We discussed the four key competencies of a project manager: enabling decision-making, communicating and escalating, strong organizational skills, and flexibility. With time and practice, you will master these skills to help you become successful in a project management role. In this reading, we’ll dig deeper into why flexibility is essential for effective project management and how you can help your team deal with ambiguity.
First, review the other project management competencies you’ve learned.
Enabling decision-making
You can help team members feel empowered from the start of your project by making the decision-making process collaborative. For example, state the goals of specific deliverables and elicit input from your team on how to achieve those goals. You may know how you want certain tasks to be accomplished, but your team members may have more creative or efficient approaches. Empowering your team to express their opinions and make their own decisions allows you to focus on the overarching management tasks and prioritize them in order of importance. Additionally, allowing team members to have a voice in decisions helps foster an environment of responsibility, accountability, and team closeness.
Communicating and escalating
Project management requires clearly communicating project goals and expectations, team member roles and responsibilities, and constructive feedback. Knowing how to communicate effectively and when to escalate issues to management is key to keeping you, your team, and your organization on the path to success. When escalation is required, try approaching management with the problem and potential solutions or suggestions. This will show that you’re taking initiative as a project manager.
Strong organizational skills
If you demonstrate that it is important for you, as a leader, to stay organized through efficient tracking and communications, your team will follow suit. One way to do this is by utilizing the abundance of organizational tools available, such as:
- Planning and scheduling software (templates, workflows, calendars)
- Collaboration tools (email, collaboration software, dashboards)
- Documentation (files, plans, spreadsheets)
- Quality assurance tools (evaluations, productivity trackers, reports)
You should experiment with different organizational approaches to determine what works best for you and your team.
Flexibility
All project managers need the ability to adapt and overcome changes and challenges. Let’s further explore why flexibility is a critical project management skill and discuss how it can help prepare your team for change, mitigate risks, and handle ambiguity.
Flexible planning
Change is inevitable; the more flexible you are as a project manager, the more successful you will be throughout your career. These flexible planning strategies can help you manage your project during times of unpredictability:
- Assess external constraints. When planning your project, consider external events, such as national holidays, team member vacations, and sick leave. Leaving extra time in the schedule for these inevitable events upfront can help minimize the impact on your project.
- Plan for risks and challenges. Considering the risks that may occur, you can find solutions for them in advance. For example, what if someone on your team gets sick or decides to quit? Are you able to replace them within the company? If not, can you hire an independent contractor? Come up with a list of people who may be able to join your team if one of your team members becomes unavailable. You can also assess risks by looking at historical data. Review your past projects and examine the challenges you faced. Then, evaluate if similar challenges could occur in this project and prepare accordingly. We will discuss risk management at length later in this program.
- Calculate “float” in your schedule. Float, or slack, refers to the time you can wait to begin a task before it impacts the project schedule and threatens the project outcome. Identifying float in your schedule can help with resource management, scheduling, and keeping your project on track. You will learn more about calculating float in a later course when we discuss creating a critical path for your project tasks.
Handling ambiguity
Ambiguity can be a big challenge in managing projects. Project managers often face ambiguity in goals, requirements, schedules, vision, or other areas related to the project. Your team will look to you to lead during times of ambiguity and change, and flexibility is especially important during these instances. Here are some different ways to help your team deal with ambiguity:
- Keep calm. In uncertain times, handling ambiguity with grace and poise will help inspire your team members to do the same.
- Express empathy. As a project manager, it is important to understand what your team thinks and feels, especially during times of ambiguity. Let your team members know that you care about their challenges and are there to support them.
- Communicate what you know clearly. Define the aspects of the project that are confirmed and will not change. This helps your team understand what to expect, regardless of any aspects of the project that are still unknown or changing.
- Make decisions and stick to them. Try not to second-guess your decisions before your team since this can lead to greater uncertainty. If you need to change course, clearly explain to your team why you have chosen to do so.
- Trust the expertise of your team. Increase clarity by having everyone on your team discuss what they already know or believe to be true about components of your project, such as what is involved in specific tasks or resources needed, based on their areas of expertise. Then, discuss what you still don’t know and brainstorm ways to gather more information.
Key takeaway
As a project manager, having the flexibility and ability to handle ambiguity in a rapidly changing business setting gives you an advantage. Mastering these competencies, enabling decision-making, effective communication, and strong organizational skills, will allow you to innovate and grow as a project manager and leader.
