The project manager must start his day 30 minutes before his team so that he is aware of all the updates and can prioritize his work accordingly. Proactive project managers checks their mails once in the night and then again once in the morning before reaching office. This way they can prevent 2 things-
- Bad news coming to him from multiple sources before his own team
- Reacting to an unpleasant situation with incomplete information
In both these cases things may turn from bad to worse and the project manager might be left with a feeling of guilt for doing or not doing things which were required at that time. Every project have a mix of good and bad resources, and the project manager cannot do much about replacing these bad resources. A smart project manager can make best from them for example by playing with words like “I trust you more than anyone, so I am assigning this task to you”, “you are skilled in this area, so I choose you over others, don’t let me down”. Or set up an internal meeting during lunch hour if you feel some resources always takes longer than actual time required for lunch. Late sitting and extra working hours is not recommended by project management ethics, but at times, due to need of an hour like month end closing, financial closings, critical project delivery, the management expects late sitting. If the resource is sitting late, he knows he would be paid back with handsome bonus for it. In such cases it is the responsibility of the project manager to ensure proper transportation to drop female (even male, if possible) employees. If it is dinner time, the manager should arrange for the same as per the company policies. These things though very small, but if taken care can deliver really good results.
Generally resources can be put in 4 different categories
- Talented and hard working
- Not talented but hard working
- Talented but prefer gossips and engaging in office politics
- Not talented and prefer gossips and engaging in office politics
A smart project manager should try to convert category C to A and D to B first. Once he succeed in eliminating most dangerous categories C and D, he would left with just 2 categories A and B. Also check if the category C is trying to convert A or B to their category. In that case the project manager should take the tough call by raising his concern to higher management. Skill and talent comes with education and experience. The category B can also be converted to category A by arrangement of timely relevant trainings.
It is the primary responsibility of a PM to ensure that the project is progressing appropriately as per the plan and schedule. However, in case of critical projects it is better to double check the project’s progress. Some project managers completely rely on their technical leads for all technology related issues and updates. A project manager should be the first person to know every good and bad news, no matter how big or small it is. Make a clear distinction between trust and blind trust. Ask for a small demo, after the end of every module. Document the findings and share it with the team.
The project manager must keep a track of audit findings of his projects. After regular phases he must himself audit the project with the audit findings of similar past projects. This way he can perform quality assurance proactively. If you compare hard work with smart work, smart work always gives better and faster results, so work smartly.
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