Five Fundamentals for Project Managers

Five Fundamentals for Project Managers

Adopt practices for exploring a variety of perspectives.
We think we see what we saw, but we don’t. We really see what we think. Remember the blind men and the elephant. Make it your habit to inquire what others see. You’ll see more together.

There is a saying, 1 person to see near; 2 people will see farther.
As a project manager, you will need to be a few steps ahead of the team, pre-empt the team from unpleasant circumstances. Here are few tips for you to consider.

1.     Stay close to your customer.

Clients’ concerns evolve over the life of a project.  Do not under-deliver or over-promise. Instead over-deliver what you had promised earlier. Stay close to your stakeholders and update them the progress, check with them what they do really want. Ensure they do not give you any surprises in the project delivery process.

2.     Take care of your project team.

Ensure the project team is able to deliver what the project requester wants. Do not over-strained the project team. It is the project manager’s responsibility to take care of the team member welfare in terms of mentally and physically. As a project manager, he needs to bring unity to the team and move forth to accomplish the project common goal.

3.     Build relationships intentionally.

Every team member is different. They do have different skill set and different personality. Thus it is a blessing to have all the different expertise to be in a project team. It is good to build and foster good working relationship in order to strengthen the team spirit.

4.     Tightly couple learning with action.
Every project is different. Even the end result is the same, but the environment is different, unique team member involved. There are always unique lessons to be learned in every project. Do jot down every precious lessons and share among the project team. Every stakeholder in the team will appreciate it. Most important, you can refer this as a guideline for subsequent project managers and also a template for those who are taking over the project.

5.     Collaborate. Really collaborate.

For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. Do not wait till the end or project had already been in the half way mark, and then you start to seek other team member stakeholder to come for rescue. Do it at the beginning. Start to collaborate right from the start and hope to extend the spirit in the next projects.

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