Project managers inspire and motivate the team under their management, but they also have to lead from the front and communicate guidelines to every team. All that glitters isn’t gold, and this is something that holds true for project managers.
Effective team management requires personal development with professional expertise. Development, however, can take time and experience to build. So, how do project managers manage people in a team during their process of development?
In this article, we take a look at some techniques that can help guide project managers through the hot waters of people management. These techniques are effortless and will allow you to exert your optimal effort where required.
Recruit Strategically and Wisely
Instead of endlessly thinking on how to manage their current team, project managers can instead focus on recruiting new employees strategically and wisely. While we focus so much on managing teams and internal affairs, the corporate world forgets to understand the importance of building a good team during the recruitment process.
Team building isn’t something that you can achieve overnight. Additionally, it is not a process that ends after a finite period of time. It is a constant, ever-running process that requires input and strategizing from the project manager.
When you are recruiting for new employees, make sure you do your homework and pass your needs on to your hiring managers. In fact, you can even be part of the process and ensure that the employee you hire is in line with the standards of your team and fills in what’s missing. The process will be a win-win situation for both, you and the employee, as you get someone who fits perfectly in your environment, while the employee gets to work somewhere they can truly showcase their skills and inner self.
Align Goals and Timelines
For effective people management in projects, managers also have to endorse a decent time management schedule. Attach concrete timelines to the role played by each member in the team and ensure that they adhere to them. Setting one conclusive deadline for a project can be confusing and might not be the perfect guiding light. However, if you break your tasks down to different levels for each employee to manage, the complexity of the process can be reduced.
Additionally, breaking down objectives and timelines can also help micromanage and find out the bottleneck in your resources. This can prove to be particularly helpful for organizations with multiple members in the project management team and delays in projects. These detailed management processes can reduce errors.
Apply B.E.C.C Principles within Your Team
As a project manager, you need to be well aware of B.E.C.C and what it means. Communication between people in your team is necessary and B.E.C.C puts down the guiding principles for this. What is B.E.C.C?
B=Bond, E=Empathize, C=Connect and C=Communicate (B.E.C.C)
This communication model allows managers to foster relationships in the workplace and ensure a setup where everyone is willing to work together and is in constant touch with one another. Participative leadership can be practiced by empowering your team and by involving them in the decision-making process. The more they’re part of the decision-making process, the better it gets for them.
Recognize and Reward
Managers should start by asking themselves this; would they think of putting in their best effort at work if the recognition and reward isn’t what they would expect? Obviously not, right? Imagine the same condition for your team members by placing yourself in their shoes. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to put your team members through the either. Every individual has certain needs and wants, and as an equitable manager, you should respect the needs and wants of the people under you and reward them that way.
Try to publicly recognize and reward employees when they meet objectives, save the day or do anything that helps your organization excel in a given environment. These motives will help create a culture of positivity where employees feel good in putting in the extra effort and running the extra mile for the project team and the organization.
A Culture of Teamwork
We have briefly focused on teamwork in all of these techniques. Teamwork is an essential part of project management, and it is next to impossible for projects to succeed without the presence of teamwork at the core.
One of the primary objectives for project managers is to ensure that the quality of work remains the same even in their absence. In large companies, it is hard for managers to be present all the time, around the clock.
By formulating a positive culture of collaboration, a manager can enable their team to perform great and get the rewards they require. Teamwork can be enhanced through positive work culture and also by endorsing social tools that improve collaboration and understanding between teams. These tools include Slack, which works as an integration tool for project management.
Besides the techniques we have mentioned above, project managers should also look to give effective feedback on a regular basis. The feedback you give plays an important role in the process and can help your team members improve when the time is right. Delayed feedback can lead to negative results across the board.
