How to effectively manage project teams and enable them to success?

1. New Vistas in Project Management – Igniting
Human Potential
Ravi Kanniganti

2. Human Potential in Organizations
Through my projects in space, defense and nuclear sectors, I know that
our people have the ability to achieve the best in the world. They have a
fantastic mix of belief and knowledge that sets them apart from any
other nation on earth. I also know that their potential is untapped
because we have become used to subjugated and docile.. That as a
nation we were failing to utilize our tremendous energies..”
-- Dr. APJ Abul Kalam in Ignited Minds
Same can be said about employees in our organizations to certain extent.
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3. Large Teams Vs Small Teams
“ The control of a large force is the same principle as
the control of a few men: it is merely a question of
dividing up their numbers.
Fighting with a large army under your command is
nowise different from fighting with a small one: it is
merely a question of instituting signs and signals.”
-- Sun Tzu Art of War
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4. Problem Statement
• Project Managers are becoming task masters
losing touch with people.
• High stress levels among Project managers
and team members
Project Managers
Of
Real World
• Distrust, lack of loyalty and attrition
problems
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5. Problem Statement
• Project Managers are carrying too much load
on them because they don’t know either how
to delegate or motivate team members to
share their load.
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6. Problem Statement
•Project Managers are more focused on
completing the current project than
building an organization that can
complete challenging projects
consistently.
•Project managers treating humans
beings as machines, subjecting them to
metrics, statistics and forgetting the
basic thing that drives humans to excel.
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7. Problem Statement
• Meanwhile team members are confused
with conflicting messages from Project
managers.
• Team members are angry due to lack of
clarity in the roles and responsibilities.
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8. How can we fix the problem?
Project Managers should do a
balancing act of managing project
tasks on one hand and keep the
team motivated and engaged on the
other hand.
• Let us look at some tips on how to do this
balancing act..
– Know how to obtain buy-in and overcome
resistance.
– How to set goals and manage projects
“ruthlessly,” while balancing that with
human implications.
– Understand how to enable a team for
success by unlocking the potential of its
individual members in a way that supports
your organization’s/project needs.
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9. What Radio Station do you tune to?
What’s In It For Me
WIIFM
“Your listeners won’t care what you say
until they know that you care.”
—Anonymous
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10. “If someone asks me about my personal
achievements in Indian rocketery, I would pin
it down to having created an environment for
teams of young people to put their heart and
soul into their missions.”
-- Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
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11. Practical tips on how to solve these problems…
•Involve the team in your Game plan and show
them the Big picture
•Focus on reporting structures, career paths
and responsibilities
•Effective delegation
•Active Listening, relationship building and
decision-making
•Motivating and handle mistakes gracefully
• Celebrate Victory with extended teams.
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12. Involve the team in your Game Plan and show them the
Big picture
•It’s giving people the reason
for doing the job, the
purpose of working.
•Management is all about
instilling that desire to excel
at work. It’s about instilling
ownership and the sense of
pride at having
accomplishing something
worthwhile
•Instilling this sense of
belongingness and
attachment towards the
project into the employees is
the job of project managers.
•Let them be owners of their
domain
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13. • “If you hire people just because they can do a
job, they will work for money. But if you hire
people who believe what you believe, they will
work for you with blood, sweat and tears.”
-- Simon
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14. Breakthrough projects require a
higher level of commitment. People
don’t treat project as work but as a
duty to the Nation or Organization.
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15. Focus on reporting structures, career paths and responsibilities
• As a designer of a wheel knows how
to place the spokes and space them
apart for smooth ride, we as project
managers should know how to
place our people on the project for
a smooth ride.
• Reporting structures should not be
based solely on corporate titles and
job functions, but should be based
on project needs.
• Project roles should be allocated
such that individual’s strengths are
utilized and weaknesses are offset.
• Situational Leadership and Tough
Empathy are required. Tough
empathy means giving people what
they need not what they want.
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16. “When the general is weak and without authority, when his orders are not
clear and distinct; when there are no fixed duties assigned to officers and
men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result
is utter disorganization.
Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into deepest
valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by
you even unto death. If however, you are indulgent, but unable to make
your authority felt; kind hearted, but unable to enforce your commands;
and incapable, moreover, of quelling disorder: then your soldiers must be
likened to spoilt children; they are useless for any practical purposes.”
-- Sun Tzu Art of War
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17. Effective Delegation and Control
• Get rid of the monkeys from your back by
effective delegation. This boosts team morale.
• You are delegating responsibility but not
your accountability.
•Avoid losing sight of bigger picture. Don’t be
busy solving technical problems or doing your
team member’s job and lose sight of your role.
At the same time, don’t be too hand’s off
either.
•Monitoring & Control: Like a hawk, monitor
the projects and kill non-value adding projects.
This will do lot of good to the organizations.
-- Drives performance oriented culture and releases
resources to the pool.
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18. Move from zone of fear and distrust to area of trust and
openness. Delegation cannot happen if there is no trust.

19. Active Listening, Relationship building
•
and Timely Decision Making
Active Listening
• Relationship building. Think account
management at bank. Can you withdraw
without depositing anything. How long can
overdraft work?
• Project teams get frustrated and de-
motivated when they see no action taken
on the issues that are brought to the
notice of the delivery manager.
• Teams would love to work for a manager
who takes action, albeit the wrong ones
than working for a manager who
procrastinates.
• “Chaotic action is preferable to orderly
inaction” – Karl Weick
A Golden Quote By RATAN TATA- "I Don't Believe In
Taking Right Decisions. I Take Decisions & Then Make
Them Right" 19

20. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
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21. Handling mistakes during project implementation.
•The idea is to be firm, but not abusive and to
coach instead of being critical
•The famous US president, Dwight D.
Eisenhower, said “You don’t lead by hitting
people over the head – that’s assault, not
leadership”.
•Managers have a bad habit of focusing on the
negative. It is a common observation that
managers tend to react quickly to anything
that goes wrong and overlook everything that
goes right.
•Encourage some informed risk taking
otherwise, you might be scuttling innovation.
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22. Handling Failures – Dr. Kalam’s views
―You cannot expect a person to deliver results if you humiliate him nor you can
you expect a person to deliver results if you abuse him or despise him. The line
between firmness and harshness, between strong leadership and bullying,
between discipline and vindictiveness is very fine but it has to be drawn”
From Key Notes delivered at
PM International Conference – Hyderabad -2005 22

23. Celebrate Small Wins with Extended Teams
• Celebrate small victories and completion of
milestones, because these celebrations give an
opportunity for you to recognize the
work, instill self-esteem and to make the team
feel better about what they do.
•Include extended team members who helped
in your project including
Services, HR, Technical
support, Database, Infrastructure folks in your
celebrations. Typically we take work from
extended teams, but seldom remember them
to include them in project completion
celebrations.
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24. Tough questions for middle managers
(Adopted from Jack Stack)
1. What are you personally giving to the people you manage?
2. Do you spend as much time thinking about them as you spend thinking about
customers, or other departments or people higher up in the organization?
3. Do you share your problems, or do you keep them to yourself? Have you
asked your people for help in carrying your load? Do they even know what
your load is? Have you told them your critical number?
4. Do you yourself operate with an open book? Do you let your people know
everything that you know?
5. Are you getting the benefit of their intelligence, or do you still you are
responsible for coming up with the answers on your own?
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25. Tough questions for middle managers
(Adopted from Jack Stack)
6. Do our people know what to do without being told, or do they wait to get a list
from you? Is everybody working toward the same goal? Does everybody know
what it is? Do you let people figure out the best way to get there?
7. Do you know what gets your people angriest? Have you ever asked them about
their frustrations and their fears? What keeps them awake at night?
8. Have you talked to your people about your own fears and frustrations? Can you
let down your guard enough to do that? Are you willing to make yourself
vulnerable? Do you have enough self-confidence to take the chance that you
might get screwed?
Most important, if the answers to such questions are no, do you
really want to change?
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26. You can make a difference
In your area of control and area of influence, provide the
umbrella to the team and protect them from harsh sun light and
rain, etc (Org Politics, Perception, forces that act against
interest of project etc). Don’t wait for corporate direction. You
can make a difference to your team starting today.
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27. Closing Comments
• Whatever the project may be, once
you really understand what needs to
be done, once you can communicate
the same to your team and show
them the roadmap, and instill the
confidence that you know how to get
there, half of your project work is
complete.
• After that your project will be
executed by your team. They know
the big picture, they will be
committed and they will be
intrinsically motivated.
• As a Project Manager, you can just
relax.. You just did your job.
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28. References
[1] Conner, Daryl. Managing The Human Aspects of CRM Projects: Installation Vs Realization. ODR White Paper, 2001.
[2] Goffee, Robert; Jones Gareth. Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? Harvard Business Review on What Makes a Leader. Harvard Business School
Press, 2001.
[3] Hatter, Keith. The secret of motivation. Accountancy Age, Dec 2004.
[4] Kapoor, Rahul. Making Mistakes. The Times of India, Education Times. February 28, 2005.
[5] Kothari, Pooja. The Ugly Subordinate. The Economic Times, Corporate Dossier. January 14, 2005.
[6] Lewis, James P. Project Planning Scheduling & Control. Tata McGraw-Hill Edition, 2001.
[7] Oncken, William Jr; Wass, Donald L. Management Time, Who’s Got the Monkey. Harvard Business Review on Becoming a High Performance Manager.
Harvard Business School Press, 2002
[8] Prayag, Anjali. Up, up and away. Hindu Business Line Canvas. Feb 26, 2005.
[9] Project Management Institute. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide). 2000.
Scherr, Allen. Managing for Breakthroughs in Productivity, Human Resources Management, (Fall 1989).
[10] Stack, Jack; Burlingham, BO. The Great Game of Business. Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc, 1992
[11] Tripathi, Suryakanthi. Attentive Listensing: Healing Helpline. The Times of India, The Speaking Tree. March 2, 2005.
[12] Key Notes by Dr.Abdul Kalam, President of India delivered at Hyderabad – 2005
[13] Photos from Internet. Non-copyrighted photographs.
[14] Wings of Fire by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
[15] Art of War by Sun Tzu
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29. Contact Information
Ravi Kanniganti
rkanniganti@gmail.com
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