Summary

Your project manager is running the project, not you. You need to rely on your project manager to deliver the results expected as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Your project manager is also expecting your support, your commitment and some of your time.

Managing your project manager is, therefore, key to your success as a Project Sponsor and/or Steering Committee member.

This “How to manage your project manager” Guide covers the end-to-end project manager management process from identifying what type of project manager you need, through selecting and inducting them, managing them and then rating their performance.

It also covers how to interact and be effective with your project manager so as to equip, enable and support them to deliver the results.

And, what to do if the relationship breaks down.

Some project managers are “a law unto themselves,” and therefore need to be carefully governed. Others may struggle and need all the support they can get. Others will perform well, but will perform even better if you work with them effectively.

While they are working for you, you are also a resource for them — an essential resource to get the project completed, the changes made and the value realized. This is very much a two-way relationship that it is important you know how to manage and leverage so as to deliver the business value expected.

Benefits

This Guide

1. enables you to match your project manager’s skills and attributes to your project’s size, scale and nature, ensuring you get the ‘right person for the job’
2. enables you to evaluate your prospective project managers in terms of their skills, attributes and attitudes — will they fit the project and work well with you?
3. gives you a game-plan for inducting your project manager, ensuring they are equipped to succeed
4. ensures you actively manage your project manager in alignment with their performance — and know what to do if things go bad
5. enables you to meet known and understood expectations of you from your project manager
6. enables you to rate you project manager’s performance on a standard basis that is understood by all parties.

Who should read

This Guide is designed to be read primarily by the Project Sponsor although the information is also of great interest to Project Steering Committee members, PMOs and project managers themselves

Contents

1. Understanding the nature of the project manager role
2. Understanding the different project management roles
3. The end-to-end project manager selection and management process
4. How identify your project’s dimensions and characteristics
5. How to assess a project manager’s skills, aptitudes and attributes
6. How to induct your project manager
7. How to manage your project manager
8. How to meet (legitimate) project manager expectations
9. How to evaluate your project manager’s performance.

In addition, we also provide you with some additional supporting tools and resources to make use of this Guide easy and effective.

Bonus

Project manager performance evaluation criteria
A simple checklist of options for each project manager evaluation element to allow simple and consistent rating of project managers, allowing their skills and experience to be easily tracked and measured over time

Absent Sponsors
A value delivery management article by Jed Simms that spells out the implications of Sponsors who don’t make time to support their project managers and the adverse impacts on the projects.