You’re Only as Good as Your Last Project

A Project Manager may have 15 years of experience and have led successful projects around the globe in nearly every industry imaginable.  And to some degree, you can rest on those laurels.  But not really – and certainly not for very long.  In the project management game it’s all about what you’ve done lately and in terms of customer satisfaction, it’s all about who you’ve satisfied lately.  In reality, you’re only as good as your last customer thinks that you are.

So what does that mean?  Well, it means the project manager can never become complacent.  If you just finished a project that had some issues or failed for some reason, you must meet with your team and your customer and understand what went wrong.  If you just finished a successful project, then meet with your team and your customer and figure out what went so right.  Fully understand the customer’s satisfaction level, your executive management’s satisfaction level and understand what those determining factors for satisfaction are.

Stay on top

This probably sounds like a broken record, but there are a number of basic things you need to do to stay on top of your projects as you move along the Project Management Template process:

- Conduct regular status meetings on every project you’re managing.  Don’t just focus on the busy ones – or you’ll lose track of the easy ones!
- Communicate effectively.  Never take things for granted, never assume team members and customers already have a specific piece of information because if it didn’t come from you – the project manager – then you should assume they don’t know it.  Over communicate….they will ultimately appreciate it.
- Do what you say you will do.  Be consistent and be someone who your team members and your customer count on to follow through on actions.
- Follow a process and a schedule.  Try not to manage projects from the hip – even if things seem to be in disarray.  Customers get nervous when there doesn’t seem to be a process or a reason or a regular schedule.  Map out how the project is going to be run and stick to that process.  Customers and team members are much happier with a consistent Project Plan process to follow – they know what to expect next from you.

Lessons learned

Going back to what I touched on earlier – after the project you must identify what worked and what didn’t.  The best way to do that is through lessons learned sessions with your team and the customer.  Sit down, discuss the positives and negatives from the engagement and thoroughly document these things.  The information you can learn from these sessions is truly invaluable as you move on to your next project and it’s invaluable for others in your organization as well.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lean Methodology

The use of lean methodology has grown in the manufacturing sector since it was first implemented after World War II. As time has progressed, this methodology has been refined with the end result of creating more, faster and with less. The type of companies that can best utilize the lean methodology approach is manufacturing, because of the principles involved with it. This is to create a product with as little invested as possible in the deliverable. For a company wishing to use the lean methodology , they must first analyze their process in depth. Once the analysis has been completed in every process, the process of eliminating waste can begin on the process as a whole. Each part of the process has to contribute to the end product. The cutting of waste from each and every step in the production of a deliverable is the core essence of the lean methodology approach. This can be in the material that is added or the number of workers necessary to complete the task. The overall reductio...
Read more

Communications Register

Under what situations should I create a Communications Register for my project ? For small, medium and large projects you should always implement a Communications Register. This register will identify all of the communications events that have taken place for the project and also the communications events that are due to take place in the future. The reason for listing the communications events that are due to take place is that it provides a single place where the project manager can use and control communications to stake holders. For example the register will enable the project manager to view the status of all of the communications to date and determine whether or not the stake holders to the project are being kept in the loop and informed.
Read more

Management Methodologies

The modifying and developing of new management methodologies to fit the needs of industry is an ongoing process. With the use of a computer, this has become a much easier process than before. This has made it very easy to create, customize and import existing methodologies along with managing several of them at once. You can use management methodologies to define new process you have developed or group any set of existing process into a new methodology. There are project management methodology programs that can assist in the documentation of your new methodology so it can be used and shared by those you have approved. You can even customize a methodology for a particular size project with this type of program. The most often use of this type of software program is to use several different management methodologies and modify them to you specific needs. This way you’re working environment and available resources can be made the most of in running your project. Most programs that allow ...
Read more