The Leader As A Project Lead

By A. Abeku Haywood-Dadzie

It has been said that successful project managers are individuals who exhibit strong management skills and effective leadership skills. This is because the successful execution of a project is dependent on excellent management principles and exceptional leadership skills, without which no project can be successfully completed. Though leadership and management differ, an effective combination of the two is critical for project management success.

Influence and inspiration are what separate leaders from managers, and these are the prerequisites for successful project execution. Leaders everywhere, whether they oversee small, medium, or large organizations, do accomplish assigned projects through their teams. As managers, they plan, organize, staff, direct, and control the activities of their teams, but they also inspire and influence their teams as leaders. In order to effectively execute planned projects; they determine the following; how resources are shared between tasks and who gets what resources; the right priorities and which task is getting the attention needed; budget control and ensure cost and effort are within planned limits; and track and measure performance against planned activities. These activities can be placed in four blocks according to the HBR Guide to Project Management; planning; build-up; implementation; and closeout. Though these blocks are distinct and independent, they are overlapping and interconnected.

Remember the last time you were tasked with executing a project? How did you execute the project? What did you do?

Project management always commences with planning the first building block for anything and everything. This involves defining the fundamentals of what needs to be done as well as the definition of "done". The planning phase also involves the stakeholders of the project [sponsor, project manager, team leader-team members] as well as their roles and skills needed. [Personal, problem-solving skills, interpersonal skills] to successfully execute the project. To ensure the successful outcome of the project, effective leaders and strong managers at the planning stage define project objectives using SMART goals [Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based]. A well-defined objective helps in determining the scope, assigning the task, and assists in aligning resources for the project. When leaders define the project fundamentals, identify stakeholders, determine the scope, and outline objectives, it becomes easy to determine trade-offs, be it, quality, time, or cost.

The effective and efficient execution of the first phase automatically ushers in the second phase of the chain, the build-up phase. The build-up phase answers the question: how do we roll out the project or get the project going? This block involves the effective assembling of the project team, clarifying assignments, organising teams, and pulling the project team together. At this stage, the leaders must be able to assess the skills and capabilities of team members. This makes it easy and ensures that the leader adopts the right scheduling technique, be it a critical path method, performance evaluation, and review technique, or Gantt chart. It also helps in optimising the schedule; working on errors, oversight, over-commitment, bottlenecks, imbalances in the workload, slack time that can be filled, and budgets. However, nothing is as important at this stage as holding the kick-off meeting.

The kick-off meeting catapults the project into the next stage, which is the implementation phase of the project. This stage moves the project from the drawing board to the ground and answers the question of how it can be executed. It involves the monitoring, control process, and budget-tracking of all activities captured during the planning of the project. The implementation stage involves the collection of performance data and analysis of this data to determine whether plans are still on track and sharing with stakeholders to ensure alignment and buy-in. It’s also imperative to note that during this phase, problems that may arise are managed as well as alterations to the plan. At this stage, influence and inspiration are key in ensuring that everything is on track.

Successful execution of the implementation phase will inevitably lead to the success of the project. However, the end game is very important. How to handle end-matter to ensure the success of the project is key. How would leaders know if the project objectives had been achieved? The final phase involves the evaluation of project performance and what has been done, to see if it meets the definition of "done." It also includes the closure of the project as it has been defined and a debrief of the team and stakeholders. Develop a post-evaluation report. -Insight from the team-future status-status of ongoing critical tasks-risk assessment -limitation of the audit

Effective project management needs leaders with great leadership skills. It calls for leaders with a "high-level view of work and people in order to determine how resources are shared between tasks, if the right priorities are getting the attention needed, and how accurate original cost and effort estimates are adhered to."