When a project begins the level of enthusiasm amongst the members of a team can be at an all-time high, and this is exactly how it should be. Everyone will be keen to get started, briming with ideas and hopeful for a successful outcome from the project. Of course, these feelings of enthusiasm rarely last too long. A few weeks into the project the problems may already have started to appear, and the assigned tasks for the project may turn out to be not as simple as people might have first thought.
There are a huge number of things that can make the happy first state of a project change and these changes can happen very quickly when they do come about. It is vital for any project manager to acknowledge these things that can change a project. Training courses for PMs may touch on the fact that this is where the feelings, opinions, and ideas of the other members of the project team can become really important.
Why are feelings, opinions, and ideas so important?Project
When a problem, particularly an unpredicted one occurs in a project it can be really important to look at exactly what has gone wrong and how it can be put right. These issues are the ones that are not necessarily planned for in the project plan and can come as an unpleasant shock when they do occur.
Communication between the project manager, the project team members and even the stakeholder of the project is important in order to try and find the best solution and promptly. As a collective the entire project team, from the oldest most experienced team member to the newest recruit, must come together to try and consider all of the possibilities that may help the project move along. These opinions and ideas can provide an incredibly varied range of possible solutions to the issue, some of which may seem a little farfetched or too complicated to work and others that may point out some obvious and very simple fixes.
No matter how impractical or hard to achieve, training for PMs tells us that a good project manager must use tact in considering all of the ideas that have been put to them. The happiness of the team is such a vital element of being part of any project and it is paramount to ensure that the feelings of people who have put forward what they consider to be valid ideas are respected. There is nothing guaranteed to make someone feel undervalued and unappreciated as a member of a team than their opinions being swept to one side, not listened to, and not given any consideration.
Whilst it may seem like feelings over opinions and ideas might have little place in a busy project this couldn’t be further from the truth. A project manager who values their team will always find the time to listen to those opinions and ideas put forward by any of their team members because the solution to a problem has the potential to come from even the most unexpected source.
