Page 50 - Straight Talk On Project Management IV

admit they're out of their depth and not be judged ... there's a seemingly endless list of things that
you can do to help with complexity.

Everybody's talkin'

Another great cause for fatigue and ennui is overexposure to stakeholders and contacts within the
wider business. I covered this in a recent blog about corridor conversations becoming business
expectations, in our desire to be more transparent we have left ourselves open to 'important'
requests coming from all angles. Distractions, like a member of your team being asked for a status
update, can take a few minutes to accommodate but they soon add up.

Also, this can be the thin end of the wedge, - if you're not careful. A friend is a project manager who
has a c-level stakeholder who frequently asks for status updates as an 'ice breaker' ahead of then
asking for a more time-consuming piece of work. "How's project X coming along?" he'll ask. The
unsuspecting team member will break off to give him an update at which point the exec will say,
"While I've got you, could you just ..."

Disciplined schedules and routine are key to productivity and contentment, project teams soon get
worn down by constant interruptions to their workflow. Setting up clear procedures for how the
business interacts with your team will make a huge difference. The PM above, for instance, has just
instigated an "everything through me" policy to protect her team.

It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it

Consider YOUR impact and how your expressions may affect your team. This is a hard one and needs
a bit of honest self-awareness.
One of my friends had an epiphany recently, morale was low and it turned out her facial expressions
were not helping! She found this out when she overheard team members talking about her "face of
thunder"!! She was actually in good spirits but her look of concentration was being misread as
moody, worried or furious by her team. It was infectious. She told me that she was mortified - she is
the least moody, worried or furious project leader I know - but her resting face fell naturally into a
frown! She said she has started smiling more and the mood has lifted.
Think about how you interact with your team, the words you use, your tone of voice, even the look
on your face - it could be affecting productivity.

House of fun or house of pain?

The IT Projects you work on disrupt markets, drive innovation, stimulate growth, secure jobs, etc.
What we do is a serious business. But it doesn't have to not be fun. In fact, it should be fun and as IT
Project leader you are responsible for making it so. Not in a David Brent way, I mean, this isn't going
out for drinks, declaring fancy dress Fridays and hosting baking competitions - although, if these
work for you .. go for it!

No, this just ensuring that coming to work is a pleasure, not a chore.

And you can do this with the smallest of tricks, one Project Manager I know incorporates song titles
into his emails and project reports - the team actually looks forward to receiving them and spotting
the songs! I've borrowed this for this blog, did you notice?

As IT Project Leaders, together with delivering a healthy return on investment, measurable business
value and stakeholder needs, increasingly we have an extra responsibility - to safeguard the
wellbeing of our talent. It really matters because without your talent you don't have a hope of