At just about any scale, project management is an important responsibility, and a project manager must oversee effective operations so that a project can be finished on time and, in a business context, on budget.
To be fair, the breakdown of some projects can be chalked up to factors outside of a leader’s control. A leader’s job is to ensure that a project does not fail due to inadequate leadership or mismanagement. When it comes to massive, expensive projects, poor project management can be disastrous and even dangerous.
The initial planning phase of a project sets the tone. A leader that starts out on top of things is in position to ensure actual work on the project gets off on the right foot. Through the rest of the project’s life cycle, a leader must take a number of steps in order to ensure the project results in success.
Communication is Crucial
A project leader must communicate effectively with both their team and stakeholders regarding progress, resources, problems, potential problems, expectations and various other issues. Of course, a strong ability to communicate is useful in any leadership setting, but given the focus a project is usually under, it is particularly important in this setting. Strong communication can include helping people achieve mutual understanding, resolving conflicts and keeping people informed of the latest developments, whether they are good or bad.
A good leader must act as a go-between that connects senior management to team members. This person should be able to use communication to persuade and facilitate collaboration. Through communications, a good leader reinforces objectives, recognizes individual contributions, celebrates milestones and provides corrective actions to achieve desired results.
Expect the Unexpected
Unforeseen developments will often disrupt a project. However, an effective project leader is able to prepare for the unexpected by formulating one or more backup plans. Part of any planning phase should be working out possible disruptive scenarios and ways they could be overcome.
Raise Potential Issues
Perhaps worse than not having a backup strategy is recognizing a potential issue and not flagging it up to talk about preemptive actions.
Also in the planning phase, a project leader should review the overall process and look for problems that are likely to occur. The leader should then plan on using steps and techniques to either prevent the anticipated problems from occurring, or to overcome each problem as it arises.
Build Consensus, But Embrace Tough Decisions
For some people, it could be tempting to micro-manage project workers, as opposed to trusting and empowering them to make their own contributions. It’s essential to note that your staff members ought to have enough knowledge and expertise to handle the tasks in front of them. Otherwise, they shouldn’t be there in the first place.
That being said, the leader is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the project team. Rather than putting it all on team members, a strong leader trusts their own skills and takes responsibility for final decisions.
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