Organize and support the work of the project team

Organizing and supporting the project team’s work goes beyond the sole purpose of completing a project while meeting the established project plan, budget, and timeline.

The project team must be a functioning unit of individuals who share a common goal, and unity of purpose is essential to success.

However, a united team is not a given, and without an effective, aligned organizational structure, any mission may be an unrealistic goal.

Individuality, skills, and creativity are crucial components of a team’s dynamics. Keeping these qualities in check and moving forward as a team is a daunting task that a project manager must know how to accomplish.

So here are 9 tips for organizing and supporting the work of your project team.

How to Organize and Support Team Work

So let’s go through, point by point, the 9 key aspects of organizing and supporting all the men and women who make up our Project Team.

How to Organize and Support Team Work: Bringing the Team Together

When the project begins, the team may be new, and the members may know each other more or less well.

A project manager, especially with novice employees, can help the group with team-building activities that will help them transition into the “normalization” phase, where people begin to see themselves as actual team members.

Communicate and share information regularly

The project manager must use their leadership and motivation skills to inspire the team and get everyone in the same boat and rowing in the same direction.

Having regular meetings (and not just the kick-off meeting), planning things together, and holding a few brainstorming sessions can all be ways to support the project team’s work.

In short, it’s about keeping the team involved in the decision-making process and keeping them informed the entire time.

A successful project manager doesn’t just assign and delegate tasks but strives to explain the project’s end goal and how various activities contribute to achieving the goal.

Planning activities

After working with the team to prioritize tasks, it comes time to create an organized plan.

In other words, it’s about identifying which tasks are in whose hands and estimating a time frame within which they must be performed to achieve the main objective in a timely manner.

A project manager should have a clear understanding of each team member’s strengths and weaknesses.

Knowing this will allow you to delegate and plan tasks effectively.

Regularly review resource availability and required expertise

Once the activities have been assigned and planned as per the previous point, the work does not end there; in fact, it is necessary to continuously ensure the availability of resources and skills.

To effectively organize your team, you must pay attention to each team member’s skills and personal creativity and, above all, not overload anyone.

To ensure the process is working, you need to check in regularly with everyone involved to assess the pace and any unforeseen issues that might hinder the goal.

Ensure adequate training

The last thing a project manager wants to find out halfway through the process is that some team members cannot complete their responsibilities because they don’t know how to do so.

In addition to conducting a training needs analysis of the team and organizing courses as needed, it’s essential to provide ongoing mentoring and guidance to the less experienced to help them quickly become productive employees.

Provide constructive feedback

Providing constructive feedback to team members is one of the best ways to help them grow professionally and personally.

Regular “check-in” meetings can be held to assess the situation. The project manager has the opportunity to provide advice and feedback on how they feel team members are progressing and can grow further.

Provide rewards and appreciation

Often we focus only on providing positive feedback while forgetting how important it is for team morale and motivation to receive positive recognition, rewards or appreciation for good work.

Prizes don’t necessarily have to be cash, but even an official thank you in front of other team members or the entire organization can give you that extra boost.

In these cases, it is important to consider the individual’s personality: some people may prefer to appreciate in private, while others feel more valued if openly thanked in front of everyone.

Be flexible

A project may be subject to multiple revisions and, in turn, activities may also change.

Therefore, the project manager must help the team be flexible enough to make last-minute changes while still meeting the project deadline.

For everything to work, communication is critical.

Organize and support the team with good project management software

Using good project management software can greatly help organize the work of the project manager and that of the project team in general.

In a single place, the software, all the information and documentation of the project will be grouped, and it will be possible to see the situation and the status of the project at any time. In this sense, a good Gantt in the software will be indispensable.

Also, depending on the software’s functionality, it can send notifications of important deadlines, act as an internal chat and be the point of reference for any task.

 

By following these simple tips, organizing and supporting the work of a project team should be much easier.

In this way, project managers can develop accountability, trust, and a less hierarchical approach.

And here’s the last piece of advice: as a project manager, it’s essential to learn to trust the team until you have reason to believe otherwise.