We have studied to gather material for seven smart tips for how to succeed with your projects. With these, we hope to give you better conditions to handle projects in the future.

The project manager is the core of a project, but that does not necessarily mean that you are the project’s most important player. As with all leadership, project management is about supporting other people, that is, you help other project participants to help themselves. You must be humble in the face of the fact that only together can you reach your goals and complete the project.

1. Communicate clearly

How you, together with all the participants in the project, are to achieve your goals and sub-goals obviously needs to be clarified in a project plan. But what happens when there are changes in the plan and how do you handle the fact that you have received another request from the project client?

Whether it is a lack of, or an abundance of, resources that you and the project group need to relate to, it is undoubtedly that all new conditions must be communicated to all participants. How you choose to do this is one of your most important commitments as a project manager. Communicating vaguely can sometimes be worse than not communicating at all.

2. Feedback

As a project manager, you need to be able to both give and receive feedback. How you handle feedback is also an important part of communication. Feel free to twist and turn the criticism that comes, try to turn it into something positive that makes the project better and try not to take the criticism personally. Part of the responsibility as a project manager is to be able to handle criticism, even if it is not necessarily your fault.

Build trust

The easiest way to build trust is by being knowledgeable, credible and reliable in what you say and do. It’s easy to say, but how do you do it?

Spend some time with your project colleagues. If someone seems stressed, you can ask if they need help. Try to have meetings with each of your colleagues to gather feedback. In larger multi-participant projects, you can still sit down with group leaders and specialists and instruct them to do the same with their closest colleagues.

Also, do not be afraid to ask for help. In fact, it can be a great way to show that you trust others. The one who gives also gets back. Strong alone is not a motto for a project manager.

Set goals and milestones

You’ve heard it before, but it’s true. Setting goals makes a big difference to the project’s success and its effectiveness.

To make the goal clearer, you as a project manager can set different intermediate goals along the way. It is important for the participants that you move forward, otherwise, the motivation risks trying and the project starts to falter. The goals are also a good indicator of which project phase you are in.

There are several project management methods that can help you create a comprehensible project plan with clear goals and sub-goals.

Dare to release a project

It’s not something we invent. Some projects cannot be saved and then it is much better for you and all involved, clients and your own company to break the project.

There are countless reasons why some projects do not finish and just like in life, there are sometimes obstacles we can not move around. But releasing a project is not giving up! It may not have been the right time, the organization may not have been mature or the resources you were not counting on. There is a lot of experience to gather even from a failed project.

Does it turn out that a project only costs time and money and that the goal is no longer worth the effort you put in? Then it’s time to make the bravest decision of the project and cancel the project, even if no one thanks you for it.

6. Be a time pessimist

It is easier for everyone involved if you are generous with the time frame for the project. If you set the framework too narrowly, have you really counted on everything that can go wrong? A project can take many unexpected turns, so it may be wise to plan for slips even before they appear.

Not to forget the great benefit of actually delivering a completed project before the deadline.

7. Project manager training

We’re not going to hammer it in unnecessarily, you know which side you’re on. With that said, there are, after all, many reasons to go on education before a major project. You may also need to use a project management method you are not familiar with before. Then you have to learn in one way or another.

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