Managing People

My first experience with project management came when I was a little boy in South Africa, observing a team of construction workers. The team worked in unison together, and each worked to the beat of music. Each worker performed their task and then handed off to the next, all while maintaining rythm together. The leader, "project manager" of the team, determined the beat 'song' for the team to work to. If he needed the team to work faster to meet their daily goal, he increased the beat. The leader also modified the beat and changed the order and even the role of the worker to accommodate perceived risks such as the heat of the noon day sun. This was in simplest terms an effective example of project management that inspired me towards working with others effectively through leadership management in order to achieve a common goal. The idea that people could work together in unison, all with different skillsets and tasks under the management of one person who cared, leading his people, encouraging his people, and modifying his management style depending on requirements, was inspiring to me.

Today, organizational behavioral theorists will tell you that the key to managing well, is a leader who inspires and bring out the best in people. Leaders should be highly skilled experts in their own field in order to gain respect. They also need to embrace change in ever evolving work environments that incude social, demographic, and technological change. So how do you motivate and bring together a team toward one common purpose and goal so that they are inspired to work together? Most projects have many team members that see their contribution and outcome in a project in different ways. Team members can include union and non-union personnel, multiple departments within an organization, external vendors, executive and more. The stakes are high for many and perhaps not as high for others, some have a go-getter attitude while others need a bit more inspiration, some have more technical skills and the list of variances goes on and on. Ultimately, the best outcome for companies that manage people well, is higher sales, profitability, or stock value. What is needed is a strong work ethic and happy employees. The key to ensuring these results, is hiring the Right PM to manage your teams.

As a certified Project Manager, I believe that there is nothing more important to successful projects, than valuing people highly and managing them well. I have not only built a solid technical career in information technology but have also developed solid skills as a team leader managing diverse project teams. I have developed the unique skills required to be an effective communicator and negotiator. I usually take a conciliatory approach to problem solving and consider my greatest successes to be not only the successful outcome of the project in terms of cost, schedule and budget, but also the legacy of comradeship, team building, and trust built with executive stakeholders.