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 Quick Quiz
By Barbee Davis, MA, PHR, PMP
My title says project manager, but I feel I’m focused mostly on spreadsheets and checklists. How do I add the leadership portion to my job?
A. Don’t work on the scope statement; focus on communication and project goals.
B. Change your attitudes and actions to expand the project’s business value.
C. Demand to be promoted to program manager or you will quit.
D. Speak to an executive about giving you more responsibilities and tasks.
Answer: B. Change your attitudes and actions to expand the project’s business value.
As a project manager, you need to utilize spreadsheets, checklists and other tangible tools to help you guide the project. However, you should not overlook key behaviors that bring additional project value to your organization.
If you want to assume a leadership role, here are some self-directed steps to consider:
- Think Alignment. Upper managers align business investments with the overall direction of the organization. Ask why your project is important to the entity: competition, infrastructure changes, new regulations, new products or services, or larger internal initiatives, for example. Make sure the project decisions you make serve that alignment.
- Communicate Upward. Rather than avoid manager, sponsor and customer involvement to deflect change, keep the flow of information moving steadily upward. If you are a source of accurate project data, then you will be seen as an important part of the management infrastructure.
- Motivate Teams. Use your knowledge of the organizational value of the project to motivate the team. Individuals work harder if they know that the tasks they do are important. Make the connection for them that late or overbudget projects hurt the organization. The payroll costs of the extra days and other resource expenses come directly out of anticipated profits.
- Pull the Plug. Finishing on time and budget becomes a primary goal for some project managers, rather than alerting the organization when it is apparent that the project should be terminated. Don’t see early project closure as personal failure. Remember, each day a project continues after it no longer serves its original goals drains money and resources from other projects.
- Release Teams. When a resource has completed its usefulness to the project, release it to be used in a functional department or on other endeavors. The costs of people, materials, facilities and equipment kept idle on a project are still charged to the project and may change a profitable project into an unprofitable one.
A project manager who exercises leadership will be concerned primarily with the overall organizational success and reputation — not for his own project’s success. Your role is to add business value, not just to complete the project on time and on budget.
Once you begin to change your attitudes and actions to those of a leader, you will enhance your reputation as a critical part of the management team and feel your job is no longer limited to spreadsheets and checklists.
 Barbee Davis, MA, PHR, PMP, is a reviewer for the global PMI Registered Education Provider Review Team. She owns Davis Consulting and is a published author, speaker, writer of training materials and an innovator in presentation skill workshops for corporate trainers. She holds a Black Belt in MS Project and teaches at the university level. Ms. Davis encourages your questions or comments.
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