Project Managers are always in the hot seat by taking charge of their team and wearing many hats in their day to day tasks. That is, they not only act as managers for their projects, but also as facilitators, problem-solvers, and translators.
Project Managers hone their skills of doing more with less during their careers, which are the skills that make them essential to the success of any business. They strive for becoming a more productive project manager themselves, as well as increase the productivity of their team. It is an integral element of their profession and something that can distinguish them from other Project Managers.
A good Project Manager is capable with many elements of their work – but the most successful Project Managers operate not only with high capability but also with high productivity – they make the most of what they’ve got – no matter what challenges their project could throw at them. Therefore, to help you in your quest for project success and becoming a more productive Project Manager, here is my list of “Top Tips”:
- Create a To-do List at the End of Every Day: This first tip is easily the most essential one for those who are looking to become a more productive Project Manager. Successful Project Managers create a to-do list at the end of every day for the next day. Following this practice would help you because it identifies essential tasks you would want your team to achieve in the next day and enables you to keep a check on your daily progress.
- Complete Overwhelming Yet Essential Tasks First: At times, there are tasks that make Project Managers procrastinate and eventually fret wasting their time over. Therefore, instead of delaying such tasks, successful Project Managers do these essential tasks (that could appear overwhelming) first thing in the morning. This habit would help you because these are the tasks that require a lot of energy and the start of the day is the time when you feel the most active and fresh. And you should remember… How do you eat an elephant – one bite at a time!
- Avoid Checking Emails Frequently: Checking emails take up a lot of essential time – and time for Project Managers is a scarce resource. Therefore, why not try setting only a couple of specific times throughout the day to check emails and become a more productive Project Manager? Schedule it into your diary and stick to it. When you’re doing emails – you can give them your full attention. When you’re not doing emails, you won’t be distracted every two minutes.
- Set and Define Goals: To enhance the productivity of their team, the best Project Managers achieve more by setting and defining goals clearly. They hold meaningful meetings with their teams to achieve the relevant tasks and milestones. Therefore, for all project team meetings that you hold – you should have crystal clear objectives. Try it for your next project team meeting and share those goals at the start.
- Elaborate Roles of Each Team Member to Spread Workload Efficiently: In the meetings, as described in the previous tip, successful Project Managers also elaborate roles of each and every team member to divide work among them in such a way that it enables them to lead the team instead of getting involved in the minute details of individual tasks. You should do this through collaborative planning and involve your team in defining and kicking off projects. This will be a fantastic way for you to inspire interest and gain the commitment of each and every team member. In turn, this would give all your team members a clear idea of their individual roles that they would need to play in delivering projects efficiently and effectively.
- Be able to realise when your work is good enough: You don’t need to be a perfectionists to become an expert Project Manager, so you shouldn’t try to be one. However, you should hold yourself and your project deliverables to high standards. You must possess the ability to identify if you and your team are good enough and your output is good enough i.e. you should have confidence in yourself, in your team, and in your work to become a more productive Project Manager and achieve success in your chosen profession.
- Surround yourself with other Project Managers: Staying involved with other Project Managers or monitoring some of your competitors would definitely help you extract THE most important practices of project management. You may be interested in our online project management course which will develop your capability as well as your confidence.
So in your quest for developing as an expert Project Manager, you’re going to want to optimise some of your processes, change the way that you go about things and ultimately improve your ways of working which will make you a more productive Project Manager.
What are you going to commit to do differently today to help you become more productive tomorrow?
