Guaranteed Success with Strategy & Execution for a Project Manager

Wield the Politician inside You

Everyone has to learn how to "play ball" in the office; whether it's breaking bad news to your boss or handling a temperamental coworker. But it takes a certain grace to manage and please workers from every department—something project managers do on an ongoing basis.

Winston Churchill once said, "A good politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen." Heather Henricks, a freelance senior digital project manager who leads Ecology Action's marketing efforts, may well agree with him.

"At the end of the day, most highly-motivated project managers can perfect hard skills like technical acumen with systems, networks and platforms—it's the soft skills that really separate mediocre project managers from the masters," she says. Henricks spent her first seven years in project management at Microsoft, followed by ten more riding the startup wave at companies like Payscale.com and Allrecipes.com.

Use the Details to Shape the Strategy

Looking at the fine print can save time, money and frustration. But a good project manager has to accomplish a delicate trifecta: appreciating the weight of the details, maintaining a top-level focus, and fitting everything into a coherent strategy.

Joe Corraro, a project manager with Siemens who oversees construction projects in New York City, says going through the details with a fine-toothed comb has made all the difference in how smoothly a job goes.

"If the engineer says we need 20 temperature sensors, but the documents says we need six, I need to know what the salesman said and what the construction plans say, so that when I'm asked 'how did this happen?' in a meeting, I have my details straight and can give an educated answer—and a solution," Corraro says.

Relying on your team is one way to make sure things are double- and triple-checked. "I can't do it all," Corraro says, "so I know that if I have my team combing through it, we'll catch all the 'gotchas' that could lead to big problems."

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

The way Siemens' Corraro describes his to-do list, it'd seem like it's the backbone of his project management prowess—but it's actually the constant communication behind his to-do list that makes it so effective.

"Actually, I call it my punch list," Corraro says. New needs are communicated every day, so "you have to be able to adapt. “He spends the last half-hour of each day sitting down with the entire team to mark off what got done and what needs to be added to the master list. Then they organize everything by priority and who's responsible for what.

"Look at your timeline; if you need to do something by x date, and you aren't on target, what do you need to do to get there?" Corraro says.

Corraro also takes the time to see firsthand what might be holding something up. He'll revise the master list based on what he feels will clear the most roadblocks, then surface concerns at the end-of-day meeting.

Communicating clearly is just part of the process, according to Hammond; a good project manager chooses the right communication tool for the job.

Lead by Example

Even if the entire team is up-to-speed, remember that you, the project manager, are still in the lead. That means doing whatever it takes to get the project done, even if it's outside of your assigned duties.

A good project manager leads by thinking three steps ahead and knows that ultimately, how a project fares will reflect on them.

"Never let the ball drop, but keep a close score of who let it drop and fix the underlying issue as soon as you can," Cothenet says. Anticipation of things that'll come up outside of the to-do list—followed by prompt action—make a project manager indispensable. Good project managers "do the stuff no one else thought should be done, before they even think about it," Cothenet says.

"Bad project managers try to become indispensable by creating unnecessary bottlenecks and taking knowledge hostage." Succeed by enabling others, and doing the things needed to push your team forward.

"Do the stuff no one else thought should be done, before they even think about it."- Paul Cothenet, CTO of MadKudu, former Product Manager

As a product manager, Martin Müntzing, Podio's head of product, says his constraints are less about time and money and more about reaching a desired effect.

But even then, Müntzing's team needs some sort of direction. So they found a way to systemize thinking ahead, which they called "hypothesis-driven development."

Create Balance

Being a manager who also takes on some grunt work means that you get a bird's-eye view of every siloed department that's involved in the project. That's why most project managers say putting yourself in the other person's shoes adds perspective to team dynamics.

"As a project manager you are in a unique position of perspective that most members of your project team will not have," says Hammond. "It can be frustrating as a designer to see your designs mangled out of functional necessity, or as a programmer to see shortcuts taken due to time or budget constraints. Remember that each team member may value and protect their particular corner of the project. Take the time understand their personal goals and priorities for the project and for themselves, and help them understand the organizational or strategic goals of the project."

Make sure you acknowledge good work and provide positive reinforcement. Your success is the sum of your leadership plus all the work everyone else does, so show your team that what they do matters.

"Remember that each team member may value and protect their particular corner of the project. Take the time understand their personal goals and priorities for the project and for themselves."- Niki Gallo Hammond, Project Manager at Jackson River Cothenet says that balancing the short- and long-term performance of your team is one of the toughest parts of project management. "It is your job to fix other people's mistakes and avoid dropping the ball. But in the long term, your team will be dysfunctional if lazy people rely on you to do their job," Cothenet says.

"The biggest thing I've learned is to make my team members feel wanted and treat them like they matter and that I depend on them," Corraro says. "You can do this without letting people walk all over you. For example, if someone finished their work well and ahead of schedule, don't deduct a sick day next time they call in."Cothenet says that there were many times when his team would take two weeks to plan something, start the sprint, and then see numerous plan changes—which can be a big morale-killer.