Managing a project is nothing but an Olympic sprinter – run as fast as you can, balancing your way through and crossing hurdles better than anyone else to snatch glory from the shackles of defeat. Therefore, a Managers’ main goal is to carry the project out successfully – facing unwanted interruptions, budget constraints, time crunches – and triumphing over internal and external criticalities. Succeeding as a Manager – and as a leader – require some skills of handling situations, along with a thorough and absolutely concrete plan for executing the program. It is imperative to recognize elements beyond your control, though. Therefore, knowing the expectations and how to fulfill them can be tricky, and requires most emphasis. The duties of a leader can be robust yet highly praiseworthy. For the courageous Project Managers willing to take on the challenge, here are 7 essential tips to skillfully and promptly finish your job:
1. Make a Detailed Plan
Start from scratch and list down every little detail needed for the project. From the time and funds available in your hands, approval of the stakeholders to human resources, logistics, milestones or goals of the project – everything should be jotted down and maintained with professional documentation. If all these are ready, proceed to implement, but do remember to account for changes; slight variations might be necessary for a smooth outcome, but make sure your aim and expectations from the project are clear and solid as crystal. To organize the project management details use a cloud based robust solution such as Celoxis Project Management tool. It might be a bit difficult to visualize the project details in the beginning but using these sort of project management tools make it easy to plan effectively.
2. Assign Responsibilities to the Right People
A good knowledge about your HR (Human Resources) section is quintessential; assign duties based on their expertise, skills, knowledge and experience. People can work individually or in a group – whatever fits best for them. Either way, make sure the employees know what exactly you are anticipating from them, and provide them with explicit guidelines if necessary. Also, make sure to precisely convey when you want them to finish. Most of all, communicate with them at all times – your absence in the project might hamper the workflow. So, be regular and catch up with them.
3. Be the Leader, Take Charge
You are the director of the entire project and this role demands you to be confident and upfront. Failing to act as a good leader can easily break the whole project apart. Smart leadership, proper communication are the factors that lead to successful completion of a challenging project. Adjusting your role to serve different scenarios is a must – work as a mentor and guide them, but switch to the commanding boss mode whenever necessary. Make sure that you are maintaining a tactful relationship with the team members, customers and also the stakeholders. Convince your colleagues to cooperate with you and their fellow workers; invigorate them to not lose motivation in case of a downfall or impairment and mostly, reward everyone for good work and inspire them constantly with constructive feedbacks – simply put, engage with them.
4. Set Foreseeable Goals
Setting your goals right is absolutely crucial if you want your project to be a success. Therefore, being a successful leader demands you to be a visionary, calculative and vocal. Evaluate your capacities, opportunity costs, workforce, capital and every little detail that can possibly matter. After a thorough research into all of them, decide which goals are feasibly within your reach and set specific milestones for achieving them. While being calculative helps you measure your way out, being vocal about it is equally important. Always demonstrate the limitations , both to your team members and clients. Usually, projects fall apart as they unfurl because of unrealistic expectations. Running a project is like a team sport, and the team should know about the frailties, as well as the goodies.
5. Deal with Project Risks and Make Room for Changes
While designing the way forward, it is essential for a Project Manager to account for the possible risks attached with the project. Risks are like a ticking time-bomb – you can either disable the ticking clock or minimize the chaos. If there are risks involved, take necessary and immediate steps to disable them before you proceed. Regardless, always chalk up contingency plans as proper additions to your project roadmap. You never know how the future graciously unfurls, and it is always better to minimize impact with preparedness. Maintain a regular communication with the team members to gather proper knowledge of current issues and protect the project from turning into a massive chaos.
6. Establish Measurement Criteria for Success
There should always be a yardstick to measure out your accomplishments, development and success. While there are many ways to evaluate, setting up periodic milestones and adhering to them within the specified time and budget is a good way of going about it. Always check with your clients, stakeholders and team members to ensure their complete satisfaction with progress. If they are not, take notes of issues to further work on and strive to achieve them – always remember to maintain documentation of assessment. Detailed records of work done helps to analyze easily and connect maneuvers with corresponding success. Besides, you can use the data later, if needed.
7. Evaluate the Project after Completion
There is always a room for improvement, which is why an all-encompassing and complete project evaluation is vital. Analyze the full project, including its successes and drawbacks, draw conclusion by mentioning the quality of the project outcome and suggest the areas which could have been done differently for a better result. Complete evaluations help you address future projects with better knowledge and greater confidence to increase efficiency and productivity.
