The project manager is an important person in any organisation. He or she provides supervision and project management at the same time, from start to finish. In short, he or she acts like an orchestra conductor. If you are a manager, you need to be aware of some of the obstacles that will appear against you and your team. Fortunately, there are solutions.
A problem of delegation
The success of your project management depends, among other things, on your ability to delegate certain tasks to your teammates. However, it is possible that you have difficulty delegating. If you think it is simpler to do it all by yourself, you are wrong. One cannot do it all, especially if your company seeks to grow.
Solution: a step-by-step delegation
To learn how to delegate, you must learn to trust your colleagues. Begin by noting the tasks you perform, as well as the time spent on them. Then, entrust some tasks to your teammates depending on their skills. This will give you more time to concentrate on the tasks that require your expertise.
A poor evaluation of the workload
A poor evaluation of the resources needed for project management may take place. Have you overestimated your teammates’ abilities? Or have you underestimated the time required to complete the project? Depending on the context, it is difficult to make a fair assessment of your resources. Sometimes this is due to lack of information about your colleagues. Other times, it is a lack of experience in project management.
Solution: a better organisation of the work
Make a list of all the tasks in the project and evaluate which ones are the most important to perform. These tips can be easily applied with the Nutcache online solution, which allows the creation of tables and labels identifying the most urgent tasks. In addition, in order to offset the unexpected, allow enough time to complete each task.
Bad communication
One of the worst obstacles in project management is poor communication among team members. In fact, if you do not communicate clearly what you expect from your teammates, the result can be disastrous. Thus, in the end, some of the work could be duplicated, causing a loss of both time and money. Or even worse, the work is not performed because the person responsible for it was not informed. This time, the entire team incurs in a major delay in the project.
Solution: a transparent communication
For better communication, there is no secret: it must demonstrate transparency. As soon as one of your colleagues comes upon new information, it must be shared throughout the group. With transparency, each member can offer his or her point of view, and facilitate decision-making.
An unhealthy competition
There is no harm in seeing a little competition in your team. It pushes your colleagues to give the best of themselves. However, it becomes a problem when it is unhealthy. Your teammates, instead of doing better than usual, want to be better than the others, even undermining their efforts. This competition, unhealthy, damages the cohesion of your group and the management of the project.
Solution: valuing the community
According to a study by Takao Kato and Pian Shu, one enters into competition the moment one feels different from others. Hence the importance of integrating your teammates well when launching your project. Rely on what brings the group together, not on the differences of your colleagues.
A difficult colleague to manage
Project management is also about team management. And team management also means management of your teammates. Sometimes one of them takes up too much space at meetings, thus depriving the group of good comments from more timid colleagues. Fortunately, this obstacle can be easily resolved with some adjustments. In other cases, you could be dealing with a toxic person a toxic person, which is a more delicate situation.
Solution: equal attention to each teammate
In order to pay equal attention to each teammate, you have the responsibility to give them each the floor, especially at meetings. Moreover, to distract the persons who impose themselves, entrust them with a task that will occupy them, while you guide your other colleagues. As for the toxic people, avoid them as much as possible!
Continuous stress
It is normal to feel stress from time to time, especially if you are nearing your project deadline. However, as a daily dose, stress brings disastrous effects upon you and your team. Among the effects observed, one notes a decrease in work efficiency, negative impacts on physical and mental health, as well as an increase in absenteeism. If one of your teammates was absent because of stress, it would only increase the stress of his or her colleagues, who must in turn perform the work left by their absent teammate.
Solution: better support for your teammates
Each colleague has his or her level of stress resistance. Help them learn more about themselves by exploring their stress factors at work. What are the most stressful tasks? How do they react to negative feedback? How are their relations with their teammates? By identifying stressors, your colleague will be able to find a solution that suits the entire team.
This summarises some of the obstacles to project management, as well as the solutions to put in place to overcome them. Project management is not obvious, especially in the early days of your role. Fortunately, you can count on some tools to facilitate teamwork.
For example, Nutcache has collaborative boards available, promoting better communications between your team members. And that’s not all: the addition of the new @mention function allows your colleagues’ attention to be drawn to the tasks to be performed. Do not hesitate to try out Nutcache for free for 14 days!
