Criticizing the Right Way in Projects

Kenneth has 14 years of healthcare experience in government and private industry. Over eight years of experience managing healthcare IT projects, operations, contracts, and personnel. His work experience includes project management, contracts and procurements, data analysis, claims adjudication, business writing, and business process modeling. Kenneth was certified in 2006 as a Project Management Professional.

  Communications Management   Talent Management  

A project involves people working together (a one-person project is essentially a "to do” list). Because of that simple fact, there will be criticism handed around during the project--and some of that criticism will be negative. No one is perfect, and eventually criticism will be leveled toward the project, the project manager, the project team or even the stakeholders.

A project manager needs to be ready to deal with criticism and help make criticism constructive and helpful for the project instead of destructive. In order to do this, the project manager needs to be working closely with the project team and stay aware of what is going on in the project.

Focus on Issues
It is always important to remember to focus on the issues. Someone may have criticism for the project team because they are not getting the work done fast enough or they are not meeting the client’s needs. If that criticism is leveled at the project team without a full understanding of why they are not meeting their goal, then all you end up with is a team with low morale.

If the criticism is aimed at the issues, then you will have a starting point that lets you begin to address the underlying issue. For example, perhaps the criticism is that tasks are taking longer than the estimate or that the customer’s requirements are not fully defined yet. These are the issues that …

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