PM POWER Moves: Breaking INTO Project Management – 018: Mindset SHIFT

Welcome back to the PM POWER Moves newsletter! If you missed any of the other iterations, check my profile to read!

I've been actively engaged on LinkedIn since April of 2022. In that time, I've developed a niche of aspiring project managers looking to translate their existing experience (like I did) to gain new opportunities in the project management field. My desire for my content (and this newsletter) is to be able to help YOU do that!

I will be publishing this newsletter every other Sunday and covering a wide variety of content to leverage in your own experience and career to help provide you opportunity!

This week's topic: Mindset SHIFT

Transitioning into project management from a non-PM field involves more than just acquiring technical skills.

It requires a shift in your mindset and adopting a project management perspective (ie: seeing the world as though everything can be tackled as a project).

This would include areas like goal oriented thinking, systematic planning, risk awareness, stakeholder focus, having a result-driven mindset, and promotion of collaboration and teamwork (but these are topics for a different newsletter).

In today’s article, let’s talk through HOW you can develop a project management mindset and HOW it can lead to success in transitioning to the PM field.

1. Embrace a Strategic Approach:

Project managers ultimately need to keep an eye on the big picture.

We need to align our projects to organizational goals by:

Understanding those organizational goals.

Developing strategic objectives that join our projects to the larger vision.

Maintaining awareness of long-term implications.

Making decisions that lead to success of our projects and for the organization.

Start by analyzing what are the current strategic initiatives/goals of your organization??

How does what you do currently contribute to it??

What are gaps that you’ve identified within your job or team that you can develop to continue to promote those organizational goals?

What can you do to help shore up those gaps (ie: what PROJECTS can you offer to manage)?

2. Develop a Proactive Mindset:

Effective project managers foresee future risks, issues, and change and ID proactive measures to mitigate them.

This includes effective communication and seeking solutions to prevent problems from snowballing (or occurring altogether).

Start by looking at your own tasks, are there some that are prone to error or re-work?

Maybe there are manual processes that could be better served by existing automation or specific tasks that can be eliminated altogether.

Look for “squeaky wheels” and offer up solution to fix them as well as proactive steps you can take to eliminate them entirely.

3. Build Strong Leadership Skills:

Ultimately, PMs are leaders.

We are tasked with motivating teams to achieve project goals.

To do so, start developing sought-after qualities, like:

Effective communication – meeting minutes/follow-up, documentation organization and sharing, task tracking and reporting, risk management and reporting, etc.

Collaboration – working with cross-functional teams, managing complex processes, facilitating new relationships, etc.

Decision-making – soliciting feedback, collating information and presenting it, asking better questions, challenging the status quo, etc.

Problem-solving – soliciting feedback and summarizing a fix, presentations for issues with suggested solutions, etc.

4. Foster Effective Stakeholder Management:

A project’s success relies heavily on managing your stakeholders and their expectations.

Some areas to start building towards include:

Stakeholder identification – start by IDing who is involved in this project??Who is affected by it??Who has a stake in it?

Stakeholder engagement and communication – develop a strategy for who needs to know what information and when??What is the easiest/most effective way to reach them/get decisions made?

Stakeholder management is built on a foundation of strong relationships with people within your team and the departments you work with/for.?Start building those up.

5. Be Adaptable/Flexible:

Much of our job as a PM involves uncertainty and change.

Our projects will continue to evolve, and by extension, so will our project requirements, scope, and anticipated risks.

Embrace change by being open minded to alternative ideas, leaning on the knowledge of your team, and consulting past projects for guidance.

Manage ambiguity by promoting good communication, asking better questions, flexing your problem-solving skills, and continuing to refine your plan.

Finally, make informed decisions by gathering the right people and information, weighing the solutions, and soliciting a decision for moving forward.

6. Mold a Collaborative Culture:

PMs are the through-line for project teams and their stakeholders.

By promoting a project culture where collaboration is king, you gain buy-in and trust from your most important assets in the project, the people working on it/invested in it.

Promote skills like teamwork and knowledge sharing (through regular, open communication and having a document repository available to everyone).

Be a trustworthy, judgement-free ear for anyone involved in your team and offer to assist them with getting what they need (answers, feedback, support, etc.)

7. Apply Lessons Learned

We need to have a continuous improvement mindset.

There are always lessons to be learned from a project (both in success and in failure).?Make sure you document them appropriately for future use.

Solicit feedback from others on areas of success and areas to improve to implement in future projects.

Effective PMs have cultivated a project management mindset, it’s crucial for you as an aspiring PM to do the same. By building on these skills and leaning on them to develop experience, you can make yourself successful in any project arena.

So, now what?

Go figure out where you can start (PS: I’d suggest looking in your current position first).

Thank you for reading! As always, I hope these newsletters resonate!

I'd love to hear your feedback as well as any suggestions for future topics that you'd like me to cover.

Please let me know in the comments below or DM me!