The job of a Project Manager is undoubtedly one of the most stressful, as this position is directly responsible for the success or failure of a project.

Some project managers believe they can handle and deal with the high level of stress, making mistakes, and some even ignore or refuse to recognize that they are stressed.

The stress experience for a Project Manager not only impacts cognitive and behavioural performance, but can also have a negative impact on personal health, well-being and family life.

It is difficult to be able to change the amount of stress one can experience on a daily basis, but it is possible to change the way one deals with it.

It is important to be able to manage stress before it becomes increasingly difficult to cope with.

Sources of stress in project management

Just imagine: The project’s due date is in 2 weeks and there are still some critical issues to be resolved. To make matters worse, one of the key members of your team has been hospitalized. The client is not satisfied and the management requests a daily review. And this is just a tiny example of the many scenarios that a project manager can experience every day.

The sources of stress in project management can be many and different.

Here are some of the most common sources:

• Unrealistic chronology and schedules
• Working in a system and organizational structure where project management does not exert full control over resources
• Lack of resources – human and/or instrumental
• Proliferation of virtual teams and intercultural influences that are difficult to manage
• Dispute between groups in the organization
• Project environment

A project manager’s first step must be to recognize that he is under stress and then develop self-discipline before learning and practicing what are the techniques for dealing with stress.

Learning to successfully manage stress begins with a willingness to take an honest look within ourselves.

Techniques for managing stress in project management

Many techniques can help to manage stress. No technique is unique to everyone and no technique will be able to completely eliminate stress. Each person has to decide what will work best for himself or herself.

This suggests that techniques should be explored to determine what works best for us and, once you find some strategies that work, the commitment to practice them is the key to dealing with stress.

Having understood this concept let’s take a look at some of the most commonly used techniques to lower stress levels.

Stress management techniques: Detachment or disassociation

Let’s look at the example of a meeting where the project manager is extremely frustrated and considers it all as wasted time.

In this case you can use detachment or dissociation, mentally “controlling” the meeting, letting your mind wander towards a more enjoyable image.

It’s a technique that may seem nonsensical, but manages, instead, to relieve stress effectively.

Stress management techniques: Monitoring the “what if” thinking

During a stressful event or meeting, it is natural to end up in the “what if thinking”, where one wonders “What if we had done this in the past, could we not be struggling right now?”

As is evident, this form of thinking implies a focus that is not geared towards the present.

An alternative to this form of thinking is to focus on the present by asking yourself this question, for example: “It’s Thursday, it’s 3:17 p.m., I just received bad news about the project. What can I do in the next hour to take a small step towards improving the situation?”

Basically, don’t focus on how we got there, but on what to do to get out of it, even with the smallest of steps.

Stress management techniques: Developing strong conflict resolution skills

Additional stress is added to working life when reacting to a stressful situation by avoiding or denying it. The same is true when you overreact to a stressful situation.

Both approaches increase the level of stress.

For this reason, it is important to develop the ability to resolve conflicts, possibly by following a special training course.

Stress management techniques: Knowing when it’s enough

Knowing when enough is enough and staying away from debates is a powerful solution to some situations of high stress.

A natural but often unproductive approach to solving a situation is to discuss with another person the sense and reason for one’s point of view. These situations are strong sources of stress.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t assert your beliefs, but you should know when to stop.

If you continue to want to try to be perceived as “right”, you are just increasing the level of stress and you are wasting useful energy.

Stress management techniques: Look for a paradoxical component of the situation

In the midst of a situation that is rightfully stressful, you may find that you’re taking yourself, or the situation, too seriously.

Behavioural psychologists would say that we are engaging in a “catastrophic” behavior, in which we take a singular and negative event, and we find ourselves believing, for example, that the entire project is condemned because of this serious problem.

An antidote to this way of doing and thinking is to find a paradoxical cognition to cling to, something that will put stress and worries into perspective.

Other useful techniques for stress management

• Priority: create a hierarchy of priorities and assign each activity according to its urgency and importance. Focusing primarily on urgent and important tasks and not overwhelming yourself by worrying about the whole workload.
• Avoid extreme reactions: why hate when it comes to a little distaste? Why generate anxiety when you can be “just” nervous? Why be depressed when you can simply be “just” sad?
• NLP implementation – Neuro-Linguistic Programming – for reducing stress: NLP provides a variety of excellent tools and concepts to enable individuals to deal with or change negative stress into positive resources. With NLP you can change overwhelming and immobilizing feelings into powerful motivating drives.
• Physical exercise: take a break and plan some physical activities, whether it’s jogging, cycling, hiking or other outdoor activities to relieve stress.
• Meditation: Meditation and breathing exercises have proven to be very effective in controlling stress.

Stress Management: conclusion

Finally, we can say that there are various ways for a Project Manager to reduce stress. Each of these ways can bring benefits and everyone needs to test them to understand which ones are best suited to them.

It is obvious that success in stress management does not only depend on the type of technique used, but it is also the commitment of the person applying the techniques that makes the difference.

The same strategy may not work for everyone.

You have to take an honest look at yourself and determine what is most practical and what makes most sense for you.

Engaging and striving seriously to reduce stress can improve your happiness and health. That’s why it’s worth trying.

Collaboration during a project is a method by which teams and project managers plan, coordinate, and monitor the project on which they are working.

In practice, the entire success of managing a project is based on group collaboration.

Collaboration means two or more people working together to achieve a goal. Generally, this ends with the creation of a product or service, but this collaboration process can also go beyond the departmental and even company boundaries.

With the increasing preponderance of remote work teams and the movement of data on cloud servers, the collaboration, which is always the basis of team work, it has become even more a watchword in project management.

The importance of collaboration

As mentioned above, the collaboration refers to two or more people working together to solve a problem and / or achieve a certain goal.

This may seem like a concept equivalent to that of “team work“, but there are actually considerable differences between the two.

Typically, a team is a group of people with similar skills who regularly work together with a person who makes key decisions, while in collaboration they bring together people with different skills and experiences to solve a problem or work towards a certain goal.

All the subjects involved are therefore united for a common goal and the authority is shared.

Collaboration takes place in teams, however, simply putting together a team does not mean that everyone will collaborate effectively.

The increasingly frantic global economy drives organizations to do more with less and respond quickly to customer requests.

Organizations need cross-functional teams to innovate and improve processes in order to remain agile.

These needs are met, in part, by the huge availability of collaboration tools in the market. Thanks to project management software such as TWproject,  for example, teams can chat, share, and co-edit documents, assign jobs, create reports, automate tasks using flows work at any time, from anywhere.

Collaboration is part of the digital revolution and these new tools simplify it.

Collaboration and Project Management

When applied to project management, collaboration involves bringing together a team of different departments, offices, organizations, and even countries to complete a project.

Each team member has only a part of the information and skills necessary to perform the work for a project. They must rely on the collective experiences, skills, and knowledge within the team to fill the gaps.

Completing a project requires different skills and experiences, provided by a cross-functional team that in general does not work together every day.

Collaboration is also important for new project managers and inexperienced team members.

These people rely on the skills and experience of the team to contribute successfully to the project.

The emphasis on the collaboration of the project team reflects the structure of many companies that are becoming less and less hierarchical and that see a greater interaction between departments.

If collaboration is the essence of modern project management, ineffective collaboration or lack of collaboration can undermine the project.

What are the advantages of collaboration for the PM?

Collaboration allows, in short, to be better than the sum of the individual parts.

Here are some of the advantages of a good collaboration for the project manager:

• Increased productivity: Distributing activities to team members who have the time and skills to complete them, rather than overloading a team member with too much work and neglecting others.
• Better problem resolution: Giving team members the autonomy to work together to solve problems offers more ways to success, as well as building team loyalty and morale.
• Better communication: Communication lines need constant care or a wrong direction can deviate a project. Collaboration facilitates clear communication and provides a solution to communicate effectively also in case of remote teams.
• Reduction of general expenses: One of the biggest costs of any organization is the rent or purchase of a physical space in which everyone can work. However, with collaboration, team members do not need to be in the same place.
• Promotion of human resources: By promoting collaboration among team members, not only it is possible to build strong relationships, but also to create loyalty that helps retain employees.

How to improve collaboration in a project team

The advantages of collaboration in project management are therefore clear, but implementing them can be difficult, especially when managing remote teams.

Here are some tips to increase collaboration within an organization:

• Communication: Every good project manager knows that good communication is the foundation of everything, especially to establish a collaborative environment. Not only is it necessary for the project manager to communicate correctly and frequently, but also to convince the team to do so.
• Orientation and training: In order to learn something new, a training session is always necessary and, at times, also a reference figure to who expose doubts and questions is needed. In the case where, for example, a new project management software is installed, it is necessary to organize a training session for the team in order to start an effective and fruitful collaboration.
• Change: Old habits are often hard to die, but it is necessary to get the team away from old methods that are no longer effective for the project.
• Sharing: A healthy and positive collaboration will not be possible unless the virtual walls that separated team members in the past are knocked down.
• Monitoring: When a project is run and a plan is not set, the project will be destined to fail. The same applies to the implementation of the collaboration. This is why it is necessary to monitor and hold regular meetings with the team in order to answer questions and keep track of their progress.

Bringing people together to work collectively and foster collaboration is no longer a choice, but a necessity for any project-based activity.

Project Leader and Project Manager are two terms that are sometimes used interchangeably. But are they really synonymous?

We will see in this article the differences and similarities between this two roles. We will explain their tasks and responsibilities and how important it is to know the difference between the two.

In general, a project leader can be a project manager, but the project manager is hardly a project leader.

However, both are part of a project and make sure that everything is finalized in the best way, even if their roles are not the same.

The difference between Project manager and Project leader

To understand the difference between managers and leaders, it is possible to use some definitions of leadership and management.

John C. Maxwell in his book “The 360 ​​Degree Leader” provided one of the simplest yet profound descriptions of the distinction between a manager and a leader.

He said that managers work with processes, while leaders work with people.

John Paul Kotter goes even further, stating that management involves planning, budgeting, organization, human resources, control and resolution of problems, while leadership involves setting the direction, aligning people, motivating and inspiring the group.

Kotter describes leadership and management as two different complementary action systems, each with their own characteristics and functions.

However, both are necessary for change and for the organization as a whole.

On the basis of these definitions, it can therefore be argued that management is clearly different from leadership.

Leadership is necessary to initiate change, innovate and create new products, systems, and services. Leadership also means motivating people in becoming agents of change, risk managers, and innovators.

Management, on the other hand, deals mainly with the correct and effective functioning of processes.

This does not mean that project managers should not be leaders; on the contrary, to become a good project manager, you need to be a good leader.

Responsibilities of project leaders and project managers

Project leaders and project managers are often considered interchangeable positions in smaller project teams.

However, in larger teams dealing with more complex projects, these professionals must work together in order to keep the project on track.

Project leaders can, for example, use a project budget and motivate team members, while project managers help set the budget based on cost analysis and review team efficiency.

Let‘s take a closer look at the responsibilities and tasks of this two roles.

Project Leader

Probably the most important task for project leaders is to be a link between project team members and company leadership.

In software development teams, project leaders are also known as scrums masters and development sprint leads.

The job responsibilities of a project leader include:

• Assisting and planning meetings with other leaders, such as the project director.
• Developing reports on project progress and financial conditions.
• Testing the product prototypes.
• Keeping the team focused and motivated
• Guiding people throughout the project; the project leader is always present in case of problems.
• Ensuring that the project is carried out in the best possible way.
• Motivating, giving clues, providing ideas, listening to the team.

In general, the project leader has more freedom than the project manager when it comes to giving orders and controlling people.

In essence, the project leader adds value to the project and the team, gives meaning to the work as a whole and makes people feel that their work is appreciated and important.

In short, the project leader is a spiritual support for the team.

Project Manager

Project managers define the goals of the project after meeting the company leaders and learning the specifications of the requested and commissioned output.

Together with business leaders, the project manager also approves project plans and work orders, prioritizing the tasks.

Moreover, the project managers create a document, similar to a contract, which specifies the plan and the characteristics of the deliverables.

The job responsibilities of a project manager include:

• Providing quality assurance tests on the final product.
• Supervisioning of the technical staff.
• Ensuring that employees adhere to contracts or company policies.
• Breaking down the project into smaller tasks (WBS – Work Breakdown Structure)
• Ensuring compliance with deadlines.
• Taking care of the budget, the program, deadlines, documentation, human resources, etc.
• Reporting progress; the project manager is responsible for providing updates on project progress and possible obstacles.

In a nutshell, the project manager should not motivate people, but keep things organized.

The importance of Project Leader and Project Manager

Being a project manager or project leader requires a lot of work in terms of managing and analyzing data and all information relating to the progress of the team or the organization in general.

Both roles are fundamental for the success of a project and for the motivation of the team.

Since both roles must know and follow every detail of the project carefully, it is extremely important that they have access to all the data.

A leader, like a manager, must act in an intelligent and thoughtful way and that is why he needs to use certain tools to improve the work, such as a project management software. Twproject was built precisely on the basis of the needs of the Project Leaders and Project Managers but also paying close attention to the needs and requirements of the Team. If you haven’t tried it yet, try Twproject now for free (link a https://twproject.com/it/prova-twproject/) and you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to use and how Twproject can make things easier for you.

Learning to manage an Agile Work Team is not easy. For many companies, becoming more “agile” requires a significant change in the way leaders and managers seek success.

The frameworks of managing projects established as Agile are too often considered as models to copy and paste. But if you really want to work fast, deliver the results in time and achieve the goals, you need to adapt the Agile method to the team.

How an Agile team works

It is indeed a “complete team“. It does not need anything and nobody more in order to carry out the activities.

Agile management has been developed as an alternative to the traditional project management, directed towards an important and unique final result.

The Agile methodology, on the other hand, reduces the goals to different (sub)independent products that can be developed and released quickly.

The two main styles of management of the Agile project are Scrum and Kanban. Both use a tab to view the activities in columns that represent the tasks that have to be done, those in progress and those that have been completed.

There are some features that define an Agile workflow:

• Daily stand-up: a daily meeting in which contributors and managers discuss the work carried out the previous day, the activities planned for the day, and all the questions that arise.
• Sprint: short intervals in which the products are planned, developed, reviewed, and released. They are projects within the projects.
• Periodic and retrospective reviews: an Agile team manages itself, but there are integrated measures to ensure that work is delivered with consistent quality. Periodic reviews take place before activities are completed.

With short intervals of tasks and demanding schedules, an Agile workflow requires a coordinated team.

The roles must be fairly assigned so that people know exactly what they need to do at any time, but flexible enough to allow people to take the initiative and exceed expectations.

The roles within an Agile team

Since an Agile development team must be “everything”, it is important to have the right and defined roles in the group. The most common Agile team roles are:

• Team Leader. If you are using the Scrum method, this role will be the Scrum Master. The focal point of this figure is to facilitate the work of the team. The Team Leader or Scrum Master is responsible for finding resources for the team and ensures that team members can work safely with everything they need, allowing them to go ahead and do a great job.
• Product owner. This role is more or less similar to a project sponsor in the case of non-Agile projects. This is the person who represents the interests of the client / stakeholder, ie the person who will own the product on which the Agile team is working.
• Team member. Any person who is part of the team and / or has something valuable to make in order to successfully complete the deliverables.
• Tester. Since much of the Agile work is still done in the IT world (Information Technology), software testing is still an important part of the Agile teams. Even in non-IT teams, a figure that can act as a tester could be useful. Because Agile projects are provided incrementally, the test is very important.

On larger teams or specialized products the following figures may also be present:

• Experts in technical sectors or in other sectors. They may not be entirely part of the team and could be released as needed to support the core team.
• Architect. The role of the system architect is to ensure that the solution fits into the scope and fits into the rest of the corporate architecture.

Building the Agile team on a solid foundation

Once the team is chosen and structured, it is important to remember that agile teams are like individuals: they need time to grow.

Agile teams go through four key phases as they develop:

1. Forming: at this stage a very high level of leadership by the project manager is required. Individual roles are still unclear and the processes have yet to be established.
2. Storming: here we begin to understand how the team’s decisions are made, the purpose is clear but the relationships within the team are still confused
3. Norming: relationships are now well understood within the team, a general commitment is made to achieve the goals and process optimization begins.
4. Performing: in this phase the team is at the peak and has reached maturity, therefore it needs little surveillance.

When a change is introduced, such as a new hiring, retirement of a member, etc. The team returns to the forming phase while absorbing the change.

Two pillars that characterize the great Agile teams

• Continuous Mentoring. One of the great advantages of working in a team is that colleagues learn from each other and help each other. Mentoring is not just an activity for junior members who learn from senior members. All team members learn from each other so that the impact of the team as a whole is greater than the sum of the impact of individual members.
• Shared skill sets. Shared skills unlock the power of the team to deal with heterogeneous work. Whatever the role, it is always important to learn new skills because it makes an individual more valuable for the organization and better equipped to support the other. This way, team members will always discover new and better ways to perform tasks. This factor will bring forward not only the project, but the entire organization.

Ultimately, the people of an Agile team count as much as the structure and plan of a project.

If people have been addressed and assigned to roles in which they can excel and establish clear standards that make them responsible, it will be possible to obtain not only better products and results, but a team and an organization that improves measurably with each project.

We talked a few articles ago about the Project Manager and how the management of the project teams should function, not considering the generational difference.

We have described, in that article, how today, in a job or in a team, up to 5 generations can be co-present, and this aspect must be managed at best if a project has to be successfully concluded.

Developing and mastering the generational skills within your work team is therefore essential for the project manager. Thanks to it, it will be possible to better understand the behaviors (“what” the team members do), and clarify the convictions and basic attitudes (“why” the team members do it).

As a result, project managers will improve leadership, time management and communication in order to foster respect and maximum productivity among team members.

How to overcome the generational differences of the work team

According to industry experts, the so-called generational gap is, in large part, the result of misunderstandings fueled by common insecurities and the desire for influence.

In an integration process, three relevant areas have been identified for project managers who wish to develop their generational competence and reduce this gap.

1. Leadership (hierarchy and authority between generations),
2. Time management (personal and work time between generations)
3. Communication (favorite styles across generations)

Leadership: hierarchy and authority through the generations

The teams that work on a project are never homogeneous both for age as well as for culture and life experiences.

Therefore, in order to affirm one’s leadership, it is fundamental to understand where a generation tends to see the hierarchy and the authority. By hierarchy and authority we mean the whole package, including the way the rules are set, the way teamwork is displayed, and how management styles vary.

It will be appropriate, therefore, to make a roundup on the characteristics of the various generations in order to understand them more thoroughly.

Loyalty and respect are a common denominator for Millenials (Generation Y). The Millenial is faithful to people, respects and seeks the guidance of those who hold positions of authority.

It is important to involve this generation, to really give them a “seat at the table” and to seriously consider their ideas, their creativity and the innovation they offer.

Of course, this can go against corporate hierarchical systems, but it is good to think that, despite their young age, in many workplaces they are no longer the younger generation, or if they are, they will soon pass that role to the Generation Z.

The Baby Boomers, on the other hand, support teamwork and fairness, but think that the rules can be challenged. It is important to be prepared to clarify the reasons for the proposed changes, since it is a generation that easily questions authority.

Due to the propensity of this generation, it can also be strategic and effective to ask them to guide new employees in the organization.

Many people belonging to the Generation Y are sons of Boomers and for this reason there is a high level of synergy and understanding between the new “younger” generations and the “younger” generations in the workplace.

Generation X, on the contrary, believes that the rules are dynamic and established by individuals rather than by institutions. They tend to test authority and do not like too much supervision or micromanagement. This generation of individuals is often guided better by exploiting their independent and entrepreneurial instincts. The best way to value this generation is based on new ways and individual approaches towards things.

Strategic time management and priorities: work and personal time in all generations

In a spectrum of time management, we need to consider the different priorities in terms of work-life balance and related obligations.

The Baby Boomers consider work as a high priority. If involved, they commit their work hours to projects, regardless of productivity.

This is a generation that has invented the concept of the workaholic and strongly believes in visibility in the workplace.

Generally speaking, it is a generation which is reluctant to take a break and lose the so-called “place in the team”, resulting, for many, in a state of imbalance between work and family.

Many strategies to work effectively with Baby Boomers are focused on recognizing the time spent on projects. A public recognition of their work, in addition to benefits based on financial criteria (for example, expense accounts, travel), more flexible working hours, and interactions with the highest roles of the company, help motivate them and communicate the value attributed to their work.

Generation X, on the other hand, is characterized by the desire to control and set up one’s career path, personal ambitions, time and place of work. It is paid to do a job, but has also time for other areas of life.

Many individuals of this generation is still rebellious against Boomer parents who have never found this balance between private and professional life.

Generation X shows much more than a “work to live mentality” and sacrifices balance when necessary, but not as a general rule.

The best X Generation management best practices indicate that you focus on your business while leaving the greatest possible time management freedom. At the micro level, this can take the form of allowing them to work alone or reward them with a price in form of free time for a job well done.

At the macro level, it is possible to provide them with options to control their professional development path. Prizes and awards should not be visible – like in the case of Boomers – and should focus on the results of the project, rather than the time spent on a project or even an organization.

The Millennials generation is driven by a strong need for work-life balance and benefits that enable a rewarding career and life, including personal development and community involvement.

For this generation, lifestyle and meaningful experience count and they are looking for an organization that allows both.

It is important to recognize the Mllennials’ desire for frequent and ascendant change, and organizations can do so by offering a variety of career paths in project management and exposure to a myriad of project experiences.

Communicate with the multigenerational work team: communication styles

In a communication approach, we need to be aware of what types of communication are most appreciated by each group and how they are used.

Baby Boomers believe a lot in face-time, that is in the interpersonal relationship, although they often like a written follow-up.

It is important to understand that this “workaholic” generation often expects more than anything, and this includes not only the hours, but also the follow-through, the project documentation and the organization. Although they are almost at the top of the organization considering the age, their technological capabilities should not be underestimated.

Generation X and Millennials both have a lower value in terms of face time, having grown with much greater technological influences than the Baby Boomers.

Generation X tends to look for open communication regardless of organizational hierarchy and status. This techno-literate generation often uses e-mail as the primary method of communication, preferring to keep short messages. It is a generation that appreciates giving and receiving regular feedback.

Millennials like communications anytime, anywhere and can be described as techno-savvy (techno-experts).

It is the first generation that needs to be connected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is a generation that requires real-time communication as text, chat, Twitter.

What at first sight may seem like a distraction is often their way of working and doing multitasking. Technological social networks have also translated into a more natural ability to work in teams, interact with different people and connect between different cultures. This generation seeks positive reinforcements from superiors and respects their opinions.

Some strategies for communicating with multigenerational work teams

In addition to specific strategies for the already mentioned generations, it is good to always have a general overview, an alternative point of view.

For this reason, we want to provide you with some strategies for the leadership of successful multigenerational projects:

Strategy n. 1: Do your research

Although we often think of generations in terms of age, as we have seen, each generation is defined much more by common experiences than by birth years. So, just like you would do with a national culture, do your research.

Understanding the key factors and events that have shaped the group’s behavior in each country will help you understand more and judge less. Do not create stereotypes based on age. Age is just a number.

Strategy n. 2: be ready to embrace change

In the last ten years, the US labor force has changed dramatically. The generation of Baby Boomers has shrunk from 18% to 2% and Gen X and Millennials have come to dominate the workforce with a percentage of 64%.

As a leader in high-performance organizations, we need to be aware of both the current generation situation in the countries we are working in and changes in the horizon. Being ready to embrace change, we need improve our ability to conduct effectively.

Strategy n. 3: Develop your “generational competence”

Through our educational and professional efforts, we focus on skills development. Demonstrating “cultural competence” has become popular, but have you thought about management changes that you can make to show “generational competence”? For example, in general, the Chinese Millennials are motivated by a tough work, while European Millennials often seek work-life balance, and US Millennials seek work that offers personal satisfaction, taking into account differences like these is now a critical part of achieving organizational success on a global scale.

Strategy n. 4: focus on being relevant

Rather than equating “different” with “bad”, today’s leaders should think more about how to be relevant. As we modify our products and strategies for different markets, we need to change our leadership and communication style for the different types of teams we come into contact with. We have to adapt to different cultures. We must also strive to change behaviors and expectations, whenever possible, trying to be the most suitable leader for each generation. Our goal, in essence, is to reap the benefits of the different project management environment in which we find ourselves from time to time.
As for the national culture, the first step is to become aware of the differences. Be open about what you notice and make it a topic of conversation within the team. Do it while working to maximize synergies between generational and national borders.