How to lead your team to a successful project

Launching a new project can be both exciting and challenging, while invoking a whisper of dread. There are so many ways a project could go wrong, and issues are guaranteed to arise at one point or another. Whether they be related to planning, the team, or due to poor decision making, you and your team should be as prepared as possible to ensure the success of your project.

Efficient project initiation reduces the risk of failure considerably. Clearly setting goals and objectives, as well as making everyone feel involved and responsible about the project are two key elements of a successful project initiation. However, projects are often challenged in the long run, and keeping the initial fire in each of your team members can be a difficult task.

As the project advances, individuals may have their priorities drift away from the project’s priorities, especially if major issues arise. This can possibly have devastating effects on your project as productivity is heavily correlated with involvement. This is why we put together a list of tips to keep your team as involved and productive as they were on the first day of the project.

7- Encourage individualism and independence

One common mistake that managers make is not providing an environment for individual creativity. Although teamwork requires collective efforts that are directed towards mutual goals, personal expression still holds great significance in the formation of the end-result.

Christopher Meyer, associate professor of Management at Baylor University, has conducted several studies among individualist and collectivist personalities, and their integration within a workplace.

“We don’t take enough time to think about how we form our teams. We just throw people together and hope for the best. We are expecting chance to give us a better outcome when we can build teams that will work better.” — Chris Meyer

Meyer organized groups of both collectivist and individualist members. They were assigned to specific tasks, while observing their performance and accuracy. Meyer concluded that, “While we need people who work well in a collective setting, we need people to be individuals as well to get the maximum performance.”

In order to pull the most out of your team, try to identify where each team member lies between these two groups, and plan accordingly. Doing so will reduce the risk of team related issues, foster collaboration, and even enhance your team’s productivity.

6- Know your soldiers

As we have discussed the importance of laying-out the proper working environment, you need to start acknowledging the qualities of each team member. If you are intending to establish a functional group, how do you think you would be able to do that without knowing their full capabilities and limits?

You need to observe your teammates performance and acquire an accurate perspective over their weaknesses and strengths. Such viewpoint would grant you the ability to properly assign tasks over the course of your project. Also, knowing what a team member can and cannot do will definitely help you evaluate them according to their own nature.

5- Take ‘No’ for an answer

You may come across moments where you encounter oppositional opinions to your decision making or even on your managing style. When such situations occurs, you must be ready to embrace the voice on the other end and carefully listen to it.

Managers tend to ignore or discourage oppositional remarks in the workplace. This approach would definitely hinder the possibility of innovation and corrections.

As a manager, you need to understand that you may make mistakes. All human beings make mistakes. However, they will affect you, your project, and each of your team members. That’s why you need to consider each and every note your team members venture to share. Also, following the latter approach, your team members would gain more respect for you and a sense of true value would arise within them.

Planning is an essential part of the success of a project. Having deadlines set is a way to put positive pressure on you and your team, while milestones are here to make you celebrate your small victories toward the completion of the project.

However, we all know that things can go wrong very quickly, and that a single element could throw your planning off for weeks. So consider including preventive additional time into your schedule/planning in order to increase your ability to respond to urgent matters or timely issues.

Prioritizing is tightly related to planning, and effectively setting priorities is a way to make sure the initial plan is respected. While communicating priorities at the start of the project to your team is essential to make sure deadlines are met, it is important to constantly update your team on the progress of the project. It is even more important to communicate when changes are made to either planning or priorities so that everyone is on the same page. While a simple update might do the trick, a quick meeting to explain the hows and whys could prove to be more effective.

3- Take advantage of technology

As there are many studies based around project management methods and management styles, software developers are creating magnificent tools which make managing projects and organizations easier.

There are apps for everything now: scheduling meetings, emails, and managing entire campaigns. You need to observe where your team is lacking, and a simple search in newly updated technologies will fill-in the gaps of your working process.

Project management software provides simple interfaces that will help you effectively share information and documents, follow-up on ongoing tasks, and enhance the level of collaboration within your team.

Collaborative to-do lists offer organized spaces which display each task with its assigned member, the progress that has been made, and more information related to the task. Some software comes with integrated tools that help you assess and monitor the project’s budget.

These tools make it easy to overview a project’s progress through snapshots and analytics; allowing you to identify and deal with issues in a more efficient manner. Some platforms even allow you to work directly with your clients and other external members, collaborating and sharing information, both, privately and securely.

2- Allow risk taking

Risk management plays an important part of project management. While identifying risks at the project level is essential, risk assessment should be conducted at the task level by each team member.

Avoiding risk is one thing, taking risks is another entirely. While assessing for risks to avoid, you or your team members might stumble upon the best kind of risk there is: opportunities. Opportunities are a great way to try something different, and when successful, they can yield big results. This is why you should make room for risk taking by your team members. Whether giving them extra time on a part of the project, or allowing additional budget, it can go a long way for both the project and your team members.

Allowing team members to take risks will be beneficial for two reasons. First, it is gratifying for them for be valued for their work and initiatives, boosting their involvement and motivation towards your project. Second, whether the risk taken was successful or not, there is something you can learn from it, which will make you better. Of course, when risk taking is successful, it also brings unplanned progress to your project and boosts your whole team’s morale.

1- Waste some time

While this may sound counter productive, enjoying leisure time with your team members may benefit your project more than anything else. While it can be difficult not to talk about the ongoing project, especially when the stakes are high, breaking away from work related topics could actually be beneficial for your team.

Organizing team building activities, as well as after-work parties, will be beneficial. Team building activities can improve collaborative skills and develop trust between team members. Some obvious benefits are increased productivity and motivation.

After-work parties and other celebrations are a great way to develop recognition for accomplishments and milestones, and are also very effective for team building because it creates a sense of unity.

Summing it up, there are many ways you can keep your team motivated and involved, and maintain a level of productivity necessary for the successful completion of a project:

• Get to know your team and encourage both individual and team work.
• Be opened to ideas, comments, and criticism concerning the project as well as your own management style.
• Make a plan, leaving room for potential delays, and communicate on important updates and changes.
• Take advantage of team collaboration apps that enable easier task delegation and follow up, information circulation, as well as project overview.
• Make room for and encourage risk taking.
• Organize team building activities and celebrate victories.

I hope you found this article helpful. Please feel free to share your own tips and experiences with us in the comments below.

Originally published at blog.azendoo.com on February 2, 2016.