Mindset for Project Managers

Anyone who carries out routine work in a traditional organizational structure, e.g. paying salaries in a large company or manufacturing screws in a factory, can in principle work with more or less the same colleagues from training to retirement. During the process, you get to know them well, both the good and the less desirable sides and characteristics. Over the years, an order and team structure is established in the department and you learn how to deal with other colleagues individually.

New tasks are constantly being mastered in projects. Since different tasks require different competencies, the project organization, and the project team is newly assembled for each project to meet the upcoming challenges. This way of working together is becoming increasingly popular and can be observed in the form of, for example, matrix organizations.

If the working group, the project team, is constantly being reorganized, the probability increases that colleagues who do not know each other so well will have to work together. It is also true, of course, that the risk of misunderstandings and conflicts in such situations increases considerably.

Dealing with such 'superficial relationships' within a project team is part of the everyday work of a project manager. Those who understand the psychology of such situations can better assess the behavior of their colleagues and, if necessary, steer them in the right direction. It is about what happens when people see each other for the first time, how people react differently to unfamiliar situations, how behavioral norms in project teams establish themselves very quickly, how a project team develops from a project group, how corporate culture influences project work, and how personal conflicts can quickly become disruptive factors in project work.

A successful project manager is expected to be able to deal with all these aspects of human behavior, to take them into account in his or her project management, and steer accordingly. Hence, a project manager must not only be well versed in project management methods, economic issues, economic goals, and project organization, but also in psychological aspects of human cooperation within the project environment.