When you land your first job as a project manager, you may be surprised at what you find. In school, you were given group projects where everyone would contribute and each member would have a task and at the end you’d all share in the grade. The incentive was to receive an “A” in hopes that it would help you get a job when you graduated. Well, it certainly didn’t hurt. What does hurt is when certain expectations are not met, which leads to further pain felt by everyone including the client. Below is a list of problems your business school neglected to tell you about your decision to become a project manager.
Assertiveness
School was different. In a group setting you all knew your part and everyone contributed equally, but when you move away from your peers, that’s when things get hairy. You may have become the new project manager on the block, but that doesn’t mean you are exempt from a little hazing. It’s never too crazy; it’s not like you’ll meet a Jim Halpert. The best thing to remember is to be assertive. It’s something that many people have trouble with, but it is very important when you are leading a group. Being assertive doesn’t mean getting your way all the time or throwing your status into your team’s face. It means to communicate authority and show your team that you are in charge, because you have an online mba.
Assertiveness, however, is not a class required to obtain your MBA. It is something that needs to be practiced. One tip to try is to look in the mirror, establish eye contact and speak clearly positive, factual statements about yourself. This will create confidence. Though it sounds lame, it really does work.
Employee morale
Though in school your classmates were influenced by getting a good grade, often times it is hard to find what will boost the motivation and morale of your team. Your team will comprise several individuals that vary from competent, highly motivated and positive teammates to less competent and slightly negative individuals.
The former are a pleasure to work with and are willing to do anything optimally to please you. The latter are very hard to motivate and look like they want to assault you with a brick. As the project manager it is your job to make sure your team gets their projects done, but when you work with the unmotivated individuals, your projects may be in danger.
What you need to do is figure out a way to motivate your workers to exceed expectations.
For instance, by creating an actual relationship with them, they can learn who you are and you can better understand them. This kills two birds with one stone. As you create a relationship, trust is created and often a general liking or respect follows. The worker will then decide to do their best to do a good job. Creating a relationship also allows you to learn more about them and what positively motivates them to do a good job. If you play your cards right, they may take you to dinner.
Also, once a general relationship is established amongst all teammates, it is good to reward them with a “Good job.” It may not sound like much, but it is something that will go a long way in creating a functioning team.
Strategy
In school, team projects were relatively good practice in delegating the work load. It differs from the real world significantly in that your team has very specific functions. Depending on your project, you’ll have a variety of experts on your team. From programmers to marketers, you will need to strategize how to utilize your team to get the most significant work concluded first.
A good strategy to begin with is to divide your project into small facets amongst your team. But which bits do you divi up and how? Hold a meeting and go over the details of what needs to be done on the project. By now you’ll have a decent understanding of what your team is capable of. Allow them to give any suggestions and feedback onto the task at hand, within reason. They will need to finish the project by the appointed time; otherwise the project will become a failure. Most clients are unwilling to wait, especially when a project is expected by a certain date. Though you may have had deadlines at school, getting projects done for a living is a different ball park.
Furthermore, no project will be the same. So to use the same strategy twice may be fatal to the project. Every new project desires a new design. In other words, the plan that worked well on the first project may not work on the next. Keep your sensitive eye on the details and decipher the objectives to create an efficient strategy your team can utilize.
Work Overflow
You may have thought that college was rough, but the typical project manager has to manage several projects at a time. This is normal and you must remember not to stress out too much and take each task one at a time and strategize the best way to accomplish the work.
Organize each of your projects in an excel spreadsheet and create an expected due date for each individual part. Keep up with your team. Make sure they are on task and know what needs to be done and when.
Client Vagueness
School certainly never prepared you for this. Your teacher laid out an assignment and his expectations were right there: what he wanted and when he wanted it. Unfortunately this wisdom does not always translate from client to project manager. One of hardest things to deal with as a project manager is the vague client. Often time’s clients know what they want but are unable to put it into words. This happens more often than it should and leaves both the project manager and the client unhappy.
The best way to combat this is to hold meetings where the client is present. This is often very hard to do, but there are a couple of ways that can help your team and also allow the client to keep their schedule.
Hold a telephone conference with the client and allow your team to ask questions about what is desired. Skype is also a convenient tool where your team and the client can talk about what is needed for a successful project. There are many ways to eliminate client vagueness, especially with today’s technology.
So when you graduate school and start looking for that project management position, you may find yourself surprised, baffled and overwhelmed by what the job entails. However the job really is rewarding in its own way. Other than learning how to manage a team running instead of crawling, you gain other insights and experiences as problems arise. Not to mention, often times, becoming a part of something big that can really make you feel appreciated in the end.