Setting the Stage for Success: Put Expectation in Lights

Project managers can feel helpless in their roles when many project workers do not report to them, nor have little accountability to them. Can you say "Set up to fail"? Luckily, there is a way to maintain progress toward a successful project conclusion even in an inefficient organizational structure. To do this, you need to set the stage properly, reinforce desired behavior and act in a support role. We will look at best practices in each of these three areas in separate articles. Even though your experience in motivation may have included being browbeaten, threatened and intimidated, please keep an open mind to other methods as we proceed.

Workers and teams easily deviate from your expectations when they are not clear on those expectations. One of the most powerful strategies you can use to keep a project on track is to set the stage properly. This means more than distributing the project plan. The plan is only part of setting the stage. Complement your plan by stating your project vision and goals. Describe the final result and how the project team will conduct itself to get to that result. Address collaboration, communication, critical success areas, performance standards, standards of acceptability and anything else necessary to succeed. Paint this background early in the project in your presentations and written communications.

During the project,…