We need you to do it like a football manager
Any project manager can employ the methods of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), assign tasks on Jira and give orders via Slack. But, not everyone can lead their team to success, bring the best out of headstrong and volatile “players”, and keep the lines of communication open to create a flexible team that reacts to challenges quickly and precisely.
The factors leading to project success, were first developed by D. Ronald Daniel, in his article “Management Information Crisis” (Harvard Business Review, September-October 1961). John F. Rockart, of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, built on and popularized the idea almost two decades later in the 1970s, when he corroborated the need for enhanced competency of the project managers by upholding his 8 Critical Success Factors in Project Management.
If you have read the article, you will know that the “foundations” for success lie on whether the team has fully understood the goals and objectives of the project. Project management is mainly teamwork, in which, the project manager also wears the cap of a team leader or manager. Hence, project management and football management are interwoven, and somehow functionally synonymous.
There are a few factors which are essential for a project manager: Synergy and team performance. It’s a team game.
In football, teamwork implies unity of purpose; the creation of a synergistic environment.
In football, team performance is a consequence of prior learning, inherent skills, situational factors and influence of the opposition. This assumption holds that…
Future performance is to a large extent a consequence of previous performance.
Right now, in workplaces across the globe, people are going about their jobs, seemingly content, but deep down feeling the ache of loneliness due to the pandemic. In this newly established virtual work setting, isolation is a negative feeling — related to an involuntary perceived separation.
Teams can bring several benefits to organizations including greater levels and depth of expertise, productivity and a team culture that boosts morale.
The ability to manage a team is highly critical for a successful teamwork. This entails the skills of team-coordination, communication, objective setting and performance appraisals. In short, a project manager should have the ability to cultivate synergies for increased performance.
This article, recommends the following steps, that if taken early in the life of a team can help in the handling the above problems, especially, if the project leader at the start of the project talk with each team member on a one-to-one basis:
- What the objectives are for the project.
- Who will be involved and why.
- Importance of the project to the overall organization or work unit.
- Why the team member was selected and assigned to the project and what role he/she will perform.
- What rewards might be forthcoming if the project is successfully completed.
- A candid appraisal of the problems and constraints which are likely to be encountered.
- What rules-of-the-road will be followed in managing the project, for example, regular status update review meetings.
- What suggestions the team member will have for achieving success.
- What are the professional interests of the team member?
- The challenge the project is likely to provide to individual members and the entire team.
- Why the team concept is so important to project management success and how it should work.
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