Key takeaways
- PMs bridge strategy and execution; strategy is a set of guiding principles that shape a pattern of decisions.
- Master why and how questions; never ask for status, ask what the team needs to know.
- Spend most of your time aligning on the problem before jumping to solutions, and embrace the storming phase.
- Under stress, check the basics first: have you eaten, slept and had coffee?
- See other people's pressure with empathy, treat feedback as a blessing, and keep cameras on in a daily stand-up to catch trouble early.
About this episode
“Project managers are probably one of the most key influencers for strategy. And they can either make or break any project”.
Strategic decision making is a part of almost any job, but it’s all-encompassing when it comes to project management. PMs are not only faced with making strategic decisions to deliver a project successfully, they are also well-positioned to help stakeholders make decisions that will impact their projects.
One set of decisions plays into the other, and PMs hope they all work together. It’s widely known and mostly accepted that there’s a general lack of control in the PM role, but an area that any project manager can control is in charting and managing a project strategy that will guide projects through change, issues, and even progress. And that’s where stress comes in!
In this episode of Time Limit, Brett sits down with Yoon Chung from Veritas to discuss the project manager’s role in decision making, and doing so in stressful situations. The conversation covers:
- How project management is a strategic role
- Why asking questions is so important in project management
- How to create an atmosphere where the PM is more strategic
- The types of strategic decision project managers make and facilitate
- The challenges PMs face when it comes to decision making on projects
- Tactics to use when facilitating decisions on projects
- How to know if you are making the right decision
- How to handle stressful situations
- How to pick up on team stress