Project Managers Transitioning to Bigger Portfolio’s
Leadership test arrives for Project Managers when they take portfolio of multiple projects to manage simultaneously, this situation requires more responsibility and discipline than authority.
This also means multiple challenges like selecting, motivating and persuading team members and dealing with unforeseen circumstances to execute important project work with setting priorities. It’s not always the easiest of transition but proper planning ahead can help you along.
Here’re some ideas that can help in transitioning to next level of leadership:
1- Prioritize your projects
When setting priorities, consider timelines, strategic corporate decisions, availability of resources. Automation of Project Management process helps a lot.
2- Identify Main Decision Maker (In Charge person)
This will help clear ambiguities upfront; a good manager knows the right questions to ask in order to have best working project possible and filtering out the chances of conflict later on.
3- Beware of Scope creep and Escalating objectives
A well-defined projects adds more goals and tasks but not the corresponding amount of resources, which effects the schedule. When new objectives are proposed; ask for more time and resources to cover new tasks or milestones.
4- Delegate tasks
It’s very important for project managers to share the load and delegate tasks when dealing with multiple projects simultaneously; Project Management Office resources themselves have to work like a project team and specially when tasks are delegated from Senior Project Managers.
5- Be a leader
A leader tries to keep team members on task without panic or distraction; helps balance ongoing work and project tasks and prevents crunch time from becoming a disaster or failure. Interact more with team, assist team members who are struggling and be positive as much as you can.
Thanks for reading,
Nabeel Shahid
SABIT SOLUTIONS