 | 
Articles To help Project Leaders |  |
|
|
 | |  |
|
|
Traits that undermine a person's ability to manage projects well.
1. Inability to build rapport with team members, project sponsors and stakeholders. This is usually determined in the interview stage when a candidates are being screened. If a project manager cannot build rapport with the hiring manager, then they are unlikely to build rapport or credibility with the project team.
2. Reliance on formal power to execute the project. Project managers should build and nurture relationships with the project team, to get work done in collaboration with the project team. Formal power and escalation should be reserved and only used as appropriate after other avenues of communication have failed.
3. Low priority and emphasis on maintaining the project plan. The project plan needs to be kept current and frequently communicated to the team.
4. Allowing project issues to linger. Successful project managers log the project issues, and work the top priority issues to resolution.
5. Allowing scope creep, without close scrutiny and assessing implications to the project quality and budget.
6. Being inflexible. Project problems can be complex and multinational project teams work in different time zones, often with English as their second or third language. The project manager needs to be able to understand a problem, break it down into it's component parts, and facilitate discussions to bring the right people together to resolve the problem. This requires flexibility to communicate in various formats (email, teleconference, instant messaging, face-to-face) and with multiple personalities.
7. Poor time management skills. Project managers need to manage their own time as well as set the example when holding meetings. Meetings need to have a purpose, meeting agenda, start and end on time and minutes must be distributed within 24 hours.
Which of these traits are undermining your ability to manage your projects?
|
|
|
