Reflection: Influence without authority
Reflection: Influence without authority | Foundations of Project Management | week-2
1.
In this exercise, you will read a scenario and comment about how you would react to the situation. Then, you will list and describe skills that make a project manager successful. Start by considering the following scenario:
A co-worker is responsible for researching and providing you with a list of potential venues for a retirement party. For the last three weeks, they have been telling you they will complete the list by “the end of the week (EOW).” When you check in with them at the beginning of each of the weeks, they tell you they didn’t get around to completing it but that it will be done by the current week.
How might you influence this situation without authority? Write 2-3 sentences.
How did you do? Here are a few approaches we recommend:
Talk to your co-worker about the overall schedule for the retirement party, and explain to them how selecting a venue as soon as possible is critical to the success of the overall event and will determine what the date of the party will be.
Ask your co-worker about their current workload and see if there is anything you can do to free up their schedule. You can also offer to get someone else to help them, if needed.
Midweek, consider sending your co-worker a gentle reminder about their end of week commitment and ask how it's coming along.
2.
Write a list of the most valuable interpersonal skills required to be a successful project manager and describe how each skill contributes to a project manager’s success. Write and describe at least four skills.
Here’s a recap of the most valuable interpersonal skills we’ve discussed so far in the course.
Interpersonal skills:
Enabling decision making: The ability to enable decision making on the team, or gather decisions from the appropriate leader is crucial to keep projects on task and achieve their goals. As a project manager, you will need to enable decisions frequently.
Communicating and escalating: As a project manager, you’ll use your communication skills in just about everything you do. And you need to know when it is appropriate to escalate, so that critical issues are raised and addressed as soon as possible to reduce negative impact on a project.
Remaining flexible: As a project manager, knowing how to be flexible when changes are needed is key. Plans will change — even with careful, upfront planning. As a project manager being flexible is critical to be able to course correct and adapt when the unexpected happens.
Organizational Skills: Having strong organizational skills means having the ability to organize the core elements of a project and ensure nothing gets lost or overlooked. A project manager needs to be organized so that they can manage a project and all of its moving parts.
Negotiation: As a project manager, you’ll have to know how to balance the needs of your teammates with the needs of the project. For example, if a teammate says they can’t complete their work on time, you may need to compromise on a deadline.
Conflict mediation: Resolving tension and conflict within a team is an important skill. This may involve setting up a meeting with two teammates that are struggling to agree upon the best way to handle a shared task. Understanding motivations: Getting to know your teammates and figuring out what pushes them to their best work is an effective skill to have. Understanding motivations also involves understanding how your teammates prefer to receive feedback.