As a follow-up to my previous article where I covered, three key attributes of a successful Project Manager, I want to now focus on Accountability and how to effectively achieve progress. Accountability and Progress go hand and hand with each other, if you ever find your project not making progress I can almost guarantee it is due to the fact that team members or stakeholders are not being accountable for their actions or decisions.
Right now, you are either saying to yourself, “Wow never thought of it that way” or “Well duh already know that but how do I get teams to be accountable?”
STEP 1 Progress Tracking
The fastest way to make everyone accountable is by properly tracking progress and making sure that it is visible to all team members. Now accomplishing this can be done is many different ways. However, there should be a few rules followed to implementing any progress tracking progress:
- Task assignments are clearly visible
- Desired outcomes are agreed upon by everyone
- Status of progress is clear to everyone (Color coding helps a lot here)
STEP 2 Implement Best Practices
Everyone, please stop trying to reinvent the wheel and create everything from scratch! There is a reason best practices exist and that is because they are tried and true and have been developed as the result of both success and failures that so many before you have encountered. This is not to say that you can’t add your own spin or twist to project management as you find your way in this space. Best Practices should not be ignored though and strive to use them as your foundation to build from and if you learn something new that you really feel should be a best practice, share it and get feedback from others. Don’t be afraid of peer advice and feedback, it’s an invaluable resource that too many people ignore
STEP 3 Team Member Transformation
You are probably wondering what do I mean by Team Member Transformation? Let me explain. Team members all too often don’t have experience with being empowered and having a voice in the room. Recently I was working on a project where someone from Internal Audit was uncomfortable voicing their opinion and seemed timid to express concerns. I noticed that they were not being vocal despite looking at them and telling them there was something they wanted to say, I pulled them aside and had a conversation with them to let them know how important their opinion is and their concerns were not only key to the project they could help open the eyes of other team members.
We can’t hesitate to help encourage and move our team members forward and give them a voice. Many times, this requires a transformation of not only the team members but of an organization as well to make sure they understand the importance of embracing transformation and the increased productivity that will be the inevitable result.
STEP 4 Becoming the cheerleader in the room
Successful Project Managers tend to wear many hats on a day-to-day basis and one of the most important ones is being a cheerleader. Learners Dictionary defines a cheerleader as “a person who encourages other people to do or support something”, and I find that to be a perfect fit for what a Project Manager needs to be doing on a daily basis. Whether you are in a meeting, on a conference call or just having a one on one with a team member make sure that you are encouraging and supportive. Too many times it becomes so easy to slip into the negative and focus on what’s going wrong in a project, rather than keeping positive and being that shining light example for your team.
- Therefore, when becoming that cheerleader in the room make sure to do the following:
- Encourage team members to keep moving forward when faced with adversity
- Support them when challenges arise and work through solutions
- Celebrate accomplishments and don’t brush them under the rug as just another completed task.
- Always stay positive even when things are going wrong
- Redirect negativity into positivity by focusing on solutions and encouraging words
STEP 5 Sometimes people just need to vent
Now you may be thinking isn’t this in contradiction to STEP 4? No, it’s not! Venting is a healthy form of communication and can be done in different ways and should be supported. Some people may vent in a group setting or approach you on a more one-on-one basis. Listen to what they are saying, have compassion and then use the techniques in STEP 4 to focus on positivity and outcomes. One of the most important things to realize here is that they may need to vent about something specific with the project or it could be something more personal.
Team members are people too and they are going to go through ups and down both at work and personally. Make sure you create a culture where they are comfortable with approaching the team or yourself when there is something they need to get off their mind. I can’t stress enough to listen to what they are saying and then work towards resolution and solutions. This is one of the easiest ways to gain instant respect from team members when they know that you have their backs and are not just being a dictator in the room.
Conclusion
Project Managers need to wear many different hats in order to make sure the goals of the project are being met and kept on track. Most importantly make sure that you are driving results, making everyone accountable, keeping things positive, and creating a culture of collaboration. If you are doing all this then success will be yours for the taking.
