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Why Relationship Building is Key for Successful Project Delivery

Why Relationship Building is Key for Successful Project Delivery

Oct 1, 2021

What do all projects have in common? Now, before you get too deep into the thinking of that, I will answer it for you. In its simplest sense, people.

And what do people have in common? 

Emotions.

Only 19% of projects deliver stakeholder satisfaction[1]. And the reason is because the stakeholders are not being engaged in an efficient and effective manner. Communication is key. So many projects fail to deliver, simply because the importance of the relationships in the team, and emotions in the room have been undervalued and/or ignored. Your stakeholders, their emotions and your project manager’s relationship with these emotions, matters.

Yes, it helps if the project manager is an intelligent individual; in fact this is highly recommended. But what is even more important, more crucial to the success of a project, is that this project manager understands and appreciates the value of relationship building. Emotional intelligence will trump intellectual intelligence every time when it comes to successfully delivering a project and achieving the desired results.

Your project is at its most exposed, when it is just beginning

Often enough, a project manager has little to no actual authority over a team. The way that they engage with the team is thus their most important asset. It would not work, if when the going got tough, the team set against each other in a state of arms, shouting and letting their emotions get the better of them.

What an effective and good project manager does is build up relationships of trust within the team from the start, based on vulnerability and openness. Gaining an understanding of stakeholders’ needs and expectations of the project is a critical step in setting the scope of the project. Ultimately acting as a catalyst to the much desired successful delivery of the project.  A good project manager will help the team navigate their feelings calmly, and in the face of high stress, with controlled thinking and teamwork. If your team has a project manager who can control their emotions and make decisions with confidence, your team’s culture will reflect this. This is how the project succeeds.  

It’s important that right from the very start, your team understands each other and that nobody is left behind and feeling out of sync. If there are key stakeholders that need to be engaged, make sure they are on board and that they are communicated with directly and clearly. The practice of truly listening and hearing out concerns of key stakeholders will help your team to navigate the waters of your project with everyone aboard, holding an oar and going at the same pace. 

Keeping your project on the right track

Make sure that your communication is regular and that it is revisited. The key to success involves all of your team being on board throughout the entirety of the project’s life cycle. Losing members overboard can destabilise the whole project if there’s not a relationship of trust to pull them back. 

In the end, we are all just people, and emotions do get high from time-to-time. But the key principles to making sure that your project succeeds even in those times of high emotions is that your team feels understood and acts like a team. 

Connected teams with trusting relationships, are far more likely to work through any difficulties your project encounters, more successfully and more collaboratively. In the end, if it is the people that all projects have in common, then it is the people, together, that will guarantee the success or failure of a project. 

Here’s Why Your Team Culture Really Matters

Here’s Why Your Team Culture Really Matters

Sep 10, 2021

The majority of us have experienced toxic workplaces, and to say the least, it will not have been a pleasant environment.

While so many companies still believe that relationship building is second to the actual work, smart businesses are realising that healthy relationships enable more productive work.

Almost every office is mixed, in its cultures, its age profile, its personalities, and its experiences. To ensure that your business is reaching its potential, working together as a team is a must. We all understand that Rome was not built in one day, but what we also know is that it was not built by just one person.

Ensure that your workspace enables vulnerability

This is particularly important within a project team. To instill a workspace that is emotionally and physically safe, it takes commitment to your team. You need to listen and understand their needs and wants. What they want from you, what they want from each other, and what they want from themselves. By doing this, you can work to provide an environment that allows them to be the best version of themselves, which in turn allows your project to be the best version of itself.

If there are no connections within your project team, then there is no culture. It is important that you practice habits that make your team feel connected to you, and towards each other. All fantastic business leaders should aim to ensure that each member of their team can speak up without fear of being judged, shamed or put down. This ensures that your employees are comfortable asking for help, admitting mistakes and limitations, and can feel safe to take risks by offering feedback.

Build an atmosphere of trust

Your team members have been selected because you believed in them to deliver a project and see it to its full potential. So, automatically assume that your team should be trusted, don’t make them earn that trust. Hear their ideas out. Who knows, it might be the quietest member of your team that can serve up a pearler of an idea that will have your project soaring to the stars. Don’t let them be overshadowed by the booming voice of a peacock who believes they own the stage just because they have been there the longest.

It is your responsibility, and it should be your pride, to maintain an empathetic and cohesive team. If you have close relationships within your project team, you will realise that they are more loyal to your company, and that they can collectively work together with an idea to achieve something extraordinary. If, on the other hand, you fail to recognise this and would rather live in an environment reflective of the Devil Wears Prada, you may see the cracks appearing in the form of blame, apathy, and communication breakdowns.

So important is this teamwork and connected culture, that in 2013 researchers Zes and Landis found that companies that performed poorly, were a staggering 79% more likely to have low self-aware employees than those companies that performed well[1]. This is simply because those that are self-aware and empathetic understand that they need to work as a team and can learn and grow from each other. They are proven to be able to perform to a higher standard, working cohesively together as a team to make higher quality decisions. This allows them to accomplish more in less time, aligning the team around the common objective of delivering a project.

As many hands make light work, so too do many minds make great work, and fantastic project delivery results.

Five Ways We Can Save Your Project from Failure

Five Ways We Can Save Your Project from Failure

Aug 13, 2021

Now here’s the thing about fighting fires, often pouring water over it just won’t suffice. Especially, if to fight this almighty fire, you are brandishing a mere watering can.

Faced with the reality that your project is starting to go up in flames, the last thing you might want to do is take a step back. However, that might be exactly the right move for your project.

Emotions can run high in projects. If nobody can pinpoint where the project has gone wrong, and nobody can come up with a way of fixing it, then it can all become a bit chaotic. From budget blowouts, to loss of confidence in your team, and in yourself, a project can quickly lose its original shine. 

And we hear you, you may well be shaking your head wondering how someone who hasn’t been there from the start, can understand your project’s needs and objectives. So, we have compiled a list highlighting five advantages to appointing an independent project recovery manager, to reshine the polish on your project, and morph that simple watering can into a gushing fire hose.

Five Advantages to Engaging an Independent Project Recovery Manager

1. Experience

A seasoned project recovery manager has seen it all before and knows what works. Our experts have honed project recovery skills and can offer solutions that you may otherwise have overlooked. Project recovery managers often have a deeper understanding of certain project types and can offer guidance from their years of experience in their particular field.

2. Objective Insights

Cutting through the noise and unveiling the true state of affairs is one of the first visible benefits of engaging an independent recovery manager. A team working together over a long period of time can fall into habits of not hearing every suggestion, or many ideas can be discarded, depending on whose lips it came from. Conversely, people tend to trust experts that have been hired to save the day. They expect a solution to come from them. That means suggestions can be better heard coming from an independent party as opposed to one of the team.

3. Difficult Decision-making

They are the bearer of bad news. When reviewing a failing project, hidden issues are uncovered and reviewed, presenting some difficult decisions that need to be made. Recommendations might include reviewing contracts, reducing scope, or reassigning team members. Animosity can result when difficult decisions are executed as these actions might be unpopular, emotionally difficult or lead to a tarnished reputation. Leaving the delivery of bad news to an independent party means when they leave, so too do any bad feelings. 

4. Fresh Eyes

No matter how many times you and your team have gone over it, you can’t make heads or tails of what needs to be done to move forward. Sometimes, all a project needs is a fresh set of eyes – and not only a fresh set of eyes, but a fresh set of expert eyes at that.

5. Management Style

Often what’s needed is a shake-up of the way things are being run. With new management of the project, new ideas, new voices may come out to play. New management can reignite the confidence of the team, it can solely be down to the honeymoon period of having someone else in charge, someone new to impress, or it may well be that an independent person with no history of the team, might provide a softer approach to allow new ideas to be voiced.

Before your project turns to ashes perhaps it’s time to let one of our trusted experts take over. This sends a clear message to the project team and the wider business that correction of the problem is being owned and taken seriously. 

An independent project recovery manager could save your project from completely going up in flames. The sooner you make this decision, the sooner we can help restore confidence to your stakeholders, and have your project back on its intended track. 

Why Work With A Type 2 Project Manager?

Why Work With A Type 2 Project Manager?

Jul 9, 2021

Choosing the right project manager in the workplace can go well or can work out terribly. Some PMs get things moving forward smoothly, keep everyone informed, and aim for results at all times.

Another kind of PM does their job diligently, but under the surface, the whole thing is a mess. They don’t have a clue what’s going on and aren’t even close to understanding the heartbeat of the project. For this kind of manager, the odds of a project failing are short.

Not everyone will succeed at project management. The crucial question is: What do good PMs do?

There are two types of PMs: those who deliver results and those who don’t. Let’s examine the two.

A PM who ticks the boxes

Project managers have smarts, understand the processes, and are familiar with their industry and operations well. They report on the daily activities and generate status reports. They do what they’re told, no matter what. They are diligent, invested individuals who work hard on their reports and show their opinions when necessary. They are there to manage, not to take charge. 

This doesn’t sound like a bad project manager, does it? 

In a crisis however, these people may only state the problems instead of taking control of a project. They share their opinions without talking about their reasoning or finding solutions in advance. Their leadership skills are lacking, and they fail to realise what it takes to establish a reputation for leading effectively, holding people accountable, and achieving results. Quite simply they are task list managers.  Ineffectual box tickers.  I call these people Type 1 PMs and I steer clear of them with a barge pole!

Here comes a Type 2 PM

In contrast, a Type 2 PM takes the extra step of being proactive with problems that they are tasked with solving. They are highly organised, capable of prioritising tasks and create and implement action plans that work, instead of finding excuses.  They run at the fire!

Type 2 PMs know the status of operations and are prepared to flag issues, seek solutions, and push back on demands when needed. They know how to create a win-win scenario, whether it involves negotiating a contract or securing budget resources.

Choose to work with a Type 2 Project Manager

Good PMs do more than just managing projects. They take the crucial extra step of ensuring their teams are well-trained and they commit the necessary resources.

Do you have the right project manager in place for your next project?

Think about both your project’s as well as your organisation’s ultimate objectives. 

At Luminate, we only have Type 2 project managers who can adapt to new environments and take the steps needed to take control of a project. We can help you by working together to meet those business goals. 

It’s All About the People

It’s All About the People

Jun 25, 2021

There are three words you’ll often see associated with IT: people, process, and technology. The “golden triangle” of strategy, organisation, and technical processes has also been referred to as the “three pillars of success”, and a way to solve complex business problems. 

When new technologies are introduced, many companies just set them up and hope they work, but in reality, the processes around them are more important than the technology itself, and it’s the people who determine the efficiency of those processes. 

Let’s be clear though, all those aspects are important. For a business to succeed, it requires an approach that balances the relationship between people, processes and technology. If you try to treat strategy, management, and delivery as components of an assembly line, you will appear cold. You will waste time, and your best people will move on. Project management does not have to be that way. 

People are the beating heart of project management

In addition to overseeing a project, you’re also responsible for managing the team. That means offering directions and guidance, improving performance, and allocating work wisely.

The leader of your key project needs to be a strong conversationalist and that means being a good listener. Respecting others is crucial in the role. They need to deal with people in a genuine manner, so they’ll know that it’s not only about the budget and schedule, but that you care about them and the operation. You’re on the path to success if you can get the respect of your team and your stakeholders. Strong leadership and good communication among all team members equates to positive project results.

Understand your key players

Project managers need to understand their key players. Make an effort to relate to your team members, empathise with them, listen to them, and communicate with them. You need to have the ability to read people’s personalities so that you can meet their needs and create an environment where their strengths and abilities can flourish. 

It’s the same with stakeholders and the wider business, interact positively with them, respect their point of view, and you’ll gain their support for your project. 

Build a team that consists of the right people

Practical experience, knowledge, and commitment help you solve problems. Too many organisations don’t have people who have practical experiences making decisions. They can make the dream happen, so they’re essential in leading your team to success.

As project sponsor, we know you need a team that you can trust. We hire battle hardened PMs and BAs that can lead your team with confidence on the delivery journey. Is it time you review the people that are leading your projects?