The New PM On the Block

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Career Development   Communications Management   Leadership   New Practitioners   ProjectsAtWork  

No matter how much experience they have, project and program managers are constantly starting over — with new organizations, new clients and new team members. Since you only get one chance to make a first impression, here are tips to make sure it's a good one.

The nature of project management requires many of us in the profession to work with new groups on a regular basis. Whether it’s a new organization, or just a new team within the same organization, project managers often find themselves working with people who don’t know them, and whom they don’t know. It’s a situation that can to create a lot of uncertainty on both sides, and it provides additional pressure on the project manager to make the right first impression and to get a project off to the best possible start. 

Unfortunately, I’ve seen way too many cases where the exact opposite has occurred, so here are some thoughts on how a project manager can not only overcome the uncertainty associated with working with new people, but can also springboard the project team to success.

Get educated

One of the biggest complaints I hear about new PMs is that they don’t take the time to understand the unique challenges of the environment that they are entering. I know a program manager hired into an organization who alienated every project manager on the program in less than …

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