Project Management Tips - How to be a Great Project Manager - YouTube

This is for you!

Yes, I know it's a hockey trophy, I'm Canadian so of course I have a hockey trophy

But I want you to replace this hockey player with you as a project manager and consider this

a project manager trophy because after you watch this video and you follow these tips

you are going to be an amazing project manager and you are gonna rock it!

Hi, my name is Adriana Girdler and I'm president of CornerStone Dynamics and a productivity expert.

I'm also a PMP, a Project Management Professional, and I've been doing this for over 20 years.

I do some major projects, a lot on a global scale, some pretty cool *beep*

So in this video, I'm going to share with you some tips, things that you don't think about

that really are going to distinguish you from being a good to a great project manager.

Don't be a know-it-all! Project management is not a natural skill set. I don't know how many times I've come

across project managers who are really not great project managers.

Tell your team that you're new to project management. Take some courses so that you can understand the

fundamentals of project management, that is really important.

Even more so, get your PMP designation because once you have that, you can go through any industry, any department

and you really will have a job for life. It's a valuable, valuable position to be in.

So that being said, your first tip to being a great project manager is don't be a know-it-all 'cause

I promise you, I learn something every day and I've been doing this for 20 years.

I know I don't look it. Was that stupid? I'm good with being silly.

Psychology 101! It is really important that you understand how teams work.

Now, if back in school, you did not take any psychology courses, I highly recommend you start reading some books on psychology

because the key to great project management is not just about executing tasks, it's about motivating your team members.

Think about it, these are people who have to execute tasks on the project behalf, you're

managing the project but they don't report to you, so sometimes there's a conflict of interest because

they're like, well I only listen to my manager, I'm not going to listen to you as project manager so

you have to learn how to motivate people and understanding the fundamentals of psychology

and the way we think as human beings is critical not only from a standpoint of motivation

but empowerment, if you want to be a great project manager it's not just about the checklist

it's about having the team own it because I promise you, once they feel empowered they will move mountains

for you, things that you never thought were possible.

And that is really cool, particularly on large scale, complex projects.

So, look up psychology 101, understand some motivation, read, read, read, and understand how

it's best to motivate your team members.

Provide inspiration! So, this is not a scope statement, nor is it a vision statement.

It is really kind of like an inspiration statement. We talked about psychology 101 and the importance of

how to motivate a team, well part of that is inspiration. Now, I wanna share with you something

really cool that I do with my projects and I've actually used Emmett here

quite a bit. Major global scale project, we came up with our theme that everything is awesome

because let me tell you, when you're in big projects, everything is not awesome

There's a lot of ups and downs but when you have inspiration and you bring people together,

you can use Emmett, our little guy here, bring him on to meetings, we've had some fun things, we did

videos and we had Emmett in the videos, but really, to this day, the project that I worked on that I

introduced Emmett and 'everything is awesome' as an inspiration statement,

they still email me and they'll still use that tag line because they connected me as their project

manager to this inspiration. It is a super easy, fun, cool way to bring some fun in your project

and inspiration so it doesn't have to be Emmett, it can be anybody you want, and you can reuse and recycle

as much as you want with it as well. It's fun, it's easy, but most important, it inspires your team.

Don't be a drill sergeant! I know when you're project managing, particularly when things are stressful

you probably get into this routine of, get it done, checklist, check, check, check, check

sometimes in that mode we can become 'my way or the highway,' that is not going to work. If you

want to be a great project manager and you want to really empower your team, then you need to be flexible

it is not a one way street, it is a two way street. So don't be a drill sergeant, listen to what your team has to say

Now that being said, you will have to have some sort of 'go no go' things, there's some fundamental things that I

don't negotiate on. I must have this in order for me as a project manager to manage the project, however there's

other things I'm very flexible on so I always listen to the team, if I have to have a certain document that everyone

has to use for updating, that's my rule, no ifs, ands or buts.

But how often we update it I'm very flexible with and I listen to the team regarding it

So it is a two-way street, don't be a drill sergeant 'cause I promise you, you won't be successful for that long

people will not listen to you and if you're going to be successful you really need to have people be on board and inspired

Last but not least I want you to wash, rinse and repeat! (Aka, communicate, communicate, communicate!)

So, you cannot communicate too much on a project, and if you're going to be a great project manager you

really need to, I like to say, over communicate. I have a golden rule, I never say things once.

Why? Cause I promise you there were some people who didn't hear what I wanted to say or explain to them the

first time I did it and I'm sure you've come across that as well. So I always tel my team upfront, particularly at the kickoff,

I'm gonna probably say the same thing 25 times. And it has nothing to do with whether or not I believe that you got it

it's because there's going to be one person who doesn't get it. So the whole key is to over-communicate

Ensure everyone understands what they're responsible for, but not only just communication within the team

it's communicating outside of the team, to your stakeholders, to the sponsor, to any external agency that's heping you

with that information, ideally it's not just communication, it's a change management plan that you really need to start integrating

Now, I'm going to have to do a video on that. I don't have one on that yet but that's probably really fundamental for large scale projects

for smaller projects you can probably just stick with communication as a whole but for large scale projects definitely go the other route

But that being said, wash, rinse, repeat. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Did I tell you how important it was to communicate?

Let me know what you think. Write 'project management' in the comments below, please like my video, give it a thumbs up

subscribe to the button below, share it with your friends, family, colleagues

I really would appreciate it. On that note, I will see you at the next video. See you later, bye!