Easy and Doable Steps to Ensure Project Success
You may have experienced feeling intimidated at times when you see star project managers breezing through their tasks when it comes to managing big teams.
And then you look at yourself with a small team and wonder why you aren’t getting things done.
There have been numerous studies and observations as to why there are teams that succeed at working together toward their goals while there are others that don’t seem to push through with what they have to do.
Through these observations came insights as to how goals can be better achieved on time and on budget. The bottom line of it all is this: the project manager has to be effective in his or her role. The project manager has to be excellent at his or her job so that the rest of the team members will be, too.
It isn’t much about luck or talent. It is a combination of a number of factors for the whole team to be successful in achieving its goals. Here are some of the doable ways that you can become an effective project manager and ensure project success.
Nurturing Ownership
The reality of handling a team is that you won’t be able to know all the things that each of your team members know. Did they work as hard as they possibly could? Where they able to do their best? What you can do here is to nurture ownership.
Make sure that your team is in line with the overall goal that you want to achieve. Nurture in them the can-do attitude as well. This will help you in building emotional commitment with the rest of the team members.
To do this effectively, empower them, appreciate them, and allow them to contribute to the team. Make each of the members feel that they are a vital part of the project; that they will feel each success or failure as their own. When you can do this successfully, you will see that the team members will start to work harder so that failures can be avoided and victories can be achieved.
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Opening Communication
Another important factor to becoming an effective project manager is communication. Important information about the project has to be accessible to everyone in the team. Sure, remote working is a thing nowadays. However, it is still important that the team will remain on the same page so that each of you will know the progress of the project.
By allowing the people in your team to be well-informed, they will be able to identify the things that have an effect on them. They can be aware of the impact of their work in the goal of their project. If the team misses a certain goal, everyone will know about it, and everyone can work together to patch up the damage. By opening communication, the team can work better and more effectively.
Giving Time for Reflection
When you start a new project, always look back to your previous projects and think about how you can run this one better than the last. When you finish a project, ask yourself what you could have done differently if you could do it all over.
By asking these questions, you become aware of emerging lessons that you learn from the projects that you handle. Apart from that, you will also be training yourself to think more critically on how things could have been done better and then learning from that systematically.
Using the Right Tools
Talent and skills are not enough to get the best possible job done. You will need some help one way or another. There are plenty of project management tools today that you can try out. It would be a shame to waste such tools by not using them.
Tools are there to make the task easier to accomplish. Make use of them well. Regardless of the kind of tools you will be using, see to it that you remain disciplined and organized when it comes to logging your tasks.
Wrapping it Up
When you work in improving your skills, learn from the little lessons and insights that emerge along the way. Try to focus on these four basic steps so that you can grow faster and be the effective project manager that you envision yourself to be, and also to work your way into making each of the projects that you handle a success.
There may be rough patches along the way when your working towards your goals for the project. But don’t fret. This is where most of the learning will come. Embrace the challenges that come your way because then, you will be able to test your skills in project management. You will grow as a project manager and you will be better equipped with wisdom and knowledge in handling future projects.