Give Project Managers the Tools Necessary for Success
Project managers are integral to building a sustainable and successful business. They not only serve as the primary point of contact for your clients, but they also manage the bulk of your revenues.
One of the keys to success with these responsibilities is the ability to communicate. Project managers are on the front lines of a business and often explain company decisions and strategy to clients and employees. As the representative of the company, it is imperative that project managers have a good working knowledge of company goals, strategies, resources and finances.
Executive leadership first needs to be able to communicate to the project manager the company policies and strategies, and how their role and mission must support the strategic plan. It is much easier to get staff buy-in on changes when they have an understanding of the reasoning behind the changes. Here are three steps to open up communication and make project managers’ jobs easier, which will impact their ability to bring in successful and profitable projects.
- EDUCATE THEM ABOUT FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS
Most creative and technical professionals do not receive business management training as part of their formal education. It is ineffective to throw reports at them with lots of concepts and terminology and expect project managers to understand them, let alone produce great results.
It is proven that properly trained project managers produce more profitable projects. Investing in training on time management, financial reporting, project planning and utilization management will provide a great return on investment for your management team.
- ARM THEM WITH THE INFORMATION THEY NEED
To effectively manage people and projects, project managers need reliable, timely, and easy-to-understand reports and data. Providing this data in a format they can easily disseminate will improve overall project performance.
Another way to make their jobs easier is exception reporting, which is a method of reporting that highlights projects that are struggling or need immediate attention. This can be done graphically, by color coding, or by using notifications that highlight projects that are not on track. Developing streamlined and real-time reporting for managers is critical to helping them deliver profitable projects.
- PROVIDE ADMINISTRATIVE HELP TO MANAGE PROJECTS
With all of the daily responsibilities and distractions that project managers face each day, any way their administrative burden can be alleviated will pay off tenfold. It is not cost effective to have project managers—a company’s most expensive resource—weighed down with routine tasks and updating databases. Instead, increase efficiency by allowing them to focus their attention where it is best used by providing additional, cost-effective administrative resources.
Every dollar poured into training project managers and facilitating their job duties will be returned in improved project performance and profitability.
Excerpts from this article were taken from constructionexec.com.
