The qualities of the project manager
Visionary, he devotes himself to the strategic plan and goes little into the details by delegating. He knows how to decide by distinguishing the emergencies of everyday life.
- Ability to listen and synthesize.
- Excellent written and oral communication.
- Strong ability to adapt to changes.
- Diplomacy and availability.
- Engages in problems and decides.
The role of the project manager
He decides, coordinates and controls the actions of all team members. He leads his team and maintains relations with all the participants in the project. Finally, he prevents conflicts through his decision-making ability.
He participates in the organization of the project either by profession or by dedicated autonomous structure. He reports to his hierarchy and his client.
Yes, if…
A good leader rarely uses the “no” but uses the “yes, if…”.
This allows to negotiate a commitment from employees or customers.
The right attitude
The project manager negotiates internally and externally the costs and levels of performance of the project. He is attentive to the rules and standards, finds economical solutions and limits expenses, proposes profitable variants (profitability), communicates and makes known, avoids upheavals in the team in order to not break habits.
Project goals
A project manager must clearly set the goals of the project and always write notes after the meeting.
“I understand that…” always specifying what is included and especially what is not!
He always validates with his hierarchy the elements included in these notes and reports. He assesses all the risks before committing, using a Checklist giving an overview of the skills in place, the company’s resources, the client’s requirements, the contract and progress made at each stage of the project (techniques, scalability, guarantees).
Avoid isolation
The project leader makes sure to give from the start a common vision of the project, the objectives, the common vocabulary. It is important to convince all members. To achieve this, he ensures that the tasks given are well suited to the qualities and skills of his team members.
Problematic situations during a project are often due to a lack of information. To avoid too frequent adjustments, it is necessary to maintain contact and maintain relationships in a climate of trust. He ensures that the various business teams involved talk to each other.
Understand all project teammates
The project leader must identify conflicts of interest, the different expectations of all members and negotiate solutions. He must make his superiors understand not to take decisions alone with the client that could bind the project teams. They do not have all the project data. He must assert his right of refusal and know how to say no.
He validates with his hierarchy that his company does not engage in a technology that is not mastered or remote, with insufficient preparation of the teams and negotiates any “shared wrongs” with the end customer to prevent but above all avoid noticing the damage.
Build a repository
A repository is a structured methodological guide intended to be shared and which serves as a reference for managing a project. The repositories help companies to define, formalize, share and improve their know-how.
Users will find all the useful information there. Contacts, work charter, contract, project planning and breakdown, management (procedures, quality, indicators, dashboards, etc.) Even simple in the form of a binder, the manager must make it exist to give the team a common method that works.
It is useful to present the stages of the project in the form of a checklist which also serves as a basis for dialogue with the client and management.
State-of-the-art software and applications tools for project management also exist and allow visualization of deviations from the schedule, Gannt, kanban, situation analyzes and project simulations.
Repositories are the key to the success of the project… and of the Manager!
Validate the QCD
QCD : Quality, Cost, Time.
These are the basics of negotiation with the end customer. Throughout the project, the Manager validates the compliance criteria with his client.
Customers may have to accept modifications, contractual or not, during the project compared to the initial requirements. A final document approving the quality of the technical specifications is delivered to the client.
The project manager is responsible for commitments and payments. He must therefore establish a budget, control margins, manage purchases and subcontracting.
Project planning. The MOST approach
The project leader presents to his hierarchy a plan for executing the project which allows the adaptation of a corporate strategy in relation to its current or potential achievements.
The MOST approach describes a project in 4 stages :
- M – MISSION> Defines the customer’s need.
- O – OBJECTIVE> Specifies the deliverables and areas for negotiation with the client.
- S – STRATEGY > How to deliver to the customer ?
- T – TACTICAL > Breaks down team member roles and deliverables to clients.
The plans are designed to be applied!
Organization of tasks and management
The project manager determines the list of tasks to be carried out to achieve the objective and distributes them to each member of his team.
If possible, he can involve the team in the distribution of work. To improve efficiency, he can divide each task into easier-to-perform sub-tasks and dispatches them according to the skills and knowledge of the employees.
He can possibly formalize in the form of sheets the tasks to be carried out before distributing them or even subcontracting them.
A person responsible for carrying out the tasks may be appointed. At each stage of the project, the project leader sees his teammates to validate the work carried out. He then writes a report on the achievements, in particular on the problems and the solutions put in place.
This feedback will be used to improve the efficiency of the teams during future similar projects.
How to lead the project meetings ?
Meeting routines allows the project coordinator to express his needs, make proposals, negotiate and decide with his teammates on the indicators of success to be controlled.
This communication helps to motivate the team around the final objective. The project manager also meets with his collegues one by one so that they each report back in their areas on the progress made.
Meetings must be the subject of a report which will be delegated so that team members can be heard as much as possible.
Excel
If you do not want to invest in project management software, you can list all the actions to be done to finish the project in an Excel file with the name of the task, its description, the name of a manager, a date end date and a degree of urgency (1, 2 or 3 for example), the amount of work required.
You can also add the name of the person requesting the task and the date of the request.
Each week in a focus point, the project Manager reviews the actions of the week, the new requests and their allocation in the team and the tasks to come according to their degree of urgency or delay.
If a task remains too long with the mention “to be completed”, act immediately because non-urgent tasks tend to accumulate and risk sooner or later to desorganised your organization, the respect of deadlines or worse the quality.
Stay picky about financial indicators and accounting monitoring (team costs, suppliers, invoices due, etc.). A financial report and a forecast are required.
Reporting
The project manager is judged on his ability to successfully manage a project. He assumes his responsibility on behalf of his team.
Reporting is the tool that helps to regularly validate with management the success of the various milestones and to help define the company’s strategic development axes.
Team meetings must therefore be the subject of methodical reports because they make it possible to synthesize and report the most relevant information to make the best decisions at the highest level.
If problems, risks, delays or discrepancies appear, the project manager clearly explains the situation and proposes solutions and means to be implemented or requests support.
How to lead a team?
Show your appreciation. Constantly remind and exploit the common goal of the team and the different decisive steps to succeed in the planning to achieve it.
It is thanks to the recognition of the work of each individual that you will obtain the best collective result.
The lack of clarity in your objectives, the lack of listening and resources, your lack of interest in the work carried out, the power struggles and the fear of sanctions demotivate your employees.
These factors are your worst enemies. Establish your rules from the start and enforce them!
In addition, a task considered completed must be definitively, tested and validated!
Otherwise, you risk ending up with an imperfect prototype full of bugs. Do not give the impression of being a “Handyman” Manager!
The art of celebrating small victories
The project manager makes sure to take advantage of small successes throughout the planning to thank the various actors who contribute to the success of the project.
These moments of relaxation contribute to strengthening the spirit of mutual help, solidarity and gives the rest of the company the image of a team that keeps its commitments.
Customer relationship management
Attention. Be sure to carefully monitor the incoming and outgoing relationships of your employees with customers and which could engage the compliance of the project.
Some may make oral promises. You will then be responsible for keeping the commitments!
Email, letters, conversations must be recorded and dated in a dashboard. Oral exchanges with the client are followed by a written confirmation “I understand this…”. The table is reviewed by the Manager every week during the team meeting, for example.
Customers often request changes that can affect the profitability and delivery of the project.
Before any slippage, any supplements not provided for in the contract are immediately invoiced and presented and accepted by the customer.
Only the Manager authorizes changes to the project. The consequences of these modifications on costs and deadlines are also presented by amendment and borne by the customer.
A picture is worth a long speech
The manager shows the progress of the project, deviations and trends, quality audits, estimated cost, etc., for the whole team to see, risks or lack of control have a direct effect on employees.
Deliver the project to the client
Do not wait for everything to be finished to validate the conformity of each element. If possible, deliver and get work accepted as you go.
At each reception, write and sign a partial reception document.
The reception with the client is a very important step. It corresponds to the “Good for acceptance, for settlement of all accounts” phase. This transfer of technology allows the customer to become the owner and aims to make it autonomous.
For this, presentations, deliveries, demonstrations and training contribute to the final success of the project.
The manager writes summary notes after each interaction phase until delivery. These notes will also be used to feed the company’s knowledge bases, ensuring continuous improvement of the system.
All disputes must be settled before delivery and final payment, a precaution often provided for in the contract.
Feedback
Business report, project report, customer report… After delivery, the manager ensures that lessons are learned and prepares recommendations for his management to improve the company’s processes.
Ratios, Cost, deadlines, HR, equipment, investments, purchases… It is only after this final meeting that the project is considered finished.
- Does the product delivered correspond to the product ordered?
- Is the customer satisfied and ready to recommend?
- Were internal processes followed ans updated ?
- What can be improved?
- Has the project manager succeeded in achieving all his objectives?
- Have the team members progressed?
- What do other stakeholders think of the project team?
- What went wrong? Are there any account settlements?
“Whenever you see a successful business, tell yourself it’s because someone made a brave decision one day.”
Peter Drucker
Happy CEO 