrishnan_u@mindtree.com