Days' Bookmark

Last week, I finished reading Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager. I recently led a project with 35 international members, so I had been wondering about what I could have done differently to make things more efficient.

The project, I’d consider to be a success overall—we met our metrics, we were on schedule, and people on my team stated they’d like to work on another project with me in the future—but I definitely could have done better. As I read the book, I realized my main issue may have been accountability.

The book states that you have to be accountable yourself in order to hold others accountable, and you have to hold others accountable so that the entire team stays accountable. Or something along those lines… I had an issue where my core team was missing deadlines and tasks, and I thought I was being kind by letting it pass or doing the tasks myself. It ended up putting a lot of pressure on me, but if I had properly managed the core team, this could have been avoided.

It probably wasn’t a conscious thought, but once the other members saw that there were no consequences to missing deadlines, they may have felt that it was fine for them to miss the deadlines as well. Lesson learned.

One of my worries was that by holding someone accountable in public, it’d just become a humiliation ritual. That doesn’t have to be the case though when you handle the situation with respect. In fact, holding someone accountable in public (i.e., with the other team members, not in public public), you keep everyone in the loop and enforce the idea that everyone’s part matters. And whatever issue the person has, whatever the core of their issue is, might be able to be cleared by another person on the team.

The book highlights four foundational behaviors when working on a team as well as how to apply them to holding someone accountable:

1. Demonstrate respect. Be empathetic about the situation that the other person is in.
2. Listen first. Let them explain why they missed the commitment.
3. Clarify expectations. Restate the commitment and update the deadline for completion.
4. Practice accountability. Let them know the team counts on everyone’s commitments.

Another mind-blowing point the book mentions is that you don’t have to (and perhaps should not) give all the solutions to your team members when holding them accountable. Chances are, they already have an idea of what they should be doing. You can provide feedback and guidance, but giving them the opportunity to voice their own solutions will help them feel more engaged and dedicated to the solution.

There were a lot of other useful information in the book, such as how to handle risks and how to create a project schedule. The book also comes with lots of anecdotes that put the lessons into context, so overall, I’d say this is an excellent book for beginners interested in running projects better.