You are planning to talk to your staff about the need to improve how they manage projects. There have been unnecessary delays in completing project tasks. You want employees to improve how they plan, coordinate, and perform project activities. You also want them to leave this meeting understanding WHY these improvements matter and feeling motivated to make changes. How might you approach this discussion? Try linking your employees' improved performance to these four positive results:
1. Budget: Consider things like fewer cost overruns, decreased expenditures, or staying within budget allocations. Is there an impact on present or future funding? Or perhaps you and your employees have to spend unnecessary time justifying expenditures. How could improved approaches to project management lead to more positive budget experiences?
2. Complaints: Think about how affected parties react when project delays occur. Who do they complain to? And what happens when they complain? Do you or your employees have to spend extra time consoling and reassuring these stakeholders? Or maybe the entire project plan has to be revised to appease a particularly powerful stakeholder. How might this change, for the better, if your employees' changed how they managed projects?
3. Accomplishments: Think about how a failure to effectively plan, coordinate, and perform project activities impacts other employees, groups, contractors, or departments. What's the cost in time, tasks, money, and resources? How could improved performance make things better for others, and by association, make things better for your project managers?
4. Problem Solving: Consider how poor planning affects your employees' ability to solve problems. What is the negative impact on project tasks? How might earlier contingency plans or advanced consideration of possible problems improve their ability to solve problems quickly and correctly?
Your Focus Determines Project Management Improvements
To encourage improved project management, you need employees to feel motivated to take personal responsibility for doing a better job. You can make that happen by focusing on common goals, common purposes, and common benefits. Project management, like other workload topics, offers many opportunities to focus on common areas. You just have to think about what you want to say during your discussion.
If you explain WHY performance improvement matters, you will increase your chance of getting buy-in and cooperation. Try these four explanations the next time you have to talk to employees about improving project management. These explanations will not only help you keep focused, they will help you frame your discussion in a way that could lead to positive results.
Barbara Brown, PhD shows managers how to improve employee performance by linking performance to results. Her E-Books contain phrases and examples for discussing performance, improving performance, and reinforcing performance. Her E-Courses provide strategies for motivating employees to cooperate and contribute.
Click on "FREE STUFF" at her website to download tools to manage performance discussions.
Website: http://www.LinkToResults.net
Email: Barbara@LinkToResults.net
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