This blog post lists a few things that I noticed were important about my project manager role. I reflected on teamwork, scheduling, documenting, and general communication. Hopefully, this is also useful to other people trying to take on the project manager role in the future.
Trust Your Team Mates
I think this is one of the most important things. If there is no trust in a team, how can you do good work? I think the first assumption should always be that everybody tries their best to do work they are proud of.
I myself always work best in an environment that is not controlling everything I do, and I tried to incorporate that into my project manager role as well. Everyone works the way they are most productive, and I tried to schedule the week around the habits of the team.
Document Absolutely Everything
Last week I wrote a blog post about it here. But to give a short summary:
Document everything you can think of, better to be safe than sorry because you missed something important.
- Briefing notes
- Everything the client says
- Team meeting notes
- Who's working on what, who has problems with what
- Which KPIs do we need, all the business questions to answer
- All the details of dashboard design, colors, formatting, ...
Follow Up Immediately
If there are open questions from your side, if the client requests more information, etc., write that follow-up email immediately! Otherwise, in the next five minutes, there will probably be something else that will distract you and give you the next task to take care of.
It's so important to keep the communication up. If there are changes in your plans, you also should follow up with the client immediately. Don't delay important information!
Follow Up Again if You Don't Get Answers in Time
If the client takes too long to get back to you on important questions, maybe they just forgot, or they don't recognize that you need the specific information urgently to continue your work. Asking again in a nice and respectful way doesn't hurt.
Sometimes things fall by the wayside, and it could be a big problem if you just passively wait until the client eventually comes to you. A small unanswered question could delay your work, or even put errors into your analysis if it's something you didn't understand about the client data.
Keep Track of Who Struggles With What and Check in Even if They Don't Ask for Help
There will always be people who ask for help and people who prefer to solve problems on their own when they are stuck. I think it helps to actively go around and offer help. Sometimes it's hard to even notice you are stuck until someone else asks how you are coming along. It also always helps to just have a second look at the work and a second opinion on how to proceed further.
I also noticed that it's really helpful to understand everyone's work better and to discuss it individually while also getting an overview of the team's work as a whole. That really helped me coordinate when team members' work was overlapping without them noticing, or faced the same problems so that I could connect them better.
Keep Meetings Short and to the Point
It's really important for everyone to understand what the team members are doing, seeing their progress, giving each other feedback on the work. At the same time, I think meetings can be a huge time-waster.
I tried to find a balance between both, which was hard at times. I was second-guessing myself if I should do more meetings in the execution part of the project. But in the end, I felt like it's more important to give the team quality thinking time to get into a good work flow.
This part probably depends on the team and how independently everybody can work. If there is a lot to coordinate, more meetings would probably be best.
Get Outside Help for Road Blocks
Think about how you can help out your team mates or yourself. How can you connect them to others when they are stuck? At the Data School, if we can't solve problems inside our immediate team, we usually ask our colleagues for help. There are so many experts for all topics all around the office or just a quick Teams call away. The most important thing is to not be afraid to ask for help!
Keep Your Team Free From Outside Work Load
And last but not least, I think this is similar to the meeting problem: keep your team distraction-free. Don't schedule a million things in a day; let them be able to get into the zone. I myself can be so much more productive if I can focus on something for longer periods of time, without interruption.
Let everyone be able to work together, but also give the team members the time to think on their own and be able to retreat into their bubble, without someone constantly micromanaging their every move.