Operational Excellence in Project Management

Every project manager has had the experience of a client who simply does what he should be doing for the benefit of the project, making life difficult for everyone in the project team and the company, so you need to chase him

How can we deal with such a situation?

In practice , what can be done?

Let me try to help you here::

• Kick Off Meeting - at he beginning let him know and its main sponsor the importance of the project and its benefits with your customer,

• Vision of the future - inspire your customer thru vision of the future about his project, make sure he understand it creating an emotinoal connection,

• Meet your "super busy" client -  make sure they both know exactly what the short, medium and long term objectives. This will let you divide the work among its resources properly from the beginning, rather than discuss it later. Follow this discussion with a clear project schedule, indicating key milestones,

• Set expectations and priorities from the beginning - make sure that all stakeholders in the project have their expectations aligned and properly handled, and remember "first things first ",

• Schedule weekly status meetings - Modern technology makes meetings easier to be carried out regardless of the distance, it is essential that meetings with your client are conducted on a recurring basis at a pre-defined time, it is recommended that you ensure that your client is aware about recurring meetings through the programmed reminders, especially if you are doing it remotely. After a short time , these meetings will become a point where you will capture his attention,

• Business Lunch - Try to meet him during business lunch and share project status with him, sometimes this is the best and only opportunity you may have,

• Follow-up via telephone to report critical areas of progress - to send the project progress report that contains critical information , that is, required action or not , call your " busy" customer and report on the status and required actions . I say this because the chance he will read his report are minimal. Never connect to whether he received the report, only call with a purpose,

• Have alternative contacts with your customer - as your client is too busy to handle the project is highly recommended that you have a second client as a contact so you can address when the project events become "a little agitated"

?Managing a project can be difficult but rewarding at the same time , the opportunity to deal with difficult customers will give you a great advantage:

Experience !

Adaptaded from the article "Managing a Client who is Too Busy to Focus" de Christopher Scordo 

You just assumed aproject in crisis, out of control and frightening about the financial results, relationship with your customer and possible lay offs....

You as a Project Managers will be frightened?

Most of them will say no!

They will argue that leaders must be tough, resilient and heroic like in the movies Braveheart and Air Force One .all of them perform as great leaders without fear, but this is part of the character.

My answer is yes, leaders can be frightened and scared.

Because we want real, genuine and authentic leaders.

We want leaders who look at the top of the mountain  and aspire to reach the top.

If you do not show fear in frightening situations the team can imagine if you're real or if you are lying.

If you are afraid or scared it is completely normal, the team prefers to know that you have concerns and sees risks they see, and more ... As leaders we can not remain scared.

Even if you are scared of the project, the lesson is tough but you must lead. What most people do when they feel fear?

Think about what you do when you watch a scary moments in a movie, you'll be doing the same thing that frightened person on the screen are doing.

They do nothing. When we are afraid, we freeze, do not move, we lose the initiative.

As a project manager  (and leader) you can have and feel fear, but you can not stop, you must act.

How can you do that?

I suggest some steps you can perform even in fearful situations:

1. Note that, as a leader, sometimes, the project situation is frightening. You are in the front of the project, looking at a future where you and your team may never have been before. It is important to know that sometimes that vision will cause fear. Prepare yourself mentally, it's a good first step, without panic,
2. Acknowledge your fear, anxiety or distress. You probably will not be surprised by your negative emotions on the situation because they exist and you're already mentally prepared (remember step 1) ,
3. Recognize the emotions of the team. If the team is afraid, let them know what is normal, and be truthful about their feelings as well,
4. Make a plan, if necessary regroup the team to decide the next step, but the focus here is to decide what to do, not doing nothing is an excuse to keep frozen and inactive,
5. Take action, do something, the best way to lose the fear is to build trust and take steps that require action on your part along with the staff (use the step 4),
6. Keep the team with you, do not face the situation alone, you are not super hero you are a leader so you are leading these people to face the situation as a team. You must support and encourage the team and remember that numbers bring greater safety for everyone,
7. Seek for feedback and continue your walk, move on. Action moments are not great ways to relieve stress, anxiety and fear, but they are paths to success and progress.

Nelson Rosamilha,PMP®,BB®,Prince 2 Practitioner®
[email protected]
www.rosamilha.com (Project Management Blog in Portuguese language )
Twitter: nelsonrosamilha
http://br.linkedin.com/in/rosamilha
http://www.facebook.com/nelsonrosamilha

There are moments in our professional experience, mainly in between projects that we start to think in how we can be a better professional in project management...

I would like to share with you what I have learned from my historical experience and share with you my own lessons learned in 8 steps in the followin priority:

• Step 1 - Commitment - Top prority  and most important one ! Commitment means not be talking as crazy and promissing a lot of things in what should be done in project activities.  The world is full of good intentions and there are project managers who say they do, and those who actually exercise it. Be fullly engaged  and delivery what is promissed in the project and as a professional.
• Step 2 - Make a plan for your professional growth, with attainable goals and fulfill your word. You have to keep the promises you made to yourself, am I right ?
• Step 3 - Let members of your team, project sponsor and customers knows that you are seeking improvement opportunities (be humble), everyone will appreciate your attitude and openness to new learnings, this will reflect positively on the behavior of all of them and as a consequence feedback will be provided by them.
• Step 4 - Improvements - with the Commitment step assured , it's time for you to define exactly which areas you need to seek for improvements: soft skills, hard skills, people management, leadership skills, financials, etc. Understand deeply each one of those improvements in what they really means to you, document each one with goals to be achieved, deadlines and metrics in how to achieve those goals
• Step 5 - Learn from your mistakes - ask yourself what I have learned from my mistakes ? Everybody commit mistakes...

  Step 6 - Feedback - Have courage ! Ask for feedback to your team, your manager and your customers, do not wait for formal feedback process in your company (if any), the sooner the better, so you can act more quickly. Listen actively and carefully what they have to say, address the negatives issues and look further to improve the positive aspects

   

• Step 7 - Find a professional role model - The best way to be a better project manager is watching how the big project managers work, observe their skills and knowledge they have, try to find them at meetings, conferences and events where they will be speakers.Read what they publish and write down the points that impressed you. A very productive way is to seek a mentor (will work faster).
• Step 8 - Education - Since you are elaborating a plan to fill the gaps seek for companies that are enable you to close these needs thru continued education.  Do not expect to be unemployed to study, remember you are a project manager and provisioning should be part of your income (salary) in a ledger account (savings) where after a certain period of time you can use these savings to invest in you. 

Now that your plan is ready, remember to run it to perfection! 

Nelson Rosamilha, PMP, Prince2 Practitioner
[email protected]
www.rosamilha.com