Ten key management principles to guide team’s performance

From the previous post we got a better sense for what a high-performing team looks like, let’s review ten key management principles that are paramount to our efforts to guide our team’s performance:

Adapt management style - Although as a rule, a collaborative, servant leadership management approach to leading project teams will be the most effective in most situations, you might need to adjust your style depending on the project phase, the needs of your particular team, and the project environment.

Get the right people - Whenever possible, personally select the members of your core team. You should have the best understanding of the skills, abilities, and behaviors that are needed for project success. In particular, get people who have a track record of success. As any successful project manager will attest, having the right people is 80% of the battle.

Plan as a team - A major component of modern-day project management is the idea that planning is a team activity. This was a heavy emphasis in our planning chapters. Why is this key? If the team develops the project plan, it becomes “their” plan and “their” schedule. With this comes a much higher level of commitment, buy-in, and accountability, and much less time spent battling the issues you get when this is not present.

Keep the team focused - One of the most important things a project manager can do is to make sure each team member is simultaneously crystal clear on the “big picture” of the project (mission, objectives, and priorities) on one hand and focused on his immediate task on the other. To focus, not only must each team member have clear work assignments and roles, but the project manager needs to be an “umbrella” for them. As an umbrella, the project manager protects the team from the politics,
noise, and other factors that distract them and slow their progress.

Set clear expectations - To encourage maximum team productivity, nothing is more important than making sure each team member understands what is expected from him or her in advance. This applies to both work assignments and team protocols. A key aspect of this expectation-setting activity is to review the completion criteria for any work assignment up front. This step alone goes a long way to avoiding rework and increasing productivity.

Facilitate productivity - Continuing our productivity theme, the focus of the project manager should be on doing everything she can to enable each team member to be as productive as she can possibly be. What does this mean? It means the following:

• Ensure work assignments are clear and understood.
• Provide the tools, resources, and procedures to facilitate team collaboration.
• Provide all resources that are needed to accomplish the work in a timely fashion.
• Facilitate resolution to any issue impeding work assignment completion.
• Anticipate issues that might affect work productivity and take action to mitigate or prevent them (risk management at the work task level).

Improve marketability - A key goal for every person on the team is to improve his marketability through his experiences on the project. In the end, the only real job security one has is to always be “marketable”—and to continuously improve one’s marketability. Look for ways to improve skills, build résumés, and to help each person make progress on his career goals. This mindset is key to both how you assign and “sell” work tasks.

Leverage individual strengths—An extension of the previous principle, this one has three primary components:

• Look for the strengths that each person brings to the table, but understand their weaknesses. This approach keeps you positive and is especially important when you have not personally selected your team or when you have been given a team member with a “reputation.”
• Understand what drives each person, her motivators, and what she cares about. Not only will this help you position people to do better, but it will also enable you to reward and recognize them more effectively.
• Align project roles and responsibilities with each team member’s “sweet spot” as much as possible. The sweet spot is the combination of natural strengths and personal motivators.

Recognize and reward—This principle has three primary aspects:

• PR agent—Pretend you are the public relations agent for each one of your team members. In addition to providing timely feedback and appreciation to each person personally, make sure the “right people” (especially the people who influence their career advancements and compensation) know about the excellent work your team members are doing throughout the project. Don’t wait to do all this at the end of the project or at annual review time; it is much more effective and meaningful if it is communicated as it happens.
• Celebrate—Take the time and make plans to celebrate interim milestones along the way. This forces you to acknowledge the efforts to date and helps to build team momentum.
• Rewards—There are two key items here: First, look for ways during initial project planning and throughout the project that will allow the team members to share in the rewards (profits) if the project accomplishes certain goals. Second, if the project team or specific team members are asked to perform heroic efforts, set up an incentive that will both reward, and acknowledge the special efforts.

Facilitate team synergy - Especially early on in the project, use methods to help build the cohesiveness of the team. Most teams naturally go through the traditional “forming, norming, storming, and performing” stages, but there are things you can do to be a positive influence on this
process. Depending on how much the given project team has worked together before and where they are physically located, the specifics will differ, but as a guide, you want to focus on the following:

• Build relationships - Set up team-building outings, team lunches, team meetings, and so on that will enable relationships to begin and grow.
• Foster team collaboration - Set up the tools that make it easy for the team to work together regardless of work locations; look for opportunities to have multiple team members work together on a single assignment to encourage knowledge sharing and reduce risk around “isolated pockets of expertise” in addition to improving overall team performance.
• Setup team procedures - Determine what rules, guidelines, and protocols are needed to help establish team productivity (such as modes of communication, core hours, standard meeting times, work standards, work processes, and administrative procedures).
• See progress - Structure the project approach so that the team can get some early, visible progress. Not only does this create enthusiasm for the stakeholders, but it does the same for the core team, too. In addition, track the team’s progress and accomplishments in a very visible fashion. This helps build enthusiasm, but also encourages pride and accountability in project efforts.

Here I am ending this post, in the next post we'll take a look at a few proven techniques that generally lead to better project team performance.