External pressures like deadlines, stakeholders, and requirements can strain an individual immensely. However, project managers face internal hurdles that can be just as formidable. Fear, self-doubt, and the pursuit of perfection can weave an invisible path around even the most seasoned leader. The path might lead them to the false belief that abilities are limited, to thinking that failure isn't an option, and that every detail needs to be right before a decision can be made. Stalled progress isn't just a resource and support issue; it's a leadership issue, too. What holds people back isn't always visible, and what leads people to be held back isn't always recognized as a cause.
1. Face Your Fears And Self-Imposed Limits
- Pinpoint What You're Afraid Of: Narrow down what it is that's making you hesitate. Is it a fear of failing, not getting support from stakeholders, or not making the right choice? Once you know what you're really afraid of, you can start working on strategies to help you face these fears and go ahead anyway.
- Develop Incremental Challenges: Take small, manageable risks to build confidence. For instance, if you fear stakeholder rejection, practice presenting ideas in low-stakes meetings. Be sure to keep it simple. Then, slowly increase the complexity of this challenge and others like it until you encounter a situation you handle with the skill and expertise of an experienced professional.
- Create a System of Support: Be with the people you look up to, the people you work with, or a guiding force who can help you move through your terror and give you helpful advice and direction. Check-in with these people regularly to stay on your path and have a secure space to discuss how things are going.
2. Take On A Beginner’s Mindset
- Assumption-Checking Should Be Regular, Not Rare: Don’t let your team believe that past experiences apply in every situation. Every new project is a chance to learn and rethink what we’re doing—to bring in fresh ideas and new perspectives. As a team, you should question the methods and processes you use and not be afraid to abandon them if they aren’t working for you.
- Serve As A Mentor And Be Mentored: Establish a dual-direction mentorship dynamic in which you and your protégé teach and learn from one another. Project management approaches and perspectives can vary widely from person to person. Understanding those differences—whether you’re managing someone else’s project or having someone else manage yours—will serve you well.
- Keep Learning And Stay Adaptable: Make it a point to learn continually, using whatever forums are available to you—such as webinars, conferences, or workshops. Equip yourself with the latest tools and methodologies of our trade. The best of us are leaders who set an example by learning and adapting.
3. Welcome The Flaws
- Favor Impact Over Flawlessness: Not everything can or should be perfect. Some things have to be good enough. And guess what? Even things that are good enough can sometimes have a positive effect on the project outcome. So, identify which deliverables absolutely and positively need to be flawless to make a useful, worthwhile, and impactful project—those are the things you should and must put the time and effort into making perfect. Then use the 80/20 rule, or just your common sense, to allocate resources to mostly essential and a little bit of nonessential tasks without making either perfect but making both good enough.
- Establish a Secure Feedback Environment: Ask your team to speak up when they have something to say. This is particularly important for electronic environments, where nonverbal feedback is absent. Electronic environments tend to lean toward an "open" culture, much like a public forum. Team members need to feel secure voicing concerns or giving constructive criticism in an "open" forum.
- Set Up Iterative Processes: Adopt the Agile Manifesto and its principles and values by establishing an Agile mindset. This can be done in short sprints, with both engineering and product teams participating. The product team sets the sprint's vision and objectives, while the engineering team figures out the tasks and schedule to achieve a "working software" endpoint.
4. Use Setbacks As Stepping Stones To Success
- Conduct Post-Mortem Analysis Sessions: Hold a 'What We Learned' session after each project or significant misfire. Make it clear to your team that you're not out for blood and no one will be blamed. Use the session to figure out what went wrong and why. Then use this knowledge to prevent the same mistake from being made in the future. Of course, the real reason for holding these sessions is to help the team learn to trust and rely on one another.
- Capture And Codify What You Learn: Build a repository of key insights from finished projects for people working on similar projects in the future. Make it a place where both the won and lost lessons can be found, and share this with new team members in onboarding.
- Commemorate Positive Defeat: Reframe the story told about defeat. Instead of casting it as something to be ashamed of or avoided at all costs, put it front and center as part of the inevitable path to success. This gives people permission to go out on a limb and try something where the outcome is in doubt, and it's good to know what a limb feels like to walk out on.
Tips For Ongoing Victory In Project Management
- Make Smart Use of Project Management Software: Employ tech like Asana, Trello, or Microsoft Project to smooth out the bumps in your operations. These tools offer you and your colleagues better ways to manage resources, tasks, and time. The good news is that many of these software solutions have free versions to use to get started.
- Create An All-Inclusive Risk Management Plan: Pinpoint possible risks immediately and devise counter strategies. Infuse risk talks into the planning phase and have them run throughout the project's life. Take a "no holds barred" approach to identifying risks and assigning probabilities to them. Keep the counter plans up to date.
- Cultivating An Accountability Culture:?Good governance requires a clearly defined set of roles and responsibilities for everyone on the team. It's equally important to ensure that each person on the team understands these roles and responsibilities. The RACI matrix is a tool we have found particularly helpful here.
- Keep Abreast Of New Developments In The Industry: Habitually investigate and adopt new trends and technologies that could make your operations more efficient. Those of us in the project management world must keep an eye on the horizon. We don't want to straight-line our way through life, leading our teams by the same methods we always have used when what we should be doing is looking for and finding better ways.
- Focus On Stakeholder Relationships:?The stakeholder relationship is crucial for project leaders. This is because the "stakeholder" role will make or break a project. Suppose a stakeholder is unhappy with a project is progress or direction. In that case, that project is doomed to fail, regardless of how well other so-called concomitant projects may proceed.
- Become An Expert At Prioritization: Use prioritization frameworks such as the Eisenhower Matrix to separate urgent from important tasks. Ensure your team effectively uses prioritization so that resources can be allocated efficiently.
- Foster Team Development And Lead Upskilling Efforts. Provide your team with regular training and the opportunity to earn certifications. Encourage team members to sharpen their skills and expand their knowledge through workshops. Eliminate as many obstacles as you can. Your team's adaptability depends on it.
