Some project leaders just want the work done. They assign tasks, measure deliverables and keep their teams on a regimented track.
Other leaders, however, want more. And to get it, they are sharing corporate strategy with their teams—and asking for innovative ideas and solutions in return.
It may seem unlikely that something as formal as business objectives could spark innovation, but team members often feel empowered when given access to high-level strategies and goals.
Treating project professionals as business partners, rather than just paid labor, encourages them to develop new and improved ways to meet a company’s overarching goals, says Mark Gray, PMP, senior project manager for NXP Semiconductors in Caen, France.
If you want to get a predictable, machine-like response then probably you only want to give people their tasks,” he says. “Now that may work where you’re dealing with computers or machines in a factory—it doesn’t work with people.”
But that alone won’t get team members thinking outside of the box.
“The biggest issue that we have facing the technology domain is how to stimulate creativity,” Mr. Gray says. “If you don’t stimulate people—give them an area in which they can think—then you get no innovation.”
Alternatively, if you simply give people tasks to do without telling them how it relates to the overall objectives, they may end up becoming creative in ways that are counterproductive, he says.
To make sure project managers focus their energy in the right direction, leaders need to go beyond telling team members what their tasks entail and start telling them why they are important to the business, Sudesh Gambhir, vice president of technical services at Energy Northwest in Richmond, Washington, USA says.
“We expect our project managers to deliver. The question comes then, why do they need to deliver?” he says. “Why is it important that they meet the schedule? Why is it important that they meet cost commitments?”
Every two or three months, Roberto Toledo, managing director of Alpha Consultoria in Mexico City, Mexico, maps out his company’s projects against its strategic objectives with his team. This helps employees understand their contribution to the greater cause.
“It they understand they are actually making a change or something that will benefit the organization, they tend to work with more enthusiasm toward the completion of their tasks,” Mr. Toledo says.
The better alignment that you can get with your project managers as to what are your strategies and what is it that you’re trying to achieve, the better your results will be.
