I'm sitting here on a Tuesday evening at the end of September and my air conditioning is still running even though it is 10:00pm. It was nearly 100 degrees today! It reminds me of the importance of keeping your cool as a project manager and how a project manager's demeanor can greatly affect the overall success of a project.
There are a couple absolutes that I live by from being a project manager for over 20 years.
1. People don't do what they don't want to do
2. People tend to avoid conflict at all costs
3. No one likes bad news, no one likes to deliver bad news
The PMBOK® Guide, has an entire section on human resources management, but doesn't provide guidance on human nature tendencies. Every project I've ever worked on has required that I deal with each of these tendencies. Successfully managing these can help build team comaraderie and team member motivation.
Most can understand that individuals enjoy performing certain tasks while dislike performing other tasks. Human nature shows us that people perform better on tasks they enjoy performing than those they do not. The challenge a project manager has is how to divide up work to most effectively deliver the project. If you think that the creation of a schedule and the assignment of work-packages to individuals on the project is good enough motivation to deliver high-quality, timely work, you are wrong. Whenever possible, best practices in task management means that work is assigned to individuals that actually like performing the task at hand. For example, you can have a team of QA analysts. Some of these analyst may enjoy creating a test plan while others may prefer to perform the actual tests.
Regarding conflict, yes I agree that there are individuals we know that appear to want to argue about everything. However, most team members I've encountered really just want to do a good job and don't like to confront and will tell you that EVERYTHING is OK. The challenge here are the "hidden" concerns that are arising within the team, which the team just doesn't want to articulate. As the project manager, get to know your team and take the time to talk to them individually about ways to improve their respective processes. You will be surprised to hear what examples come out that can give you insight into where risks are hiding. Where possible, work to implement some of their recommendations, even if you have to do it anonymously. You'll find the team members becoming more open to discussing their concerns with you rather than hiding them.
Whenever issues arise that can negatively impact a project, no one ever likes to hear bad news, they especially don't want to be the person communicating bad news. No one likes to be yelled at if they are the deliverer of bad news. As any project manager knows, projects are inherently risky and that issues will arise-some of them small, while others not so much! If you are the type of person that REACTS to every little issue in way that has the team working overtime, or being pulled off of previously scheduled work, you may be guilty of negatively responding to bad news. Realize that not all issues brought up are URGENT...many of them may not even be important. Regardless, when someone brings an issue to your attention, respond according to the urgency by assessing the impact to the overall project success. And NEVER get emotional in front of the person(s) who have brought the issue to your attention. As we stated above, most people avoid conflict and if you keeping calm in a stressful situations, you will show your leadership and your team will learn that conflict doesn't have to be a bad experience.
Diane Altwies, MBA, PMP
Diane Altwies has a proven track record of delivering completed projects to the marketplace through effective leadership of multi-disciplinary teams with a strong customer focus. She has more than 21 years managing software development projects, and over 14 years experience in the insurance, financial services, mortgage lending, and healthcare industries.
Janice Y. Preston, MBA, CPA, PMP
Janice Preston has been managing projects for more than 20 years in industries as diverse as real estate, financial services and the PC industry. Ms. Preston has been a principal with Vista Performance Group since 1991, consulting in project management for information services, health care, financial services, pharmaceuticals, and automotive. Some of her clients include Boeing, Countrywide, Nissan, Balboa Insurance, Allergan, Computer Sciences Corporation, Capital Group Companies, and Southern California Edison.
