Gear Up Your Team to Manage Project Deadline

In the first part of Gear Up Your Team To Manage Project Deadline, we looked at how project manager needs to identify exact resource-mix in his/her project team and act accordingly. In this part lets see how a project manager can create enabling environment for project team members to manage project deadline.

Here is the concluding part of Gear Up Your Team to Manage Project Deadline.

Shield them from unnecessary pressure from out side

There are going to be varied expectations, pressure from stakeholders such as management, customers, auditors, vendors/partners to deliver projects in certain fashion. Such pressure is unavoidable – because they are stakeholders.

In order to deliver projects on time with desired quality, project manager needs to save his/her team from unwarranted, unnecessary pressure. This is one of the important the skills and prudence of project manager. Sometimes project related meetings or activities which are obvious unproductively time-waster, without any value-addition should be by-passed at any cost; sometimes inter-departmental politics comes into play and it can negatively impact your team’s work environment or deter them from delivering required project work. If you are a project manager, you would come across these things regularly. It is in the best interest of the team and the project, that you should skillfully bypass these activities, shield your team from external (negative and undesired) pressure and maintain positive work environment.

Forcing them may lead to meeting temporary objective but won’t work forever

There is a section of project managers who believes that forcefully making their team, squeezing them to work more can get projects delivered. It is not surprising that such forceful tactics may work for some time but not-always.

Understanding human nature helps you manage individuals for your benefit (for project, I wish). While few people can work under pressure tactics for some time, some work well under periodic guidance, some work more productively with autonomy. Only when you find such traits to make the most from your team, you would be poised to lead them in more effective manner.

However constantly pressurizing them, monitoring them, micromanaging all the time will not lead to long term success. It is okay to observe team in the beginning until you have confidence with their capabilities. And many project managers I know, really make these things work to their advantage. It is hard earned skill, from their experience, from careful observation.

Get Organized, Help Them Getting Organized, Help Them Manage Project Deadline

Gone are the days of writing paper based memo or sending notices. You have amazing technological evolution at your disposal, to get organized and help your team get organized. If you are not using right project management tool, you are definitely missing on things.

• – Team members can see their pending project activities in calendar
• – You would like to know historical performance of your team and your own
• – You would like to track time worked by project team
• – You would like to know whether your project estimation was right
• – You would like to know differential pace of work of an individual team member
• – You would like everyone to refer to only one copy of project schedule
• – You would like team members to be notified whenever there is any change, update to project schedule
• – You would like team members to know exactly what they should do, when they should do it
• – Project manager, portfolio manager and other stakeholders should be able to track projects on regular basis, get holistic picture of the tool through project dashboard and report.

The point really is, getting your team to deliver project activities is crucial but having an enabling environment, platform is also important, hence right/ best project management software proves to be immensely useful. Thus you need to have a holistic view of the project, know your project team well, manage them well manage project deadline, enable them to manage project using right project management tool.

Img Source: [1] resumizer.com [2]. magicalmemorymaker.com [3]. helpdeskja.com.

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