However, successful projects often get incredible returns, but project managers need to have a correct attitude, rich practical experience, excellent soft skills and industry expertise. As a leader of an enterprise, to achieve breakthrough growth, the project manager must realize business expectations and ensure the best way to deliver the project. Team leaders and project managers can follow several simple guidelines to achieve the best results.
First of all, the project manager must understand the main problems faced by the enterprise, such as why to do this project and what problems the project can solve for the company or organization. Through brainstorming and planning, careful typesetting and color design, the project manager formed an eye-catching and unforgettable logo and banner for everyone to write down.
In-depth understanding of customers' business problems and proposed solutions can help project managers or project teams to formulate better strategies in addition to knowing more about their core business models and rising challenges. Don't easily outsource the project to a third-party service provider or an unrelated business department in the company, which will affect the context of the project and may mislead the initial requirements of the project.
Each project has different variables, which need to be analyzed in combination with the project background and implementation status. Some of them can be identified through early project evaluation and communicated with project stakeholders in advance. But each project is unique, and problems that did not appear in the previous project may appear in the next project.
Therefore, in the process of project implementation, it is necessary to communicate and coordinate with customers for the main work modules in the project. Usually, the project manager doesn't have to care too much about all the work modules in the project, but focuses on the work modules that may threaten the success of the project under the condition of fixed budget.
The project manager needs to define the best communication mode of the project team and find out the best solution that suits him and meets the wishes of customers. For example, establish a meeting communication guide internally, hold a weekly meeting every Monday, coordinate the work through email, and specify when to release the project progress report.
The project manager also needs to determine the holding period of the project meeting with the customer, understand the customer's needs in advance, and formulate a standard communication workflow and report template, so as to ensure that these can be made clear with the customer before formal communication, so that every time communication is needed, the normal workflow will not be suddenly interrupted and the working hours of project members will not be affected.
What is used to simplify the work of project members and save all the basic information of the project in one place, that is, the project management system. In addition to the initial project planning, the project management system also covers all aspects of offices, conference rooms, mailboxes and any communication.
Collect the communication results and details of all personnel through project members to ensure that these information are stored in a unified project management system platform, or customers usually put forward new ideas that have not been discussed before, or expect some results that are inconsistent with the original plan, then these information are also stored in the same platform to ensure that the communication between the two parties is simplified when customers or other stakeholders can enter for observation.
The project manager should avoid any unclear or incomplete task requirements. Because of deep participation, the project manager or several key people know how to accomplish these tasks through countless meetings and communication with customers, but what about other members of the team?
Any task should be broken down into the smallest, feasible and undivided tasks, and the direction, requirements and outputs should be given without providing additional background analysis. For example, give the design requirements of a module, specify which KPI values, realize a specific function and so on. This enables us to define business problems in detail, reduce the possibility of mistakes, and ensure that team members can skip background analysis without hesitation and start working immediately.
Different people in the project have different backgrounds and communication methods. Don't expect to cooperate with different decision makers on the other side with the same communication method. As a project manager, you need to determine the most natural way to communicate with customers and make corresponding adjustments. Some people in enterprises or organizations are friendly, while others are strict. They have different ways of talking during working hours and after working hours.
When discussing business requirements and project requirements, the project manager should actively contact to ensure that all stakeholders know the objectives and results of the project. If the expectations of the project manager and the customer are not at the same level, the communication effect will be affected.
Part of the project management process is risk management and dealing with potential problems that may arise in the project process. Risk management refers to avoiding, minimizing or eliminating unacceptable risks through identification, analysis, evaluation and control. Organizations can use risk taking, risk avoidance, risk retention, risk transfer or any other strategy (or combination of strategies) to correctly manage future events.
In short, it is necessary to manage the risk of possible situations that may lead to service delivery interruption in the project, adjust the project delay to an acceptable time range, or transfer any factors that violate the initial agreement. The following are some risks that the project manager may encounter in the evaluation process:
Delaying the delivery of key customer deliverables
The project manager changed the scope of project delivery halfway.
Postpone payment of certain milestones.
Need more changes than expected
The server of the third-party product used by the team is down or the service is interrupted.
Emergency in the family of patients or team members in the team.
The project milestone has not been reached.
The unexpected participation of stakeholders in the project implementation stage needs to increase the cost and time.
The stored data is restricted by law.
Of course, only a small part is listed above, and more is organized according to the actual situation of the project. The project manager should describe the most likely scenario through brainstorming or expert establishment, and deal with risks accordingly.
No matter how well the project manager does the pre-planning and emergency plan, there will always be problems in the process of project implementation. If you always try to hide these problems, once exposed, it will be too late to coordinate with customers.
Whenever there is a problem, the project manager should collect all relevant information and form a report. Everyone in the project knows the existence of the problem, and the customer will know the operation of the project, so don't hide the problem and break the trust of the customer in the project team.
If your team needs more time to adjust its functions because of incomplete plans, please pick up your mobile phone and tell all relevant people;
If you miss an important part in the planning stage, please contact the customer and arrange a meeting;
If the chief expert of the project is gone, you need some time to adjust the personnel. Please contact your customers and inform them.
The project is not the project of the project manager alone. The project includes all people related to the project, and different people are responsible for different activities. Therefore, the project manager will negotiate various requirements, redefine different stakeholders and define different functional priorities.
An excellent project manager can straighten out the chaotic project and guide the project towards the goal. Project managers need to check who is responsible for what and understand their specific work during the project implementation. If there is no designated person in charge, many tasks in the project will be postponed and the work will be put on hold, which will affect the progress and income of the project.
When the project manager coordinates the task requirements and determines the job responsibilities in the project, the premise is to determine the appropriate team members. Because the team members are not newcomers, but employees from different companies or departments with different backgrounds and experiences, they may be proficient in a certain business field, or speak the language of a foreign partner, or have a unique view on the project. By understanding and identifying these team members, the project manager can be helped to perform management duties.
The success of the project is not achieved overnight, and it needs to be divided into different stages, and the milestones of each stage need to be defined within this interval. The establishment of milestones needs to communicate with the project team and set actual expectations according to their feedback. When the setting is finished, we can't just put it aside. We need to establish an internal review cycle to see if there is any deviation between the initial goal and the actual result, whether it needs to be adjusted, what is the quality of the milestone, and whether there is a buffer for revision.
As an experienced project manager, I can understand the industry situation and project team in this field, and I can successfully deliver the project by choosing the best practical scheme. However, as a service provider, we should help our customers grow while successfully completing the project.
As an industry expert, project managers need to share and analyze some statistical data to help customers make correct decisions on their business. When a project is successful, project managers should not be afraid to share their expertise. This is their own work and a kind of responsibility. The customer is not always right. At this time, professional guidance or suggestions are needed to achieve a win-win situation for both parties.
Most projects will be delivered late or the delivery cost will be much higher than the original quotation. For many project managers who work with customers, this is one of the reasons for the inherent fear. In fact, a large part of this problem lies in the lack of correct delivery scope and the ever-changing functional requirements of the project.
Before sending the quotation or budget of the project, a common management method used by the management is to increase a multiple (usually between 1.5 and 3 times) to buffer the extra communication cost and the impact cost caused by future demand changes. Although this estimate is sometimes made, there are still a large number of projects that cannot be delivered on time, because it is always thought that the existence of such a buffer will not be controlled in the project delivery process.
In fact, the scope change should be regarded as a mandatory part of the contract or technical proposal, described in it, and a detailed list of functions in the project should be written. On this basis, once the first change occurs, it is necessary to discuss it openly with customers and remind them regularly, otherwise such changes will become more and more frequent and eventually lead to the failure of the project.
The project document is a natural output part of the process, although the integrity and details of the document are problematic. Maintaining project process documents can help project managers save a lot of time, because in the process of project delivery, it is easy to change personnel, product characteristics and related decision-making background information.
The replacement of project managers is also a headache. It is impossible for a new project manager to dig out the overall information and key details of the project through layers of emails, tasks and telephone records. Project documents are also very valuable to customers or other managers, which ensure clear records of work, allow the complexity of project tasks to be determined according to records, and help new employees to quickly integrate into the project.
Keeping in touch with peers is a good skill, but there is a common principle, that is, "being friendly but not friends". If the project manager wants to avoid the huge gap with the team members, they don't think that the project manager is an equal member of the team, but the project manager can't live without the project team. The team spirit of the project is to make everyone realize that they must work closely together to ensure the success of the project.
However, crossing the friendly line and becoming friends with project team members will become a problem. The role of the project manager is to make the team members abide by the project plan, ensure that everyone works happily as required, and make some compromises appropriately. The authority and friendly attitude of the project manager should coexist. A good balance can keep the project manager open and make the project members obey their own orders when necessary.
The authority of a project manager does not mean that he needs to be better than everyone else. In a successful project, each team member has different skills. It is normal for project team members to understand problems better than the project manager. As a project manager, I focus on coordinating project management, customers and the overall work progress and requirements of the project.
If the project manager is not clear about his position, he can consult the line manager of the company or the key personnel in the organization to see their feedback on the definition and suggestions of the project manager. If the project manager undertakes multiple projects, he needs to find out the priorities of the projects according to the requirements of the company and keep the projects consistent with the expectations of customers.
For a project manager, the best way to understand everyone's problems is to let them speak out. Although the professional knowledge of a project manager is very important, as a leader, you should be like a coach of a sports team. You should constantly observe, analyze, record and improve this process.
Talk less and listen more, not say nothing, but ask more questions appropriately. The project manager asks your customers what the expected results of the project are and what the future strategy of their organization is. By listening and recording their answers, you can see whether the current project is consistent with the customer's goals. So is the team. The project manager asks to check whether there is any problem with the work quality and attitude of the project members, and find the answer to the problem through understanding, rather than simply being rude.
The great management industry is also a great leader. The work of this project has not been smooth sailing. Due to internal or external pressure, the task cannot be completed before the deadline. At this time, as a project manager, it is necessary to strengthen and motivate the project team, monitor their work energy and satisfaction, and ensure that the team can work happily without potential irreversible problems.
The project manager should always remind them why they want to cooperate, what is the crisis in the project, tell them that teamwork is the cornerstone of project success, and introduce the professional knowledge of each team member respectively. Through active communication with customers, we can get extra working hours and achievable project goals, and reduce the pressure on the project team.
In the real world, we don't have unlimited budget, timetable, flexible working hours and very interesting projects. When we face the reality, we must adhere to certain restrictions and ensure that we can deliver smoothly. It is the difference between a great project manager and an ordinary manager to be prepared for danger in times of peace, maintain inertia and keep moving forward, so that the project team and customers can calmly face any problems and challenges in the project.
One of the hardest things for a person is to cross your comfort zone. Whenever you start your first job, you are a freshman, and you don't know the operation mode of the enterprise or the different occupations in the organization. You need to absorb a lot of information and draw conclusions according to your environment, including work habits, company culture, processes and so on.
In management, things in the project change quickly. Even if some management models remain unchanged over time, it does not mean that different skills, tools and best practices will not be used in different situations. Its cooperation with customers in different industries is comparable, and the details of some industries will be reflected in the business model of the project.
As a project manager, it is necessary to change. With the emergence of new methods and possible alternative paths, the project manager must work closely with the project team and listen carefully to the voice of customers. In this case, the conventional method may not be the best method in most cases.
Quality assurance is the process of verifying the quality of products delivered by the project. Unless the products sold are unchanged, the service products implemented by the project need a lot of quality inspection. The consistency and accuracy check of project service products usually depends on each specific element. Every component in a service product should work perfectly. Then, when all the components are combined, it is necessary to consider their interrelationships.
If it is a software product, test the iterative process of the software every time, and don't provide customers with incomplete or unstable products. Every time the final service or software product is formed, there should be enough buffer interval for adjustment. The quality assurance process may require additional working hours. As project managers, we should pay attention to this in advance and take positive actions to make the team work together to improve the stability of the products.
When the project is successfully delivered, the management of the project manager needs to take extra steps. Make a comprehensive review of your project, whether it is progressing smoothly, or what happened in the middle. Analyze the reasons for success and record them as part of the management quality checklist.
In-depth discussion on the problems in the process of project negotiation, implementation and delivery. If the quality assurance time is not enough and there are still some problems in the product, then you need to talk to the technical team to find a solution to prevent similar situations in the next project. If necessary, it is necessary to allocate more time for quality inspection or find specific training courses to improve the delivery ability of project team members.