5 tips to save you, if you are a new project manager
Nervous. Anxious. Tense. Scared. At the same time exited as well. This is what you might be feeling when you are assigned the first project as a project manager. It’s overwhelming right? But that’s completely alright.
Don’t stress through the process, just go with the flow and follow these simple tips.
Listen, listen and listen some more: As a new bee, your first and foremost goal should be listening. Gather all the required information regarding the project from the client. Listen to him carefully, try to understand his goals and requirements. Sometimes, even client doesn’t have the idea of what he wants. But a careful listener will always know the hidden agenda.
Take time to understand the job duties of your team members. Pay attention to your team member’s skills; play along their strengths. One of the factor that determines the success rate of the project is that how well do you know your team. Any suggestion or complain from the team should always be welcomed with an open mind.
Seek help from project management software: Whether you are following agile methodologies or scrum methodologies or kanban, you need to befriend project management software. Primarily because just pen and paper would do you no good especially if your team is working remotely. Make sure you are on the same page with your team while selecting a project management software. Know the software inside and out so that you can be the knight in shining armor whenever your team needs you.
Check out the list of best free project management software to know what works best for your team.
Time management: Managing a project can sometimes be overwhelming. You can’t expect for each and every task to be completed within time frame. Deadlines can be missed. It is necessary for you and your team to be on the same page. Setting daily goals and scheduling of tasks will keep you on track. Set early deadlines as most of the times things don’t go as planned.
Today’s world offers a lot of distraction. And remember procrastination is the enemy. It’s ok to relax but once the priority tasks are done. The key to effective time management is not to work more but to work efficiently.
Learn and let people learn: Ya ya you are the project manager so why would you need to learn from your team. Right? Wrong. There is a reason why it is called a team, you all learn from each other and that’s how you grow. Learn from your mistake. Learn from your team’s mistake.
Foster the environment of learning in your organization. Let your employees learn from their own mistake. Empower your team so that they can fix the issues themselves instead of depending on project manager or anyone else.
Keep calm when in crisis: Projects are prone to failure and that’s when your team needs you the most. You may miss deadlines, cost overrun, run out of resources, it can be anything. But what makes a good project manager is how you handle not just the project, but also the team in such a situation. Learn to embrace the uncertain surprises with grace and in turn you can set example for your team that they will look up to always. Lead from front instead of giving just orders.
So, it ain’t that hard after all and it’s definitely going to get better with experience! Pick one thing at a time, see what works best for you and implement it.
