More Than Managing

The process of leading a project is more than managing the project. The process of leading a project entails the approach utilized to guide the people involved (team, stakeholders, organization) toward the accomplishment of the project’s objectives. This process involves your mindset and leverages key skills such as dedication, interpersonal skills, adaptability, and customer orientation. If we look back at Chapter 2, many of the roles a project manager performs involve leadership, including the following:

• Planner—Ensures the project is defined properly and completely for success, all stakeholders are engaged, work effort approach is determined, required resources are available when needed, and processes are in place to properly execute and control the project.
• Point person—Serves as the central point of contact for all oral and written project communications to key stakeholders.
• Facilitator—Ensures that stakeholders and team members from different perspectives understand each other and work together to accomplish the project goals.
• Aligner—Gains agreement from the stakeholders on project definition, success criteria, and approach; manages stakeholder expectations throughout the project while managing the competing demands of time, cost, and quality; gains agreement on resource decisions and issue resolution action steps.
• Problem solver—Utilizes root-cause analysis process experience, prior project experiences, and technical knowledge to resolve unforeseen technical issues and take any necessary corrective actions.
• Umbrella—Works to shield the project team from the politics and “noise” surrounding the project, so they can stay focused and productive.
• Coach—Determines and communicates the role each team member plays and the importance of that role to the project success, finds ways to motivate each team member, looks for ways to improve the skills of each team member, and provides constructive and timely feedback on individual performances.
• Salesperson—Focuses on “selling” the benefits of the project to the organization, serving as a “change agent,” and inspiring team members to meet project goals and overcome project challenges.

In addition, many qualities of successful project managers described in Chapter 2 have strong leadership elements, including the following:

• Takes ownership—Takes responsibility and accountability for the project, leads by example, and brings energy and drive to the project; without this attitude, all the skills and techniques in the world will only get you so far.
• Savvy—Understands people and the dynamics of the organization, navigates tricky politics; has the ability to quickly read emotionally charged situations; thinks fast on feet; builds relationships; leverages personal power for benefit of the project.
• Intensity with a smile—Balances an assertive, resilient, tenacious, results-oriented focus with a style that makes people want to help; consistently follows up on everything and their resolutions without annoying everyone.
• Eye of the storm—Demonstrates ability to be the calm eye of the project hurricane; high tolerance for ambiguity; takes the heat from key stakeholders (CxOs, business managers, and project team); exhibits a calm, confident aura when others are showing signs of issue or project stress.
• Strong customer-service orientation—Demonstrates ability to see each stakeholder’s perspective; able to provide voice of all key stakeholders (especially the sponsor) to the project team; has strong facilitation and collaboration skills; has excellent active listening skills.
• People-focused—Takes a team-oriented approach; understands that methodology, process, and tools are important, but without quality people it’s very difficult to complete a project successfully; acts ethically; protects the team; and takes a teaching approach.
• Always keeps “eye on the ball”—Stays focused on the project goals and objectives. There are many ways to accomplish a given objective, which is especially important to remember when things don’t go as planned.
• Controlled passion—Balances passion for completing the project objectives with a healthy detached perspective, which enables the project manager to make better decisions, continue to see all points of view, better anticipate risks, and better respond to project issues.
• Context understanding—Understands the context of the project—the priority that the project has among the organization’s portfolio of projects and how it aligns with the overall goals of the organization.
• Looking for trouble—Constantly looking and listening for potential risks, issues, or obstacles; confronts doubt head-on; deals with disgruntled users right away; understands that most of these situations are opportunities and can be resolved up front before they become full-scale crisis points.