Task and project management is a must-have
skill in the technology industry, especially for
tech leaders. Most are handling multiple projects
and demands on their time, so it’s important to
be able to prioritize and get everything
done.
As some of the top professionals in the field,
the members of Forbes
Technology Council have spent years
cultivating their project-management skills.
Below, they share their go-to project-management
strategies.
One management strategy is to create
an organization where people apply or
sign up for the projects that they are
passionate about. This requires that
leaders end centralized management and
disperse responsibility, creating a
self-managing organization. Those who are
passionate about a project manage it from
beginning to end, often completing
projects faster and with better results.
– Sergei
Anikin, Pipedrive
A lot of tasks we end up focusing on
are more related to activity than
productivity. To make sure our focus is
on productive tasks, the entire
organization must be aligned on the
organization’s goals and the tasks
everyone must do to contribute to those
goals. Once everyone understands their
function, setting and focusing on
milestones to accomplish larger tasks
leads to better progress. – Randy
Watkins, Critical
Start
The first and most important step is
to define the goal of the project and
clarify expectations. All modern project
management comes down to managing
expectations. The circulatory system of
modern management is communication
channels. The key communication tool is a
task-management system combined with a
knowledge base—something like Jira with
Confluence. – Dennis
Turpitka, Apriorit
I look to Eisenhower for inspiration,
and I utilize an Eisenhower Matrix daily.
I make four boxes with “Urgency” on the
x-axis and “Importance” on the y-axis.
This allows me to bucket tasks into four
categories: “Urgent/Important,”
“Urgent/Not Important,” “Not
Urgent/Important” and “Not Urgent/Not
Important.” It’s a powerful way to figure
out what needs to be done when. –
Michael Zaic, Wild Sky
Media
Quite a few principles fall under the
agile project-management framework, but
the one I find the most useful is having
regular standups. In these meetings, team
members go over what they’ve done and
what they’re going to do, as well as if
any roadblocks are in their way. This
allows employees to go over every project
they’re working on to give regular
updates. – Kison
Patel, DealRoom
Customers are notorious for adding to
the scope or making changes to what they
want. One of the best ways to deal with
it is by managing the customer’s
expectation of what they will get. This
may mean that, as a manager, you will
need to tell customers that their request
is out of scope and requires a
modification to the contract that may
affect cost and/or timelines. – Michael
Hoyt, Life Cycle
Engineering, Inc.
Time management is essential. I treat
my days as sprints with specific time
blocks for each activity. I leave two
blocks in the afternoon to return to what
I need to for additional review or
followup. I set specific times for
emails, phone calls, meetings, etc. And,
importantly, I do not let them interfere
with each other. – Wesley
Crook, FP Complete
Organizations with agile projects
should realign their risk perceptions.
Although negative risk must be carefully
managed, teams should embrace positive
risk to maximize business value. Risk
matrices, risk burndown charts and
risk-modified user story maps should be
included on agile walls and must be
adjusted to help teams identify, monitor
and address both positive and negative
risk. – Christopher Yang, Corporate
Travel Management
There is no greater joy as a leader
than seeing those you have nurtured
surpass you in talent and success. That
is your lasting legacy. Hire people
smarter than you and nurture their
leadership abilities. There is the old
adage of, “If you want to go fast, go
alone, but if you want to go far, go
together.” Develop a robust team of
leaders and allow them to succeed. –
José
Morey, Liberty
BioSecurity
Tech leaders are constantly juggling
multiple projects and initiatives at
once. But you need to select and
prioritize projects that will make the
biggest difference. Nonessential projects
can actually result in productivity loss.
Selecting the right projects is actually
a skill that comes from an understanding
of business strategy combined with a
data-driven approach that will impact key
performance indicators. – John
Shin, RSI
Security
If you lead an engineering or
development group and your tasks include
maintaining toolsets, managed services
can be a godsend. The same is true if
you’re a systems or application
administrator. Any service provider worth
their weight can take things off your
plate like admin and implementation, user
training, troubleshooting, support
issues, and the like. – John
McDonald, ClearObject
Even before specific task- or
project-management skills come into play,
it is important to maintain a culture of
accountability. Start with yourself. Meet
your own commitments and admit mistakes.
Define your expectations. Ask for
commitments. Be open to feedback. Coach
people on how to be accountable and to
hold others accountable, and understand
what the consequences should be for poor
performance. – Steve Pao, Hillwork,
LLC
Describe all the details and lay down
all the plans even before the project is
launched. This move is often
underestimated, but it can really go a
long way. Laying a solid foundation for
projects will ensure that you are not
going to need to manage them daily. If
your team knows what to do, the process
will be smooth and successful. – Daria
Leshchenko, SupportYourApp
Inc.
Let your team members take full
ownership of their areas of
responsibility. Keep them loaded at 70%
to 80% to reduce stress levels and enable
creative thinking. To ensure effective
delivery, avoid any kind of
micromanagement and tactics control. It’s
ruinous for both sides. All in all, make
sure your team always understands your
“what” and can bring you their “how.” –
Aleksandr
Galkin, Competera
Multitasking is a myth. To do deeper
work, you need to limit distractions. To
do that, you need cultural and individual
practices that allow people to go offline
for chunks of time and that respect that
time so that folks feel comfortable
turning off distractions and digging
deep. This singular and serial focus
allows you to “multitask” more because
you are not constantly switching tasks. –
Amith
Nagarajan, rasa.io
As a tech leader, I need to know the
high-level details of the project
(schedule, timeline, whether it’s on
track, if anyone needs my help removing
an obstacle, etc.). That way I stay
updated, know when I need to get involved
and can keep my schedule moving forward.
We use the Entrepreneurial Operating
System to keep our status reports and
meetings on track. – Thomas
Griffin, OptinMonster
