Frictionless project management

Editor’s note: Hal Daumé is managing partner of the Inter-National Consulting Group LLC, a Berkeley Heights, N.J., consulting and research firm.

We all want our projects - marketing, research, advertising, promotion, product development - to run smoothly. But if you think technical expertise or business smarts is enough to keep a project running smoothly, think again! Running a frictionless project takes some very important skills that we sometimes overlook in our focus on the goal.

Whether you’re developing a new product or ad campaign, a research study, or any project that requires people to interact and share a vision, your technical or business knowledge means you know instinctively how to run it successfully, right? Well, maybe. But that’s not necessarily going to win any points with your peers, management, clients, or service providers when it comes to the human side of what makes for success. In fact, the main reason for project failure is “people friction” - the stuff that interferes with acceleration and velocity. People friction has more to do with the success of your project than any other factor! You might be an Einstein when it comes to the subject matter, but if you’re not a Winston Churchill when it comes to moving it forward, you and your project are doomed.

1. Communicate a clear vision. And always maintain a positive viewpoint. You’re the “flag carrier.” Carry it high, and forward. Always tell the truth, of course, but tell it in the most positive way you know how. Whether you’re introducing a new team member, describing where the project is along its path, or even shifting direction, do it with a smile and a positive outlook. Keep everyone focused on the vision from the time you begin until the job’s done, and don’t let other points of view push you away from your own. After all, if you don’t show your belief in success, who will?

2. Compassion means being firm, too! Or, as a colleague once told me, “Make your decisions compassionately; execute them ruthlessly.” As the project leader, you need to be sensitive to the crosscurrents that surround your project and influence its life. If you get stalled by this kind of friction, so will the project. To keep it moving, keep moving, and stay resolute.

3. Be specific. Most projects fail because “Well, someone else can deal with the details.” This is how stuff slips through the cracks. But it doesn’t disappear. It gets wedged there, and creates friction. By your example, everyone has to dot the i’s, cross the t’s. This is one place where being “pathologically retentive” is actually an advantage!

4. Get commitment. As the project leader, you’re the deal-maker and deal-closer. Half your job is to get and keep management’s buy-in to what you and your team are doing. The other half is to keep your team itself in a buy-in mode. If the team starts drifting, you’re going to hit a stall situation, and it always takes twice as much energy to get the project moving again than it does to keep it moving. How well you keep your team, management, suppliers, and anyone else you depend on committed to success will determine how successful you’re going to be.

5. Give the respect you want! Treating others with respect and dignity is always more important than timelines, resource responsibility matrices, budget modifications, or anything else. Projects can hit a low morale friction block when the leader is aloof, inconsiderate, or overbearing. Leave irony, sarcasm, innuendo and back-biting at the door. Frictionless projects are those where people feel that their opinions are valuable and their contributions are making a positive difference.

6. Be consistent. If you start getting wishy-washy on the small stuff, you lose the confidence of your team and they begin to worry that you’ll waffle on the big stuff. The most important characteristics a true leader can have are universal and unswerving fairness, and sticking to the basic rules. Uncertainty is the bane of teamwork, because your people become unsure of what to expect from you (this is where the deadly “CYA” memos and e-mails begin to flourish).

7. Persuasion is a tool, not a weapon. If you can’t persuade others of the merits of your project, how do you intend to get buy-in and commitment? We’re not talking about Pollyanna here, but true, fact-based persuasion that convinces others to contribute, perform, achieve, plan, control, evaluate, re-think, and then sweat the details!

8. You’re the peacemaker. Roadblocks will be hit. People who started out getting along just fine can be at each other’s throats in short order. Others on whom your team was relying will drop the ball. This is where you defuse the “pistols at dawn” atmosphere that’s bound to arise sometime along your path to success. Remember: adversity is the fuel of success. This is where you turn “We can’t” into “How can we” in the most positive way you know. Allow excuses and finger-pointing and the project stalls. Browbeat and it stops. Grovel and the whole project structure collapses. This is the time to lead from the front and take the hill. Keep your people moving forward.

9. Communicate, and communicate again! Keep everyone - your team, management, suppliers, everyone - informed of where you are, what you’ve achieved so far, and where you’re headed. If someone misses a meeting or conference call, don’t “punish” them by withholding memos or reports - get them back on the same page as fast as you can. People aren’t part of the process; they are the process!

10. Share the glory. Your project’s a success! You want the accolades that should rightly accompany that milestone! Don’t hoard them. Give them away instead. Give them to your people for their efforts, your management for their support, your vendors for their flexibility, to anyone and everyone who’s helped make it all happen. Do this and you become bigger than the project and its success. When King Arthur invited his knights to share the Round Table with him, he was sharing the glory. Think this didn’t work? Then try naming another English king that has more stories and myths surrounding him than Arthur!

Final thought: If all’s gone well with your people (first) and your project (the end-result of their thinking and work), you’ll have had fun doing it, and so will your team. Fun that’s certainly hard work, and intensive. But isn’t fun counter-cultural in a corporation? I don’t think so. I’m not talking about humorous or silly kinds of fun - I’m talking about the joy of success when teamwork works! To paraphrase John Ruskin: The highest reward for what you do isn’t what you get for it; it’s what you become by it.