Hello fellow project managers, business analysts and project stakeholders! Welcome to the ShivyTech blog! I am excited to share an important topic with you on how to set up your project team for long term success. Hope you find this post insightful!
When starting a project, the project manager needs to make sure the team that has been assembled is ready to execute the project and has a clear understanding of what needs to be done. Along with this, it is important to make sure that the project team is set up for success in the project and that the project manager provides enough support to the entire team from Day 1. With that being said, we have put together a few focus areas that project managers should spend more time on when starting a project to better manage the project team with a focus on long term success:
- Set a positive tone with the entire project team from the beginning. When you gather the whole project team together, it’s important to establish a positive tone. As a leader, if you start off being negative, serious or de-motivating, the team will have the same mood from the beginning, and it will bring down the energy levels of the team. From the beginning, show lots of enthusiasm and positive energy with the team as it will lead to better results for the overall project.
- Lay out project objectives clearly. When starting a project, it is critical to lay out project objectives up front and make sure that there is no ambiguity. The whole team should be clear and on the same page of what the intent and objectives of the project are. If the project objectives and intent are not clear, the project team will be confused as to the purpose of why they are on the project team in the first place.
- Provide clarity on roles and responsibilities for each team member. When starting a project, it is important to lay out the roles that each project member will have within the overall project. Along with this, there needs to be clarity on what responsibilities and deliverables each project team member will be owning. If the role and responsibilities for each project member are not clear, then this will lead to confusion, re-work, and duplicative work across the team.
- Encourage collaboration. At times, project team members can be competitive with one another as the outcomes of a project can determine whether a specific project team member gets an award, promotion or some type of achievement through the organization. The project manager has a responsibility to make sure that all project team members are working harmoniously to deliver a solution that will benefit the customer/organization. The project manager’s tone from the beginning should be one of collaboration within the team and should reward this type of behavior on the project. If project team members work in silos, it can lead to confusion on where different tasks stand and can also cause confusion on progress of the overall project. Collaboration is a win-win for the project team members and the overall project.
- Provide inclusive leadership. A project manager should be a leader of a project, i.e., be there for the project team throughout the duration of the project and support all project team members. This is similar to a servant leader type of attitude, where the project manager’s goal should be to see every team member successful within the project and be open to receiving team members’ opinions within the project when it comes to addressing key issues, risks and decisions.
- Celebrate project milestones and those who go above and beyond on the team. Who doesn’t like to celebrate? There are moments within the project where there are big celebrations and even crunch times within the project in meeting specific and tight deadlines. The major milestones of a project, such as completion of a project phase or the project go live should be celebrated with the project team in terms of a nice lunch or dinner but so should also smaller wins and milestones. Examples can include when a large or complex deliverable was reviewed and approved by the client or someone on the project team who went consistently above expectations to make sure the deliverable or milestone was met. Celebrations bring a sense of closeness with the project team and motivate the team to keep pushing harder to deliver and stay on top of their work.
- The tone starts at the top. Leaders who are sponsoring the project or key stakeholders who are part of the steering committee of a project are some of the major influencers within the organization and can influence the outcome and direction of a project. It is important for these types of stakeholders to stay positive and provide an inclusive and forward thinking approach to setting up the project team for success. The project team will be influenced by key players within the project and can be swayed by a sponsor’s attitude, opinions and reactions to the project. It’s critical to keep these stakeholders accountable for having a positive attitude and spreading that to their direct reports, which can include project stakeholders.
- Provide a clear project management methodology. When starting a project, it is important to determine which type of project management methodology is being utilized to deliver on the project. If the project required a waterfall approach, then the project manager needs to confirm the deliverables that will be required to complete the work, vs. an agile project, which may have a different set of deliverables, depending on the organization. By providing clear direction on the project management methodology, the workstream leads within the project can take an appropriate approach to preparing and executing project work.
How do you set up your project team for success? Leave us a comment below!