There is a growing demand for people with project management skills and there will always be 😉
So whether you are starting work as a project manager for the first time or have plenty of experience in your bag; project management is an exciting – and growing – profession to be in.
As a project manager you can always improve the way you manage projects and good project managers never stop learning. The more you improve yourself the greater the level of project success you will achieve.
In this blog, I will guide you through the things that you can do to improve the way you manage projects every day.
You will learn how to;
• Define your role
• Set goals and achieve them
• Improve your decision-making skills
• Write project documents that stakeholders will read and action
• Deliver presentations that get results
• Manage day-to-day tasks
• Get recognized for your work
• Boost your personal confidence
• Get a work/life balance
• Invest in continuous professional development.
Apply them to your projects and see how much more effective you can be as a project manager.
🔻As a project manager how do I do in a day?
My role as a project manager is to deliver a project on time, within budget and to the required specification. In order to achieve these, I first follow 5 things that you need to do well:
1. Building a high-performing team
Great projects are delivered by a high-performing team. Our role is to recruit the best people we can find to our project team.
In this aspect, we prepare a skill sets document or a job description to make sure we have all of the experience we need. We need to create a detailed job description for every person in our project team so that they all know what is expected from them.
An effective team and with everyone having a clear understanding of what is expected of them will deliver the results we are looking for.
2. Motivate and lead
Being positive and supportive towards your team, leading by example and motivating others to do the same are essential. If you want others to work hard, then you need to demonstrate a strong work ethic yourself.
How do we do that?
• Lead by example
• Set the direction for the team
• Motivate them to do their best work
• Show that you care about them and their contribution.
A project manager should manage the team effectively and make sure that everyone knows what is to be done and by when. There will be times when we need to be strict to ensure that every task is done on time and doesn’t slip. There are times when you can empower your team to make the right decisions by themselves.
If your project slips, your role is to identify the slippage immediately and implement your contingency plans so you can get back on track.
3. Manage the finances
Every project has a budget, whether it’s clearly defined or not. You need to ensure that you don’t spend less or more than you’re entitled to.
4. Control change
As the project manager, you are the person who controls all changes to the project scope.
Define the scope of the project and then review it each week to make sure that you’re not doing unauthorized work at any time. Your customer might ask for changes throughout the project. You need to evaluate a change by assessing the impact it will have on your budget or project plan - most changes cost money and add time to your schedule.
5. Communicate clearly
Our task is to communicate :)
Project managers are the main source of communication about the project. Build time into your week to communicate the status of the project regularly. Your project team will be motivated by knowing how things are going, and it will give your stakeholders confidence
that you have everything under control.
Use project dashboards and reports to get your message across
clearly 😉😉
