Ability to recognize and reflect on mistakes
A perfect PM knows that no one is perfect. Everyone is strong and weak at the same time. That is why he is not afraid to admit his mistakes, realize them and learn from past experiences. He knows that mistakes are inevitable, and instead of hiding them or denying them, he openly admits to them rather than turning the tables or holing up in Zoom without a camera. He accepts responsibility for mistakes, looks for ways to correct them, and never repeats them again. He may step on new rakes, but never on old ones. I have seen people who will deny their mistake and blame everyone around them until the end. I have seen managers who would rather find someone to blame and make him a scapegoat than draw conclusions and support the team. Therefore, it is equally important to understand the culture and management styles of the company to avoid being the one who just takes everything on himself and destroys his reputation. The ideal PM knows when to admit mistakes publicly, and when to admit them in the small circle of the team or in his or her own mind.
Session 2.
Planning
Planning for the ideal PM is not just a Gantt chart. First and foremost, for him, it’s a process. A thought process. When planning, he looks at the entire project from analyzing the current situation to the ideal end result. This allows him to assemble a plan of action that will lead to the outcome with the highest probability. That is, to sign up for a plan that is impossible not to execute. Or realize on the shore that you need to change the terms or not do the project. You’ll never hear from the perfect PM, “Why bother planning? Things change so fast” or “There are too many inputs and scenarios, you can’t plan here.” He will consider all aspects of the situation and prioritize scenarios. He will choose the best plan of action and how to work with the plan to adapt when it is implemented.
Evaluation and verification
In a perfect world, the ideal PM is involved in sales, preparing a project estimate and a commercial proposal that leaves no chance to the client. He takes into account all factors related to the project and creates accurate estimates that help in planning and decision making. In the real world, a job estimate can be passed to the PM from sales department, another PM, etc. The project may be new, obscure, or have specific requirements. In such a case, I want the PM to know how to prepare a detailed estimate. Verify the functionality, cost and team, consider the risks and not overpromise. And if there is no experience, could organize the estimate using methodologies or with the help of other team members and experts that allow to make a realistic estimate in different scenarios, highlight assumptions and constraints. I think a 20% deviation from the initial estimate is acceptable, but you still want everything to be perfect. Often novice project managers can’t understand what to estimate because the scope is unclear or there are a lot of inputs. An ideal PM in such a situation fixes the project boundaries himself and describes the constraints. In his evaluation, it is always clear what scope or result is being evaluated, what can affect the evaluation and what needs to be clarified for a more detailed evaluation.
Goal setting
The ideal PM knows that goals need to be real and clear, and then SMART and other tools that help you move organically toward the goal and revise them as needed. Real goals means actually leading to the desired result in the shortest path. I often see aspiring project managers perfectly articulate framework goals, but can’t explain why this is our goal. Or because of insecurity, they make a big list of goals and can’t prioritize them. Especially if the right goal is ambitious and the degree of responsibility rises. An ideal PM doesn’t set goals like “for all good and against all bad” or “because they said so”. He knows how to distinguish fake goals from real ones and communicate this to the team in clear language. Moreover, he tries to make sure that his goals in the project are achieved by all parties: the client, the company and all team members. Therefore, he can organize communication and find an approach to help formulate the goals of each side of the project. Needless to say, this is an agile process and the goals are not carved in stone. Let’s not forget the times we live in.
Planning horizons
As the big goal is broken down into a chain of smaller goals, short-, medium-, and long-term planning emerges. Our handsome PM lives and thrives in these horizons. He effectively does short-term planning based on medium-term plans. Everyone understands the weekly and daily plan and keeps the project plan up to date. He does medium-term planning competently, assessing risks and timelines correctly. Informs the team of key milestones and mid-term project plans. He can plan a long-term project plan. For long-term projects, he uses the “surging wave” method, when the plan for the immediate period is as detailed as possible, and further on it is quite top-level. Even if it is the realization of a new project from scratch and a long-term roadmap is needed. He works out plans without fanaticism. The depth and detail of the plan is always directly proportional to the incomprehensibility and complexity. This skill is a good basis for strategic thinking, which is very useful for career development.
Work Breakdown Structures
The ideal PM breaks down complex project plans into smaller, manageable elements, making it easier to plan, allocate resources, and control tasks. Work Breakdown Structure or WBS is the organization of project tasks and activities in a hierarchy where each larger task is divided into smaller subtasks and activities. This structure provides a clear view of the order in which work is performed and its interrelationships and dependencies. The point is to break the project down into subtasks until a level is reached where each subtask becomes manageable. The ideal PM doesn’t crush the entire project down to the smallest tasks by instruction. He uses the world’s most effective tool – common sense. If the decomposition covers the whole project, has a clear hierarchy and interrelationships are logical and clear to the whole team, then there is no need to go further into detail. As always, everything depends on the team and the complexity of the project. First of all, WBS is done to get clarity of planning. This way, at the start it is possible to notice unobvious risks, actualize the necessary resources and blind spots of the project.
Risk management
The credo of the ideal PM is that risks cannot be eliminated, but they can be managed. He is not afraid of risks. He assesses the probability of risks and the effect of the consequences, prioritizes them and puts their treatment in the plan. In short, he identifies, plans, minimizes or eliminates risks on a project on time. Without giving cognitive distortions a chance. The cooler person is not the one who sees more risks in advance, but the one who sees the most devastating risks he can influence. The greater the ambition, the greater the risks. This has a direct impact on responsibility. That is why it is very important to work with risks in a focused way. Otherwise, you can make up so many ideas that you may not even be able to start the project. Working with risks is one of the foundations of planning. An ideal PM has a lot of experience and knowledge. Therefore, his head is full of cases with the most common risks and strategies for responding to them. If you don’t have enough cases of your own, you can always find those who do. They can suggest new risks and help with the assessment of current ones. The main thing is to soberly add them to the risk matrix and not add fuel to the fire of anxiety. In any communication, the ideal PM always uses the word “risks” along with a suggestion of what can be done about them. Sometimes you need to take a risk, but if the risk works, it is important to have an experience, not a total fiasco and psychological trauma.
Priority management
Priorities are linked to goals and are also subject to change. Priorities are a matter of choice. The ideal PM knows how to make the right choice at each point in time to maximize value. He or she not only knows prioritization techniques, but can describe the logical process of why a particular choice was made and what can change. Working with priorities affects the customer, the team, and task completion. That’s why it’s important to communicate the mechanics of prioritization in advance and transparently communicate why they have changed. So that everyone on the team prioritizes based on team principles or project goals, rather than on a whim. A cool PM knows that the word “priorities” didn’t exist before and if you have to choose one of the three most important priorities, he knows how to consciously do it. With all information and data, the ideal PM uses a visual hierarchy. He places the most important tasks or figures at the top so that everyone always knows what is most important right now.
Strategic thinking
I’m probably nuts, but the ideal PM knows how to live from the future to the present. For him, the word “strategy” is not “understanding where we want to go, what plan and approaches to use” and certainly not a document with a written strategy. It is a process of managing strategic tasks and decisions. It requires an understanding of the place and role of yourself, your company or project in the future. Understanding what should be done now, what decisions should be made in order to have a favorable position and competitive advantage there, in the future. No matter how ideal a PM is, he cannot predict the future and accurately determine the end point. It’s about working with the future on different horizons to understand how it’s changing and what you need to focus on in the here and now. What balance to choose between strategic actions and operational actions. So first the strategic process, then the strategy, and then the planning and approaches that need to change with the changing future. Often aspiring PM confuse planning with strategic process, but not our ideal PM. After all, he always thinks with a sequence of “Why?”, “How?”, “What?”. By the way, with these skills, he can build a personal life strategy. Therefore, he will always grow in all areas faster than others.
Session 3.
Managing the project
In fact, it doesn’t matter how a PM manages a project, as long as the result is done on time and on budget, the team is happy and demands continuation, the case is getting likes, the company has earned money, and the client is already filling the case with money to continue working with you. You can read as much as you want about methodologies, get smart with quotes from PMBOK and cross Scrum with anything, but project management is a constant problem solving to make results. Knowledge of classic project management and modern frameworks gives you a base, but no project goes perfectly according to the plan. Not even the perfect PM’a. If the client, team, events or uncertainty make adjustments to the actual process, the ideal PM always remembers that the team is not working for the sake of following the process, but for the result. The process can change, and for a great PM’a this is not a problem!
Project milestones and areas of responsibility
Of course, an ideal PM knows the main stages of any project: preparation, planning, execution and completion. He has a detailed project launch template with decomposition of the main stages, goals, timelines, resources, risks, artifacts, templates, etc. He knows how to customize it for each project so that he doesn’t spend too much time on the launch and doesn’t forget anything. The ideal PM is not a working hand that executes regulations according to a described process. Through all major project phases, he analyzes, plans, manages, communicates, systematizes, optimizes, and reflexes to orchestrate a focused project workflow for results. He is responsible for goal setting, product production, team, quality, timelines, finances, documents, communication, client relations, company reputation, product development and removing obstacles to the result. It’s as if he took a loan from a drug cartel to launch the product and there is no chance of failure, only positive results, period. Like in the Eminem song, “Success is my only option, failure’s not”. By the way, Dr. Milestone, do you know the name of that song?
Doctor: I’m not a fan of rap. I prefer something soothing. Like Lorna Shore.
Project triangle and other shapes
Project managers have a favorite figure: the triangle. It’s not simple. It consists of three constraints that define the quality of a project: scope, budget, and schedule. The ideal PM knows that these are not just project control areas. It’s a balancing act of project management. The simple analogy is “fast, cheap, quality.” Every variable affects every other variable. And it’s not a math problem. The client is spending real money, and the real reputation of the company and the team is at stake. The ideal PM understands the consequences of unbalancing the triangle, so from the very beginning of the project works with the client’s expectations and chooses an approach of working with balance. People have invented other shapes – project squares, hexagons, etc. But they are more like project control tricks, and working with balance is not the main thing. For example, there is a heptagon: plan, cost, scope or scope, quality, customer satisfaction, risk and resources. Who likes what you like. At least a circle, if it works well.
Control of project milestones and process adherence
No one likes the word “control”, it carries negativity. But if the PM is perfect, he or she has made preparations for the project, set goals, outlined project milestones, milestones and key metrics, and loaded the team with what will be done and how it will be done. Then control has a positive intent. Traffic rules are also control, but they are only useful. Either everything goes beautifully according to the process or there are problems. PM provides monitoring and control of process compliance at all stages of the project to detect deviations and problems in time. Of course, not to find fault, but to make decisions to fix them. I mean problems, not blame. An ideal PM is not a supervisor or a babysitter. He knows how to set up process monitoring in such a way that he needs minimal effort to know about problems in advance. This can be done in many different ways. Through culture, rituals, and Google Sheets. The main thing is to make sure that no one suffers. Then it will no longer be control, but management.
Team effectiveness
The job of the ideal PM is to make the team productive. To do this, you don’t need to develop KPIs and make dashboards for tracking. An effective team works on the principle of minimax. Maximize results with minimal effort and cost. An ideal PM makes sure there is nothing unnecessary and useless. No unnecessary communications, no processes, no downtime, no rework, no wrong decisions, etc. Nothing should get in the way of people working and showing team qualities that individually team members don’t have. If the PM is really good at his job, the team will be effective. It simply can’t be otherwise. Just having the perfect PM on a team does not make it effective. Any new team goes through 5 stages: formation, confrontation, normalization, functioning and breaking up. By the way, Dr. Milestone, this model was coined by your fellow psychologist Bruce Tuckman. Therefore, the task of the ideal PM is to get the team to the functioning stage faster, when the team reaches its potential and starts delivering results. You need to understand what stage the team is at and give it enough time to go through this cycle. How long the cycle takes depends on the team and the context. If the team is going to go on a quest before going to a bar, the team will go through all the cycles in a couple of hours, but if there is a big project to be done, it can take several months to reach a good level of performance.
Translation of principles and culture
The worst thing a PM can do is to make up rules and force everyone to follow them. Moreover, if at the same time he will not follow them himself. An ideal PM carefully and permanently communicates the principles of work to the whole team, because it creates a common understanding of how work should be done, what is bad and what is good. Like Morpheus, he should plug a bio-port into everyone’s head and download the team’s cultural code. Even earlier, the company’s HR brand, recruiters and onboarding should do this, but we understand that everyone likes to sugarcoat reality. At the project level, the ideal PM broadcasts his cultural code and demonstrates it by his own example. He may not completely copy the company culture. This applies not only to the team, but also to the client. For the client, this process has a special job of teaching the client how to do the job in a cool and efficient way. At a minimum you will keep the client within your principles. At most, you’ll teach the client or their team something new. There can’t just be one perfect PM. The more the better.
Communication management
Without communication management, you can forget about the effective and comfortable functioning of the team. Consequently, you can forget about the results. Communication is the foundation of interaction and maintaining context. An ideal PM knows how to organize communication between all stakeholders and participants so that it is clear where and how everyone communicates, what meetings are for what and what is discussed at them, what is done, how it is done, when the key milestones are, and what responsibility each participant has. It’s not about communication skill, it’s about interaction design. The ideal PM doesn’t have one that talked to someone somewhere but others didn’t know or didn’t understand. He makes sure that from the very beginning there are no uncontrolled communication flows, everyone knows their roles, expected results, when important deadlines are, who can be brought together directly without mediation, and for whom you need to be an information broker.
Change management
Since “eliminating uncertainty” is the second name of an ideal PM and risk management is routine, he cannot be intimidated by any changes. Therefore, he is characterized by quick and adequate response to changing conditions and unplanned situations. He does not sow panic in the team himself and does not let others sow it. Does not lose focus, but takes responsibility for solving problems that arise. Overall, it’s unclear what else there is to explain. He is able to adapt to new conditions and revise plans, while maintaining the quality and timing of the project. And when a PM is like that, the team is flexible. He reacts calmly to everything and comes to the rescue. The ideal PM identifies possible sources of change from the beginning of the project, and systematically transitions from old conditions to new ones, smoothing out resistance and loss of team productivity. Of course, he’s not Dr. Strange who can roll everything back and get away with it. He’s cooler than that! He’s the perfect PM who is ready for change. And is willing to apply his skills and tools to deal with change depending on context and scope.
Document flow
Of course, it’s too boring for turquoise organizations and should be handled by special people. But no matter how perfect a PM you are, what good is it if you signed a contract with postpayment in 5 years and endless revisions. There are lawyers and financiers almost everywhere, but the ideal PM understands the documents himself. Why they are needed, what the approval process is and what you need to pay attention to so you don’t get caught in an endless hell of client manipulation. Naturally, your clients are different, you have a great relationship, and it will never come to a shootout with wording from the contract. But trust me, sooner or later it will, and you’ll be visiting Dr. Milestone afterwards. Lawyers can help you check strange wording, signatories, and the date of the power of attorney, but the ideal PM knows how to organize the paperwork process and always pays attention to the subject matter of the contract, terms and conditions on time, payment, liability, and acceptance of work. And when the time comes to meet the horseman of the apocalypse – the start of work without a contract – he knows where to lay the straw and how to communicate with the client even in the mail to minimize problems.
Closing gaps and conflicts
I’d like to say about problem solving skill, but it’s a complex skill, we’ll talk about it later. But I would like to point out that the ideal PM sets up transparent processes and teams where everything that is hindering the project comes up. Then he or she systematically removes any obstacles to keep the team steam locomotive running on the tracks. Whether it’s a bottleneck in the process, client-side bureaucracy, or a designer didn’t like the way a developer reacted to his zodiac sign. If it’s hindering the project, you need to fix it or eliminate it. And if it’s not working, then you need to escalate. PM is perfect, but not omnipotent. Until it’s time to escalate, he’s always focused on improving the process. Drives it and helps the team solve problems. As Churchill said, “I love it when something happens. If it doesn’t happen, I do everything I can to make it happen”.
Decision-making
The ideal PM avoids intuitive decisions and stomps for rational thinking. He analyzes, considers all factors and chooses the best option. A decision is a choice with consequences. And the PM is responsible for them. He is not afraid to make decisions and doesn’t procrastinate because he has a system for making decisions in general and specifically for the project. This helps to neutralize cognitive distortions and escape the quagmire of inaction. This approach works in all complex and uncertain situations. It helps in making constructive and informed decisions. For an ideal PM, decision making is the courage to just take everything upon himself, because the decision is his, not a way to show his coolness, like, I’m the boss and I make decisions. It is above all knowledge about thinking and decision making process. An ideal PM can easily explain the logic of decision making and his/her actions in case of negative consequences.
Project portfolio management
A project doesn’t come alone. More often than not, a PM has one large project or several medium-sized ones. In every company, the size of a project is a subjective concept, but it doesn’t matter, because every project has a different team, client, rhythm and dynamics. There are times when five projects can be safely controlled by coming once to a meeting with the team, and there are times when one small project sucks all the energy until the end of the working day. The ideal PM knows that the ideal project is the one he doesn’t need right now. If he sees that his resource is critically short, he will reason with you at the beginning. Often, though, you have to save the world and take on a new project. At least temporarily. Then you need to talk about risks, a backup plan and the period until the load stabilizes. When an ideal PM leads several projects, he doesn’t jump between projects like a wolf after eggs. He strives for harmony and organization between projects. So that there is no overlap in communication, resources, and key milestones. Often you can’t get everything set up in unison and have to juggle priorities, meetings, time and resources. But for the ideal PM, this is not a problem. Once you’ve juggled, you can continue to work smoothly, because he knows what he can adjust in the project to manage his workload. Sometimes you have to take a risk and delegate without preparation, but it helps to gain experience for ideal PMs who are starting out.
Session 4.
Team management
The goal is clear – to ensure that the team works efficiently and comfortably so that project, team and company goals are achieved. Managing roles and assigning responsibilities in a team contributes to more efficient work, better communication and reduced risk. But to do this, you need to realize that a team is not just about the roles needed to achieve results. There are people on the team. With their values, experience, cockroaches, expertise, strengths and weaknesses, attitude to you, to the company, etc. It is not possible to describe roles and assign tasks to everyone. Everything is much more complicated. A team of ordinary specialists can achieve super results, while a team of stars sometimes can’t even start doing something. We are dealing with human nature and efficient processes. The ideal PM knows how to bring these things together. He knows how to lead the team according to Bruce Tuckman’s model and not interfere with the work, so that everyone in the team reaches his goal and gives 100% for the overall result.
Atmospheric management
Kurt Cobain said, “You can survive anything if you pick the right song”. I’m saying that any difficulties on a project can be survived if you find the right PM. And if he picks the right meme, the team can survive anything. No kidding. Maintaining a cool atmosphere in the team is a tough task. The PM should definitely eliminate all the problems and blockers that depend on what the PM and the team can affect. Uncertainty, bad processes, problems, etc. Everything else is an art that allows ordinary people to do incredible things. It could be the culture, the atmosphere, or the PM’a leadership skills. Everyone finds their own approach. A key metric for me is how people on the team relate to each other. PM will explain the goals, plan and organize the process, but if there is no atmosphere of support and mutual assistance in the team, there will be no unified mechanism. And neither the values on the company website nor supervision will help. The people you saw at the interview, where they told you how they want to grow and do good for society, disappear on the first day of work. The work is done by other, real people.The ideal PM understands this. He creates a positive environment where every team member feels comfortable and important. He maintains open communication where people can express ideas and opinions and resolve conflicts and disagreements constructively. Where no one is afraid of making mistakes and doesn’t make the same mistakes twice. Atmosphere is closely related to culture. Together they allow PM to create an environment and positive social pressure. Where you don’t have to specifically motivate someone or be demanding. Where you don’t look for blame or reasons, but decide what to do. Where everyone understands each other’s strengths and weaknesses, comes to the rescue and helps you grow. Doing cool results should be fun. For everyone, not just PM.
