Opinion
GET TO KNOW EVERYTHING
Knowing what you are up against is half
the battle and if a project is dumped in
your lap, you’ll have to make the time to
become the project know-it-all. That
means you must understand your project
scope and goals, get to know your team
and their individual skills and expertise,
as wel l as the stakeholders you’l l need to
please and guide through the project.
The first thing to do is set aside a few
hours to get your project details organised
and your team and stakeholders aligned.
Sit down and have a conversation to
uncover details and set expectations
about project goals, team and individual
responsibilities, deadlines, milestones,
requirements and more. This will help
get the information you need, agree to a
schedule and get the ball rolling.
AGREE ON PROCESS
No matter how you prefer to work, make
sure that your team and your stakeholders
are fully invested in and educated on your
process. Take the time to document – in
a public place – how the project will run.
If you’re running agile, that means you
agree to your sprint cycle, meetings and
Kanban board. If you’re more traditional
in process, create a project plan to outline
project phases, tasks and milestones
along with responsibilities. The more you
can do to gain alignment on how the
project will work, the easier it will be to
manage the process and deliverables.
ENSURE COMMUNICATION
You’ll never be able to effectively lead a
project without solid communication
practices. Set up routines to keep
important details out in the open: you’ll
find that your leadership can be shared
(if you want it to be) and your team will
be more accountable to the project and
one another. General ly, you w ant to make
sure that the collective team is kept in
the loop on important details, decisions
and progress (or lack thereof). There are
two simple practices to help:
Hold stand-up meetings
This is a simple, short meeting where
the team gets together at a routine time
questions or issues, the easier it will be
to solve issues quickly and make positive
progress together.HAVE SOME FUN
If you’ve taken on the PM responsibilit y
already, you’re probably a flexible person- and your organisation should probably
thank you for that. Unfortunately, project
management tends to be a bit of a
thankless job, so I wouldn’t hold your
breath! Regardless of your title,
remember that as much as you prepare
and plan, your projects will change.
You’ve got to be flexible about that but,
at the same time, manage it. It can be a
hefty job to update plans, communicate
impacts, identify risks and solve issues
and you’ve got to be flexible about how
it all pans out. Do your best to call out
the issues, find new paths and lead the
team to a successful delivery. You can do
this, no matter your title.
(t y pi c a l l y d a i l y) for ea c h tea m mem b e r
to provide an update on: what was done
yesterday, what they’re working on today
and any blockers that stand in their way.
This is a rapid-fire team status update
that helps you to spot potential issues
and resolve them quickly. If you’re
strapped for time, you’ll value this
meeting because it can replace a lot of
individual check-ins.Create status reports
It’s always wise to maintain a level of
transparency about action items,
deliverables, milestones/progress,
budgets and risks with your team and
stakeholders. If you take just 15 minutes
per week to create a status report and
distribute it to all involved parties, you
won’t become a bottleneck. You’ll share
the burden of project information and
that will mean that anyone can step in
and help as needed. That’s the kind of
collective ownership you’ll be looking for
as a part-time PM.
No matter what you do, the more your
team keeps information out in the open
and communicates whenever there arePROFILE
Harned is director of education at TeamGantt,
founder of the Digital PM Summit and podcaster at
Sprints & Milestones.
w: brettharned.com