Project Execution

Never confuse effort with results

You have a project – a sponsor, a customer, a project plan, a budget, and resources – now it is time for project plan execution.... Time for action now! You will now hold a formal kickoff meeting to start the execution phase of your project during which you will direct your team’s activities in order to produce the agreed upon deliverables as detailed in the project plan.

Kickoff Meeting

This is your first opportunity to work with the entire team in a group setting. The purpose of holding a Kickoff Meeting is to:

• Ensure your project team’s buy-in of the project
• Reinforce their understanding of and focus on the achievement of the project objectives
• Obtain their understanding and concurrence of individual responsibilities

Tip: Throughout the project always send out reports after each meeting. All of these reports along with the project documentation should be put in a centralized location accessible to the stakeholders.

If you have team members who do not know each other, consider team building exercises. Make sure you prepare and distribute an agenda several days before the meeting. Typically, project kickoff meetings are ½ to 1 working day – this depends on the complexity of your project and your need for team building. Suggestions for your agenda include:

• Project Overview: describe the business purpose, the sponsor, major project deliverables, the “customer”/stakeholders, and major milestones.
• Project Goals: short-term and long-term goals/objectives, and the metrics to measure attainment of the objectives.
• Review Critical Milestones and Deliverables
• Review the Project Schedule: focus on the near-term activities and tasks for each team member (make sure all team members know what is expected of them up to the first deliverable).
• Communications and Project Reporting: make sure all team members understand and concur with the project communications plan for all project stakeholders.

After the end of the meeting, write a kickoff meeting report and send it to all the stakeholders. Do this as soon as possible – best is to send this report the next day or at the latest 48 hours after the meeting.

Managing & Leading

The role of the project manager has often been described as an ambiguous one – chances are you will not have any clear-cut real authority over the people in your project team. There might even be people on your team who are senior to you or have far more project management experience than you. That being said, managing project teams composed of people from different departments, levels of seniority, and cultures is an achievable goal.

A vast body of literature exists on management and leadership styles. Here are three main types of project leadership styles:

• Directive: you make decisions and set the direction for your team. Such a style works in crisis but discourages participation.
• Participative: you encourage participation in decision making. Such a style helps in team building but may not be the best when you need to react quickly.
• Task-oriented: you focus on achieving the project’s objectives by organizing people and people activities.

Tip: A good project leader has the ability to know when to use one or a mix of the above styles. The style that you use should be adapted to the current project situation, people in your project, your organization, the culture/country, and your project’s outcome.

Ensuring your Team Works Well

Building a team involves much more than just putting the right people together. For a project team to gel and work effectively you need to do the following:

• Ensure that the roles and responsibilities of all team members are clearly defined.
• Encourage people to think as a group and not as individuals.
• Communicate and listen. To be a good communicator, you must be a good listener. Otherwise, your communications may not take into consideration the needs of your team.
• Be dependable. Always do what you promised. Nothing saps team moral as much as a manager who does not abide by his or her promises.
• Never miss a chance to praise/reward your team or a team member. Always communicate a team member’s achievements to his or her functional manager.
• Be enthusiastic. Being positive is infectious, and motivates your team.
• Empower your team members by giving them sufficient decision-making power so that they can get their work done. However, ensure that they follow the proper project operation procedures.
• Provide training on teamwork if your team is not working well together.

Tasks Execution

During the project’s execution phase, the project manager has to make sure that all tasks are executed as planned in terms of time, resources and budget. Measurements should be taken frequently and corrective actions should be made accordingly.

Communicating

Throughout the project communicate, communicate and communicate. Good communication is a major key success factor of any project. As a project manager you will surely communicate via phone, emails, meetings, and so on.

As mentioned earlier, to be a good communicator, you must be a good listener first. So listen intently to your project team - your team members will appreciate that you value their opinions and encourage discussion. Listening also is very useful as it provides you feedback on whether your team members understand your messages.

Giving your stakeholders access to information is a vital part of any project communications strategy. Ensure that your project team has access to an information sharing system such as an intranet or a similar collaborative environment. In large projects, a team member may be designated to supervise the project information sharing system.