Learn about working with a project manager.

Hello, and welcome to our impactful projects, and Planning series. I'm Jami Yazdani, in today's session, we'll talk about working with a project manager.

So I'm often asked what it's like to work with a project manager or what folks should expect when hiring or bringing on an external project manager. So what can a project manager do for your project and organization? What should you know before working with a project manager?

To answer these questions, I'll talk a bit about what project managers can do. And I've got three tips to share for working with project managers. So what can a project manager do?

According to the Project Management Institute, project managers typically do a lot of things to lead a project. So they can identify project goals and project scope. They can plan and document project tasks that need to be completed, they can ensure that your deliverables or outcomes are delivered on time. They can manage all project resources, whether this is budget, people, equipment technology, they can effectively communicate with your stakeholders. So project stakeholders, whether internal or external, with your organization, they can eliminate blockers and potential risks. So hopefully, your project manager can look ahead and see what challenges risks might occur during your project and try to plan to mitigate or eliminate those risks. They can document your project processes. And often this may include using a project management tool, but they can document what's happening in the project itself and other projects that you may be leading. And of course, project managers can ensure that your project achieves top quality results and that your project is successful. So when I talk about what I do, as a project manager, working with nonprofits, and mission driven organizations, I sometimes talk about all of these things on this list. But often I really try to boil it down to three areas.

Project Plan development, meaning that I work with organizations to develop plans for their projects,

stakeholder and team communication, meaning that I communicate with internal and external stakeholders to the project, and with project teams, and monitoring and oversight, and so monitoring and overseeing tasks, resources, and deliverables. And so it's been my experience that folks often think about the project plan development, when they think about working with a project manager, kind of the planning piece is often what we're known for. And they may think about monitoring and oversight in terms of making sure that we are following the project plan.

And that everything is happening when it should be happening. Um, but often, folks may not be thinking as much about the stakeholder and team communication elements. And I really think those are so critical to project success. And so as a project manager, my goal is to facilitate collaboration. And often this involves creating meeting agendas, leading team meetings, but particularly a nonprofit environment. This can include planning for and leading brainstorming, feedback and working sessions. A part of communication also usually involves advising my clients and project team members on dealing with challenges, roadblocks, and sometimes on how to deal with difficult stakeholders.

Depending on the project, I may also even create project deliverables or contribute subject matter expertise. And so these are things that you can expect, particularly the three on the left there, but you may also get some subject matter expertise or deliverable development from your project manager. So in short,

as project managers ensure that the right people are in the right places at the right times, and ready to do the right work for your project. So that's what a project manager can do. But what should you know before hiring or engaging an external project manager? What should you expect? I've got three tips to share. So my first tip is make sure you understand your goals for the project and the project manager before you engage someone for the role. For a project to be successful, especially in nonprofits and other mission driven organizations, we need to establish a clear purpose or scope for the project very early on, it's critical to get buy in.

And so what is the primary purpose of your project? What is your ultimate goal or goals with this project. And so your project manager is going to want to understand your project's goals before they can really do anything to manage or lead your project. And so you're going to want to be clear on your goals as well. And be prepared to communicate those to your project manager. You'll also want to understand what success looks like for the project. And while achieving your goals, of course, is probably one of the primary measures of project success. You may also want to identify other types of measures. And so for example, maybe you want your project to meet certain funding requirements, or adhere to best practices, and inclusion of diverse stakeholders. So beyond project outcomes, are there ways of working that are important for your project and organization? If so, you want to understand and communicate those to your project manager.

And finally, you want to understand the roles that you want your project manager to play. So what are your expectations in terms of communication and reporting about the project? Which of those those duties and responsibilities we just talked about? are most important to you? Are there things you don't want the project manager to do? Now, if you're unsure about your goals, or the role that a project manager should play? A skilled project manager should be able to facilitate a discussion or a process with you and any key stakeholders to help clarify these goals? In understanding your goals? Here are a few questions that you can consider. What's the purpose of the project? What outcomes or impacts do you hope the project achieves? What does success look like for the project? And on the other side of that point? What does failure look like? What role will the project manager play? And what role will you or do you want to play on the project? So roles leads me to my second tip, which is to engage your project manager as a partner. So while many of the tasks project managers perform, like scheduling and sending reminders, are quite administrative in nature, project management is really a strategic skill set. It combines those administrative skills with leadership and team management, change management, collaboration, facilitation, and communication skills. And so successful project managers are strategic partners to their organizations and clients, adapting project approaches and best practices to the organization's needs and ways of working. So how can we engage our project manager,

a partner? The answer is simple, but can be really difficult in practice for folks to do. And so to engage our project managers as a partner, we need to empower them. So empower your project manager by turning over project leadership to them. This often means letting go a little bit, you're engaging a project manager, so let them manage the project, you should not have to be involved in every decision or communication. So as a project sponsor, you will be engaged with the project. You may even be a member of the project team, and you will likely have to make some key decisions. You should also be communicating with your project manager regularly about the project. But you'll still want to empower your project manager to be accountable and responsible for the project. Let them take the lead and come to you with questions and when they need your input or decision making. So if the thought of letting go of the project and handing it over, or delegating it to someone else is really scary for you

You may want to engage a project manager to co lead the project with you. Or you could partner with a project manager who can coach you through managing the project yourself, offering strategies and advice on best practices while still leaving you in the driver's seat. So getting clarity on the role you want to play in the project. And the role the project manager should play is really, really critical.

And again, a skilled project manager can help you think this through empowerment leads me to my third tip, which is that context matters to project managers. So expect to be asked and to answer lots of questions about your organization, environment, processes, and stakeholders. To plan really well to anticipate challenges and to adapt to changes that may happen during a project project managers need information. So as a project manager, I spend a lot of my time asking questions of project sponsors, team members and key stakeholders, especially during the planning phases. I often find myself asking my clients questions that may not seem immediately relevant to the project. But what I'm trying to do is understand the project's full environment and context. And I'm often anticipating barriers that may arise much further along in the project. And while I'm always happy to share why I need the information and how I think it's relevant, sharing information now can help a project manager plan better, and avoid delays and disruptions later. So essentially, the more transparent you can be with your project manager, the better, I could give countless examples of times when more information or greater sharing and transparency would have improved a project. Project delays and disruptions don't just come from outside an organization. They often come from inside because folks don't have the information that they really need to plan or respond well. So that's a quick introduction to working with a project manager. Make sure you understand your goals, engage your project manager as a partner, and be prepared to answer questions as context really does matter. In your first conversations with a project manager,

it might help to review our project planning checklist. So this simple checklist is a great start to project planning and can help you develop a more consistent project planning workflow. And so this free download is available at YazdaniConsulting.com/Resources. If you need hands on support, leading projects or want a partner or coach for your project visit our project solutions page is on a consulting.com projects to learn about how we can help. Wonderful, so I'm happy to take any questions you have about working with a project manager. So please add them in the comments. Due to a slight streaming delay. I'll give folks a few moments here to add there are questions. If I cannot answer your question live. I'm happy to respond. Later in the comments. You can also find all of the ways to contact me I guess on a consulting.com contact, please reach out to me if you'd like to talk about working with a project manager. Okay.

So a question I often get is How much should I be communicating with my project manager. And so this really depends.

Sorry, some challenges with my screen there. This really depends on your project timeline and your role in the project. And so monthly reports or meetings to provide updates and discuss challenges might work well on a longer term project. But bi weekly or weekly reports or meetings might make sense for a shorter or quick moving project. Ideally, you know, Project Sponsors would have access to projects, documents or tools and could quickly see project status. So another question, what's a project sponsor? So a project sponsor may be the project's initiator. Often this is a leader within your organization who has given final approval for the project to go forward and to ideally serves as a champion for the project. And project sponsors are often decision makers for key decisions, things like budgets, or final approval of deliverables. So wonderful. Feel free to comment or read

Shout out to me with any additional questions you might have. And thank you for participating in our impactful projects and Planning series. Visit YazdaniConsulting.com/IPP to view all of the sessions in this series and learn about upcoming sessions. Thank you