With decades of experience leading projects, programs and PMOs, we know a good project manager when we meet one – and what sets a great PM apart usually isn’t something they learn from a textbook.
It’s not hard to find courses, ebooks, and theory about what makes for better project management: there are countless best practice processes, methodologies, and structures that make for good project management discipline. However, delivering successful projects is ultimately a people-driven business.
While disciplines and practices should not be overlooked because they provide a great foundation and the requisite skillsets, it takes some insider insight to know what will take a project professional from good to great. Training them to be 10% better on MS Project or 5% more detailed on requirements traceability isn’t going to cut it.
We’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly in project management and what’s clear in all of the people we’ve worked with is that it’s the soft skills and the learned experience that stand out as the highly valuable traits of an exceptional PM.
Here are three well-trodden paths that will help your project leaders make the leap.
Encourage your PMs to get to know their sponsors …. And vice versa
Sponsors have the most significant influence over a project, and they can decide what to give and take away from a project. In some ways, they are the most important stakeholder a PM can get on board.
But what happens if that doesn’t happen? If your PMs don’t effectively engage with their sponsors, they’ll find it hard to get time in the diary, keep their attention, and garner their support for removing roadblocks or making commitments that help the project achieve its objectives. A project where the relationship between a PM and a sponsor is non-existent or problematic can doom a project to fail no matter how well methodologies or processes are followed. Ownership, benefits realisation, and the sustainability of the change agenda tend to be the casualties of a poor PM-sponsor engagement.
It’s important that your project managers master how best to engage and partner with the sponsor and that requires getting to know them on a personal level: how they make decisions; their strengths and weaknesses; what’s important to them; what makes them tick; and how they define success. These all influence the project by extension.
It’s also important that PMs understand that this is reciprocated with the sponsor, because like any good and well-functioning relationship, trust, good communication, and partnership are the key tenets of success.
Fostering a better, deeper, and more meaningful understanding will earn the trust of the sponsor, the work the PM delivers, the opinions they provide, and the advice or guidance on how to tackle challenges within the delivery. Again, this will likely result in building trust in the sponsor to provide support where and when it’s needed, where the safe zones are, and when they need to be informed to manage the big-picture stuff that might be occurring elsewhere in the organisation that could impact the project. The collaboration will be easier and more effective, decisions made more quickly, and there are unlikely to be any surprises.
The PM Elevator Pitch: Know it and use it often
A Project Manager with an elevator pitch can be a powerful asset in garnering awareness and excitement about a project.
If you’ve not heard the term before, an elevator pitch is a short, positive and persuasive message that can be delivered in the time it takes for the lift to move between a few floors … or 30-60 seconds. Why is that valuable? Because people talk.
There are typically four groups of responses when people are asked about projects within a business:
- Those that know about the project and support or believe in it (this is the preferred group)
- Those that know about the project but don’t support or believe it is the right thing to do
- Those who know about the project but don’t understand what it’s about; and
- Those who don’t know about the project.
Organisations are networks of people who cross paths in corridors and coffee conversations, team chats, meetings a PM isn’t in, and other incidental engagement opportunities. These are opportunities to create a lot of noise about a project that might not be helpful to the mission, create misunderstandings, and potentially erode confidence or create unnecessary barriers over time.
A PM with a good project elevator pitch is an opportunity to foster positive conversations, build interest and goodwill, and create the air of importance, priority, and necessity for the project’s success. Bridges must be built before they can be crossed.
What makes a good elevator pitch? There are three points:
- What the project is going to do
- Why that is important; and
- What the outcome will be.
A good example might sound like this. Jane and Peter enter an elevator and Peter starts a conversation with his colleague, who he knows is one of the organisation’s IT leaders, but not a stakeholder in his project. It’s an opportunity to influence:
Peter: Hi Jane!
Jane: Hi Pete, what are you working on these days?
Peter: We’re working on the new digitisation project that will replace our paper forms with a new digital experience. It’ll dramatically improve customer experience when they engage with us, which will help our brand and drive great efficiency for the business.
Jane (as the lift chimes, doors open and she exits): Sounds great. Let’s chat soon about the tech you’re using.
While she may not be an official stakeholder, Jane may share her opinion and a positive perspective if she is asked about the project, how important it is, and what it aims to achieve.
It could also have been a good opportunity for Peter if Jane had raised any concerns to counter them with a follow-up or offer to chat more.
It’s the soft skill of being able to sell without selling to people who might be interested or influential in creating a positive message about the project. That’s highly valuable to sponsors and the outcomes of the project, not to mention the ripple effect that often happens when people find out about projects among their networks and in impromptu conversations.
Recognising that not all leaders or influencers are at the top of the organisational structure
It’s an old and possibly outdated adage that the most expensive opinion matters most, a hark back to the times when the most senior person in the room should have final say and others fall in line. This can still ring true in organisations today.
However, it can be valuable for senior leaders to listen first to contributions from people in the room. It can elicit a broader range of views, ideas, and thinking from the cohort than speak to an echo chamber.
This is an important skill for project leaders too. Rather than ‘setting the scene’ in a meeting to elicit the expected fall-in, a good PM is brave enough to encourage their team, stakeholders, and sponsors to challenge ideas, plans, and approaches to find the maximum value and best overall approach to complex problems. A team atmosphere that does not fear raising concerns or expressing different perspectives in a respectful way will become a better-informed team and the solution they produce will be more considered and effective.
This approach also fosters engagement and value among the team when their contributions are heard and taken on for consideration. Not all of the power sits at the top.
Some roles or individuals can be powerful leaders with the ability to shape or make decisions that can have a significant effect on the project’s ability to be successful:
- Role-based: A position with specific decision rights or accountability that can be impacting. For example, an IT operational / change advisory board is able to reject a change, which prevents a project from going into an IT release or going live
- Individual: A person that has knowledge, experience or a reputation that others look up to and take their behavioural cues from. They could, in theory, prevent a project from being properly supported because they are seen not to believe in it.
When a PM can identify and engage effectively across all levels in an organisation, they have a highly valuable skill and an opportunity to influence outcomes.
It’s not textbook knowledge
There is a wide spectrum of project management skills and in our experience, the exceptional ones are rare but highly valued. Whilst textbook understanding, certifications, and professional development are really valuable assets in a good PM, the great ones look for opportunities to develop relationships and softer skills. It can make all the difference in delivering successful projects. Look beyond the traditional textbooks and knowledge bases on project management for inspiration when it comes to coaching conversations or professional development. Topics on influencing skills, communication, leadership, conflict resolution and most topics focusing on soft skills have great application in a project environment and can really make the difference between being a good PM and a great one.
At Quay, we understand how important cultural fit and well-developed soft skills are to delivering successful projects. For more information about how Quay can support your project management team, Contact us here or call 1300 841 048
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