This article is written by Anna Sotto, Senior Enterprise Application Administration, Ontario, Canada

As a novice or experienced Project Manager, have you ever asked yourself these questions:
How can I measure my effectiveness as a Project Manager?

  1. Why did I receive negative feedback from a project team member or stakeholder even though the project is successful?
  2. If you have been turned down from leading a project, what have you done wrong as a PM?
  3. Why is my project delayed?
  4. Why did my project fail?

I am writing this article to share some of my experiences as a Project Manager, which includes two decades of IT experience under my belt from being a developer, designer, analyst and up to Project Lead/Manager. I hope that in one way or another, I will be able to provide some points you can take home with you as guides on becoming an effective Project Manager.

Below are some key elements or my lessons learned on some of my recent Public Sector projects I was involved with, which can be helpful for any public servant who would like to pursue Project Management or Project Lead roles in their organization:

Have a vision or set goal: All projects start with a vision, main idea or proof of concept (POC). When you’re the project lead, you should have a clear understanding of what the main objective of the project is. Some projects start with a POC, and based on its outcome it may become a project. From there, you should be able to draft a plan and identify:

  • The who (key players)
  • The what (main objective/POC)
  • The when (client expected date)
  • The how (create high-level tasks) pieces of the project.

I spent most of my time in this first stage on preparation, planning, research and conducting interviews.

One example I was part of is the Infrastructure Supercluster project. The name is eye-catching and, honestly, I was intrigued by it myself. Technically it is a project to consolidate multiple servers in different domains/locations into an on-premise Cloud storage and ensure there is no negative impact on system availability and system performance. Before I participated on the project, I did my own research and had conducted interviews about project scope, tasks involved, roles and responsibilities as well as expected delivery date.

As a Project Manager, I realised that critical thinking is essential

If I had not done the above preliminary work, it would be much more difficult to navigate through the course of the project and may result in project delay.

Think outside the box:

It may be hard to think outside of the box in projects with limited and pre-defined scopes. However, if the project you’re working on is repetitive in nature, there should be an area where you can expand your thoughts further as a Project Manager, and automation is one of them.

On my latest project, the main goal is to regularly patch the Application servers on a semi-annual basis in order to be on the latest Security Patch level. This is a daunting and rigorous task. Due to its repetitive nature, one thing to consider is to eliminate the manual configuration/testing and how to implement an automated configuration solution and test cycle runs.

Exercise critical thinking:

As a project manager, I realised that critical thinking is essential. One should be able to make rational analyses and make decisions. Collecting other people’s perspectives, ideas and inputs is beneficial in decision making as a Project Manager.

In occasions where an issue/argument arises, as a PM, one should come up with a strategy to loosen the heat of arguments and have a good open conversation with parties to avoid disputes.

Based on my experience, my values and work ethics play a major role in how I exercise critical thinking. Being on a big project, I encountered different dynamics of people, different backgrounds, character and personalities. On some occasions, there are times as a PM you will need to stand up and make a decision like a Mother Goose to the project team members. As a PM, make sure you are able to control the course of the conversation and are able to persuade, negotiate and compromise to ensure that all parties agree in the event of arguments, conflicts and decision making is required. — Anna Sotto

(Picture credit: Death to the stock photo)