Tips to manage project efficiently

Tips to Manage
Project Efficiently
Kapil Puri
22nd November 2018

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Managing Projects
At some point or another we all find ourselves having to do this
thing called project management.
Sometimes everything goes well and other times we run into snags.
But it helps to get good advice from someone who does project
management for a living.

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• Don’t forget the human element
• Communication is King
• Know when to use the right tool from your toolbox
• Always ask questions, never assume
• Understand that there’s conflict on every project
• Be the participant observer
Most important things to keep in mind when you’re managing projects.

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• You’re not alone in a team. You’re managing the expectations of stakeholders, your
boss, and your team. You have to collaborate. There are a lot of tools out there you can
use for collaboration to maintain transparency. So how do you do that?
• So, while choosing the best fit for collaboration tool, we must keep few points in mind :
 The point here is, we should not JUST solve the business requirement, BUT we
should focus on solving the human element as well.
 We must focus on making the team communication channel and medium more easy
to use and efficient.
 The collaboration software should be easy to use.
Don’t forget the human element

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• The biggest thing which we should learn for overall project success is how to
communicate within our team.
• A project manager’s primary function is to communicate and bridge the communication
between all the different personalities.
 It’s important for a Project Manager to communicate effectively within the team and
outside team.
 Communication isn’t just about barking directives or conveying your message, it’s
also about asking questions.
 Communications are a two-way street, and if you’re only going one-way then you’re
going to get stuck in a dead end.
 Different projects, of course, demand different means of communications. Large
projects requires more structure to your communication plan, but a smaller one
doesn’t mean you can just wing it. Communication plans must be made in context,
but they must be made.
Communication is King

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Know when to use the right tool from your toolbox
• One of the important decision is to decide upon the right tool for managing the project.
• We got Scrum and Kanban.
 It’s important for a Project Manager and PMO to analyze and decide the right tool.
 To decide upon the tool, its important to understand how the team works.
 Team composition also plays an important role to decide the right tool.
 The ease of functionality of the tool to manage all the required activities is also an
important factor to understand before deciding upon a tool.
 Its advisable to use the tools with easy and smooth process flow and reporting
structure.
 The most important part is to understand the kind of management reports which are
required from the tool from time to time. So, a compatibility has to be there for
different dashboard reports.

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Always ask questions, never assume
• Plenty of project managers needing to get through a project think they don’t need to have a
complete level of detail. But this is where you can get into trouble. It’s a fine art.
• Part of being a good project manager is having that balance of knowing when to be brief and
knowing when to ask for details, without being too pushy or overstepping boundaries.
• Important key factors here are :
 Project Management processes knowledge.
 Domain knowledge.
 Proactiveness.
 Deep understanding about processes and workflows.
 Effective Communicator.
 Enthusiasm / Passion.

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Understand that there’s conflict on every project
• Most conflict has a simple solution – again it goes back to communication. Sometimes people
are just difficult to work with, mostly because you or the other team member has trouble
adapting to another team member’s work style. There’s no way to avoid conflict.
• Here are a few quick tips on how to deal with it:
 Take the person aside and listen to them over a walk-and-talk, to the kitchen, outside, or
getting coffee..
 Take the person aside and walk through a list of items you are dealing with..
The common thread is to take the person aside so it’s not confrontation—it’s less about
confronting the problem and more about addressing the cause of the problem.

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Be the participant observer
• In social anthropology, there’s this idea that understanding a culture has two parts. The first is
the empirical observation (i.e. tasks and routines that you observe and record—just plain
data), and the second is subjective observation (why, how, when). These qualities are the
building blocks of a culture.
• In today’s time, same works for the Project Manager’s as well.
 The same thing works for project mangers—when you join a team or form a team you are
building a culture around the project or joining a culture. It’s like building a mini civilization
 Project manager has to understand the culture of the team and or has to help create a
culture within that team in order for a project to succeed. The culture of your team is what
guides the success of the project, and as a project manger, you have you have to
understand the culture and embed yourself in the culture, so that you can effectively lead
and create structure around the culture of the team or create structure and order for the
culture.

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Few Qualities of a Project Manager are :
Vision : An effective project leader is often described as having a vision of where to go and the ability to articulate it.
Visionaries thrive on change and being able to draw new boundaries.
Communication : In all elements of work life the most common complaint about an organization is ‘lack of
communication.’ Project leadership calls for clear communication about goals, responsibility, performance, expectations
and feedback.
Integrity : Call it honesty, integrity or loyalty. The project manager needs to have them all. His/her actions set an
example for the rest of the team members.
Enthusiasm / Passion : We tend to follow people with a can-do attitude, not those who are always negative and give us
all the reasons for why something can’t be done. Enthusiastic leaders are committed to their goals and express this
commitment through optimism. Enthusiasm is contagious and effective leaders know this.
Empathy / Compassion : Empathy/compassion must not be mistaken for sympathy. Although the words are similar, they
are mutually exclusive. Empathy means to understand.

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Few Qualities of a Project Manager are :
Competence : The team must believe that the project manager knows what he/she is doing. Leadership competence
does not however necessarily refer to the project leader’s technical abilities in the core technology of the business.
Delegation : The project manager should be able to delegate with ease. He/she should be able to recognize the skills and
expertise of his team members and assign or delegate the tasks according ly to those.
Composure : There are times when things do not go as expected. In such cases, the project manager needs to maintain
their cool and be composed no matter what level of pressure they are under.
Team Building : The project manager needs to be a good team builder. A team builder can best be defined as a strong
person who provides the substance that holds the team together in common purpose toward the right objective.
Problem Solving : An efficient project manager should be capable of solving any or all problems, either with the team or
the project itself. The team members should trust the project manager to solve their problems but also involve the team
in problem solving also.

Tips to manage project efficiently

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