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What Makes a Good Project Manager?

In this chapter, you learn the traits of successful project managers, the reasons that project managers succeed, and the reasons that they fail.

A Doer, Not a Bystander

If you are assigned the task of project manager within your organization, consider this: You were probably selected because you exhibited the potential to be an effective project manager. Or, conversely, there was no one else around, so you inherited the task!

In essence, a project manager is an active doer, not a passive bystander. As you learned in the previous chapter, a big portion of the project manager’s responsibility is planning: mapping out how a project will be undertaken; anticipating obstacles and roadblocks; making course adjustments; maintaining communications with role players; and continually determining how to allocate human, technological, and monetary resources.

If you have a project team, numbering from one person to 10 or more, then in addition to daily supervision of the work being performed you will probably be involved in some type of training. The training might be once, periodic, or nonstop. As the project progresses, you’ll find yourself having to be a motivator, a cheerleader, possibly a disciplinarian, an empathetic listener, and a sounding board. As you guessed, not everyone is qualified to (or wants to!) serve in such capacity.

Beyond these responsibilities, you might be the contact point for support teams within your own organization, as well as with many vendors and possibly suppliers. To free your project management team from an undesired specific task, tasks, or an entire project, you might opt to rely on subcontractors and establish agreements with such vendors for vital services.

Added to these tasks, some project managers also need to engage in a variety of administrative duties. Why? Whether you work for a multibillion-dollar organization or a small business, you might not have all the administrative support you’d prefer to have.

If your staff lets you down or is cut back at any time during the project (and this is almost inevitable), you’ll end up doing some of the tasks that you had assigned to others, on top of your planning, implementing, and controlling the project.

Many Hats, All the Time

Chances are that you’re going to be wearing many hats, several of which you can’t anticipate at the start of a project. A common denominator among successful project managers is the ability to develop a “whatever it takes” attitude. Suppose …

◾  Several of your project team members are pulled off the project to work for someone else in your organization. You will make do.

◾  You learn that an essential piece of equipment that was promised to you is two weeks late. You will improvise.

◾  You discover that key assumptions you made during the early implementation phases turned out to be wildly off the mark. You will adjust.

◾  One-third of the way into the project a minicrisis develops in your domestic life. You will prevail regardless.

Although the role and responsibility of a project manager might vary somewhat from project to project and from organization to organization, you could be called on to perform many of these recurring duties and responsibilities:

◾  Draw up the project plan, possibly present, and “sell” the project to those in authority.

◾  Interact with top management, line managers, project team members, supporting staff, and administrative staff.

◾  Procure project resources, allocate them to project staff, coordinate their use, ensure that they are being maintained in good working order, and surrender them on project completion.

◾  Interact with outside vendors, clients, and other project managers and project staff within your organization.

◾  Initiate project implementation, continually monitor progress, review interim objectives or milestones, make course adjustments, view and review budgets, and continually monitor project resources.

◾  Supervise project team members, manage the project team, delegate tasks, review execution of tasks, provide feedback, and delegate new tasks.

◾  Identify opportunities, scope out problems, devise appropriate adjustments, and stay focused on the desired outcome.

◾  Handle interteam strife, minimize conflicts, resolve differences, instill a team atmosphere, and continually motivate team members to achieve superior performance.

◾  Make the tough calls, such as having to remove project team members, ask project team members to work longer hours on short notice, reassign roles and responsibilities (to the disappointment of some), discipline team members as might be necessary, and resolve personality-related issues affecting the team.

◾  Prepare interim presentations for top management, offer a convincing presentation, receive and incorporate input, review results with project staff, and make still more course adjustments.

All the while, you might have to consult with advisors, mentors, and coaches; examine the results of previous projects; draw on previously unidentified or underused resources; and remain as balanced and objective as possible!

Principles to Steer You

In his classic book, Managing Projects in Organizations, J. D. Frame identifies five basic principles that, if followed, will “help project professionals immeasurably in their efforts.”

1. Be Conscious of What You Are Doing

Don’t be an accidental project manager. Seat-of-the-pants efforts might work when you are undertaking a short-term task, particularly something you are doing alone. However, for longer-term tasks that involve working with others and with a budget, acting as an accidental manager will land you in trouble.

Remember that a project, by definition, is something that has a unique aspect to it. Even if you are building your 15th chicken coop in a row, the grading of the land or the composition of the soil might be different from that of the first 14. As Frame observes, many projects are hard enough to manage even when you know what you’re doing. They are nearly impossible to manage by happenstance. So, it behooves you to devise an effective project plan that serves as an active, vital guide.

2. Invest Heavily in the Front-End Spade Work

Get it right the first time. How many times have you bought a new technology item, taken it to your office or to your home, and started inputting commands without reading the instructions? If you are honest, the answer is “too often.”

Jumping too quickly into project management will put you in big trouble in a hurry. As project manager, you need to understand and recognize the value of slowing down, assembling the relevant facts, and then proceeding—particularly if you are the type of person who likes to leap before you look.

“By definition, projects are unique, goal-oriented systems; consequently they are complex,” Frame says. “Because they are complex, they cannot be managed effectively in an offhand and ad-hoc fashion. They have to be carefully selected and carefully planned.” He adds, “A good deal of thought must be directed at determining how they should be structured. Care taken at the outset of a project to do things right will generally pay for itself handsomely.”

Alas, for many project managers, particularly first-time ones, investing in front-end spadework represents a personal dilemma—the more time they spend up front, the less likely they are to feel that they’re actually managing the project. As you learned in Chapter 1, too many professionals today, reeling from the effects of our information-overloaded society and feeling frazzled by all that competes for their time and attention, want to dive right into projects much the same way they dive into many of their daily activities and short-term tasks.

What works well for daily activity or short-term tasks can prove disastrous when others are counting on you, a budget is involved, top management is watching like a hawk, and any falls you make along the way will be quite visible.

3. Anticipate the Problems That Will Inevitably Arise

The tighter your budget and time frames, or the more intricate the involvement of the project team, the greater the odds that problems will ensue. While the uniqueness of your project might foreshadow the emergence of unforeseen problems, inevitably many of the problems that you will experience are somewhat predictable. These include, but are not limited to the following:

◾  Missing interim milestones

◾  Having resources withdrawn midstream

◾  Having one or more project team members prove to be not “up to” the tasks assigned

◾  Having the project objective(s) altered midstream

◾  Falling behind schedule

◾  Finding yourself over budget

◾  Learning about a hidden project agenda halfway into the project

◾  Losing steam, motivation, or momentum

By acknowledging these inevitable realities and anticipating their emergence, you will be in a better position to deal with them once they occur. Plus, as you become increasingly adept as a project manager, you might even learn to use such situations to your advantage (more on this in Chapter 16, “Learning from Your Experience”).

4. Go beneath Surface Illusions

Dig deep to find the facts in situations. J. D. Frame notes, “Project managers are continually getting into trouble because they accept things at face value. If your project involves something that requires direct interaction with your company’s clients, and you erroneously believe that you know exactly what the clients want, you might be headed for major problems.”

The client might say one thing but actually means another, and later presents to you a rude awakening by complaining, “We didn’t ask for this, and we can’t use it.” Several effective strategies used by project managers to find the real situation in regard to others on whom the project outcome depends are as follows:

◾  Identify all participants involved in the project, even tangentially involved.

◾  List the possible goals that each set of participants could have in relation to the completion of the project.

◾  Identify possible subagendas, hidden goals, and unstated aspirations.

◾  Determine the strengths and weaknesses of your project plan and your project team in relation to the goals and hidden agendas of other parties to the project.

Following the prescription above, you’re less likely either to encounter surprises or to find yourself scrambling to recover from unexpected jolts.

A real-estate developer from Massachusetts says that when he engages in a project with another party, one of the crucial exercises he undertakes is a complete mental walkthrough of everything that the other party:

◾  Wants to achieve as a result of this project

◾  Regards as an extreme benefit

◾  Could have as a hidden agenda

◾  Can do to let him down

The last item is telling. This developer finds that by sketching out the ways in which the other party might not fulfill their obligations, he is better positioned to proceed, should any of them come true. In essence, he assumes 100% of the responsibility for ensuring that his desired project outcome will be achieved. To be sure, this represents more work, possibly even 50% or more of what many project managers are willing to undertake.

So, a key question is: If you work in project management, and you aim to succeed, are you willing to adopt the “whatever-it-takes” mindset? This doesn’t mean that you engage in illegal, immoral, or socially reprehensible behavior. Rather, it refers to a complete willingness to embrace the reality of the situation confronting you, going as deeply below the surface as you can to ferret out the true dynamics of the situation before you, and marshaling the resources necessary to be successful.

5. Be as Flexible as Possible

Don’t be sucked into unnecessary rigidity and formality. You can view this component of effective project management as a counterbalance to the four discussed thus far. Once a project begins, an effective project manager wants to maintain a firm hand while having the ability to roll with the punches.

You have heard the old axiom about the willow tree being able to withstand hurricane gusts exceeding 100 miles per hour, while the branches of the more rigid spruce and oak trees surrounding it snap in half. The ability to “bend, but not break” has long been a hallmark of the effective manager and project manager in business and industry, government and institution, education, health care, and service industries.

In establishing a highly detailed project plan that creates a situation where practically nothing is left to fortune, one can end up creating a nightmarish, highly constrictive bureaucracy. We have seen this happen at various levels of government. Agencies empowered to serve their citizenry can end up being marginally effective, in servitude to the web of bureaucratic entanglement and red tape that has grown, obscuring the view of those entrusted to serve.

Increasingly, in our high-tech age of instant information and communication, where intangible project elements outnumber the tangible by a hearty margin, the wise project manager knows the value of staying flexible, constantly gathering valuable feedback, and responding accordingly.

Ways to Succeed as a Project Manager

Now that you have a firm understanding of the kinds of issues that befall a project manager, let’s take a look at seven ways, in particular, that project managers can succeed, followed by seven ways that project managers can fail.

1. Learn to use project management tools effectively. As you will see in Chapter 11, “Choosing Project Management Software,” and Chapter 12, “A Sampling of Popular Programs,” a variety of project management software tools exist today. You’ll need at least rudimentary knowledge of available software tools, or possibly an intermediate to advanced understanding of them. The current crop of project management tools can be of such enormous aid that they can mean the difference between a project’s succeeding or failing.

2. Be able to give and receive criticism. Giving criticism effectively is not easy. There is a fine line between upsetting a team member’s day and offering constructive feedback that will help both the team member and the project. As the saying goes, “It’s easy to avoid criticism: say nothing, do nothing, and be nothing.” If you are going to move mountains, you will have to accept some slings and arrows. In short, the ability to receive criticism is crucial for project managers.

3. Be receptive to new procedures. You don’t know everything, and thank goodness! Team members, other project managers, and those who authorize the project to begin with can provide valuable input, including new directions and innovative procedures. Be open to them, because you might find a way to slash $120,000 and three months off your project cost.

4. Manage your time well. Speaking of time, if you personally are not organized, dawdle on low-level issues, and find yourself falling behind on deadlines, how are you going to manage your project, direct your project team, and achieve the desired outcome on time and on budget?

5. Be effective at conducting meetings. Meetings are a necessary evil during the run of completing projects, with the exception of solo projects. Periodic meetings are vital for keeping project staff informed and for updating superiors on the progress being made on the project. Take the time to read up on the fundamentals of meetings so that you can conduct them in a succinct, enjoyable manner. With a little effort, almost any project manager can become an effective meeting manager.

6. Hone your decision-making skills. As a project manager, you won’t have the luxury of sitting on the fence for long in relation to issues crucial to the success of your project. Moreover, your staff looks to you for yes, no, left, and right decisions. Trusting yourself is a vital component in effective project management. If you waffle here and there, you are giving the signal that you are not truly in command.

As with other things in project management, decision-making is a skill that can be learned. However, the chances are high that you already have the decision-making capability that you need. That’s why you were chosen to manage this project to begin with, and why you’ve been able to achieve what you have in your career up to this point.

7. Maintain a sense of humor. Situations are going to go wrong, things will happen out of the blue, and the weird and the wonderful surely will pass your way. You have to maintain a sense of humor so that you don’t incur damage to your health, to your team, to your organization, and to the project itself.

Sometimes, the best response to forestalling a breakdown is to simply let out a good laugh. Take a walk, stretch, renew yourself, and then come back and figure out what you are going to tackle next. Colin Powell, in his book My American Journey, remarks that in most circumstances, “Things will look better in the morning.”

Ways to Fail as a Project Manager

Among hundreds of ways to fail as a project manager, the following seven represent those that I have witnessed far too often:

1. Fail to address issues immediately. Two members of your project team can’t stand each other, yet cooperation is vital to the success of the project. As project manager, you need to address the issue up front. Either find a way that they can work together professionally, even if not amicably, or modify their roles and assignments. Whatever you do, don’t let the issue linger. It will only come back to haunt you further along.

2. Reschedule too often. A schedule could be wrong for many reasons, including work incorrectly planned the first time or unforeseen additional work arising once the project starts, both of which frequently occur. So, update a schedule to reflect the real-life situation and to change due dates, assignments, and schedules as needed. Recognize, though, the “cost” each time you make a change: If you ask your troops to keep up with too many changes, you are inviting mistakes, missed deadlines, confusion, and possibly hidden resentment.

3. Be content with reaching milestones on time, but ignore quality. Project managers who are laser-focused on completing the project on time and within budget sometimes don’t focus sufficiently on the quality of work done. Let’s face it: A series of milestones that you reach with less than desired quality adds up to a project that misses the mark.

4. Place too much focus on project administration and not enough on project management. In this high-tech era, with all the sophisticated project management software available, it’s easy to fall in love with project administration—ensuring that equipment arrives, money is allocated, and assignments are doled out … to the neglect of effective project management, which means taking in the big picture of what the team is up against, where they are heading, and what they are trying to accomplish.

5. Micromanage rather than manage. This failure is reflected in project managers who play their cards close to the vest and handle most tasks themselves, or at least the ones they deem to be crucial, rather than delegating. The fact that you have staff signals that you personally shouldn’t be handling certain tasks and responsibilities. Conversely, if you decide to handle it all, be prepared to work each night until nine, surrender your weekends, and generally be in need of a life. Micromanaging isn’t pretty. Able managers know when to share responsibilities with others and how to keep focused on the big picture.

6. Adopt new tools too readily. If you’re managing a project for the first time while simultaneously counting on a new tool, you’re incurring a double risk: Managing a project for the first time is a single risk. Using a project tool for the first time is a single risk. Both levels of risk are acceptable. You can be a first-time project manager using familiar tools, or you can be a veteran project manager using tools for the first time. It is unacceptable, however, to be a first-time project manager using project tools for the first time. 7. Monitor project progress intermittently. A ship off course even one degree at the start of a voyage can miss the destination by 1,000 miles. A slight deviation in course early in your project can result in your having to work double time to resume, on track. So, monitoring progress is a project-long responsibility, vital at the outset as cited above, and important in mid and late stages if you want to avoid last-minute surprises.

Any way you cut it, project management is challenging! Plans change. Bosses intrude. Funds don’t arrive. Mini-disasters occur. Nevertheless, keep chugging along and keep smiling.