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What does the daily routine of a successful project manager look like?Daily routine of a successful project managerHow do you uncover the secrets behind success stories? One way is to break down people’s daily routines. Project managers’ days are action-packed — full of problems to solve and people to meet. So how do they effectively bring order to such chaos? They prioritize ruthlessly. They follow strict timelines. And they love a well-maintained Gantt chart. Whether you want to become a project manager or are looking to climb the ladder, it’s important to know the best ways to prioritize multiple tasks of different scales, manage your days effectively and maintain work-life balance, especially in this role. And what better way to find out than diving into the lives of successful project managers? We delve deep into the daily routines of successful project managers and distill what we learned from them. There’s insight on how to block time, prepare for meetings, and communicate with stakeholders. Daily Routines For Becoming A Successful Project ManagerLet’s go over how successful project managers spend their days, and how to build a good routine to get your tasks done. This routine shouldn’t be taken as the gospel truth rather go ahead and tweak this routine to suit your needs. 1. Get an Update on the Status of All the TasksTask StatusThe scope of project management is huge because it involves multiple functions and stakeholders–from engineering to product management to UI/UX designing to human resources–which means there are dependencies from different departments. So keeping track of each and every task is crucial to meet deadlines. Usually, a project will be divided into multiple phases and each phase will be broken down further into major tasks which will be broken down again into smaller tasks. So there are hundreds of tasks and multiple, long timelines, and each timeline may be dependent on the completion of the other. Most project managers use project management software like Jira or ProofHub to track the progress of these sprints, manage resolutions, and prioritize tasks or groups of tasks or multiple tasks simultaneously. So when you start your workday, getting an update on the different tasks happening that week should be number 1 on your to-do list.
2. Create a To-Do ListTo-Do listNobody puts it better than psychologist Dr. David Cohen who explains that to-do lists are great because of three reasons, “they dampen anxiety about the chaos of life; they give us a structure, a plan that we can stick to; and they are proof of what we have achieved that day, week or month.” It’s crucial for project managers to stay on top of their own tasks. By own tasks we mean the different meetings with stakeholders, documents to review, conflicts to resolve, etc. Since there is a lot of catching up to do with the stakeholders–both internal and external, creating your list of to-dos will be helpful in keeping track of your activities, meetings, and reviews. 3. Block Time for Deep WorkTime for deep workStudies from multiple sources show that we are hit by distractions at least 50–60 times a day. These distractions–emails, unnecessary meetings, and the loss of focus are some of the biggest culprits. We spend a whopping 2 hours reeling our focus back. As a project manager, you cannot afford to lose a couple of hours like that. So if you’re on a mission to boost productivity, block a couple of hours in your calendar every day to focus on deep work. You might need time to review data, or run project analysis or revisit timelines. You could use this time for: Conflict Resolution: One of the most important aspects of project management is people management. That is helping out people in need, acting as a peacemaker between stakeholders, conveying a change in timelines, etc. Blocking particular time periods in a day and letting others know about the time is effective in avoiding ad hoc tasks as well. Budgeting: Yes, budgeting is something you’d do right at the beginning of the project but that’s not the end of it. It is important to constantly keep evaluating it as the project progresses. Why? Because projects are unpredictable; bugs, issues, and delays cannot be foreseen. What we can foresee, however, is its impact on the project timeline and budget which project managers are always on top of, always revisiting and verifying. Time management: Projects are usually split into a multitude of tasks encompassing smaller tasks, and sprints. If it’s an engineering project, there will be designing architecture, code development, testing, and deployment. Irrespective of the project type, you’ll have to add milestones in between groups of tasks to mark different phases or parts of the project being complete. But the thing is delays may be inevitable–even a day’s extension for a particular task can leave a domino effect on the timeline. So project managers should always maintain an eagle eye on the timeline. 4. Check In With Your TeamConnect with your teamOne of the first things you should do in a day is check in with team members to get an update on the current progress of tasks. Regularly checking in with your team members not just about work but also about how they’re doing, will improve their trust in you as a leader. The trust that you’ll have their back, and that you’re here to help them out. Such free-flowing communication is key to pushing progress. The sooner you identify roadblocks, the faster you can solve them and meet timelines. You can set up daily or weekly standups, progress meetings, and team huddles with different departments involved in the project–whatever opens the flow of communication from the teams. In these meetings, you have set clear deliverables, expectations, goals, and ways to attain them for the people working on the project. Make sure you have conveyed when they can reach you for any discussion and keep communication channels open so they know they can approach you when necessary. While it’s not recommended to be buried in slack/emails throughout the day, keep an eye on your slack or email to be on top of your communication. Don’t Forget to Prepare for Meetings: Unproductive meetings cost up to USD 37 billion to U.S. businesses. Elon Musk’s Tesla actually encourages its employees to “walk out” of time-wasting meetings. Being a project manager, the onus of having productive meetings falls on you. So how can you run meetings that provide value to its participants? Preparation, obviously, but not the one you’d type out on your notes app highlighting key points you need to cover. To start, there are different kinds of meetings. Project management expert Jeannette Collazo writes in Forbes the following types:
Depending on what kind of meeting it is you can prepare a deck with relevant details about the meeting. To ensure you’re running a productive meeting, director of projectmanager.com Jennifer Witt, outlines four key areas to focus on:
This way, you can ensure that every meeting adds value to you and the team. Feedback Loop Matters in Projects of Any Scale: Your main job when running meetings is to ensure that you and the person you’re speaking with are on the same page about tasks. If you’re speaking to an engineer, ensure that they are well aware of their deliverables. Or if you need to give feedback, make sure that it’s practical and constructive. If you’re getting feedback from leadership, well, make sure both sides understand the expectations. Feedback is crucial for the growth–of the project and of individuals. Everyone’s learning and providing feedback for your team is instrumental in bridging the gap between what’s required and what’s available. Also, feedback goes both ways. Your team is the group of people who fight with you on the trenches so don’t be afraid to ask them for feedback. 5. Plan Ahead for the WeekPlan aheadAlways keep a bird’s eye view of your project. It is important for a project manager to not be tied down by the details and forget the bigger picture. Today, the focus may be the task at hand but project managers have to focus on the tasks coming tomorrow, the next week, and the month, and ensure that the daily activities or tasks are completed on track to meet those milestones. Remember we mentioned Marie Kondo-level organization? Well, with multiple to-dos to cross off in a day, it’s easy to be stressed about deadlines or work. That’s why you need to continuously tweak deadlines or sprint timelines or plan ahead for the week so that you don’t fall behind on targets, and paint a clearer picture of where the project will be a week from now or two months from now. So prepare a list of tasks that should be completed in the next 1 week or 1 month, and include the stakeholders and dependencies involved in those tasks. 6. Wind up for The Day By Responding To EmailsResponding To EmailsOn average we spend up to two and a half hours checking emails every weekday, adobe reports. That’s two and a half unproductive hours if you’re not taking action after checking those emails. To ensure that they don’t waste time on emails, project managers, check their email first thing in the morning. But they use Gretchen Rubin’s One Minute Rule, wherein you’d reply only if it takes less than a minute or emails that are a top priority. The rest of the emails can be pushed to the end of the day. The rule states if a task takes less than a minute to complete, do it. So reply to that slack message, or wash that dish, or ping your manager, so that these tiny little tasks that have the potential to pile on throughout the day don’t keep nagging you and stressing you out.
What does a Project Manager do?Northeastern University defines project managers (PMs) as people who are responsible for planning, organizing, and directing the completion of specific projects for an organization while ensuring these projects are on time, on budget, and within scope. Project managers responsibilbitiesProject managers have a unique set of technical and soft skills that enable the collaboration of multiple departments. To know in detail about what project managers do, we broke down the project lifecycle by Adrienne Watt and explained at each stage how a project manager contributes. Initiation Phase:In the initial stages of the project, stakeholders come together to discuss the scope, the timelines, the risk, the financials, and the resources required for the completion of the project.
Once these are done, the project begins. Planning Phase:Here, you’d plan out the project. Discuss the timelines, allocate the resources, and create the project plan.
Execution Phase:This is where all the efforts put into the planning would pay off.
How to Stay Productive as a Project Manager?Stay Productive
ConclusionThere is no ‘one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to becoming a successful project manager. But having a routine is a good way to keep track of improving the way you work, tracking your progress, and finding out how much better you can become. Routines take time to build. Remember how hard it was to break out of your college routine? Start adding or replacing one activity a day to your existing routine to build a sustainable routine. “This is a guest post from Klenty written by Ashitha Jayaprakash.” If you enjoyed reading this article:Clap: So others can find it Comment: If you have a question/suggestion you’d like to ask Follow: ProofHub to read all the articles If you liked reading this post, you are surely going to love this as well -
Who are the stakeholders in a project quizlet?Stakeholders are anyone on the project or effected by the project. Key stakeholders are the subset of stakeholders that are in a decision making position. Nancy is about to start the Plan Stakeholder Management process for her project. She has selected the Project Management Plan as an input to this process.
Is the process of the project team communication and working with stakeholders to satisfy their needs? Manage stakeholder engagement is a process of the project team communicating and working with stakeholders to satisfy their needs (and additional desires, when possible), handle issues quickly, and encourage active stakeholder participation throughout.
What project relationship building activities include?Project relationship building activities include encouraging open communications and using sharedlearning. ... . Establishing a positive relationship with all key stakeholders early in the project helps to create a desireamong those stakeholders to support the project, and builds the communications foundation for theproject.. Which communication method is most appropriate for assessing the commitment of project stakeholders?E-mail communication is most suited for: assessing commitment to a project.
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