Fair PRINCE2 Projects in Project Management

Every project manager needs to ensure that they run projects that are completely fair to all of the people involved in them. Doing this will help to keep the work on track and avoid anyone getting upset at being left out or ignored. So, how will you do this? Knowledge Tree Training is here to explain how this can be achieved.

It is important to remember that your project doesn’t just have to be fair. It also needs to be seen as being fair too. To do this well, you should stick to principles such as those that follow. Don’t give anyone any reason to think that you are behaving unfairly at any time.

Everyone Get to Have Their Say

As the PRINCE2 project leader, the big decisions will ultimately be on your shoulders. You need to make the tough decisions but that doesn’t mean that other people can’t help you out. You might find that this helps you as well as them.

Everyone who deals with the project is likely to have their own opinions on it. From junior business analysts to senior stakeholders and end-users in the business area. Ignoring their thoughts could make them feel under-valued and might also mean missing out on potentially useful ideas.

There are a number of ways of gathering the thought of other people working on the projects. Provided that you are open to other people’s ideas you will soon see that you pick up a lot of different thoughts in this way. The key is then to filter then down to the best ones.

No-one Career Prospects Are Limited

Do members of your project team feel that they have the prospect of a long and interesting career ahead of them? Part of this comes down to how you encourage them to develop their skills. Putting a comprehensive development plan in place for each person will allow you to help them to grow.

Just as you continue with your own PRINCE2 training plan, you need to understand what courses are needed by other members of your team. You need to consider each person individually, of course. Do they want to focus in technical skills or train to be a team leader?

This is going to benefit the team member in question but it is also going to make future projects easier for you to run as well. Building up a big range of skills in your team will give you a lot more flexibility going forward.

Hard Work is Rewarded Fairly

Do people who work on projects with you feel that their hard work and dedication is fairly rewarded? Some pieces of work are more challenging than others, with everyone involved having to make sacrifices in order to achieve the milestones on time.

When the dust has settled on a project, it is vital that you work out who deserves to be promoted, get a cash bonus or receive any other sort of reward that fits the effort they have put in. Even a fairly modest reward can help them to feel good about the role that they have played in the project.

You need to use all of the evidence you can find to make a wise decision in each case. It is perfectly natural for someone to get upset if they feel that you have unfairly rewarded them with less than they deserve. This situation is even worse if you give a bigger reward to someone who was less important in the work.

If you keep these areas in mind then you should get a strong, motivated team that does a great job for you time and time again.

Learn to Build the Right PRINCE2 Team

No project manager can be expected to do it all alone on any piece of work. This is why the process of building up a strong team is such a vital part of the role. If you have the right people working for you then you stand a much better chance of being successful.

What are the most important factors that you need to take into account when building your team from scratch? Do their skills count for more than their personalities, for example? While no two projects are the same, there are some general rules that you should look to remember when creating a team.

Get the Right Blend of Skills

Having a team of highly, experienced, flexible business analysts is the dream of every project manager. Yet, this can be pretty much impossible to do for a number of reasons. Your best team members might leave, get promoted or switch to other projects before you really get to see the very best of them.

Therefore, it is entirely possible that you never get to see the sort of multi-skilled team of business analysts that you want. This makes it even more important for you to get the right blend of skills. Since you probably won’t have people who are experts in everything, you will need them to provide a useful mixture of abilities.

No matter what their starting point is, you can help by providing the training that they need over time. By arranging different types of training you can encourage them to develop in different ways for the good of the team. Naturally, you won’t want to neglect your own PRINCE2 training while you do this.

Choose the Right Sort of Personality

The personalities of your project team members can be just as important as their skills. This sort of work is perfect for some people but not for others. For a start, they need to be open to changes and highly flexible in their approach each day.

New team members coming from a business area background can struggle to get used to the unique demands of project work. If they are comfortable with a set routine and constantly recurring tasks then this can seem like a huge step into the unknown.

The transition to a project environment is made a lot easier if the person in question is open to it. This can be difficult to assess in a job interview. You may need to look at their personal interests and attitude rather than relying simply on their work history to guide you in this.

Do They Deal Well with Other People?

The people skills needed in projects are often under-estimated. While other abilities are certainly needed, this will count for little if the team member is unable or unwilling to build relationships and work with a variety of different groups.

The ideal project teamwork will be able to explain their ideas clearly to a junior end-user or to a senior manager, as the situation demands. Of course, people skills can be learned to a degree but they still need a good start in terms of personality. Someone who is awkward speaking to others will find this job difficult to carry out to a high level.

You will also need to take into account important issues such as your budget and the space you have available. Might you also need to have workers who are able to work from home or in different locations? All in all, there are numerous different factors that can help you to make smart choices as you build up your team.