Becoming an Effective Project Manager

Recap of Previous Week

Introduced to project management as a career path and career goals with PM Cert. We also looked at how to define a project, and components within to help formulate a successful project.

Also went over describing careers, roles, and responsibilities.

Value of a project manager

Curtain of Buildings

Project Managers: Shepherd projects from start to finish and serve as guides for their team, using their impeccable organizational and interpersonal skills every step of the way.

Project managers usually follow a process that involves planning and organizing, managing tasks, budgeting, and controlling costs so that the project can be completed within the approved time frame.

Values:

Project managers add value to their teams and organizations through effective prioritization of tasks required to complete a project.

PM’s are experts at helping team members identify and break down large tasks into smaller steps.

When a PM is unsure of what task to prioritize, determine which ones are the most critical to the success of the projects, by connecting with their teams and with stakeholders to gather information and make a plan.

Stakeholders: People who are interested in and affected by the project’s completion and success.

You can be a stakeholder of painting a house you have just rented. You need to organize a plan before painting each room. Like, lay down some rags to protect the floor, set up some blue tape to the rooms edges, etc.

Other steps like choosing faceplates for light switches can come later. In the event of running out of time or money, you can always just leave the existing plates.

Project managers use delegation to add value to their teams and organizations by matching tasks to individuals who can best complete the work.

In terms of painting a house, you may have a friend that is an experienced house painter. So you can ask her to paint the ceiling and more detailed parts of the house. This is applying the strengths to the correct individuals.

Project managers deliver value through effective communication, both with their team and with key stakeholders.

Checking in regularly with your team is an example of how to support your team. As for painting the house, checking in on your friends will let you know if you need to buy more paint before the paint runs out. It is good to note that the PM, you painting the house, also checks in with the landlord a few days in advanced to be sure that this something ok with them.

JuAnne: Path to becoming a project manager

Current Senior Program Manager at Google, first-generation Chinese American. Parents worked really hard when growing up and spent a lot of time by herself, so had to take care of herself by planning meals, doing homework, taking care of chores. Owes a bit of program management skills from just being really organized.

Started really becoming a Project Manager while a Business Systems Analyst. While writing requirements or gathering requirements for customers and translating into documentation for the engineers, she started managing timelines, manage the tasks, and understand all the pieces, and who needed to be involved.

How project managers impact organizations

Not only can project managers prioritize, delegate, and effectively communicate to deliver value to their projects. Project managers can also add value to projects and impact organizations, which include:

Focusing on the customer

Customers are always a key element to success in any business. In project management, the word “customer” refers to a person or an organization that defines the requirements of the project and set important guidelines, such as budget and deadlines. In projects, customers can be internal or external. Internal are the stakeholders within your organization, such as management, project team members, resource managers, and other organizational departments. External customers are customers outside of your organization, such as clients, contractors, suppliers, and consumers.

Project managers can add a lot of value to the project by building relationships with customers and taking the time to make sure the customer is heard and satisfied with the result.

Get curious with the customer

Sit with the customer and ask what problem they are trying to solve. Ask if there is a specific vision of the final outcome they would like delivered. Sometimes, customers will lean on project managers to find the solution to their problem. Time to start asking questions like:

Taking the time to dig a little deeper into the “why” behind the project can help a project manager better support and understand the customer. The more you understand the customer’s goals, the more likely you will be able to produce what the customer is seeking.

Building a great team

A successful project manager knows that the team is a projects biggest asset. It’s important for the PM to understand each person’s motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. Pm’s add value to the project by identifying the right team for the project and enabling the team to be successful and make decisions.

If you are working on a project that requires people with medical expertise, and there is no one on the team who has a medical background, no matter how hard that team works, they will not have the right skill set to complete the project. A project manager, should bring on people with the right skills and ensure the team knows that each individual is valued, trusted, and appreciated. This way the project manager can demonstrate how one feels about the team’s value by allowing them to have input and ask questions, and by addressing their needs as soon as possible.

Fostering relationships and communication

Maintaining customer satisfaction and building a great team are two ways that a project manager can add value to a project. Both of these are built on the foundations of relationships and communication. Project managers who add the most value are the ones who take the time to build relationships, communicate, and treat others with consideration and respect.

Project managers set the tone for a project and build relationships within their teams and stakeholders. Taking time to check in daily with your tea, see how they are doing, and ask if there is anything they need help with can go along way towards making them feel valued and heard.

Managing the project

In teams, each person is generally assigned a specific project task. Once each task is done, the person responsible for that task hands that part of the project over to the next person. The team members don’t always see the whole picture and how they impact others in a project. A successful project manager sees the impacts fo each process within the project and communicates those impacts to the team. This ensure that everyone working on the project understands their task goal as well as the big picture goal for the finished product.

Managing a project can be busy, but if you take the time to build relationships and maintain open lines of communication, you will increase the chances of the project’s success as well as the customer’s and your team members’ satisfaction.

Breaking down barriers

Sometimes, when you ask why something is being done a certain way, the response you get is, “Because we’ve always done it this way.” A project manager adds value to a project when they break down barriers, allow their team to innovate new ways to do things, and empower them to share ideas. As a project manager, you have to model ingenuity and collaboration, and encourage your team to do the same.

How can you break down barriers on a project? You can provide support for your team as they try new approaches to find solutions, and you can advocate for additional resources for your team. If your team is having al hard time getting an answer from another organization, you can reach out to the organization yourself in order to keep the team on track and on schedule.

Key Takeaway

By focusing on the customer, building a great project team, fostering relationships and communication, managing the project, and breaking down barriers, you can overcome obstacles and find solutions to succeed.

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