When you are really busy, where should you focus your attention as a project manager? It’s unrealistic to think that you can achieve everything. If you are anything like me you’ll have a really long To Do list and no real chance of getting it all done by the end of the month, let alone the end of the day.
Prioritization is the answer. It’s the only way that you’ll get what needs to happen done while not letting anyone down. When you have to decide between project activities, these are the essentials: communication, risk management, team management and scheduling. If I have to decide what to drop on any given day, it won’t be one of these.
Communications
Project management is probably around 80% communication. You communicate with your team, with stakeholders, with your project sponsor, with end users, with other departments and subject matter experts and professional groups outside of your company such as government and regulatory bodies. In fact, you never stop communicating: there is always someone who wants the latest status report or the chance to stop you in the corridor and ask for an ad hoc status update.
The best way to manage your communications is to have a clear plan (you can read 7 steps to a good communications plan here). The benefit of having a good communications plan for your project is that it automates some of the thinking, leaving you to get on with the doing. Spending time on your project comms plan upfront will save you lots of time later, so it’s certainly a task worth doing well.
Risk management
Risk is everywhere on projects and it’s one of the greatest sources of anxiety. People worry that risks haven’t been identified, or that they have and that we aren’t doing enough about them. Then risks turn into issues and the project is really in trouble. That’s why skimping on risk management is foolish: you really should spend time identifying and mitigating risks if you want your project to progress smoothly.
There is a bit of a hero culture in project management, but the smart project manager makes sure that there aren’t any (or there are very few) crises to manage because they’ve been actively managing risk out of the project.
Team management
Your project team relies on you for direction, objectives and task management. I hope you work with experts who are self-managing, but even in teams that are highly autonomous, someone needs to take control in certain situations.
When your team needs you, you have to step up. Cutting back on activities relating to managing your team is not a wise thing to do. Projects are delivered by people and your project team should feel supported and respected, and have access to the tools they need to do their jobs.
Scheduling
Project scheduling is the final area where skimping is a bad idea. It’s sensible to try to squeeze as much out of your schedule as possible, but it is a living document. Book out some time at least once a week to review your project schedule. If you work in an Agile environment you’ll be doing it much more frequently than that and on fast-paced projects your schedule can change daily.
Remember to update your schedule for every change that is approved as changes have an impact on the amount of work you are doing and when you are doing it. And don’t forget the small things like someone going on holiday or taking a few days off when they are sick: all of this has an impact on when you can complete tasks and should be reflected in your project schedule.
For all four of these items you will have to pay attention to the detail. This is what makes the difference between doing something and doing it well – if you are going to prioritise these areas then you want to be spending time doing quality work, not box-ticking exercises. And with all of them, you will end up doing more hours on these areas than you expected, so be prepared!