Project Manager Overview and Tips for Success
Your Role
As a project manager, your role is to make sure the project is executed. This means setting the project plan, schedule and resources, and ensuring progress is being made in a timely manner. You will be involved in the details of the day-to-day while keeping an eye on the bigger picture. If work isn’t being done, a teammate is having trouble, or we’re in danger of falling behind the timeline or going out of scope, it’s up to you to raise that to the Account Director.
Ten Tips for Good Project Management
Here are ten tried and true tips that every good project manager should know.
Organization is a way of life. You need to be organized, not only for yourself but for the project. You are the source for any update needed, any status that needs to be shared and to make sure everyone is completing their work on time.
Having meetings is different than having the correct meetings. When you set up the meeting cadence for a project, understand the purpose and what you need by the end of each one. Common meetings that project managers set up and run include kickoffs, client check-ins, internal stand-ups, planning sessions, retros, and post-mortems.
Learn to charmingly nag. You need to know what everyone on the team is working on and working towards the correct timelines. You’re essentially the traffic coordinator of the project, and that means a lot of following up with everyone.
It's your responsibility to be proactive. Look at the project and list out everything that needs to happen in order for the project to progress successfully. Follow up with those who are responsible for the tasks and ensure that they have what they need to get the work done.
Know everything you can about the project. Learn about the client--brand, products, style--anything and everything. Research other projects that have similar deliverables, so you can gather reference materials. Your team is going to be looking to you as a leader, so it's important to be equipped to steer the project in the right direction.
Be honest and upfront. If goals or timelines are being handed down that are not realistic, raise that with the correct people. Don’t agree to them only to have the team miss them later. Push back, gently and with the right people, and be prepared with suggestions on what more realistic options are, or what changes would need to be made to reach those set goals and timelines.
Keep the communication lines open. Create a communications plan and stick to it. Communication should be consistent, open, honest and clear. You should be in touch with key stakeholders and team members throughout the project process. Ensure that everyone has the information necessary to make decisions and proceed with the project and keep everyone up to date with consistent status reports.
Keep continuous improvement in mind, for you and for the team. Different approaches will resonate differently for each project and team. Identify what works best and adjust accordingly. What is going well? What could be improved upon? Retros and post-mortems are great opportunities to create action items for those improvements.
Protect your team. Make sure the team is protected from any information, meetings or distractions that aren’t necessary for them to complete the work. You clear the space for them to do the work.
Be a problem solver. Before rushing into the doing of a project, be sure to analyze all of the dependencies and identify all of the risks. What problems can you solve up front, to make the later work easier? If something went wrong, can you identify what happened?
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